Subject: Okay.
Author:
Posted on: 2013-01-02 18:47:00 UTC
So... would the paragraph below count as a good description of a character?
"Jayden's black T-shirt and jeans were soaked. His normally-poofy black hair was equally drenched, now limp from the muddy water he'd been thrown into by the school bully. The boy's teeth were clenched in a scowl, and looking into Jayden's grass-green eyes revealed the true extent of his rancor."
Like that, kinda?
I'm sorry if I'm being annoying or bothering anyone, but...
What exactly should constitute the creation of an Agent? Is it permissible to use previously-created characters as Agents? (Because I have at least seventeen OCs.)
You remind me of me a month or two ago. Questions are loverly things, don't worry; I think the others like the chance to refresh their knowledge.
I would say run any potential agent by a beta reader/character tweaker or two - just to be safe. Sometimes it can be difficult to know how a character will be received when you're the only one guessing. I know when I created Gilbert and Fiona, it was in an IRC conversation with Riese, LilacLielac, and a few others all offering tips and pointers on everything from their names to their personality quirks! I image the same would work with any preexisting character; heck, it might even make a preexisting character stronger, in the sense that his or her personality and overall characterization are more believable to the typical reader.
Also, 'agent' doesn't always have to be capitalized; when it's a title (such as in Agent Bobby Flay or Agent Nina Tambourine, neither of which exist to my knowledge), then it should be capitalized because a title is a proper noun (it's the same reason you write 'Officer Hicks' rather than 'officer Hicks'; in this case, 'Officer' is the person's title, which is sort of like part of their name - at least, that's how I always remember it).
But when you're just referring to the job, or discussing creating a character with that job, then you just type 'agent' (sort of like how you write 'Ten officers arrived on scene' instead of 'Ten Officers arrived on scene'; in this case 'officers' is a regular noun, so it doesn't get capitalized.)
Hope this was helpful! :D
Thanks so kindly, KittyNoodles. You and the others are super helpful!
Oh, we all have probably like several hundreds of OCs between ourselves. It's perfectly fine if you want to go that route.
And to help allay your fears about being annoying? You're not - it's perfectly fine to have questions that need answering, or even just to be overly chatty like me.
But, one thing you need to know now: You should keep your topic count to two at max. I got a warning once for having four running threads. It's out of courtesy to other boarders with pressing issues of their own, and it keeps things tidy and manageable on the board.
If you REALLY need to post another question, don't feel too bad about hijacking a thread that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, or has already had its problems resolved. We do it all the time, and it's a lot easier than constantly making threads.
Hijacking a thread, hm? I see.
Is there any way, by chance, to "lock" a thread so that nobody else can post on it?
This isn't like most forums; I don't know of any way to lock a thread here.
But, in truth, why bother? We're a pretty self-moderating group that reads before posting most of the time. We'll usually avoid shooting a dead horse when we see the problem resolved, and then the thread can be hijacked, like I said, or reconfigured into a different topic.
Like, if I call this post "Hijacked!" and put up a general discussion-type question like, "Who here likes swords?", that, in itself, serves to lock the previous discussion and keep things flowing smoothly.
So THAT's how you hijack a thread! Thanks!
Off-topic on that matter... do YOU like swords? I prefer tomahawks, myself.
Are you SURE that's the question you want to throw at me? Because I can go on about swords for days, or at least until the text editor flips me the bird.
And if you look two topics below, you'll note that I said that everybody here is an expert and loves to nerd out about something.
I'm not a big expert on weapons- I favor poetry and random trivia, myself.
Your favorite poem? (And don't say the Odyssey or the Iliad.)
BOOM, I went there.
Actually, I'm not much of a poetry guy, truth told. I mean, I had to do Shakespeare in school, and I read a bit of Beowulf early on last semester, but I'm more of a full novel, fantasy/sci-fi guy.
But, if you happen to track down some other boaarders, I'm sure they could tell you a million different things about their favorite poetry.
I was doing the Odyssey in school before winter break. 'Twas a fun poem to read. That was clever of you, mister Specs.
Can I see a sample of your writing, incidentally? And perhaps I could share one of my less horrible works?
I started reading it on my own time back in middle school, but didn't finish reading it until freshman year in high school when it became required. But it was still fun to read - and not just because I am a fan of long descriptive bits, no sirree. I absolutely didn't put little bookmarks into the descriptions of Calypso's pretty island or the shiny sword or anything...
Conversely, though, long badly-written descriptive bits become so much worse and yet so much more fun to make fun of. See all clothing bits from the Unpleasant Memories mission.
Readin' that one right now. Hehehe.
Unfortunately, my prose tends to be rather beige, so is a little lavender encouraged in that case?
Of course lavender is encouraged (I think.) The PPC approves of everything from lavender to violet! As long as it's, you know, readable and not over-the-top, and the thing being described is worthy of description. Describing an amazing sunset over a huge waterfall in flowery language is absolutely fine, as long as it fits with the piece's style and that point in time. Describing in great detail the thread count of your character's jeans is not. And be sure that the description fits with where you are in the plot, too - don't go describing the sparkly water if you're in the middle of a pitched battle... Unless you're juxtaposing the two, I guess? The point is use your best judgement.
A clothing description can work in certain cases, like for very special clothing - maybe if a character is about to be sacrificed, then the ceremonial clothing would work - or for if the character is unused to that kind of clothing, like a Fae appearing in elaborate, battle-scarred, rune-engraved war armor in front of a high-school student from a Small Town Where Nothing Ever Happens.
Alyxx's clothing descriptions were bad because they were boringly-written, completely unnecessary for the story, broke the flow, and made no logical sense as actual clothes. Also, at least one was just a palette-swap of a canon costume with glittery bits added - and it's clothing completely normal to Alyxx. So there's no purpose to it.
So... would the paragraph below count as a good description of a character?
"Jayden's black T-shirt and jeans were soaked. His normally-poofy black hair was equally drenched, now limp from the muddy water he'd been thrown into by the school bully. The boy's teeth were clenched in a scowl, and looking into Jayden's grass-green eyes revealed the true extent of his rancor."
Like that, kinda?
The description doesn't break the flow, and the bits about him being soaked take precedence over the details about his clothes. Plus, they advance the plot and inform the character. So it works. Something like this, though:
'Jayden wore a black T-shirt with a grey skull picture and his favorite band's logo on it, paired with dark jeans and sneakers. He had poofy black hair and bright green eyes that were annoyed.
His clothes were soaked because he'd been thrown into a puddle by the school bully.'
...it's kinda obvious what's wrong with that, since the description breaks the flow and don't add anything.
Thank you for the advice.
After all, this community is about writing.
Though now I kinda want to write something involving the pretty sparkly waterfall juxtaposed to something bad, the detailed ceremonial outfit of a sacrifice, and a battle-scarred Fae appearing before a teenager. Hm.
I just need to think of a way to make them all fit together. Hm. Maybe the sparkly waterfall is where she's being sacrificed... Perhaps she's got some special quality that makes her the necessary sacrifice to do X Magical Thing, and the Fae warrior wants to get to her first because she's on the opposite side of the sacrificers. Though the Fae can't be the always-good-and-pure, either, though I don't want both sides to require a sacrfice. Let's see, something that is not more 'moral' or obviously good-er than being sacrificed...
Oh, idea for a game on the Board: People toss up little snippets (like those three there) and other Boarders have to work them into short passages! Any takers?
Don't click that reply! my html screwed up!
I'm sorry, Mr. Specs!
Cool! I just posted a comment on your profile, hehe.
I'm a blogger, a DeviantARTist, a livejournaler...
You might be waiting on that reply, though, because my DS does NOT support DeviantART.
Nope, not at all. If it supports FurAffinity, I could give you mine. (I have posted a few stories of reasonable renown to that site.)
It seems like any site with a multitude of image data is super difficult for this thing to load.
That's not very pleasant at all. Uh... Hm. Well... I hate to say it, but I am Stuck. And being Stuck is Not Good.
And something Not Good tends to leave people Not Amused.
Not in the slightest >:(
It's me, World-Jumper, don't freak out!
Right back atcha. -Teh Specs
Just find a way to incorperate them into the ppc, and you're good.
Also, 17 OCs? Impressive. Made any villans?Those are my favorates to make. Afterall, a hero is only as good as his foil.
(...tin foil more like)
You wish they were tin foil!
(Would be a lot easyer on my part, yes.)
Yup. Some of 'em are:
-Nikolai Dimitrov: A perverted, capricious demon boy. Enjoys licking people to creep them out.
-Levia: A cruel, self-important dragon god. Has a caring side for a boy named Nicky Anderson (my main OC).
-Damien: A sadistic jerk of a music teacher. He likes to cane people who disagree with him.
Any of those guys interesting?
But here are some of mine:
Tree Man (ment to change the name, but it stuck): A former woodsman, now the cheif lutenant of Oakindna (an evil tree who corrupts ents). He is completely covered in iron wood, can magicaly enhnce growth of plants, comunicate with trees and cause limbs to work as arms to snare his enemies. He is on a mission to eradicate all sentiant beings, expeshaly those who use technology. Weilds an ax crafted from wood, and a thorned vine whip that grows on his arm, so he can ensnare and strike at enemies far away from him.
Icy Hot (yes, based off the heat pack): A spirit born of Summer and Winter, and can manipulate temperature. Wants to become the god of Heat and Cold, but was denied this by the devine council, because they knew he would become God of All if they did so. Now will do anything to become a god, incliding killing one.
Basher: Strongest being in existance. Just want to destroy. He bash things. Countered by a week yet brilliant hero.
I like high fantasy. Alot.
...but Firefox has a built-in spell check function for text areas. I suggest that you use that one.
And even if not, please reread your posts. Things like "cheif lutenant" or "expeshaly" really shouldn't happen.
We're a community who, among other things, makes fun of grave misspellings. Doing them ourselves makes us hypocrites.
Cool characters. I like high fantasy too, but I'm more inclined towards a sort of "middle" fantasy.
I bet Nikolai would have a lot of fun toying with them. I forgot to add that he sees literally everything and everyone as his toys, and has a very child-like mentality. What sort of powers or abilities would befit a character like that?
That way they are literaly his toys, under his complete control. Cliche? Just a little, but it is effective. Since he is child like, perhaps he can even animate corpses/bring back the dead. Afterall, if they are his toys, surely he can fix them, right? Just some thoughts.
Perfect abilities for Nikolai. You, World-Jumper, are Smart.
(But wouldn't he need Conchita's Glass to create zombies?)
You shuddup, Basil.
Also, what do you think of Levia? Particularly his soft side for a weak human boy?
Well, I guess I would need to know more about the type of dragon you are working with. Jumper, you are the dimension hopper, care to do the honors?
(Absolutely. There are several dragons throughout the multiverse. In classic legends and fantasy tales, they were the ultimate villain for any hero to vanquish. In fact, they were so powerful, it was considered legendary to put up a good fight against a dragon and LOSE. As with most fantasy, guess who changed that? The Hobbit, with Smaug, being defeated by a regular human from some small village, only becoming a hero after he killed it. But that is beside the point. As for your villain, I need to know: how vain is he? He is a dragon god, but what kinds of dragons are there? Now, one idea is to make him have ALL the abilities of the dragon species, usually shown through their "dragon breath." These are usually fire, ice, poison, or electricity, though water has shown up occasionally too. Also, is he closer to a european or Chinese dragon? Actually, most important of all, what continua is he from? Know this, and I can craft a baddie for ya.)
Also, yay, I got you chatting with your OC too! Use him to add flair to your post, as well as lampshade some ignorant statements of yours.
(So what, I'm some pet now? A stupid pet from a video game that gives you bonus stats?)
No, of corse not, I was just saying that as a tool-
(So what, I'm a tool now? Is that it?)
Jumper, you're not usually this aggressive. Sarcastic, yes, but not aggressive.
(So now you calling me out of character! HERE'S OUT OF CHARACTER!)
AAAH!!! *fight breaks out, goodfeathers style*
Well... uh...
(allow me to answer: Levia ain't from any of the usual continuities: he's part of an original story called "Nornir- Fate Unwound". He's a European dragon. In that story, there are only three dragons: himself, his European brother Behemo, and his other brother, Seiz, who looks kinda like Quetzalcoatl from Aztec myth.)
Y-yeah. He's got pale blue scales, where Seiz has dark green feathers and Behemo has golden-brown fur. (Behemo is nice, and Seiz is a mystery, BTW.)
(He's pretty vain- he likes to turn humans into animals to be his slaves. But he sometimes feels guilty and fixes them back up, especially after he's gotten drunk. He says "NEVER listen to me when I'm drunk" in his story.)
He has a LOT of abilities, though he's given Nicky Anderson, his Chosen One (also known as a Nornir), the ability to use ice and earth magic.
(Pleasure to meet you, Jumper. I'm Basil!)
In my NaNovel, the main villain is a megacorp called Prometheus, and they exist partially so I can write out really genre-savvy Evil Science people, of sorts. They have underground bunkers equipped underneath their legit facilities, have ridiculous safety measures that only get escaped in the first place by two magical girls who have never worked before (and who in Prometheus' eyes shouldn't even be aware of each others' existance) working together to make a semi-SEP field, and escaping by being absolutely unsubtle and ripping a chunk of lead wall out of the wall. They also will have very good employee treatment (if I ever write that Christmas-parody-Sue piece...) with excellent benefits, overall being a nice place to work. If, of course, you ignore that they kidnap teenage magical girls and perform experiments on them.
(Yeah, if you ignore that one thing that ended up traumatizing me, Sylvia, Claudia, Suleika...)
Rezia? How are you even here? Iliya is the one I wrote to be the author-talking-to-one!
(And that should stop me? And did you really need to have original helicopter designs that can rip magical girls like us to shreds? Even if they do fall apart when you twist the metal into them into a knot.)
Well, I asked for help from Sergio Turbo, and he is studying that sort of thing, and they are very useful. Besides, if I didn't have a serious villain, how could anyone take the story seriously? Your metal-powers would be kinda story-breaking otherwise.
(Really. So, who are these guys anyways?)
Sounds like you've got a magical girl Bond villain going, there. "GRR! Why do my extensively complicated and pointless traps and countermeasures fail me?!"
My villains... tend to be horrible bastards.
Case in point: Chronicles of Zeyr's main antagonist, Councilman Gangaiza.
You know the trope "Kick the Dog?" Well, Gangaiza hasn't stopped kicking the dog since I first designed his character.
To start, he ascended to the King's Council by kidnapping the Chairman and murdering him. After that, he corrupted the council and ran the incumbent Prince off the throne and took it for the council's self, effectively turning a strong kingdom into a tyrannical republic.
Next, he outlawed all mages not appointed by the council, and disavowed recognition of the established government of Sanctuary, the chief mage stronghold. Then, he kidnapped Sanctuary's revered Prelate, the strongest mortal outlet of magic in existence, and tortured her relentlessly until her magic revealed his future to him, where a group of ex-cons hunted him down and killed him, thus leading to mass racism, arrests for nonexistent crimes, and executions, the most notable being nine criminals who had done nothing wrong whatsoever, but managed to escape.
After that, he went to the leader of the military elite, Adecor Demara, who had been standing in for the arrested General Kraig Lescarr, and brainwashed him into killing his own wife after his son Denestra - one of the nine criminals - had been arrested, so that she wouldn't be able to fight back by declaring her husband unfit for duty and leading the Vanguardians to Gangaiza's door, and so that her son would hopefully lose the will to fight.
Next, he began construction of the Omega Rod, which was the ultimate mechanical conductor of magic, and claimed it to be a defensive weapon, right before using it in a test run to call down a lightning storm on the Isle of Kai'Ni, effectively destroying the First Kingdom of Elvenkind.
The list goes on and gets more and more horrible, such as mass-killing the Eldraec - immortal protectors of the world - leaving all but three of them remaining, torturing the strongest allies of the Champions - now reduced to five, from twelve - until they fell into a protective amnesia to block out the pain, thereby rendering them useless to the cause, and mass-killing pretty much the whole main cast at some point, from death only a few manage to return.
All this eventually culminates in the end of the world, forcing the mass majority of humans and elves to relocate to friendly alien worlds by the strength of their primative space programs.
So, yeah. My villains tend to leave people Not Amused.
The 'traps' usually work quite well, actually. When they captured a group of MGs, they did it by shooting them with snipers, taking advantage of the fact that the MGs have a pain-sharing thing -
(Yeah, thanks for that. It really helps my psyche to know exactly how badly my friends are being tortured.)
Shut up. And they used grenades and the like, and used metal-less weaponry since Zia can sense it and manipulate it. And really, in pretty much every other situation their measures would work very, very well. And, after the last battle with them in the NaNovel, they do know that at least three groups of magical girls are now working together, so they'll be preparing for a bunch of teams coming at once.
(Oh, that's comforting. Pretty much our only advantage was surprise. Couldn't you give us a name of someone to assassinate?)
Um, no. Anyways, the individual people of Prometheus are probably quite nice - they're friendly with each other, they tease each other. And the heads of Prometheus have probably spread some propaganda of some sort through the ranks, either dehumanizing the magical girls that are experimented on, saying that it's for the best in the end [ie, wouldn't it be great if we could figure out the healing factor that they have? What about the apparent ability to create energy from thin air or 'the power of friendship?'] or similar.
So, Prometheus is the main villain. They're supposed to be competent, but not uber-evil, because that's rather counterproductive. They see the magical girls as very, very unique lab mice, I think.
(And there's also the assorted monsters you toss in. Though at least we haven't had to deal with any overarching villain organizations sending them yet.)
For now. Suleika's magical symbols had to have been stolen and corrupted into monsters by someone right?
(Screw you.)
Ah. So, it's kind of more of a villain with a sympathetic goal, rather than Bond Villain. Okay, I see where this is going now, I think.
Still though, your villain is a heck of a lot more reasonable than Gangaiza. I swear, when I let go, I can make some horrific things. (I scared myself when I was coming up with my retro-horror story Faust. And now I don't write horror stories anymore! :D)
(Oh please, the day those guys qualify as 'good' will be when our system of magic stops having creepy side effects.)
It's not really that bad. For the magic system's backstory it makes perfect sense...
(You still make us feel each other's pain, made it nigh-impossible for me to get ANY sleep, give us what is basically schizophrenia, and rewrite parts of our brains.)
All of which had a point back in Amneris' day. Anyways, Prometheus as a whole is about as sympathetic as, well, most other megacorps that have less-than-moral ways of running things. They are probably a mixture of those above megacorps and CADMUS from the JLU cartoon (note that I have not seen all of JLU, so this is a generalization.) They still have human experimentation as one of their major things.
On the other hand, they are supposed to be fairly genre savvy and pragmatic. They're the kind of people to make the Evil Overlord List and its various spinoffs required reading (well, not officially, but someone probably posts copies in the cubicles). The puppy-kicking one who beats up test subjects and tortures them pointlessly would get fired immediately (possibly literally depending on how much he knows and how badly he screwed up.) Illusions that don't cause lasting harm over giant Aperture death-traps, keeping the subjects healthy through IVs and SCIENCE over than locking them in cells. There are probably a few scientists with screws loose (there's a GLaDOS expy somewhere, I just know it) but they are being watched to make sure nothing goes into the Complete Monster territory.
(Except for that those illusions still cause psychological damage and the girls are being held against their will and treated like test rats.)
The individual workers are more 'misguided good/normal people.' They are friendly to each other, they have families, they chat and poke fun at each other, they complain about their bosses. To them, it's a job, and actually I'd bet that a large portion of the employees don't even deal with magical girls on a daily basis, or do so only with them as cargo or something. And the ones who get bothered by it will be-
(Shot?)
No, because that would make everyone else suspicious and would waste good talent. They'd get sent to psychs who would listen to them and reassure them. Heck, if it's a problem that is one to Prometheus, it might actually be fixed if it'll in the end add to their goal.
(Comforting.)
Like, say, Niko Hal (character of mine; he's an assassin who operates by money and nothing else.)? Those characters can be pretty fun to write - how does moral-driven character A respond to monotone, disinterested character B?
Save for the part where they have a reason to care about the job and its consequences, at which point they start looking for some help in the matter, that is. Then it gets tricky, because now they need to have believable emotional output.
(Are the stones I'm throwing getting CLOSE to right, at least?)