I kiiiinda ranted about something similar/related to this earlier (pre-Kinokawa’s birth, but the concept could still hold easily I think). It’s pretty short but it was fun to reread nonetheless, so hopefully you also enjoy it, anon 🙂
Tag: links
21 Days
A tiny little ditty because work ran a little late. I’m not sure if it’s too reminiscent of something in particular, but I might get back to this in the future?
Also, I couldn’t export the mp3 file for some reason, hence link instead.
NOISY – QAF Concrit
QAF Script (2018-03-09)
What I’ve been working on for the last couple of days! I’d appreciate it if y’all took a look at it–concrit is appreciated!
Would you ever write a story where the conflict is a bureaucratic fuck-up?
Hm… this one is also a little vague, but not as complex as the last one.
But I think it does also depend on what you mean by the conflict being a bureaucratic fuck-up?
Like… hm… for example: I recently read a fic in which a lower ranked SHIELD agent was in charge of trying to “officially” bring Agent Coulson “back to life.” In the sense that, like most large scale government entities, the amount of paperwork and hoop jumping in order to do something is just ludicrous, and so this character had to go to different departments, deal with typos that threw everything off, file things in triplicate, etc. etc. it was a very entertaining read… it was… ah, there it is: Permit A38 by old_chatterhand
In a somewhat similar vein, I also greatly enjoy Restoration by thehoyden which is a xxHoLic fic about Watanuki having to re-enter society after several years of being the Shop Keeper. And I’ve been rereading a lot of Dark is Rising (by Susan Cooper) fic about Will being immortal and all of his friends aging and dying and leaving him alone its all very sad and lovely.
So I guess what I’m saying is, I would maybe do something that’s less a meltdown/crisis of a bureaucratic fuck-up and more of a sleuthing/journey of discovery in which someone finds some oddities in a file and tries to track it down only to discover that the truth is far more bizarre than even that mistaken form could have expressed.
Kind of like this ficlet
Off the top of my head I have two original fiction series that I think this would work for pretty easily:
1) Counterclockwise. Leanne gets arrested by future police for crimes that she hasn’t yet committed–or, possibly, isn’t intending to commit because unsanctioned time travel might in fact be illegal in the future but since she’s the first time traveller and it’s largely against her will does that count as her committing a crime?
Anyways, there’s one officer in particular that is assigned to her case and in trying to apprehend her, he discovers the secret behind her time traveling (that is, the fact that she can’t even control it yet, but also that she’s far more powerful than any time traveller should be) and maybe the secret behind the time traveler police force. Which is–I mean, spoilers?–that Bastian created the entire force specifically to catch Leanne.
AND
2) Kira Val the Psychopomp series. (I might change the character’s name, but that’s just what everything is tagged as for ease of searching). It would be much shorter and thus more doable than the first one. Basically a school administrator or the counselor or someone tries to track down Kira’s records–since she’s new to the Bellview school district, they don’t have it on file like the rest of their students–and at first it’s difficult just because Kira came from a school within Cadmium City but then when the administrator actually gets her original file it says that Kira is dead. Which. She is kind of…
And it would end with she is called in to discuss this–maybe her aunt Nyx comes along as her guardian–and basically this poor administrator realizes that there’s more to the world than what they originally thought. And I just want it to end like this:
“Forget about this and just go home,” you say, a firm but gentle suggestion, “Spend time with your husband.” He won’t have much time left, you don’t add.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” you conclude, getting to your feet, “But… thank you.”
~
Hello there! I stumbled upon one of your shikako nara stories(which was pretty compelling. And dark. And tasty.) Would you terribly mind shedding some light on this character for a complete novice?
Oh! Hello! Wow, usually it’s the other way around–people know Shikako Nara and then find me and my recursive fic–so this is cool! I’m pretty pleased that those recursive ficlets are compelling enough to read through even without knowing who Shikako is, so thank you!
Shikako Nara is the main character of Silver Queen’s “Dreaming of Sunshine,” an SI!OC Naruto fic in which the author is Shikamaru Nara’s twin sister. You can read it on FF.net here–or if you’re more the podfic type, you can listen to it here on MixCloud. I also help run the tumblr page for it, @dosbysilverqueen, which includes a multitude of resources for fans.
Hope that helped and welcome to the fandom! 🙂
Hola! Me again. :) Would you ever write a story in which you follow a characters development through the storyline only to find out they were the villain of the story the entire time?
Ooh… probably? It really does depend on the character doesn’t it? Well…
I mean, no one thinks of themselves as the villains even though–depending on what they’re doing–the reader will immediately understand that the character is in fact an unreliable narrator and that their actions cannot be in anyway misconstrued as good. So for this concept to work, for the twist to actually be a twist, the readers would have to honestly think that the character is the hero for the majority of the story.
I actually have a reblog post saved in my drafts (only a one line concept written)–this post–for an idea kind of like this. The OP concept is that kids take from “our world” and summoned/pulled into another one full of magic and adventure are then sent back against their will after their purpose is done. And, like, they are back in their original state physically–no scars no missing limbs, but also no muscles no magic–but mentally they’re still traumatized.
And OP continues how, fed up with pretending in “our world,” the hero tries to find their way back to that world of magic and adventure and finally–after hundreds of worlds later–they make it home.
And the one line concept I have to say to this is: what if this is how villains are created?
Because sure the hero makes it back home, can feel their magic restored, is relieved to be back where they’re meant to be.
But this world has changed while the hero was gone. The adventures they went on were decades, maybe centuries ago–legend but intangible–and so while it might be home it’s not the same.
And I wonder if the hero might take it upon themselves to “fix” that.
But they’re playing with an out of date rulebook, the things that were considered evil back then are now better understood or considered okay now. Or maybe when they were the hero, the evil they fought was a monarch and to see that the same royal family still rules is an injustice that needs to be rectified–not knowing that this current ruler is good and kind, etc, thinking the rumors are just propaganda.
It’s very much in line with the “die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”
Oh no. I just had an idea. I am worried and horrifically pleased by it: Given the premise of The Many Gardens of Shikabane-hime, and my own outside POV series based on it, I might sort of now want to do a “Shikako appears and wrecks Danzo’s shit and is thus the villain”
(Uh… maybe later? I’ll put it on my to do list)
But I digress.
I think the only thing holding me back from a full yes is that, similar to the problem of the For Better For Worse / Desperate Endeavors mash up, there has to be enough of a prologue for the hero’s actions to seem… heroic and not just self-righteousness and habit.
I mean, this is why it would work in fanfiction. Just take a character who is unquestionably on the good side and then throw them into a situation where they might not be. Digressing again–speaking of fanfiction, I did write this Hail To The Queen which isn’t quite “Shikako turns out to be the villain” but could very well be the beginning of such a story.
… Actually probably the main issue is that in order to have this sort of reveal, I’d have to commit to a story long enough to get near enough to the end for that twist to make sense. Curse my attention and commitment issues! 😡
Sorry I couldn’t do more for this ask, eruditeempress.
~
Kuwabara Onsen Brochure
Less than a day’s travel from Takigakure–at civilian speed even!–there is a popular onsen which is recommended to all who journey through the Land of Waterfalls. The recommendations promote various features of the onsen: the excellent service of the inn, the healing properties of the hot springs, the attached spa which works miracles for reducing aches and pains and stress. There’s even an adorable exhibit of capybaras enjoying the hot springs for themselves! Truly a locale that appeals to every type of traveler.
(Please ignore the clan of highly trained shinobi who consider this place both headquarters and home)
~
A/N: Okay so… spite… brochure making? For that Legends of Sunshine RPG over on Discord.
Thank you for (by proxy) introducing me to The Many Gardens of Shikabane-hime. But simultaneously as someone who’s anxiety and catastrophic thinking is turned up to 11 because of a cold and who read Dianna Wynne Jones’s Homeward Bounders and remembers how that universe hopping story ended: rUDE
Unfortunately, I have not read Homeward Bounders so…
Plausible deniability says: You’re welcome!
Context-clue reading suspicion says: I’m terribly sorry
It’s a good ‘verse, though, so… I’m not that sorry. 😛
I’m also not completely caught up on all the ‘verses on the forums so if you’re like me and get overwhelmed by the forums, this DoS index page is REAL helpful for finding cool AUs in the recursive fic thread without having to wade through OVER 500 pages
Legends of Sunshine (Character Creation)
I don’t know how many of you are over on the DoS Discord, but some of us are (hopefully) going to start a game set in the DoS‘verse (but as shinobi of Takigakure) using the Legends of the Wulin system.
I’m new to this system (which is interesting but very complicated) so mostly I spent today creating my character: Hibiki Ibarata Kuwabara!
I’m not entirely sure if I’m doing it right (hence the bright red and question marks in some places) but I think I like the direction I’m going in…
If anyone’s familiar with the system and would be willing to give me some feedback, I’d appreciate it 😀
HP!DOS AU pls. go crazy ;)
A/N: I put a lot of links in this brainstorm/rant, and while they aren’t mandatory to understand the post, they probably do help.
~
I veeeeery briefly went into such a crossover/fusion in the middle of this massive post, and I did do that one witches!verse TemarixShikako ficlet with some background lore, but seeing as how neither of them are specifically, solely devoted to a HP!DoS AU, I suppose I could go more into it here…
Hm…
While not as disastrous as Ilvermorny (Lavaeudeen for life!) I’m not very keen on the HP canon of Mahoutokoro or, at least, not as a magical commuter school that somehow has the smallest student body of the eleven great wizarding school. The Hogwarts student body was fucking tiny, no way does the only Japanese magical school have less than that. I’d like to tweak it slightly–so that it just makes more sense–that Mahoutokoro is the only all-magical UNIVERSITY of Japan (though some of the other universities also have magical departments/classes available).
Actually, now that I’ve said that, I kind like the idea of magical education for younger magicians being the equivalent of an after school club or a cram school or a special class that only certain students take (advanced placement or art or foreign languages, etc). So the “main characters” that would be the Konoha Thirteen in DoS would still go to the same school as civilians/genin corps characters but they’d be in the magic club/class.
Which means that the different villages are different schools in different regions of Japan… which means this has the same set up of a sports shounen manga but instead of sports it’s magic?
Uhhhhhh… now I can’t unsee it.
I mean, a lot of sports manga practically give their characters magic powers ANYWAY, so we might as well just go straight there.
LET’S WIN NATIONALS, KONOHA~!
I don’t think I’d want to do Quidditch–only because it’s not very conducive to three person teams, and it originates from the UK anyway–so maybe it’s magical dueling? But that also doesn’t really go with three person teams… Or, alternatively, that’s pretty bloodthirsty for a sport for kids.
Maybe I’ll make up some new sport. Something like magical capture the flag so it’s not just straight up FIGHTING. (I mean, pro-bending in Avatar LoK WAS a thing, but not all that keen on it, either)
Anyway, so the point is… while magic is an important part of their lives (and maybe even THE MOST important part of their lives) they still live amongst non-magical people, unlike in HP.
I also don’t particularly like the whole wooden wands thing. Though I don’t particularly want all Japanese magicians to do wandless magic (it’d basically be ninjutsu and kind of defeats the purpose of transferring it into the HP verse). Maybe part of learning magic is finding/making your own conduit. Which sort of explains why Naruto starts off pretty bad (like all shounen sports protagonists) because for the longest time he just can’t find one that can withstand the sheer amount of power he has. Whereas the equivalent of Shikako’s burgeoning fuinjutsu mastery would be her NOT needing her conduit all the time. Sasuke, as with most Uchiha, has a very traditional mirror conduit–because Sharingan = Mirror Wheel Eye?
Though there are still things that carry over from HP. Like, while it’s not AS huge a deal as it is in Britain, blood purity is still an issue depending on which clan you’re from. The Nara twins are probably halfbloods–but only the worst of the elders really care–but so is Neji which is a HUGE problem for the Hyuuga (especially considering he’s originally more talented than Hinata who is pureblooded).
I mean, I sort of joke about the sports shounen manga thing, so I suppose I could go in the more serious direction of Japan having a real bad Dark Lord problem given Orochimaru, Itachi, Pein/Nagato, Obito/Madara, and Kaguya… (although, the Golden trio never had to fight a literal goddess so that’s pretty cool I guess… although, although, the Golden Trio would probably be pretty good at the three person magical sport I’ll have to make up)
Hm… I guess it depends. Am I just transposing the DoS plot into the HP world, or just the characters?
JackSGreyson Says 