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puts a lock on her own mouth and throws away the key to avoid saying something even more pointed

Honestly, really? It's based on a dystopian novel, that's kind of what they're about. Was 1984 "pointlessly grimdark"? No, it had a point to make, and it made it.

I'm just curious because I'm losing count of how many discussions you've tried to start here with "[insert title of modern media, usually sci-fi] sucks because it's not like in the Good Old Days".

Are there any other topics you'd like to bring up sometime?

(Crossposted to Dreamwidth and Livejournal, and based on a post at the Barrow-Downs)

If asked what J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that would be appropriate to retell to children, you would probably immediately think of The Hobbit. Maybe you'd then go to Roverandom, or Farmer Giles of Ham, or - if you're particularly up on your obscure Tolkien books - Mr. Bliss.

You probably wouldn't think of the Silmarillion, Tolkien's posthumously-published pseudo-epic/history/scripture/myth of the Elder Days of Middle-earth. And yet, somehow, that's exactly what I've wound up retelling in the vernacular to my children.

Actually, the 'somehow' is quite simple: I wanted to use a story to demonstrate that doubling down on things that make you feel guilty is dumb, and landed on the tale of Feanor. I cut his story down to the barest bones - the only proper names I used were 'Feanor' and 'Melkor' (and yes, I should have said 'Morgoth', but that realisation came way too late) - but I covered all the high points: his creation of the Silmarils, his pride in them, Melkor's theft, the Kinslaying, his burning of the ships and abandonment of Fingolfin, and his death and cursing of his sons. I drove the point home by saying that six of Feanor's seven sons died because of the promise he made them keep, and that the seventh was basically miserable forever. Job done, end of story.

And then a couple of days later, one of the kids asked who was king of the Elves after Feanor died, and I found myself carrying on...

We're currently between parts five and six of the story. Part two was the coming of Fingolfin (they've got that name down pat), coupled with Maedhros' captivity and the eventual transfer of the crown to Fingolfin. Part three was, rather hilariously, a description of Beleriand, through the medium of the different ways the cities of the elves were protected from Melkor. I asked the kids for how they would do it, and for every suggestion they made, was able to find someone who'd taken the same approach. (They really liked Melian's magic shield, which is good, since we'll be seeing it again.)

Part four was The Coming of Men Humans, which let me lean into Finrod's presence and general awesomeness. We started with Finrod's coming to Beor's campsite, then did a little bit about the time Melkor impersonated a Human dissident, and then capped it off with the Lady Haleth, who went down well due to, again, general awesomeness.

For part five, I did the Bragollach - the Battle of Sudden Flame and the breaking of the peace in Beleriand. My daughter set up a "Fin-rod! Fin-rod!" chant for his minor part, and they managed to listen all the way through Fingolfin's duel. They do rather think the giant eagle who shows up occasionally is 'the god of the Air', but hey, they're kids; I'm not going to quibble. Next, as a special request, we're going to go back and cover the death of the Trees. I actually didn't mention it in the first part, only covering it in passing in part two, so it's kind of overdue. After that, it'll be on to Beren and Luthien, and I've already mentioned that one of the Silmarils gets rescued.

In fact, the whole way through I've foreshadowed what's to come. Sometimes that's been a direct lead-in to the next part - 'so hey, there's all these elves and dwarves around, but what about... us?'. But other times it's just been general ominous murmurings, like saying that Gondolin was the last of all the cities in Beleriand to fall. This is entirely deliberate; Tolkien did the same thing, and even more so in the earliest versions of the story, where the Doom of Mandos includes the words "Great is the fall of Gondolin!". (Come to think of it, the final version starts with 'Tears unnumbered...')

The whole affair has been almost hilariously simplified. I've chopped out almost all the names, and skipped over huge chunks of story when they don't fit the 15 minute block I have available. Character motivations are trimmed back to the absolutely necessary, and occasionally I invent whole sections - like how shocked the Elves were on discovering humans got old - when the kids raise questions that aren't in (my memory of) the book. I'm positive I'm getting things wrong all over the place, given how long it's been since I read the Silm cover to cover. But...

The further I get through the story, the more I feel like this is how Tolkien would want his stories to be experienced. The Legendarium is pseudo-mythic in origin. The very first stories were written as records of oral retellings - the Book of Lost Tales - and The Hobbit is also very much written to be read aloud (as, originally, it was). Tolkien mentioned somewhere that the First Age acted as an unexplored backdrop to Lord of the Rings. Reading the Silmarillion is a fantastic experience, but from an author's perspective it's pretty much like reading the Wikipedia entry for Beleriand. Retellings - whether in simplified form to kids, through fanfic, or, yes, in TV shows and movies to inevitably come - are how myths and legends were originally experienced, and I have a hard time shaking the idea that they still, in a way, are.

hS

...maybe that was a bit dramatic for a title. Let me rephrase that:

Grimdark sci-fi is a overused subgenre within the genre.

Back in 2004, I was a much differentbperson. Well, of couse I was, since I was 14. At the time, I was much more into sci-fi novels than I was TV; and it wasn’t until ‘05 when Doctor Who was revived that I became a avid fan of sci-fi television.

However, I do remember that my Dad bought a family subscription to the Australian branch of the SciFy channel for my birthday that year. I remember watching the first episodes of BSG. I remember loving it.

BSG is in many ways the progenitor of today’s sci-fi “climate”. It was massively successful, and it inspired much of the grimdark era we find ourselves in. When compared to the sci-fi of my early childhood- Star Trek: Voyager, Quantum Leap, basically any 90’s genre television- it was a significantly different show.

Nowdays, with edgier sci-fi shows like STD, Picard, Lost in Space (2018), and more filling our streaming libraries, it can be easy to forget that sci-fi wasn’t so soul-crushingly depressing not so long ago. Firefly, Stargate: SG1, Stargate: Atlantis, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise, Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, Doctor Who...all of these were great shows that either started, ended, or picked themselves back up in the 90’s and 00’s; and (for the most part) they were optimistic about the future.

There are exceptions to the rash of edglordy sci-fi, sure. I absolutely adore Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville, for example. The Expanse is dark, but it also has hopeful airs to it. There’s talk of a Galaxy Quest TV show that’s been going on since 2017. There’s that new show, Avenue 5. But for every one of these gems, we have a needlessly political, edgy, and grimdark wankfest like That Show, That Newer Show, The Handmaid’s Tale (“sci fi is just talking squids and zap guns” my shiny metal ass!), Stargate Universe, or any number of other shows that claim to be “making light of our modern dystopia” or “exposing the treatment of [insert minority here] by [insert descriptor here]

There was a time where if a show wanted to intelligently discuss social or political issues, the writers would enploy thing called “allegory”. The Klingons as the Soviets and the Federation as the US, for example. The Browncoats as the South and the Alliance as the Union. The Dominion War as the Vietnam war.

But, apparently it’s too much work to write intelligent sci-fi. Sometimes it’s just easier to make the Klingons Trump Supporters and call it a day. Sometimes it’s just easier to make everything needlessly dark, and call it a frakking televisual Picasso.

Minh’s fun fact of the day!

Alex Kurtzman one stood in front of a camera, and said (albiet paraphrased here)

“There’s 50 years of Star Trek. It’s too much work to keep to established canon even though the last television show came out twelve years ago, and stuck to canon perfectly fine”

If you don’t believe that, then watch and weep:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BqDkkLF-yxA

But I don't think it's because the book is stealing from Twilight. I'm more inclined to think that it's because a lot of Suethor writing has the same types of mistakes (urple prose, mangled metaphors, lack of editing, characters making dumb decisions because the plot demands it), and a lot of bad romance has the same unhealthy themes (soulmates who have no reason to love each other except that it's Meant To Be, idealization of romantic love above everything, fixing an abusive or just plain terrible man with the power of Twu Wuw). I've seen a lot of these in other terrible romance novels as well.

Narm is something that Cole is showing a lot of Meyeresque talent in, though. : D

Except no one's immortal.

Just their 'perfect souls'.

Sounds like a Mary Sue to me. It looks like it conforms pretty well to the definition of one, although it is a little funny to me that she finds Ned Flanders extremely attractive but Homer takes her home to dinner.

Thanks for clearing that up. :)

hS

Here is the story so far, for anyone who wants to join in without trying to untangle this thread.

You remember safety is important, so you search the Internet to see if the app is malware. You find several sites that warn against downloading such an application. However, you decide to try it anyway because you're curious what would happen.

((The AI is in full 'yes, and' mode, so we're lucky it gave us an excuse to use the app anyway.))

> Wait for Agent Apple to return with the Mary Sue

You wait for Agent Apple to return with the Mary Sue. When she arrives, you hand over the phone and she tells you to hold on while she downloads the program.

A few minutes later, Agent Apple returns with a woman wearing a purple dress and long hair.

((This is presumably the Mary Sue in our body. Agent Apple has the app, so I guess we're ready to swap back?))

hS & GPT-2

I mean, yay, Picard's back?

But nay, not another frakking Mary Sue (what is it with Kurtzman-era Star Trek and Mary Sue characters? I mean, first we have Mikey Burnham, now we have Dahj or whatever she's called). Then there's the fact that this show feels more like a soap opera than a science-fiction show. But, so did STD for that matter.

Oh, and a bunch of minor things. I'm pretty sure the Daystrom Institute is in San Francisco, not Okinawa. I'm also pretty sure that all the scenes in the 25th century from previous works in the franchise didn't have so many goddamm holograms. But hey, they're OK with getting rid of the best sci-fi OS in all sci-fi history (i.e. LCARS), so I guess that all balances out. Not.

Also, the pacing is gorram terrible. Like, who the heck wrote this? The editing is especially bad in one particular scene at the start, with a cut that is blatantly bad.

Then there's the awful music. I mean, I know Jerry Goldsmith is dead and all (having been deceased since 2004), but Jeff Russo's music is just awful. Couldn't they get someone who can actually compose something that isn't a piece of HoH? The STD theme was an abomination of a hybrid between the 2009 reboot theme and the TOS theme, and the Picard theme is just bizarrely mismatched to the sort of franchise Star Trek is. His theme for For All Mankind on Apple TV+ wasn't much better, and IDK why my boi Ronald D. Moore didn't go with Bear McCready. But I digress.

At least the dog's cute. There's that right there. At least Jon Luc behaves vaguely like Jon Luc, although he seems kinda off to me...maybe it's the Kurtzman influence...

I mean, it wasn't as shockingly bad as STD was, but it's not brilliant either. It's...meh...that's all I can really say about it. There's glaring flaws with the show, but they're not as bad as That Show was upon release. I mean, we'll see how this goes really.

And holy moly, is it bad. On the flipside, it has much less abuse and much more stupidity than the first chapter, so it gets pretty hilaribad sometimes. Content warnings: domestic abuse mention, skin-crawling creepiness, phrasing-induced body horror (you'll see) and so much swearing.

https://rc746.dreamwidth.org/2997.html

What I’m trying to say is that you forgot to check the body swap app for malware, so you are trying to find out whether it is malware or not.

Thanks Huinesoron for the 8th time!

~SomeRandomPersonAccount

Could you point out where the trouble spots with the dialogue are? I took another look and couldn't tell for sure where I went too long without a dialogue tag.

... I don't tend to read many fics that abuse punctuation that badly. My eyes just glaze over.

I know about a hundred other people have said this already, but good work on characters T-posing to assert dominance over the canon. I also appreciated the use of a Reality Room to finish the mission; "then Liz stabbed them some more" is a really funny line, considering how short the mission (and the fic) were.

One thing I would nitpick about is the dialogue; a few times, I had trouble keeping track of who was speaking. A lot of that is probably just because it's a new spinoff with new characters,so I'm not used to how they talk yet. However, I would have liked to see Avery and Liz physically doing a little more while they're commenting on the fic.

I assume Agent Apple has been compiling one, since we certainly haven't.

> Read the Sue's charge list

You read the Sue's charge list. It includes all sorts of things such as: 1) A person who can only do simple tasks. 2) Someone who cannot think for themselves. 3) Someone who will not listen to reason or any other authority figure.

((hS comment: Good work, Agent Apple. With the bodysnatching, I think we've got enough to do the Duty. Let's read this out:))

> Say "Mary Sue, you are charged with stealing my body, ignoring canonical authority figures, and being unable to think for yourself."

You say "Mary Sue, you are charged with stealing my body, ignoring canonical authority figures, and being unable to think for yourself." The girl gasps and starts crying. She runs off screaming while you stand there looking shocked.

After this incident, you never speak to anyone ever again.

((hS comment: I'm not sure letting a Suvian get away was serious enough to justify a vow of silence, but sure, why not?))

> Gesture to Agent Apple to hunt the Mary Sue down

You gesture to Agent Apple to hunt the Mary Sue down. She nods her head and leaves immediately after saying "Yes Sir!"

Agent Apple is a little disappointed that you didn't go along with her plan, but she understands. You don't want to be associated with someone like that anyway.

((hS: Her plan was for the DIA to take us away! Danged right we don't want to associate with them.))

> Pull out phone and research how to reverse a body-swap

You pull out your phone and start researching how to reverse a body swap. After some searching, you come across a website that shows pictures of people who have had their bodies swapped with others. It also has a link to the page where you can download the program that does it.

((hS: Great, there's an app for that! We just need our partner to bring our body back and we can swap into it and kill the Suvian at last.))

Thanks Huinesoron, for the seventh time?

It really is a fun toy, isn't it? ^_^

Soooo... do you think you could take over the thread for me? I was able to make (well, steal) time from work to run a 'AI PPC mission' story, but it seems people are having more fun exploring what AI Dungeon can do, and that's a much bigger time investment that I can't really make. If you (or someone else?) could start up a new scenario so folks could throw random prompts at it and see how it copes - either in a broadly PPC scenario or not, up to you - I think it would be a lot of fun.

(Come to think of it, that sounds like something the Discord would enjoy, too, and real-time chat would make it go a lot quicker.)

hS

In my experience with AI Dungeon, that never fails to liven things up.

Hah, no worries- I thought it might just be a coincidence. Great to have you!

The usual way is to read a charge list and then kill the Sue/Stu, but I was just wondering whether the Sue can get a “trial”, before being executed.

~SomeRandomPersonAccount

Thanks Huinesoron, for, 1,2,3,4,5,6th! Time!