Random Questions Thread

@Swordofknowledge: The stress-eating thing was meant, perhaps, as an easier alternative to Drowning Your Sorrows, and also perhaps, if your work's visual, for visual humor too.

You could also give him a Verbal Tic too like "Goddamnit" or "Varmints!", for example, as means of expressing his stress; what sort of English does he speak? Or does he speak another language?

For example, "Verdorie!" in Dutch meaning "damn it!".

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Apr 12th 2021 at 11:37:00 AM

How's this concept?

In a deconstruction of a typical superhero universe, where superpowered people solve everything by fighting and don't actually do anything about the underlying issues that cause crime, and are too showy and self-righteous to take an easy or discreet way.

The protagonist is technically a superhero, but uses his Shadow Walker powers, knowledge of poisons, discreet manipulation and deception, and quick thinking to help victims and take out villains while avoiding direct confrontation or getting hurt himself^note getting hurt hurts, and if he needed to go to hospital he'd be questioned about his injuries, especially if he got shot, and generally also does other less violent things the superheroes won't do because they overprioritize fighting^note Like doing charity or helping people whose problems are too small or meaningless for the superheroes. Many of the self-righteous superheroes think that he's a villain because of his "underhanded" methods and because some of them think that Brains Evil, Brawn Good, but he's the one who actually gets things done. He's not a cliche anti-hero either, but a rather normal person who just thinks that his less direct ways to solve things are better for everybody involved (and because he knows that he's not going to win an actual fight, what with his only power being to vanish, and works with what he has).

Edited by Nukeli on Apr 12th 2021 at 3:42:00 PM

@ Merseyuser 1:

Ah, I suspected as much. The work isn't visual (though as the story evolves well past what I originally planned it to be, I'm really wishing it was) but I could still work it into the written medium it is now. Maybe someone commenting that his eating so much isn't really normal, even after such intense training.

He speaks english (he's American, from the New England area, actually). It's funny you mention a Verbal Tic; there's an attribute I'm debating keeping or getting rid of that he acquires over the course of his ordeals. It is a tic of sorts, but it's physical rather than verbal and it is quite destructive. He also starts smoking, which he definitely didn't at the start of the story. Though that is more a tribute to his childhood friend-turned-girlfriend who dies in front of him.

Sounds a lot like the plot in "My Hero Academia: Vigilantes"...

I have no idea what that is, so it's propably going to be different enough. Does the concept itself sound good?

It means that the concept sounds very familiar and already used in other stories...

If you expected it to be brand new, then that is not the case at all...

Edited by TitanJump on Apr 12th 2021 at 4:30:21 PM

No, i just meant if it sounds like something that people would read.

Besides, not everybody has heard about My Hero Academia spin-offs.

Edited by Nukeli on Apr 12th 2021 at 5:48:25 PM

The story "The Boys" also work on a similar premise...

So yeah, people could read it.

Friendly reminder that Tropes Are Tools and a story using tropes that other stories have used does not make the story bad.

Only to a certain limit, though...

...only to a certain limit.

I mean, if your work is extremely derivative (ie close to or at plagiarism) that's obviously bad. But there's nothing wrong with writing in an already-established genre in and of itself.

@ Altris: I have to say the above comment makes me slightly nervous, since my prized work is pretty much Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, Code Geass, Tokyo Ghoul and Attack on Titan blended together, stirred and then sprinkled with in-depth examinations of morality and certain ideologies. It also has a lot of other stuff from various media that has inspired me over the near-decade I've been working on it, so I hope all of that translates into some sort of original idea.

Unless a work is an exact plagiarism of something else (and even then), I'd say a work do not need to be based on an original idea to be well received. I like to offer the example that a story taking place in a magic school has not been an original idea for a long time.

@ C105: That is a reassuring thought (assuming you are talking to me ). It isn't a worry I've had for a long time, but for some reason it just sort of flared up again after all these years.

TLDR: Is it realistic for a teenage boy to single-handedly confront a possibly dangerous adult who he believes is exerting a negative influence over his childhood friend and other kids?

More Detailed Explanation: Is it realistic for a teenager to personally confront someone (in this case an older adult) who he believes is exerting a harmful/malevolent influence over a good friend of his? In this particular case, my main character's childhood friend has been acting strangely—-showing erratic, paranoid and downright aggressive behavior and extreme secrecy.

He knows it is connected to a mysterious older woman (mid-thirties) who she and a number of other kids in his age group are spending a strange amount of time around, and they are exhibiting similar behavior. So he decides to confront her alone and demand she leave his friend alone.

Is this...realistic? Or is it stupid to an unbelievable degree? This actually ties into a more generalized question about this same character, but I just wanted to test the waters first, so to speak.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Apr 12th 2021 at 2:30:52 PM

That sounds like a fine avenue if you want to establish your protag as incredibly naive/hotheaded/etc. Realistically I'd expect him to go to a school counselor (if there is one) about his friend's behavior/association with these presumably unsavoury types, maybe even the police if it's blatantly in public or something (a bunch of teenage kids suddenly flocking to some random adult could be believably construed as a drug ring or some such, with the aggressive behavior related to that).

@ Altris:

This is exactly how I want to portray him, being naive and really not thinking things through (in fact this little escapade isn't even close to the worst/stupidest thing he does. He smartens up—-has to smarten up just to stay alive—-but he's really bad in the beginning.

In this particular situation, Adults Are Useless is in full effect here—-he does go to his parents and the parents of his friend, but it is to no avail. There is actually a reason behind this, but he doesn't know it at the time, so he just let's his temper and his worry carry him into a possibly fatal situation.

Oh one last thing, I almost forgot:

This is completely what he thinks; he believes she's some sort of drug-dealer who has ensnared his friend and the other kids that are now attached to her at the hip. It isn't that, although it is definitely sinister. But at that point he's only just starting to accept vampires are real, so he wouldn't have reason to think it's anything more sinister than drugs.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Apr 12th 2021 at 3:01:51 PM

Neat, looks like you've got it all worked out. Do you want to spring that "more generalized question" you said you had now or no?

@ Altris:

Oh well sure. Now seems as good a time as any! Sorry if this is a little rambly, I can't really do a TLDR for this one.

My generalized question about this character is...how much stupidity is tolerable to a reader/viewer before it saps sympathy for the character?

Now, I'm not talking about intentional slapstick bumbling, but generalized idiocy that puts the character in danger when they should know better. Essentially Too Dumb to Live territory.

As I mentioned above, the character in question is extremely naive in the beginning. Obviously I mentioned confronting a possible drug-dealer on his own (he also didn't tell anyone what he was doing or where he was going) but there are others too. The absolute worst is approaching a vampire in the woods, at night and issuing a friendly greeting when he knows what he's facing and of course what their food source is.

These incidents are myriad within Part 1 when he is still an ordinary teenage boy before he transitions into an Action Survivor. So...yes. Should I curb the stupidity/naive actions or just let them stand as they are. I want to strike a balance between how an ordinary teenage would act and avoiding people being irritated at his lack of common sense in certain situations.

Is there a doctor in the house? Or, at least somebody with a medical background? There's a scene in the story I've written that I don't want to lean too hard into Artistic License – Medicine, but I couldn't really get a good answer on Google.

So, if the medical article(s) I've read are correct, it appears that the pulse goes up when you're losing blood. It's about maintaining blood volume, I believe an article said. And if someone is bleeding heavily, their chances of survival increase by doing things like adding pressure to the bleeding wound, elevating body parts and telling the bleeding person (if they're conscious) to keep calm, since that'll keep the heartrate down. Feel free to correct me on any of these points, as well.

Would it be possible to keep someone's heart-rate down for them if they're unconscious? Like, say, by keeping their heart beating manually? Or is it basically game over by that point? And is there a risk for any other permanent damage if this is done, like brain damage? Does it depend a bit on if they're seriously at risk of bleeding to death in a 5-minute span or so?

So, the person trying to save another person's life in this way is a ghost (It's a Long Story), so there's an element of the fantastical already. But the rest of the story is fairly realistic and grounded, so I don't want the ghost to save someone through a procedure that'd rather kill a person in real life. And I feel like merely acknowledging that the ghost might make things worse, and then it turns out it all went OK when it really shouldn't have, feels a bit too much like a Hand Wave,^note (Like, "Yeah, in real life that would not have worked, but now it did because, lol") and that'd feel really unsatisfying.

With incidents like that you run the risk of making him Too Dumb to Live, as you said. Even if he's established to be hotheaded/naive, eventually he's going to notice that charging into situations like so will get him unpleasant consequences and that he should stop rushing into situations.

I think that with larger-stakes events like the vampire incident it breaks the Willing Suspension of Disbelief because no rational person is going to sympathize with him doing something so unbelievably stupid even when (in this case) he knows what he's going to be up against. Contrary to popular belief, ordinary teenagers do possess things like common sense and the capability of learning from their mistakes, even if they are naive or hotheaded at first they eventually grow out of it. If your character doesn't learn from his mistakes or develop common sense, the audience will probably eventually just be annoyed that this character keeps running into situations and screwing up over and over without learning his lesson.

With smaller things (say, a social faux pas that happens because he made an assumption) it's more believable because the stakes are so low one could reasonably argue that even if he is not the brightest in these scenarios, it doesn't matter because everyone makes mistakes like that all the time and that it shouldn't be a blemish on his character or the audience's perception of him. So I do think that you should dial back the stupidity angle a bit.

@ Altris:

Thank you very much for that long and well-written answer. I see my intuituon was right; this particular character was a bit of a challenge for me to write in the sense that his "hardened" self is far more relatable and I can navigate what I want for him far more than his early-stage naive and "ordinary teenager" aspect...which is weird, since I wrote him like this when I was a teenager lol.

Interestingly the vampire in the woods example is, as I mentioned, the stupidest thing I think any character of mine has ever done, especially since in context it's even worse. Being friendly towards someone he knew was a vampire is what sent his life on a downward spiral in the first place. As you mentioned, mistakes need to be learned from or they just devolve into irritating repetition.

I will continue to attempt to balance naivete and outright stupidity!

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Apr 12th 2021 at 3:56:00 PM

I could understand these levels of stupidity if the thought processes of the character are explained in details to see why he decides to take such actions. For instance, meeting a vampire in the woods alone at night could work if for instance we get a long sequence describing him daydreaming about how the meeting could go, with an emphasis on the "romantic vampire" stories, and interpreting some events in a way that supports his fantasy.
It may be just me, but I can accept better a stupid behaviour from a character when I can see why they reached this conclusion, even if I would reach another one. Wrong Genre Savvy is a good trope to use in these cases too.

Edited by C105 on Apr 12th 2021 at 10:12:34 AM

I'm inclined to agree with C105, I believe: knowing why a character is doing something silly can help to reduce frustration at the fact that they're doing something silly, I do feel.

Further, let me note that sympathy and tolerance for foolishness seem likely to vary considerably from one person to another. I sincerely doubt that there is a single answer for "how much is too much".

Under the right circumstances I could very much see myself still holding sympathy for a character acting as you've described.

(For example, I could see myself sympathising a lot if the character's motivation on the second vampire-visit is feeling that they've been overly distrustful in some recent event, and so essentially forcing themselves to act in a trusting manner despite misgivings.)

@ C105:

Yes, some of his actions do have a "rational" explanation behind them besides "teenage idiot", which I suppose would help. To elaborate on the vampire incident (since it actually ties into the points you're making):

At the time he meets this vampire, the main character has been dating and acting as The Renfield of sorts for his girlfriend. She tells him other vampires will recognize that he is her human servant and thus leave him be. He grows so confident and accepting of this that the first time he ever sees another vampire he greets the man the same way you would anyone else...and nearly pays for it with his life.

It is incredibly stupid at least to me, but the intent really was Wrong Genre Savvy since this story kind of runs on it in the beginning.

Edit:

@ Ars Thaumatuirgis: Sorry I got .

I sort of hope my explanation of the second vampire encounter sort of helps with the way it is perceived.

Edited by Swordofknowledge on Apr 12th 2021 at 4:39:32 AM