Random Questions Thread

Suddenly had an idea for a character.

Namely an expy of Sean Bateman, brother of Patrick "American Psycho" Bateman.

As such I want to ask how to translate the former's character (80s fratbro) to a 1920s like setting. (Latter too, but he seems easier)

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 29th 2024 at 12:01:01 PM

I've been thinking about the costumes in my WWII superhero story Red Revenge. I'm still lacking in that department.

The one nazi supervillain i have cleaned up and drawn is the Big Bad The Lightbearer[1]. His belt is a bit too low in that drawing (compare my traced-from-photograph ref below), but that's basically it. Notice how it's the standard uniform, but in red with breast pockets removed and the white area abd the chest symbol added (however they're actually done). His helmet is visored and more like a schallernhelm[2]◊ though (not a stahlhelm[3]◊).

The one other nazi i've had a significant ideas about is Thunderlight, who has superspeed but not to the extent of The Flash. More in the range of modern-day supercars. The ideas i've been floating are a black and yellow color scheme, lightning motif, goggles. While The Lightbearer is SS, Thunderlight is Wehrmacht, and i've been unsure how to do Thunderlight's lightning. If i zigzag it between the uniform's pockets, it looks like the SS lightning.

Today i saw some guy in a grey shirt or hoodie with two yellow tracksuit-type lines on the sleeves, like this[4]. I thought that could be a good color scheme and a way to include lightnings. Maybe with a chest V like this[5] made of two lightnings? Could that be good? Not sure how to avoid the arm or leg lightnings looking weird though since they propably need to go all the way down from the shoulder to the wrist and from the waistband to the shoe because that's pretty long and they'd need to be narrowish...

A quick googling indicates that tracksuits were actually invented in "the 1930s", though without info about what actual year. Not sure if the nazis would have Thunderlight wear an actual tracksuit though, but on the other hand i'm also unsure about the Wehrmacht uniform's suitability for running even with different shoes. I'm not sure if i should have all 6 of the human male nazis (there's one woman and one robot) wearing basically the same thing, plus there's one resistance/British superhero-ish guy who doesn't really have a costume who wears almost entirely gray (civilian jacket and pants, put faded purple vest) so their color schemes would be almost the same.

Thoughts?

Edited by Nukeli on Apr 30th 2024 at 8:27:00 PM

Reading this, a though crossed my mind.

Have you at any point considered not giving Thunderlight the lightning bolt motif?

Thunder is the noise after the lightning strikes and most of the time, you don't even see the lightning before the thunder goes off somewhere.

Also, considered to give him a luftwaffe pilot suit? With attached gas mask for the lower half of his face to keep the wind pressure off his face and from being a distraction, alongside the googles. Also, not as restrictive as an ordinary uniform would be.

"Thunderlight" is an old word for "Lightning".

Also, i propably need to put something on his uniform so that it won't just be a plain uniform. The nazis don't just use The Lightbearer, Thunderlight, and the others in battle but they're also important in their propaganda so they're supposed to look good and recognizable.

A gas mask may not be the best option for breathing despite wind resistance. Maybe rather something that actually supplies oxygen....

To add, there is also the conflation between the two terms. (Thor, God of thunder, often has lightning powers despite a lack of mythological basis [for either] besides the name. The final fantasy games use "Thunder" as the umbrella for lightning spells and Yu-gi-oh also uses it as the name for the lightning eleemntla type)

Again, trying not to make utter idiots out of my characters.

Does it make sense for the heroes who knew the villain prior to his "ascension" (i.e. his mother, father, aunt, ex-girlfriend) to be utterly horrified by his appearance after his Kaiju is disabled?

For context, when his giant Wolf Man body is destroyed, his Clipped-Wing Angel form leaps out and instantly tries to seize control of the only person with the ability to be his next host. The heroes then have to fight to keep this creature from reaching its target until it "expires".

When this happens, there is a moment where those who knew him are paralyzed with shock and horror. All of them spring into action, but there is that moent of absolute shock as they try to process what they are seeing. I just wondered if this comes off as stupid, since they knew for quite some time that whatever was going on with him, he would not look like the person they knew—-they even came across his lifeless human corpse at the beginning of this final stretch of the story.

Just wanted to see if I should skip their shock/horror and have them react faster and more efficiently rather than have to be shouted at by one of the people who doesn't know or care about him.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on May 1st 2024 at 11:27:00 AM

I would think that climbing "Furry Godzilla" and fight its white blood-cells formed as people would drain them from any shock or surprise at this point.

Unless that thing has the villain's face strapped onto its skull like a mask or something, invoking the revolt of morbidity which would be a fresh supply in this stage.

@ Trainbarrel:

That is a good point; they've basically seen absolute hell by this point so I guess the situation would be perceived as just one more horror, one more new challenge.

No at this point it doesn't resemble anything even remotely close to humanity, let alone the son/nephew/boyfriend they once knew. It certainly doesn't behave like him, just a mindless monster rapid-pace crawling/slithering towards its target.

I guess I just imagined it would horrify them just through the sheer surprise of not seeing "him" come out of that thing. Or perhaps I'm just projecting how the readers' might feel since despite the giant wolfman existing, every time we see the villain's thoughts, he's very much still "himself" in his Mental World. So that thing appearing in real-time would be jarring.

How would you describe Capoeria in prose? Wanted to ask about it as a martial art.

@ Morning Star 1337:

So I know very little about the martial art itself apart from broad-strokes so take this with a grain of salt. I'd refer to it as fluid and deadly motion. Simultaneously faster-than-the-eye can see, yet the user of the technique appears frozen in a graceful pose even as their target it flung backwards by powerful blows.

If I recall correctly, it's very dance-like in its form, and so I might lean on descriptors pulling from that art. Additionally, I might describe some of the distinctive features of its movements, which—and noting here that I'm very much a layman in the subject—I think include dips and spins and flexible fluidity.

"Like flames in the forest, their body swirled, twirled, swiped and spun as their combat of choice consumed them in ever flowing passion. Like pendulums, each strike left a ringing reverberation through their opponent's flesh, ripples through their blood, and their bones in quaking agony upon putting up persistent pitiful resistance against the tidal wave of force upon them. The center. the balance. As long there were motion, even someone as insignificant and common as the rock in David's sling, could fell the giant of an adversary blocking their path. Flow. Just flow."

...

My attempt at describing that martial art. With mixed success.

Does anybody else have thoughts about Thunderlight's costume?

Regarding Thunderlight:

I propose that he has two sets of costumes to his persona.

One being the colorful propaganda-costume for the sake of the masses.

And the other being the far more practical and low-key military uniform he wears when out on the actual battlefield.

The reason being that he hopefully have enough common sense and self-preservation instinct to realize that if he goes out on the battlefield with his propaganda-costume on, he will be spotted and sniped on sight the moment he steps into the line of sight off the opponents, super-speed or no super-speed.

He knows that one stray bullet can cripple him or worse, so why make it easier for the enemy to spot him?

And his achievements on the battlefield, is applied to his propaganda-persona, as the ones in charge just blatantly lie and say "Yes, he did show up on the battlefield in this costume. You just didn't see it."

Thunderlight meanwhile just snarks in silence and rolls his eyes "Well, I was there after all... And sure thing you didn't see me in that hideous outfit. Especially since I left it in a trunk back at the studio."

Edited by Trainbarrel on May 3rd 2024 at 7:28:34 PM

In my book, a mother gets killed early on in the book, through a freak accident. I was thinking of doing an immediate time jump to one year later, or should I write the father and kids' reactions to it immediately after it happens?

I guess it depends on what you want out of it. Some stories do great at conveying character development following a timeskip, while in other cases the tragedy may have more of a punch with the immediate reaction. It can work either way.

Agreed.

The approach that will best work will depend on, well, a bunch of factors: what impact you want to have on the reader; how the characters are likely to act and react, and how that meshes with the desired effect; what the focus of the story is; and likely more besides!

(And there are other approaches besides those two, of course, depending on quite what's desired of that point in the story.)

At what age do you think it'd make sense for Johann/Arthur, The Lightbearer's son, to notice he has superhuman abilities (see the link for the ability list)?

He doesn't know that the reichsführer was his biological father. He was born as Johann in 1945, The Lightbearer died a few months later, his mother Gretchen grabbed him and hid among refugees, Gretchen did terrorism, Gretchen was killed by the resistance heroes, and before he turned two years old one of the resistance people took him and passed off as her own (renaming him Arthur). They hid Arthur from the nazis —and the Allies who would have made a child soldier out of him, or experimented on him for the Super Serum, or otherwise turned him into a pawn in the Cold War— and haven't yet told Arthur anything. So he definitely can't have any memory of anything relevant.

Puberty, at the earliest. End of puberty at the latest.

If the serum requires increased hormone-levels to activate, then that would be the logical age for it to kick in.

Either at the sudden increase of hormones produced by the body or once that sudden increase have stabilized.

In short: At the age between 8-15 years old.

This would leave you with a good enough margin to decide when his powers would be of most use for him in-story.

...

Okay, this is for everyone here:

I need some advice on a certain scenario. (And for the context, it is from the same setting as the squirrels.)

A character walks down the road, looks up at the sound of barking and sees a small dog with its owner. The dog is going nuts, its owner have no idea what's going on, and the character just sighs as they walk past the whole thing, not wanting any trouble.

As the distance grows, the owner tries to pull the dog away, which is still barking like mad and pulling in the opposite direction, looking at the character.

Then it bites down on its leash, yanks it straight out from its owner s sloppy grip, and starts running down the road after the character, barking like mad and teeth bared.

The character haven't turned around. Doesn't need to. They can hear the barking approach them closer with each second and the owner yelling at the dog to come back.

Instead, the character looks to the left and at the electric fence that's right within an arm's length from them. With a fresh warning sign and the distinctive snapping in the air of a current running through it.

The character reaches out in resignation and the moment dog teeth sinks into their calf, their hand firmly clenches around the fence's wire.

A sharp yelp comes from the dog and it let's go, collapsing on the ground in spasms and cramping like mad.

The moment the teeth are out, the character let go off the fence and tries to ignore the numbing pain in their left hand's fingers. And the bleeding from their right leg's calf. Otherwise, they appear completely unharmed.

The dog on the other hand... not so much.

Now here is the question: Will the character get in any trouble with the police for doing this?

They didn't do anything to provoke the dog, they only wanted to avoid trouble, and didn't even look at it in order to keep the distance.

So will they still get in trouble for this end of the consequence-chain?

Edited by Trainbarrel on May 4th 2024 at 3:11:29 PM

@ Trainbarrel:

No, the victim in this case (because they are most definitely the victim) would not suffer even the tiniest slap on the wrist from the law. I can tell you this with certainty considering that I've actually been the victim of a very similar event you described and took it to local law enforcement (although no, I did not kill or even injure the dog responsible; I tried to run away and got injured).

In my case (and this case) it is actually the owner of the dog who will find themselves in the dour gaze of the law, should there be actual consequences for anyone. The owner is responsible for controlling their dog at all times, or at least preventing the dog from attacking anyone, whether on or outside of their property.

If they tried to bring charges against the victim, it would be completely futile—-the victim did not do anything to actually hurt/kill the dog, it was a complete freak accident due to the dog's own attack on the victim. Even if the victim had killed/hurt the dog, it was a clear case of self-defense.

I'm wondering if this just comes off as silly and stupid rather than what it's intended to be—-a foolish reaction, but ultimately sad and horrifying.

During the whole werewolf-grey-goo-scenario brought about by my main character, one of the scenes of what's happening "on the ground" concerns a group of half-vampires caught in the chaos. The group manages to keep just ahead of a city's worth of transformed werewolves, although they lose a great deal of their number in the process. Just as they think they have a secure escape route, they find that the road is blocked with abandoned cars, their owners either killed, fled, or transformed into more of the horde.

Seeing this causes the elderly leader of the ground to run forward at Super-Speed and slam his hands into the nearest car, screaming at the nonexistent drivers and demanding that they move their vehicles. He gets more and more desperate as the furry wall of monsters close in on them.

Now it's clear to everyone present that these cars are immobile and abandoned; even the man pounding and yelling knows this; all he sees is the reflection of his own terrified face. But the point is to show how beyond reason and desperate he and all of them are at this point.

What I wondered is if this just seems stupid or does it get the point across?

Edited by Swordofknowledge on May 6th 2024 at 10:31:59 AM

Thanks for answer. It helps.

...

Wait, one question.

Vampires, correct?

Can't they just jump up and skip over the cars like stepping stones in the water like ordinary people can do?

Otherwise it looks like the Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence is at play here.

nvm

Edited by MorningStar1337 on May 7th 2024 at 10:21:47 AM

@ Trainbarrel:

Glad that the answer helped!

Well...I suppose they kind of could do that; although these aren't full vampires but human/vampire hybrids, the product of relationships between humans and vampires. They don't have nearly the same raw physical power pureblooded vampires do. But it is possible.

That said, they are terrified, many are injured, and they have small kids with them, and no one is really thinking straight apart from a mindless desire to outrun the predators closing in on them. They are kind of dumbfounded at the sight of the cars, especially the leader, which causes his breakdown.

...at least that's the way I wanted to spin it, perhaps it still doesn't work.

Well I've seen enough disaster movies to understand that if something is gunning for a crowd of panicked and terrified people on a trafficked street, they will start leaping over the cars just to get a second faster ahead of everyone else rather than dodging them.

Vampires that doesn't even try to get over obstacles that humans would get over with the pitchforks of panic pointed at their arzes? Feels odd.

What about this? The panic gets the vampires slipping and tripping on the cars as they get over, snaring them in between the metal shells and making them easy pickings for the "furries" as they're stuck like cooked snails in their shells on a restaurant.

The leader getting caught in an angle where he gets a clear view of a rear-view mirror, seeing the horde coming in behind him, alongside of the obligatory little reminder "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear." stamped into the window of his doom.

Cue him screaming before the wall of furries comes down on him.

Edited by Trainbarrel on May 6th 2024 at 7:02:41 PM