Solid concept - competence = trash.

Questions, questions... by Sylibane on 2010-12-05 21:52:00 UTC Reply

1) If a character is the way they are because of their actor's/actress's influence, can you exorcize them with that actor’s name?

2) How would a person’s daemon work with the Disguise Generator? Would the daemon go invisible/temporarily vanish? Or would they have to hide the daemon in their clothes or disguise them as a form of local wildlife?

3) While I’m on the subject of daemons, how would someone without a visible daemon go about disguising themselves in an HDM fic set in Lyra’s world? Would the Disguise Generator create a fake daemon?

Thanks. by Sylibane on 2010-12-08 03:14:00 UTC Reply

Thanks for answering my questions, everyone.

And, while I'm posting...

*takes deep breath*
WORLD OF WARCRAFT: CATACLYSM IS LIVE! RUN FROM THE ANGSTY WORGEN SUES!

Oh man. Not the Worgen. by Aster Corbett on 2010-12-08 13:44:00 UTC Reply

Let us all pass by this opportunity to write about the horror of seeing a monster in the mirror, or to write hijinks about adapting to a new body, or to write about how others might be afraid and about making friends outside the Gilneas wall again.

NO. LET US WRITE ABOUT SNOGGING. THIS WILL FURTHER THE ALREADY-TORTURED CANON. :|

Oh well. If the creators can ship the most influential person in the world with a Canon Sue to get him out of the way of the (somewhat forced in my eyes) war plot, I guess there's no point caring about the damage fans do...

...Not to mention the angst... by Sylibane on 2010-12-08 15:01:00 UTC Reply

The worgen plot seems like a real good spot to get wangsty.
OH I'M A HORRIBLE MONSTER. I'M NOT HUMAN ANYMORE, AND THAT'S TERRIBLE. EVERYONE MUST HATE ME! Nevermnind the fact that being an awesome-looking killer wolf-person is cool, not to mention more powerful than being human. And I can switch between the two forms. SOMEONE LOVE ME!

Solid concept - competence = trash. by Aster Corbett on 2010-12-08 16:25:00 UTC Reply

What's really sad is that there are so many ways to work that kind of theme into a work that actually don't suck. Like, a story about somebody coming to grips with it, and managing to make new friends anyway. Or a story about a person so caught up with it that when they exit out from inside the wall and people don't care because so many other problems are going on, that they learn to deal with it.

But of course that's not going to be the case. Competent writing can make anything kind of interesting. But young writing will usually throw the possibility of quality in the crapper.

Kids don't even realize their own ulterior motives for this stuff, unfortunately... It's only after the fact that I realize the dumb things I wrote as a kid were me trying to express what people kept telling me to shut up about.

And they told me rightly. Nobody wants to hear about Mary Sue concepts in real life. So like a fart held in for too long, it escapes silently into fandom where nobody knows who let it out... but BOY are Worgen going to make a big stink...

Concerning #1... by Sedri on 2010-12-06 02:56:00 UTC Reply

I'm not sure. I don't see why not - I know that Captain Jack Sparrow is largely the way he is because of how Depp chose to play him, rather than how he was written or directed, so in that case, certainly. In more general situations... maybe. There's certainly no reason you couldn't add the actor's name into the exorcism, but to the exclusion of the writers? I wouldn't. The more names the better.
while we are on the topic of questions... by jimmy 389 on 2010-12-06 02:03:00 UTC Reply

If somthing happens on the board, how would you reference it in a fic?

It's tricky. by Sedri on 2010-12-06 02:52:00 UTC Reply

The two worlds don't always interact - in fact, it's more common for them not to than to do so. You'd have to give a specific example, I'm afraid.

oh, ok. (nm) by jimmy 389 on 2010-12-07 12:34:00 UTC Reply

Well... by Cassie Cameron-Young on 2010-12-06 01:08:00 UTC Reply

I don't quite understand what you mean by that first question. Maybe you could make it a bit clearer? A character acts the way they do because of the author, generally.

Questions 2 and 3, though... the links from Pretzel's replay do cover it well in one sense; Lycaenion did cover it well in those missions. However, Rule of Funny/Cool can always intervene, not to mention the potential for Disguise Generator malfunction.

Re: 2 - in my view, it is possible for the daemon to stop being a separate entity whilst the disguise is on, but it's also possible for them to remain separate. It shouldn't matter too much; they'd still be covered by the SEP-field. If it's funnier one way than the other, do it the funny way unless you have a good reason not to.

Re: 3 - I don't think the Disguise Generator can create a daemon. However, there's always potential for substitutes; a particularly intelligent pet, or other small but smart creature, can have the Disguise Generator used on them to create the desired effect.

There's also a possibility I considered introducing for one of my Agents, but later dropped due to the new limits he'd have placed on him, though it would be a canonical thing to have happen. Namely, entering Lyra's world in HDM was shown to be able to cause one's daemon to appear as a separate entity. I cite John Parry, who met his osprey daemon Sayan Kotor after stepping from his world into Lyra's. It's not a guarantee, though - when Will goes into that world, he doesn't find his daemon, after all.

Just thought I'd throw that possibility out there in case you liked the idea.

Re:3 by Khroma on 2010-12-06 07:30:00 UTC Reply

"Re: 3 - I don't think the Disguise Generator can create a daemon. However, there's always potential for substitutes; a particularly intelligent pet, or other small but smart creature, can have the Disguise Generator used on them to create the desired effect."
A particularly intelligent pet... or possibly, the agent's partner. :P

*raises hand* Ooo, ooo! by Pretzel on 2010-12-06 00:13:00 UTC Reply

I can't answer Your first question, but I can handily answer the others:

For Number two, read: this

and for Number Three, read:

th/ is