Random Questions Thread

x2 The idea I'm getting is that he's going "the supernatural world is super cool and rad :(" while playing an active role in making said world worse, which... that's kind of his own fault.

Oh no, the consequences of his actions. Tough.

I agree with that this does not exactly spark sympathy for this character. It feels like he's being incredibly selfish and egotistical, thinking that his personal feelings justify all the terrible things he's doing. Which would be fine if it were presented that way, but I get the feeling it's not.

Maybe that makes sense in context, but I don't understand it. What is the narrative goal of the scene?

I think the idea that someone is willing to sacrifice himself, just to visit another world, however fantastic is a hard sell. So the character is remembering when he began on the path that he is traveling. He sees a werewolf tearing people apart and realizes that he is responsible for that. He contrasts this gruesome and horrible image, with the description of the paradise he was promised. Is he trying to convince himself, that it is worth it? Does he doubt the promise? Is his concious the problem? Does he wish regret hia choice? Does he consider that he can change? And at the end he decides, he is stuck, and the only way is forward.

I don't think a dry and cold recitation of a previous speech can convey his inner struggle.

Edited by ry4n on Mar 21st 2024 at 1:15:30 AM

I think the purpose of this speech is something similar to Eren Yeager's speech in this scene (If you have not seen "Attack On Titan" yet, don't click the link to this video).

Basically, the Big Bad in Sword's setting is just straight up disappointed with how the reality of the world he got awed with from stories, turned out to be nothing but a big pile of lies in the end.

There are...so many responses that I'm kind of floored lol. I'll try to give a "broad-strokes" response to answer some questions and explain a little more of what I'm trying to achieve here.

The purpose of the entire scene isn't actually to make the audience feel sorry for him (there's been a lot of that throughout the story both before and after he started to spiral into evil.

It's more to demonstrate how absolutely drained he is, at least from an emotional standpoint. He has reached the absolute apex of his powers; for all intents and purposes he is the closest thing to a god that this story showcases. But on the inside, he is the weakest and most exhausted he's ever been, falling apart at the seams with only the mission to protect his handful of loved ones letting him keep putting one foot in front of the other.

His motivation is sheer desperation—-he feels like if he doesn't destroy both worlds, his family will either be murdered or they will be used as political pawns and stripped of all freedom forever. He doesn't want either of those outcomes and so he pushed ahead with the deranged idea. That and he has a simmering resentment for everyone in both worlds who don't live with such stress and terror, and he wants to take out his frustrations on them.

In a sense, it is kind of similar, although it's a two-pronged thing. It isn't so much disappointment as it is sheer horror of how much of a ruthless Crapsack World the supernatural community is on all fronts. He was manipulated into getting deeper into things with stories of wonderful adventures and mysterious and dangerously beautiful things beyond human comprehension. All he got was pain, suffering, fear for his family, and finding out he's a Mac Guffin Superperson that a number of factions want to get their hands on. So he gives the same speech she did, but in a harsher, sadder voice showcasing the true nature of the supernatural community...while he destroys it.

The other thing is that he is acknowledging that he himself is part of that world, and has been since the moment he was born. Another long-running theme was him "distancing" himself from the supernatural even after finding out early on about his non-human status. He slowly accepted it, but this is the first time he outright declares that he is not a human, when fittingly he no longer looks anything like one.

Just one last one, regarding how unforgivable and evil his actions are. He genuinely starts off as a much more "traditional" teenage YA hero. Most of my questions here are about how to handle his swan dive off the deep end, since I've never written a story where the actual main character goes from hero-to-main-villain. So it's always instances of him at his worst. His fall from grace was pretty much like jumping off the Empire State Building. But that's probably why he's always portrayed as awful even when I mention his heroics.

Sorry this was rambling and all over the place, I tried to respond to a lot of points various people made and answer some questions.

Mm, that still kind of falls into the sympathy category. You're asking the reader to care about his emotional state and consider his motivation of "but my faaaaaamily" to be significant in their appraisal of him. Especially since his other motivation is basically throwing a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum.

Well, clearly you don't like traditional fantasy YA (however it is defined) very much. There's only so much advice I can give if that's your baseline.

One of my characters is a sort-of superhero, though more in the vein of powerless Proto-Superheroes like The Shadow and The Spider. He has a dye thing that looks like blood and is impossible to remove from skin, which he uses to "mark" nazis and collaborators he doesn't kill (at least doesn't kill yet).

I'm not sure what the dye thing should actually be, or where it came from. He's a tailor's son, not a chemist. One of the other heroes is a chemist, but they aren't even in the same country until something like halfway through WWII, so that's out.

Ideas?

IIRC, the industrial dye boom pre-WWI started in Germany and caused a sort of chemical arms race. You could easily say that this character found a stockpile of some discarded dye (not aniline, as that fades rapidly) and uses that.

x3 @ Altris:

I just wanted to clarify this. I don't have much interest in it now, but on the contrary YA fantasy was once one of my favorite genres. This story is at least somewhat inspired by those types of stories before it gets progressively darker and starts dealing with more mature topics.

What I meant by "traditional YA hero" was that a lot of the protagonists in those stories are determined, headstrong and somewhat naive teenagers who find themselves in pretty high-stakes circumstances. Yet they are able to push through these ordeals through a mixture of raw determination, skill and reliance on friends.

This character has all of these qualities in the beginning, it's just that circumstances (and his own moral choices) slowly turn him from this path into something sinister. That's all I was saying.

I think the idea of a showing the character becoming evil is interesting. I am not sure if giving the speech to himself is very interesting. I think a realist, almost flow of consciousness would work better. My advice is not to imagine a movie and then write that down, but rather to embrace the written medium. The internal struggle is what is interesting.

I've a budding plot idea that is more pants than usual, but revolves around the following

• a pair of dwarf siblings
• their hitherto unknown lineage to a legendary ansestor
• a dungeon connected to said ancestor
• a battle dress commission (derived from someone learning about valkyries)
• and swan feathers

For this I want to ask for possible reason why swan flocks would be in the dungeon (which is a space-themed steampunk maze) and what connection they would have to the ancestor (who is a legendary craftsman man who is is so good that legends claim him to be the Ultimate Blacksmith god incarnate)

Maybe those swans are not ordinary like the ones in Real Life, and their blood contains a substance that the dungeon owner used for crafting/research...etc.

How didn't they not die in a closed dungeon since the time of the ancestor? Magic, artificial suspension vats...etc.

Either that or the "Dungeon" is really big and suitable for life somehow.

Edited by jawal on Mar 24th 2024 at 4:29:56 PM

What is a "battle dress commission"?

Anyway, I am guessing that the Swans are Swanmaidens. That would tie into valkyries quite nicely. I am. I am not sure why anything would be put in the maze, but maybe it is a sort of Labyrinth that is a prison/secure place for treasure. Perhaps that is the safest place for swans.

A legendary blacksmith technique is to: 1. grind a sword into dust 2. feed it to fowl 3. collect the droppings and burn them to retrieve the steel 4. make a sword from said steel 5. Repeat

Hmm... Well, a simple solution might be that the owner or creator of the dungeon liked swans, and wanted to keep a flock in a great ornamental pool.

Perhaps a place of serenity within the eternal whirring and ticking of the machinery; a pool that reflects the stars and nebulae about it, its mirror-glass surface rippled only in velvety waves by the stately procession of the swans.

(Funnily enough, I've seen swans in a spacey environment—but I don't think that said example would be all that helpful here. It comes from the video-game LOOM, in which one at last finds the transcended Weavers, now swans, in an otherworldly pool located within the starry space beyond the world.

This is tangential, but I initially read the above as (emphasis mine) "a budding plot idea that has more pants than usual"! XD;

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 25th 2024 at 9:37:56 PM

Alternatively, the swans could be trained attack animals. I'm only half joking — swans are fierce.

I'm working on a setting where there exist three species of minotaur. All three species were originally created to serve as slaves to the tyrannical King Minos.

Feral minotaurs: The first generation. They were made from experimenting on cattle. They look just like bipedal bulls and are completely mindless. This generation was rejected as they were too wild to control. Today they're an invasive species throughout the world.

Aurochsen (singular aurochs): The second generation. Made from experimenting on humans. Their bodies from the neck-down are identical to those of muscular humans with thick body hair, females included. They stand upright on human feet and don't have tails. Their heads look just like those of domestic cattle. They're fully sapient. They were originally considered successful for a few decades before they liberated themselves and escaped, abandoning the name minotaur for its association with Minos, and choosing the name aurochs. Today, they're a thriving civilization, famed for many exploits, but especially in their contributions to astronomy.

True minotaurs: The third generation. When "minotaur" is used without distinction, the speaker is generally referring to this species. This generation was made through experiments that fused humans and cattle into singular beings. The average minotaur bears a perfect blend of human and cattle traits. They stand hunched over on hooves, and have tails. They're just smart enough to understand and obey complex orders, but not smart enough to speak or be considered self-aware. (Think Nina Tucker from Fullmetal Alchemist.) Today, they're used around the world to perform various labors, widely considered the perfect servants.

Now, here's my question. Thematically, does it make sense for the aurochsen to basically look like muscular, hairy humans with the heads of cattle, while true minotaurs are a perfect blend of the two species? Or would it make more sense to flip them?

What is a perfect blend? Also Auerochs is a type of wild cattle that went extinct in the 1600s. That makes it a confusing name for what looks like the smartest type of minotaur.

It was the best name I could think of that had them embracing their new identities as cattle-folk while refusing to be defined by the man responsible for their enslavement.

EDIT: I also figured the name would be appropriate as the real life Aurochs is widely considered to be the ancestor of modern domestic cattle, but was itself wild, and I wanted to symbolize that the aurochsen of my story are a free people who refuse to be enslaved.

By perfect blend, I imagine a mostly humanoid face with extremely broad features, such as large chins, rugged cheekbones, and heavy brows. Meanwhile, the torso is recognizable as something resembling that of a human, but very barrel-shaped and top-heavy. Also extremely thick necks with those dewlaps you usually see.

Edited by AmateurStorytime on Mar 25th 2024 at 4:38:22 AM

@ Amateur Storytime:

It depends on what you are trying to go for to be honest, and I can't really gauge that from the original post.

If the end goal of these experimentations is to produce a species that is a perfect blend of human and cattle, then I'd argue that the "Second Generation" with distinct human and cattle traits but with human intelligence should be the end result. In my mind that is a perfect blend of both worlds, physically they embody the human and cattle traits but with a distinct "line" between them and they are intelligent enough to have a civilization and thrive on their own. That screams success for me.

If, on the other hand, the point was to have a legion of obedient slaves or some other nefarious purpose, then the third generation, the "Nina Tucker" types (why did you have to reference that ?) would be the perfect end-result as you explained in the original post. Those things are smart enough to be obedient and understand some complex commands but not enough to truly rebel or live on their own outside of their "handler's" control, much less make their own society.

So again, it all depends on the end result and goals. If the objective is to create a new type of sapient being by creating a blend of human and cattle, then the second generation should be the final product of the endeavor. If those responsible want to make a legion of servants and possibly fighters for their use then things should stay the same.

Sorry, I guess I was unclear. Ultimately, Minos wanted to make the perfect slave, in which case the third generation is indeed considered a success, and the second generation is a failure because they escaped. What I was trying to ask though, is whether or not I should swap the appearance of the second and third generations. Should the aurochsen just look like humans with cattle heads, or should they look like an actual mix of both? Basically, Al Hedison The Fly, or Jeff Goldblum The Fly? The behavior will be the same regardless.

@ Ah I understand now. Thanks for clearing that up for me, I can now give you a coherent answer.

If indeed the purpose was to create a legion of obedient servants then I think the current appearance progression is perfectly fine as it is. It fits the overall theme, at least to me. The second generation is a perfect balance of human and cattle and keep their intellect and capability for complex thought and society building.

For the last generation, the "success" of perfect slaves to be more cattle than human, it gives the appearance of the animal slowly overtaking the human traits, eclipising and blurring them enough to make them more akin to actual livestock than people, which perfectly plays into the theme of their purpose.

I see. That makes perfect sense. Thank you very much!

From a thematic perspective, I might argue the opposite:

Animal heads more strongly (to my mind) suggest animal minds, while part-human heads suggest at least part-human minds.

Indeed, a human body with an animal head seems to me to well convey the idea of human physical capabilities—but limited by an animal mind.

Now, visually, the fact that the third generation was created by blending cattle and humans suggests that a blended appearance would be appropriate.

But then it does prompt the question of how the second generation gained animal heads without being blended with animals...

Also a good point I'll need to consider. As to how the second generation gained the heads of cattle, the original subjects were experimented on using data collected from the first generation, and had cattle DNA injected into them. Meanwhile the original subjects of the third generation were chimeras created by forcing a human and a cattle to fuse into a single being.

To make it simple, the original aurochsen were humans who developed cattle-like traits from the experiments, but still individuals, while the original true minotaurs were neither human nor cattle, but were created by forcing the two together. That's why I made the Nina Tucker analogy, because the chimera Shou Tucker made was neither Nina nor Alexander, but a combination of both.

Edited by AmateurStorytime on Mar 25th 2024 at 6:08:50 AM

That one got an easy answer.

The second generation didn't get actual "animal heads", it's just their human skulls/heads getting distorted into the shapes of animal heads.

The middle ground.

Yeah, pretty grisly...