Ideas Thread

Jason_Miao · February 10, 2014, 11:17:52 PM

@ara

You're using this thread inappropriately.

These sorts of threads are supposed to be for those ideas which are probably terrible and shouldn't be written, but which won't leave you alone. In terms of setting, references to pull in the cult crowd, and social commentary, your idea is pretty solid. If you can whip up a good plot to keep the story moving, you have the makings of a cult classic...and given that "the Internet" is a pretty damn big "cult", the adjective is probably inappropriate.

Dracos · February 11, 2014, 08:40:31 PM

Hmm? Eh?

First post didn't say anything like that, Miao :) I don't remember it being targeted at that.

Arakawa · February 11, 2014, 11:22:45 PM

Quote from: Dracos on February 11, 2014, 08:40:31 PM
Hmm? Eh?

First post didn't say anything like that, Miao :) I don't remember it being targeted at that.

That is kind of what it ended up being used for. I think the reason it that when people have an idea they're very confident in, they tend to want to reveal it as an actual finished story, rather than spoiling people.

But Miao makes a good point in that actually posting a concrete outline (giving the whole plot) would enable concrete feedback from people on whether the whole thing hangs together. Whereas an intriguing hook is just that... an intriguing hook. Which might not go anywhere.

I'll figure out an outline and then post it later, I guess. I've figured out the white pill stuff and the pony stuff; my main missing blank is how the development of Baker's social life is going to match the story, but I'm gradually filling that in.

Spoiler: Show

(One obvious thing to tie the arc together is how he'd be suckered in to appear at a con (for the first time in his life), which is what big-name Internet reviewers appear to spend a lot of their time on :-P -- that kind of thing has plenty of room to hang shenanigans around.)

There's a bit of a cruel thing that would get pointed out midway through -- that Baker, being fairly young and isolated from their society, is actually _more_ well-adjusted than many of the humans. Everyone living longer than 300 years or so develops their own particular dysfunction. (This is where things start to resemble Idiocracy -- except that people are not stupid, just most of their lives have devolved into mutually unintelligible subcultures. There's a strange thing in that Baker is watched by many millions of people, but that's a drop in the ocean relative to the full population of the Earth at that point -- so his experience oscillates wildly between being totally anonymous in the crowd and going somewhere where everyone knows him.) So, Fluttershy would try to find him human friends, and then constantly be thwarted as Baker and other people can't find common ground.

The cruel and ironic part is that the ponies, on average, have ended up psychologically closer to normality, because they're *designed* to be able to exhibit normal human reactions in the strange, immortal, overcrowded, constant information bombardment future society, and humans... aren't. This needs to be handled delicately -- I suppose the point is that no one knows quite how to react to this, neither the humans nor the ponies; rather than force feed a viewpoint (the most awful variant of this was the Conversion Bureau fics forcing "Ponies are superior master race" on the reader), the point is that there are many factions with their own opinions that make a lot of sense. By that point in their product lifecycle, many of the ponies will have 'gone rogue' and formed their own marginal society... often simply because they and their human owners mostly get bored of one another. (Real friends can only be made, not purchased, so someone who was mature enough to sustain a friendship would not feel that much of a pressing need to buy an artificially intelligent pony in the first place.) Then in the pony society there'd be factions who just want to quietly coexist with the humans, to various groups who have some kind of vision to change things (in ways ranging from mundane to horrifying), but whose aims mostly wind up conflicting with each other (unproductive Judean Pony Front vs Pony Front of Judea type bickering). Though, the real concern is that the human race has stagnated so that it seems like the ponies will eventually wind up on top, merely as an inevitable historical process; even though neither the humans nor the ponies really want that.

Also, the fact that the pony race consists mostly of multiple clones of the same six characters (plus a smaller number of rare or collectible dolls of minor ponies) -- and e.g. any instance of Fluttershy is programmed with the ability to automatically and instantly get along with any instance of Twilight -- should make for an interesting dynamic. In fact, that might be something they have to overcome in order to function as their own society, having to come up with artificial conventions to distinguish copies of the same pony and give them more individuality. Some interestingly bizarre science fiction stuff, potentially.

Then, obviously, at the end bring in couple of the 21st century Internet reviewer characters who, having lived for thousands of years, are really stir crazy.

Those were somewhat more rambling thoughts.

Jason_Miao · February 12, 2014, 02:18:05 PM

Quote from: Dracos on February 11, 2014, 08:40:31 PM
Hmm? Eh?

First post didn't say anything like that, Miao :) I don't remember it being targeted at that.

There may have been a bit of tongue-in-cheek in my last post. :)

--

[spoiler]

I'm not familiar with Pony-related topics (the last my little pony cartoon I've seen was sometime in the 80s.) So I have no opinion on such topics.

sci-fi topics

In terms of the similar pony/individuality type issues, you could look into some of the more ridiculous sci-fi-like concerns that were brought regarding human genetic clones and identity back in the late 90s. Time magazine from whatever issue was after the human cloning announcement had quite a bit of it. Ridiculous for humans, because identical twins are genetic clones, yet somehow, twins appear to avoid most of those societal-destroying concerns. But since your premise is a toy line where the modeled characters really are supposed to be the same, some of those hyperbolic concerns might actually pan out.

"(unproductive Judean Pony Front vs Pony Front of Judea type bickering)"

"I want to have babies"

"We're childrens' toys, you dolt. We don't even have reproductive organs."

"Don't oppress me!"

"master race"+immortal humans
Idle thought: Some writers of such fics would likely be still around.

sarsaparilla · February 16, 2014, 12:38:47 PM

This is not as much a story idea as it's a concept for a setting, looking for a story to give it visible form. As far as I know, it's an original setting, not fan fiction, though there are some manga/anime series that explore slightly similar themes. I don't know whether the whole thing is even doable, but I'm throwing it here to get it out of my mind.

The genre is most likely fantasy; finer classification like medieval, contemporary or futuristic fantasy would appear to be irrelevant to the basic structure. For the main plot, there are three consecutive arcs, progressing from light fantasy to a more serious/contemplative direction. On the whole, it is a deeply allegorical work about the ontological mystery, with a single twist of the plot right at the end that profoundly changes everything that has happened until that point.

Arc 1

Spoiler: Show

Arc 2

Spoiler: Show

Arc 3

Spoiler: Show

The sides of the <conflict> have heard of <applied phlebotinum> and seek <the protagonist> to gain it for themselves, as they believe that it could be used to stop soul transmigration and thus get an advantage in the <conflict>. This puts <the protagonist> directly in the middle of the <conflict>.

While trying to avoid getting caught, <the protagonist> tries to understand the problem of suffering -- amply delivered by the <conflict> -- through his/her research into soul transmigration. <The hermits> claim that there is an absolute law of karma, with every good and bad deed eventually catching up with a soul, but the research of <the protagonist> doesn't seem to support this. When tracking the past lives of souls, s/he sees evil souls spreading evil time after time, with little if any consequences, and good souls being persecuted by evil ones time after time, with little if any solace. This drives <the protagonist> deeper into depression.

As <the protagonist> continues the research, some peculiarities in the information gained through <applied phlebotinum> start to crop up, making <the protagonist> question the validity of the method, as some of the 'soul paths' don't appear to be possible -- e.g., a soul having been in a certain body so many lives ago that the body didn't even exist by that time.

Eventually, there is an event that makes <the protagonist> realize that the information is accurate after all; it is just that transmigrating souls are not bound by linear time. A soul departing a body here and now can migrate to a body that lived long ago somewhere else.

In the culmination of the entire story, <the protagonist> gains illumination and realizes that in all of the world, there is just one soul that transmigrates, existing concurrently in all its inhabitants. This has been foreshadowed from the beginning through ubiquitous macrame works of <the hermits> who insist that the works demonstrate how everything is intertwined. This also means that the law of karma as described by <the hermits> holds -- in an absolute manner, even, as every evil deed that the soul does will eventually come back to cause suffering to itself. The suffering is not meaningless, however, as <the protagonist> witnesses how, through the whole process, the soul gradually turns from the original evil one into a progressively better person.

<The protagonist> realizes that the world s/he lives in is some kind of an ontological purgatory, created to teach the soul to love everyone as it loves itself, and that once the objective has been met, the soul will be freed from the cycle. <The hermits> are, in average, closest to the 'end of the rope' as they themselves call it.

The story ends with <the protagonist> undergoing another <change> which denies the sides of the <conflict> the knowledge s/he had accumulated.

A short epilogue follows the soul of <the protagonist>, now transmigrated into <a hermit> and forgotten the entirety of his/her previous life, reuniting with the original <love interest>. They are now again 'comparable' and the ending suggests that they might be able to re-establish the relationship they had in their previous lives.

Jason_Miao · February 16, 2014, 10:05:48 PM

Quote from: sarsaparilla on February 16, 2014, 12:38:47 PM
This is not as much a story idea as it's a concept for a setting, looking for a story to give it visible form. As far as I know, it's an original setting, not fan fiction, though there are some manga/anime series that explore slightly similar themes. I don't know whether the whole thing is even doable, but I'm throwing it here to get it out of my mind.

If you're interested in developing this idea further...

Spoiler: Show

Muphrid · February 17, 2014, 12:41:09 AM

Re: <changing>

Spoiler: Show

Quote
The centerpoint of this arc is that while the fantasy world is mostly like our own, there is one crucial difference: at random intervals and without any apparent cause, people lose all their memories and can even start to behave in a completely different manner than before. This is called <changing>. The reason is not known by the characters and they see it as an ailment or a curse. As it becomes apparent, <the protagonist> him/herself was introduced immediately after a <changing>, which explains the lack of personal memories.

It strikes me somewhat odd that the progatonist doesn't remember that <changing> exists. It'd be like a person losing their identity and not knowing about television or computers; or is knowledge of this phenomenon not widely known?

Quote
Trying to cope with the situation, <the protagonist> learns from <the hermits>, a reclusive group of apparently more primitive people who are viewed with disdain by all others, that the <changing> is a form of soul transmigration -- one soul leaves the body and another enters it, both losing their memories in the process. <The protagonist> vows to find the soul of his/her <love interest>, wherever it went.

Do the souls swap exactly--the souls swap bodies--or do souls simply leave bodies at prescribed intervals and have to find new ones to take?

QuoteThe Quest takes <the protagonist> far beyond the geographical limits of the first arc; the <conflict> and its consequences enter the focus of world description, though <the protagonist> doesn't directly participate in it. There are two sides to the <conflict>; at first it looks like a black and white setting but as the story advances it becomes apparent that it's just slightly different shades of grey.

Does the <conflict> have to do with <changing> in any way? Is it over what people believe changing is? An effort to control people who have changed? Perhaps it's not necessary to figure out the answers to this question at this stage of the idea, but I figure it would be cool if the conflict reflected on the nature of changing or on the ultimate meaning behind it.

QuoteThe arc ends on a low note, with <the protagonist> depressed and unsure about what to do. The <secondary love interest> is killed at the end, pushing <the protagonist> to a new path for the final arc.

Similar to the above: how might this death connect with the conflict or with changing?

General comment: arc 3 seems like it could be a bit slow, or that the plotline of trying to avoid capture doesn't really integrate with the research angle. In the first two arcs, the protagonist has a clear goal: first to cope with his/her circumstances, second to find his/her love interest. The third arc as outlined gets considerably more abstract--perhaps necessarily, given the protagonist's depressed state, but it may represent a deviation in the structure of the story. Transforming from concrete goals to more abstract ones...maybe there's no danger there, but I like how the first two feel better because then the plot can stand by itself while revelations and growth happen around it.

The big revelation is...hm, intellectual isn't the right word, though it is that. It's a reveal about the setting, about the state of the world that you've built. This spurs me to observe that the effect this has on the protagonist is not something you described. Rather, the protagonist undergoes a change, and that's that. Now if he/she can force a change through this increased understanding, that becomes powerful from a character standpoint: the willing denial of oneself, in accordance with an ideal, or to see that good is done, matters greatly. It would be, basically, giving up on reuniting with the love interest, too, for the protagonist probably would feel that trying to guide the next change to be with them would be impossible, beyond anyone's ability.

It could be I'm placing too much emphasis on this being a character decision, though. Perhaps it fits the story you have in mind better to have the facts simply be what they are, since the cycle is something no one has control over.

This is an interesting outline--I like how everything not relevant at this stage is abstracted out. Seeing a story at its barest functional elements is quite refreshing.

Bezzerker · February 17, 2014, 01:08:55 AM

Quote from: sarsaparilla on February 16, 2014, 12:38:47 PM
Spoiler: Show Hide

In the culmination of the entire story, <the protagonist> gains illumination and realizes that in all of the world, there is just one soul that transmigrates, existing concurrently in all its inhabitants. <The protagonist> realizes that the world s/he lives in is some kind of an ontological purgatory, created to teach the soul to love everyone as it loves itself, and that once the objective has been met, the soul will be freed from the cycle.

I read a short story that had a similar premise to the parts I quoted. I don't remember when or where I read it, though.

Spoiler: Show

Arakawa · February 18, 2014, 12:22:52 AM

QuoteThe genre is most likely fantasy; finer classification like medieval, contemporary or futuristic fantasy would appear to be irrelevant to the basic structure. For the main plot, there are three consecutive arcs, progressing from light fantasy to a more serious/contemplative direction. On the whole, it is a deeply allegorical work about the ontological mystery, with a single twist of the plot right at the end that profoundly changes everything that has happened until that point.

An issue is that the twists as you describe them may be somewhat easy to guess if the reader happens to have contemplated this kind of thing before.

Spoiler: Show

There are a few questions/variations that occurred to me, which may or may not at all fit with your vision. The below is more an unorganized brainstorm, most of which you'll have to ignore, but I suppose it goes to show a lot can be done with this basic idea....

Spoiler: Show

One thing you need to make clear is under what circumstances the soul retains memories across an incarnation/transmigration vs. when it forgets things (and which things it does forget). Having memories wiped clean whenever it migrates might not be practical as the character needs to have a coherent arc across several incarnations -- so he needs to remember the basic facts e.g. that he is searching for his lover; likewise having the soul remember everything at every transmigration obviously will not work.

Since this is a reincarnation story, you could split it across several settings. Say, the start happens in a fairly modern "suburban manga"-type setting, with a few hints of an alternate history, but the <protagonist> -- while investigating the <changing>, which is, perhaps, dismissed by people in the society as a psychological fluke or disorder with a materialistic explanation -- digs into some lost and fragmentary medieval records of an ancient order of hermits... but the <adventurer> who happened on them left a frustratingly incomplete record. Then the motif of transmigration is introduced gradually, and eventually the <protagonist> uses <phlebotinum> and transmigrates into the <adventurer> who left the records (this might be a somewhat different use of <phlebotinum>) -- who exists in a more exotic and fantastic medieval setting. It could be implied that the order of hermits continues in secret to the modern day, and among other things they nudge the <protagonist> into going on this quest.

This would force a somewhat out-of-order sort of narration, as you could hint at the later course of the story from the research done by the initial incarnation of the <protagonist> -- and only then reveal that these are incarnations of the same soul. It may or may not allow a more creative approach to telling the story.

You could also alter the plot to include an active antagonist or <enemy>. Perhaps, initially the evil person knows they've been put into this purgatory, and is actively resisting the process of purification, by deliberately trying to harm as many other incarnations as possible, and in particular by trying to derail any of the incarnations that are trying to gain an understanding of the situation -- in particular, opposing the <protagonist>'s search for the <love interest>. This <enemy> would repeatedly appear and try to thwart the <protagonist> across many incarnations. (Gradually the <enemy> loses their own understanding of the purgatory, and can therefore begin the purification process.) This could give a more concrete sense to the <conflict>, and also make for a complicated scene where the <protagonist>, now understanding that the <enemy> hunting them + (whatever friends are around at the time) + the <love interest>, is a deluded past self, and so <protagonist> understands that s/he him/herself is responsible for the evil, and further laments how it is too late to avert the consequences. (<Protagonist> then has to seek out a <hermit>, say, to teach how to overcome the past evil rather than just be doomed to forget it over and over again. The main job of the order of <hermits> could be this -- working to remember each and every evil thing they did in past incarnations, and to purge themselves from it using a particular spiritual discipline.)

The lack of sufficiently clear records available concerning the hermits could be explained by the fact that revealing too much about their existence would allow the <enemy> to seek them out.

Another question that might add tension is whether the cycle of incarnation has an actual end, and thus a <i>somewhere else</i> where the soul will end up after it gains enlightenment -- or if at the end the soul is simply corrupted back into evil and begins the cycle over again. (There are many philosophies historically which postulate this futile, cyclical sort of universe.) This would be a frightening and unexpected possibility to contemplate -- from the way the story is set up, the answer would probably not be immediately obvious.

Possibly for a completely different religious accent to the ending, you could also include a "last judgment" epilogue, where the last and greatest of the hermits leaves the world, looks back, and remembers all the past incarnations, casting away the evil ones and reuniting the ones who showed mercy to one another. Then, in particular, the original couple is reunited and everyone heads off into the Outside, simultaneously individual people and also the same soul. I'm not sure if that would be a good ending. (It overcomes the problem that a 'memory wipe' reincarnation amounts to the destruction of a person -- by saying that eventually the soul will remember every incarnation worth remembering.)

CapnDistraction · February 18, 2014, 02:17:29 AM

i have a feeling this is the story people are referencing
http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

Ergoemos · February 18, 2014, 07:27:27 AM

Quote from: sarsaparilla on February 16, 2014, 12:38:47 PM
This is not as much a story idea as it's a concept for a setting, looking for a story to give it visible form. As far as I know, it's an original setting, not fan fiction, though there are some manga/anime series that explore slightly similar themes. I don't know whether the whole thing is even doable, but I'm throwing it here to get it out of my mind.

Arc 3
Spoiler: Show Hide

The sides of the <conflict> have heard of <applied phlebotinum> and seek <the protagonist> to gain it for themselves, as they believe that it could be used to stop soul transmigration and thus get an advantage in the <conflict>. This puts <the protagonist> directly in the middle of the <conflict>.

While trying to avoid getting caught, <the protagonist> tries to understand the problem of suffering -- amply delivered by the <conflict> -- through his/her research into soul transmigration. <The hermits> claim that there is an absolute law of karma, with every good and bad deed eventually catching up with a soul, but the research of <the protagonist> doesn't seem to support this. When tracking the past lives of souls, s/he sees evil souls spreading evil time after time, with little if any consequences, and good souls being persecuted by evil ones time after time, with little if any solace. This drives <the protagonist> deeper into depression.

As <the protagonist> continues the research, some peculiarities in the information gained through <applied phlebotinum> start to crop up, making <the protagonist> question the validity of the method, as some of the 'soul paths' don't appear to be possible -- e.g., a soul having been in a certain body so many lives ago that the body didn't even exist by that time.

Eventually, there is an event that makes <the protagonist> realize that the information is accurate after all; it is just that transmigrating souls are not bound by linear time. A soul departing a body here and now can migrate to a body that lived long ago somewhere else.

In the culmination of the entire story, <the protagonist> gains illumination and realizes that in all of the world, there is just one soul that transmigrates, existing concurrently in all its inhabitants. This has been foreshadowed from the beginning through ubiquitous macrame works of <the hermits> who insist that the works demonstrate how everything is intertwined. This also means that the law of karma as described by <the hermits> holds -- in an absolute manner, even, as every evil deed that the soul does will eventually come back to cause suffering to itself. The suffering is not meaningless, however, as <the protagonist> witnesses how, through the whole process, the soul gradually turns from the original evil one into a progressively better person.

<The protagonist> realizes that the world s/he lives in is some kind of an ontological purgatory, created to teach the soul to love everyone as it loves itself, and that once the objective has been met, the soul will be freed from the cycle. <The hermits> are, in average, closest to the 'end of the rope' as they themselves call it.

The story ends with <the protagonist> undergoing another <change> which denies the sides of the <conflict> the knowledge s/he had accumulated.

A short epilogue follows the soul of <the protagonist>, now transmigrated into <a hermit> and forgotten the entirety of his/her previous life, reuniting with the original <love interest>. They are now again 'comparable' and the ending suggests that they might be able to re-establish the relationship they had in their previous lives.

Spoiler: Show

Like the others, I think the crux of your story is definitely Act 3. You definitely put the most thought into it, but it isn't quite gripping to me as is. There is a certain melancholy to the story, in my mind, especially with the idea that the Protagonist makes it so far, grasps the entirety of the situation, then loses all her memories before she can make a big impact.

The way it reads, we have journeyed through thick and thin with this character, seeing their highs and lows and worst and best moments, literally, since we have been with them since they first Changed. The Protagonist grasps the ultimate truth and then... the Protagonist Changes again. Literally. They change this reborn Hermit Protagonist has little to no real relation to our starting hero, other than a similar personality. Why do we care that this particular archetype of a Protagonist found their One True Love's archetype?

I would be kind of annoyed at this, should I have read the entire story. What needs to happen is that there is some sort of break in the chain. Even a small one, just so the audience can get the feeling that progess is being made. Maybe he refuses the Change initially. Maybe the Protagonist does something no one else has, like finding the "person/body" she will be Changed into, and leaves them a diary of her work.

If you want her to "Change" as a final sort of punctuating event in the book, give the audience hope that they didn't just "move in" to a body of a different Hermit who now has to, presumably, find their way back to Hermit-dom from scratch. The audience (or one that I imagine) will want more than a tenuous link to the Protagonist. Make a steel chain. Maybe they figured out how to keep most of their memories, so they can continue their work. Or heck, maybe they found a way to replicate the Applied Phlebotinum research she has done. It would be entertaining to see this "Final Change" Protagonist pick up the most recent bestselling "speculative philosophy" book and find all their (unremembered) past life's published work strangely familiar and hauntingly compelling.

I like the idea, but I want a story that is tied up with a little more progress than "True Love Triumphs", especially given the deep and philosophical concepts behind the story. You don't need to tie up the whole "Soul Transmigration" issue, but I suggest that you give a sense of progress towards a real solution.

Edit: That said, you have a lot of fun possibilities with relatively inconsequential anecdotes.

Spoiler: Show

sarsaparilla · February 18, 2014, 09:46:26 AM

Goodness, so many comments -- and here I was just trying to exorcise a plot bunny gnawing its way around the back of my head....

@Jason_Miao:

Spoiler: Show

@Muphrid:

Spoiler: Show

@Bezzerker:

Spoiler: Show

@Arakawa:

Spoiler: Show

@CapnDistraction:

Spoiler: Show

@Ergoemos:

Spoiler: Show

Quote from: Ergoemos on February 18, 2014, 07:27:27 AM
Like the others, I think the crux of your story is definitely Act 3. You definitely put the most thought into it, but it isn't quite gripping to me as is. There is a certain melancholy to the story, in my mind, especially with the idea that the Protagonist makes it so far, grasps the entirety of the situation, then loses all her memories before she can make a big impact.

This is probably a matter of author appeal; to me, learning that things happen for a purpose would already be a deeply satisfying result by its own. The idea is that the world is pre-determined in a sense (as there is a process that is inherently acausal), and the only freedom the characters have is how to relate to that fact.

There is a recurrent motif of fatalism in my works; of finding peace of mind through accepting adversity. That is a very upbeat message in my own eyes but I realize that it bothers some readers.

<The protagonist> is not supposed to be a hero (overall, I am extremely wary of the entire concept of heroism) but a witness, the window through which the reader observes the world. Trying to turn <the protagonist> into a hero of any sort would actually undermine the basic tenets of the setting, I believe.

Quote from: Ergoemos on February 18, 2014, 07:27:27 AM
I would be kind of annoyed at this, should I have read the entire story. What needs to happen is that there is some sort of break in the chain. Even a small one, just so the audience can get the feeling that progess is being made. Maybe he refuses the Change initially. Maybe the Protagonist does something no one else has, like finding the "person/body" she will be Changed into, and leaves them a diary of her work.

Ah, but the big revelation is that the entire world is already 'making progress' through all the events that happen -- good and bad alike -- and it's just too complicated for most of the in-universe characters to see. In the reply to Arakawa, I suggested that it should be the main objective of the antagonist to try to 'break the chain' and to defeat the process, whereas the protagonist should understand the (benign) purpose of the process and yield to it, content with the knowledge that the objective will be eventually met, even if not by his/her own efforts.

A large part of the impact of the big revelation is that until that point <changing> has been seen as a curse, and the reader might even feel inclined to align with <the antagonist> who tries to defeat it, at least accepting the stated ends if not exactly the means, but the revelation shows that <changing> is an integral part of the world with a greater purpose.

Certainly, the ultimate result must be shown, but it would be against the basic idea to suggest that <the protagonist> contributed more to attaining that goal than any other character in the world.

Quote from: Ergoemos on February 18, 2014, 07:27:27 AM
Most of the time I was thinking about this story, I was imagining various character archetypes transmigrated into disparate bodies. So you have a cast of an eight year old girl who has the attitude of a film-noir detective, teaming up with an insecure accountant type with the body of a giant bruiser type. Likewise, you can get mad serial killer types in the bodies of ninety year old grandpas, and the like. The idea of messing with the natural order would make me giggle for days after reading this story.

That is an angle I hadn't considered at all, but I can see how it could fit very well into the early parts of the story which are lighter in tone. Though, to get most out of it, one should consider making a graphic novel instead of a written one.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback, everyone! I am still working my way up from a self-inflicted pit of unproductivity, hoping to eventually get back to continuing 'Insight' from where it was left, so I don't have any immediate plans to start writing this particular story. However, it's always fun to discuss new ideas.

Jason_Miao · February 18, 2014, 06:40:57 PM

@sars
Heh. Already went looking for it (I'd like to read it again, myself) but still can't find it. :(

If you enjoy reading philosophical discussions, The Tao is Silent is nice as well. Smullyan is mainly known (amongst those who know him through his writing at all) for his many books of logic puzzles, so most of his books are full of Knight/Knave problems. I don't remember many chapters out of that book either, but I did find a copy of my favorite one online.

Quote from: CapnDistraction on February 18, 2014, 02:17:29 AM
i have a feeling this is the story people are referencing
http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

Bezzerker's story sounds like the one I was thinking of (I recall the setting being purgatory rather than hell, but storywise, it amounts to the same thing). What you posted wasn't it, but interesting in its own right...it's rare to see a story written in 2nd person perspective.

And oh hey, Andy Weir. I always wanted a Star Wars satellite of some flavor ever since I'd heard about them, but it's thanks to him that I now specifically want one of no flavor: the Orbital Tofu Ray.

Quote from: Ergoemos on February 18, 2014, 07:27:27 AM
Spoiler: Show Hide
Like the others, I think the crux of your story is definitely Act 3. You definitely put the most thought into it, but it isn't quite gripping to me as is. There is a certain melancholy to the story, in my mind, especially with the idea that the Protagonist makes it so far, grasps the entirety of the situation, then loses all her memories before she can make a big impact.

The way it reads, we have journeyed through thick and thin with this character, seeing their highs and lows and worst and best moments, literally, since we have been with them since they first Changed. The Protagonist grasps the ultimate truth and then... the Protagonist Changes again. Literally. They change this reborn Hermit Protagonist has little to no real relation to our starting hero, other than a similar personality. Why do we care that this particular archetype of a Protagonist found their One True Love's archetype?
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[spoiler]
From a plot-oriented perspective, I agree with you. I think the key is in the first two acts - the story is set up as a romance story, where protagonist is seeking the lost soul-mate. In that sense, progression could be initially perceived the first two acts as finding leads that will culminate into the inevitable reunion, but would actually be (unbeknownst to the reader until Act 3) a combination of mystery solving and the protagonist's character development.

I think that it could work, although considerable care would be needed in the perception switch and one how to end Act 3 on whatever the desired note is. The desired ending note could span a range from "Don't worry about true love - 'I love you' is just self-masturbation anyway" to "We should all love one another. As different as we may seem, at the core, we are all the same" to "The happy moments we share will always exist in time" to "Seize opportunities as they arise, rather than mourning for opportunities lost (aka 'I shoudda should have hooked up with <secondary love interest> in Act 2')" to "Death/Change is neither the end nor the beginning, but another part of the cycle." Or something completely different.

A risk is that if Acts 1 and 2 are written like a romance story in too-straightforward of a fashion, then Act 3 may feel like an unexpected genre change to the reader.

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I like the idea, but I want a story that is tied up with a little more progress than "True Love Triumphs", especially given the deep and philosophical concepts behind the story.

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I also think that a Soulmates Reunite end is pretty odd in a communal-solipsism story, since everyone has the same soul anyway. OTOH, it's pretty hard to think of a poignant ending for a description at such a high level, so who knows?

Muphrid · February 19, 2014, 02:18:47 AM

Re: <changing> some more.

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QuoteOn a technical level, I thought that it would be a neat concept to have <the protagonist> know as little about the world as the reader at the beginning of the story, thus making it both more natural to explore the world and easier to relate to <the protagonist>.

And it's a tried and true method for that establishing exposition. Still, it struck me as almost a little too convenient that the protagonist doesn't know about changing; I quibble over it a bit because this is a tried and true method for beginning a story, and as such, I begin to worry whether such techniques become transparent to the reader. But I may be worrying too much.

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I assumed that it would be beyond the abilities of any characters in the story to actually change their fate; instead, closure would be achieved through understanding that the entirety of it has a purpose <the protagonist> can agree with; a personal catharsis after a progressively more agonizing existence.

Yeah, that definitely has more of a fit with the themes that run throughout the idea: the inevitably of changing, the cycle of rebirth, and so on and so forth. Still, I looked at the proposed resolution and thought it could come off really convenient. If making it more of a protagonist choice is off the table (and as I said, there are good reasons to keep the basic idea the way it is, thematically), then perhaps something more fitting would be...a prophecy of some kind? Some way to portend that the warring parties' quest for the protagonist is doomed to fail, ultimately futile to the point that nothing good can or will come from it. Perhaps, if something like that is the case, it would fit better with the idea that cycle cannot be altered or interfered with, that the best humans can do is go along for the ride rather than fight and kick in vain against the current, for with that acceptance comes peace and enlightenment.

I realize that the above is only one way to go about things and may not be most helpful, but at the least, it's interesting for me to contemplate how a something that removes characters' agency--a property of characters that I usually regard as a good thing--could be more appropriate to tell a story with.

Arakawa · October 17, 2015, 01:05:38 AM

Going through some old story notes, found this idea that I didn't really want to do anything with. Sort of a Touhou Project / Legendarium (Tolkien) worldbuilding tie-in. Not all of it is immediately explainable (bonus points to anyone who knows what the Notion Club is, for instance).

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Idea of a Timeline for Touhou/Legendarium connection

Development of the history of the world is a series of Sunderings, where the overall shape of the Earth is remade, as a way of purging some great evil. (e.g. the transition from a flat earth in a pocket dimension to a round earth in a great void of space is one such sundering). Gensokyo is intended by its initiators to be the seed-stage of a new world after the upcoming Sundering.

The eventual goal of Gensokyo is to linger on as the primary plane of Creation, when the world outside enters the end times, unmaking itself through utter faithlessness (the Blight of Sulva). [As the faith of the universe wanes, human belief will eventually become unable to support not only youkai and other lesser spiritual beings, but also the existence of humanity itself, which is itself a part-spiritual entity. What will be left behind is a race of uncreative automata in a universe which crumbles to unreality due to a lack of observers.]

Middle Earth Era

Two Blue Wizards sent to the uttermost East of the world, in order to weaken and disarray the forces of evil in that part of Creation.

Dominion of Man (current, historical era)

They succeed in this task, but for various reasons linger on into the Dominion of Man, instead of returning to the West; one of them remains in China (may be identified with the Old Man Who Knows Everything in Bridge of Birds, essentially a fallen entity), the other eventually enters Japan. Their eventual fate is unknown, but they're not around.
The Japanese wizard has some relation to Yukari Yakumo; either Yukari *is* the wizard, a diminished Maia in her own right, or she is an apprentice of the wizard, or is merely a youkai heavily influenced by the wizard. In any case, she is aware of the mission of the Blue Wizards, and carries it out with her own very particular interpretation.
Yukari is known to have launched a youkai invasion of the Moon; while theories in the modern era state her to have done it from territorial ambitions, or to teach the youkai of the dangers of territorial expansion, her actual motivation was to eradicate the Blight of Sulva that was threatening to arise from the technologically advanced Lunar society.
Yukari is known to have befriended and possibly caused the death of Yuyuko Saigyouji, foreseeing that Yuyuko would be installed at the head of a Limbo dimension. This gives Yukari a legitimate foothold in the afterlife bureaucracy, and eventually a private Limbo dimension easily accessible from Gensokyo.
Yukari is known to have offered her abilities for the creation of the Hakurei barrier near the start of the Meiji era. The Hakurei family saw this as a method for enclosing and gradually eradicating a particularly youkai-infested area of Japan, but Yukari's immediate goal was to create a pocket dimension isolated from the effects of the rationalism about to overtake Japan (the Blight of Sulva, this time arising on Earth).
As the Hakurei grew haughty and agressive in seeking to exterminate the youkai of Gensokyo, they started a conflict which led to the clan's demise. Yukari went forth to find a replacement in the form of a distant relative, Reimu, whom she hoped to mold from behind the scenes into the founder of a more placid and controllable clan. However, Reimu has her own particular quirks which make this a nontrivial undertaking, and her view on things eventually leads Yukari to revise aspects of how Gensokyo is to be structured.

This is a bare outline of thousands of years of events; I probably want another discussion of the basic cosmology and threads tying the concerns of Legendarium and The Notion Club to the Touhou fanon outlined here. Yukari's approach diverges from the Legendarium picture since her enemy is not a specific demon (Morgoth), but a metaphysical disease (the Blight of Sulva). In fact, she seems to believe that the dispersion of Morgoth's essence throughout the whole of creation is a minor problem, not requiring the wholesale re-creation of the world that is listed in Illuvatar's plan. (Or, she understands the plan, but the fact that it requires a genuine End Times, with no one in the world outside eventually worthy of salvation, does not sit well with her.)

I remember whenever I bounced Touhou ideas off Hal it turned out I had a complete tin ear for the Touhou canon, so I'm probably heavily diverging from 'canonical Touhou' with this backstory. It isn't a fic idea in itself so much as something that could be made the backdrop or subject of a suitable fic.

If I'm enthused by this I might at least come back to this and explain some of the more obscure references from the Inklings side of the fusion :/

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