My most recent idea is for a manga. It's similar to 'Heroes' in the area that powers vary from person to person. Differences being: everyone with Accelerated Evolution Syndrome (people with powers) have partly-heightened senses, reflexes, speed and strength, and can see special 'pathways' which show them what to do (i.e. when freerunning they would see spots showing them where to place their feet and when), and each one can do something special that most others cannot (the main character, for example, can see, create and control powerful electrical currents which none of the others can do). There is also a multinational company aiming to harvest the D.N.A. of the people with AES to create commercially-available abilities. Also, these are two groups of people with powers: a group of rebels taking on the gov't and the company to protect themselves, and the three originators, who have much more heightened powers, and are immortal (in the same way as Nathan from Misfits: he would die, but then re-awaken later). They spread the gene carrying AES when they were wounded in an explosion at a mass power/water plant.
Stories and characters you have written
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The last character that I wrote was Winslow Tanner, a perpetually ill, whiny mama's boy caught up in an invasion of Confederate zombies.
The most noticeable thing that I wrote though was a Johnny Tremain sequel for a school assignment that a lot of people took a shine to. So I ended up writing 17 chapters of it. It was Johnny getting hit by a carriage when he goes to get his hand fixed. Then he gets brought aboard the Starship Enterprise before being beamed back to earth with a laser gun where his bad hand was, so he could kill Hitler in his Fortress of Doom. And Jesus was a taco.
So... yeah. Surprisingly, it got an A for creativity.
The most noticeable thing that I wrote though was a Johnny Tremain sequel for a school assignment that a lot of people took a shine to. So I ended up writing 17 chapters of it. It was Johnny getting hit by a carriage when he goes to get his hand fixed. Then he gets brought aboard the Starship Enterprise before being beamed back to earth with a laser gun where his bad hand was, so he could kill Hitler in his Fortress of Doom. And Jesus was a taco.
So... yeah. Surprisingly, it got an A for creativity.
I have a tendency to dream up entire worlds and universes when I'm bored, ranging from stories about a rag-tag group of colonists going up against an entire empire of slavers on a terraformed Mars that has been abandoned by the United Nations of Earth in the year 5000 using a wide variety of mecha from the Armored Core-esque Ieiunium Dominus Domno, to the hundred metre-tall Super Robots known as Acervus Chalybs Titanium, seeing as how Mars is a crapsack world where morality is almost entirely in shades of gray, with but a few shades of black, not every decision they make in the war is what one would consider a 'good' decision.
Oh, and the protagainist is a girl, her name is Eros Rhapsodos [small](Rhapsodos being a reference to Crisis Core, meaing it has no real symbolic meaning... Or does it?)[/small], and she's constantly struggling with having to choose between making the 'right' decision and the 'smart' decision, wondering if she and the rest of the rebels are really all that better than the empire they're trying to overthrow. Aliens also show up at some point, and important characters are permanantly killed off.
Oh, and a comedic adventure story where the 'heroes' are all very ill-suited to the job of saving the world, being even worse than the villians at times. But it's all played for laughs so it's alright.
Those two are the most well-thought out ones I have at the moment.
Oh, and the protagainist is a girl, her name is Eros Rhapsodos [small](Rhapsodos being a reference to Crisis Core, meaing it has no real symbolic meaning... Or does it?)[/small], and she's constantly struggling with having to choose between making the 'right' decision and the 'smart' decision, wondering if she and the rest of the rebels are really all that better than the empire they're trying to overthrow. Aliens also show up at some point, and important characters are permanantly killed off.
Oh, and a comedic adventure story where the 'heroes' are all very ill-suited to the job of saving the world, being even worse than the villians at times. But it's all played for laughs so it's alright.
Those two are the most well-thought out ones I have at the moment.
I've got a 60 page finished script based on a crazy but true murder of Michael Malloy that happened in the 1920s. Basically it is about a gang who try to kill a local bum over some life insurance money. It seems like the perfect scam, but things go to shit when it turns out the bum just won't die.
Michael Malloy (who I've renamed as "Mr Koschei") is an alcoholic, jobless tramp. He looks like his liver will explode any second, yet for some reason, he can take more punishment than an army of Rasputins. He withstands alcohol and rat poison, hit and runs, and nights left out in freezing temperatures.
Michael Malloy (who I've renamed as "Mr Koschei") is an alcoholic, jobless tramp. He looks like his liver will explode any second, yet for some reason, he can take more punishment than an army of Rasputins. He withstands alcohol and rat poison, hit and runs, and nights left out in freezing temperatures.
The "HNP" sounds a bit anvilicious to me. Why is it that people are prejudiced against werewolves and vampires? If their life depends on draining human blood or attacking them at random, it seems fairly reasonable for humans to hate them in the first place ...which ends up making the HNP sound reasonable. Which accidentally creates an argument in favour of the real life BNP.Matthew Wilson said:
...You'll have to be very careful. Also sounds very similar to "True Blood", which has many of the same problems.
This is a bio from a character I had on City of Heroes, named Mill Worker. (I can't remember it exactly word for word)
Everyone knew the mill was poorly run; the hours too long, the men overworked and the machinery too old, but it was the only work in town. The ore was cheap too. It came from forsaken mines worked by desperate men and emitted an odd gas when melted.
Nobody knew why John Mill fell into the vat that day. Some say it was an accident, others say it was suicide. John's life was going nowhere, his house was in poor condition and that kid was a freak from the day it was born. But the rumours flourished. Some say that ol' John Mill still walks the Earth with a body of ore and fists like hammers.
The board of directors laughed it off. One day, however, the mill was just shut down without warning. No one knows what happened the night prior, but some reckon that it was ol' John Mill.
Everyone knew the mill was poorly run; the hours too long, the men overworked and the machinery too old, but it was the only work in town. The ore was cheap too. It came from forsaken mines worked by desperate men and emitted an odd gas when melted.
Nobody knew why John Mill fell into the vat that day. Some say it was an accident, others say it was suicide. John's life was going nowhere, his house was in poor condition and that kid was a freak from the day it was born. But the rumours flourished. Some say that ol' John Mill still walks the Earth with a body of ore and fists like hammers.
The board of directors laughed it off. One day, however, the mill was just shut down without warning. No one knows what happened the night prior, but some reckon that it was ol' John Mill.
I've written just about a little of everything, but you can find all my stuff on QUizilla (I'm getting better as I write,s o i know it sucks at first, but i am doing it cold turkey)at this link:
http://www.quizilla.com/user/emeraldrafael/stuff/
And if that doesnt get you there, search Retaliation pt. 1 and just look for the story written by emeraldrafael
http://www.quizilla.com/user/emeraldrafael/stuff/
And if that doesnt get you there, search Retaliation pt. 1 and just look for the story written by emeraldrafael
The point I should have mentioned is that vampires and werewolves have been around as long as humans and they've evolved with them yet they are still treated like slaves and second class citizens. The show is basically an analogy for other fights for rights like Blacks and Women in the past.maninahat said:
Also I've never seen True Blood so I don't know anything about it.
Welp, now I feel unoriginal when I look at my magic system. The part resolving around the elements like Earth or Water at least.Charisma said:
They're supposed to be the "traditional" names for contemporary pieces of physics (contemporary at the point of time the story takes place). Like in your system, Water/Earth/Wind stand for the first three aggregate phases. There are two more "pure" elements adding to that, namely Fire (increasing atom movement) and Lightning (controlling electrons). I thought that was the most clichéd accumulation of elements plus Lightning, so I took those as a base for Deconstruction.
Later on there are more elements added as "mixed" elements: Ice (decreasing atom movement), Mist (liquid/gaseous mixtures), Sound (kinetic energy), Plasma (duh) and Ash (mainly control of anything containing oxygen - like burnt materials) are the next 5 elements that were accepted into the chart because they fit well into a pentagram-shaped chart (ask me if you need a pic, shit is getting confusing). Each of them can also be seen as a combination of elements before them, even if their base mechanic is nothing like their "parent elements". For example, Ice can be seen as a combination of Earth and Water if you make a bridge and think "solid water". However, Ice isn't about reshaping HO2, it's about decreasing temperature in general, which has actually more in common with Fire (increasing temperature) than with Earth or Water (controlling solid/fluid materials).
Afterwards, in a sort of "magical renaissance", heaps of new "elements" were added to the list. Even tho they're mostly combinations and thus make the name "element" completely nonsensical - but that's how science works sometimes. For example, "blood" is a very complex element combining both control of solid and fluid materials as well as a good control of temperature and kinetic energy to keep it both warm and flowing. So in order to master "blood" as an element, you'd need good degrees in Earth (solid materials), Water (fluid materials), Fire (temperature increasing - Ice is almost never needed unless you're a medic heading out to a volcano area) and Sound (kinetic energy and on the chart a combination between Lightning and Air - again, the parent elements have little in common or to do with Sound, but they're fitting so nicely on the ancient chart that they were kept there. That's supposed to Deconstruct games/stories in which smashing Water and Earth together would get you Wood even tho it's a completely different thing to understand and master if you think about the technicalities).
Later on there are more elements added as "mixed" elements: Ice (decreasing atom movement), Mist (liquid/gaseous mixtures), Sound (kinetic energy), Plasma (duh) and Ash (mainly control of anything containing oxygen - like burnt materials) are the next 5 elements that were accepted into the chart because they fit well into a pentagram-shaped chart (ask me if you need a pic, shit is getting confusing). Each of them can also be seen as a combination of elements before them, even if their base mechanic is nothing like their "parent elements". For example, Ice can be seen as a combination of Earth and Water if you make a bridge and think "solid water". However, Ice isn't about reshaping HO2, it's about decreasing temperature in general, which has actually more in common with Fire (increasing temperature) than with Earth or Water (controlling solid/fluid materials).
Afterwards, in a sort of "magical renaissance", heaps of new "elements" were added to the list. Even tho they're mostly combinations and thus make the name "element" completely nonsensical - but that's how science works sometimes. For example, "blood" is a very complex element combining both control of solid and fluid materials as well as a good control of temperature and kinetic energy to keep it both warm and flowing. So in order to master "blood" as an element, you'd need good degrees in Earth (solid materials), Water (fluid materials), Fire (temperature increasing - Ice is almost never needed unless you're a medic heading out to a volcano area) and Sound (kinetic energy and on the chart a combination between Lightning and Air - again, the parent elements have little in common or to do with Sound, but they're fitting so nicely on the ancient chart that they were kept there. That's supposed to Deconstruct games/stories in which smashing Water and Earth together would get you Wood even tho it's a completely different thing to understand and master if you think about the technicalities).
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Be advised that you cannot turn iron into gold by changing "molecular structure". I don't want to smartass you, but I figure I could tell you before you get trapped in a wiki labyrinth or end up writing something wrong:
(Maybe that's what you meant with "subatomic level", but you used the iron->gold thing in a sentence with molecular structure, so I wasn't sure)
Ideally iron and gold are pure elements, so there are no molecular structures that occur in combination with other elements. So for example O (oxygen) isn't a molecule until it makes contact with another oxygen and becomes O2 (2 in index - oxygen is one of the few "incest" elements that almost automatically form pairs when there's enough oxygen available) or H2O.
However, each element - in your case Fe (iron) and Au (gold) has a unique number of protons. Normally each atom contains an equal number of protons and electrons. Fe got 26 protons, Au got 79 protons.
So if you want to turn a Fe atom into a Au atom, you'd need to fill it with more protons and an equal amount of electrons. Each atom also got a certain amount of neutrons (you can google all the numbers), but they only add weight and normally don't change the abilities of the atom. If the amount of protons and electrons isn't equal in an atom, the atom becomes an ion. If you need a single proton and electron, you can ask most H (hydrogen) atoms. They're very small and most of them just consist of 1 proton and 1 electron. Be advised however that fusing stuff with an existing atom often needs a LOT of energy. In real life at least. But maybe that could be an excuse why not everyone and their cousin uses magic to transmute iron into gold and gold becomes worthless because there's so much of it.
Ideally iron and gold are pure elements, so there are no molecular structures that occur in combination with other elements. So for example O (oxygen) isn't a molecule until it makes contact with another oxygen and becomes O2 (2 in index - oxygen is one of the few "incest" elements that almost automatically form pairs when there's enough oxygen available) or H2O.
However, each element - in your case Fe (iron) and Au (gold) has a unique number of protons. Normally each atom contains an equal number of protons and electrons. Fe got 26 protons, Au got 79 protons.
So if you want to turn a Fe atom into a Au atom, you'd need to fill it with more protons and an equal amount of electrons. Each atom also got a certain amount of neutrons (you can google all the numbers), but they only add weight and normally don't change the abilities of the atom. If the amount of protons and electrons isn't equal in an atom, the atom becomes an ion. If you need a single proton and electron, you can ask most H (hydrogen) atoms. They're very small and most of them just consist of 1 proton and 1 electron. Be advised however that fusing stuff with an existing atom often needs a LOT of energy. In real life at least. But maybe that could be an excuse why not everyone and their cousin uses magic to transmute iron into gold and gold becomes worthless because there's so much of it.
(of course, coal into diamond is another topic because that's really depending on molecular structure and angles between C-atoms)
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So the "Religion of Evil" is a Ass Pull [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WellIntentionedExtremist] you use for redeeming a character.
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You're right, Harry Potter does explore the magic world and displays it as "something awesome" by looking at it through the eyes of a child. However, as time goes by, I believe both characters and readers find themselves comfortable in the magic world and readers aren't blown away anymore by newspapers with moving images - it because mundane for them, too.
I hope despite everything the new world you create will be something interesting for readers to look forwards to. Even tho the protagonists won't be blown away, you could still make the stuff itself interesting enough to wow the reader. But I'm sure you're already do that and don't try to make magic entirely boring for the reader, right?
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Well, sounds like you got your Five Man Band [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand]. I imagine it hard to focus on all of them... how do you do it? At first I was comfortable with a single protagonist, then after a few rewrites I figured I could create a lot more dynamic tension and world views by expanding the main character cast, but my limit is somehow at 3 characters it seems. I think I can't do all of them justice and focus on everyone equally without distracting from the plot and use "valleys" between tension peeks for mini-arcs centered around characters or at least let them tell Origin Stories during travel or something, which isn't exactly helpful for the overall flow.
So yeah, I manage to weave two "heroes" somewhat seamless with the plot, but it's getting tough at 3 for me (and it's also getting tough to think of multi-layered personality you simply cannot narrow down with a few attributes). So how do you do it?
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If you want to throw in a few biblical references into the mix, try digging through a mythological creature called "Prometheus".
He's something like the "Teenager" of the Greek demi-gods, rebelling against his father Zeus and being very passionate about everything. He's always said to have either created humans (giving him an artistic attribute) or bringing them the fire, light and warmth, depending on what version you read. The German movement Sturm und Drang [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturm_und_Drang] was full of young Emos like Goethe and he is referencing Prometheus in one way or another in almost all of his early works during Sturm und Drang. Yeah, Goethe was an Emo when he was young. Complete with suicidal poems, passionate love problems and ridiculous emotional overreaction.
But of course I read through all of it, it's natural courtesy.
Alright, can't "argue" with any of that really. It's all pretty much overridden by artistic freedom as far as I can see - which isn't bad, but makes it ultimately uninteresting for me, personally. Have fun and good luck with it!Serenegoose said:
Tragedy. The Bad Guy Wins [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DownerEnding]. Look it up. They're just not very popular, 'tis all.TheYellowCellPhone said:
Ah, pity. Discussing it with others helps me refine the concept, but you provided valuable information regardless. Thanks.Marik Bentusi said:Alright, can't "argue" with any of that really. It's all pretty much overridden by artistic freedom as far as I can see - which isn't bad, but makes it ultimately uninteresting for me, personally. Have fun and good luck with it!
I've found I'm better at taking something established and twisting it, rather than creating something completely new, so I have multiple notes about how to refresh or create a sequel for an uncountable number of already known games/movies/books/etc. in a number of ways. I'll see if I can dig some of the more interesting up and post them (at school now, so I shouldn't even be posting this).
Oddly enough, there was a topic very similar to this last night for which I had posted an answer. Here it is, albeit slightly edited:
I have created a multitude of characters that at least I think are cool. An example would be this young lad right here:
His name is Kato. He is twenty six years old, unceasingly upbeat, genuinely kindhearted, loving and caring, a martial arts prodigy, and he is the most talented and successful gigolo in the city in which he resides. He is also a half-demon, the child of an exceedingly powerful Succubus and the human with whom she fell in love. Unfortunately, his parents were brutally murdered when he was six years old and he believes he is the one who killed them.
At the age of nine, he was adopted by and apprenticed to a kindly blind chef who taught him the finer points of cooking, sciences, and an advanced ninjitsu only known to the deadliest clan of ninja in the world, which Kato mastered in less than a week (the ninjitsu, not the science and cooking). As he grew into a man, he discovered his love of women and his innate sexual talents, both of which he used to become the greatest male prostitute in the land, bound to no pimp or madame. Occasionally, he will take an off day from whoring and don his tights to play superhero (these endeavors are a running gag in the story and not actually the center of it).
One day he is attacked by a ninja using the very same form of ninjitsu he learned years ago. From that point onward he is pulled into a series of misadventures in which he meets a multitude of strange individuals, experiences mind-shattering personal tragedies, comes to terms with his demonic nature, learns about his past, and saves the world from the forces of evil.
I suppose I should make it clear that the story in which he resides has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Neither he nor the other characters in the story are meant to be taken seriously most of the time.
I have created a multitude of characters that at least I think are cool. An example would be this young lad right here:
His name is Kato. He is twenty six years old, unceasingly upbeat, genuinely kindhearted, loving and caring, a martial arts prodigy, and he is the most talented and successful gigolo in the city in which he resides. He is also a half-demon, the child of an exceedingly powerful Succubus and the human with whom she fell in love. Unfortunately, his parents were brutally murdered when he was six years old and he believes he is the one who killed them.
At the age of nine, he was adopted by and apprenticed to a kindly blind chef who taught him the finer points of cooking, sciences, and an advanced ninjitsu only known to the deadliest clan of ninja in the world, which Kato mastered in less than a week (the ninjitsu, not the science and cooking). As he grew into a man, he discovered his love of women and his innate sexual talents, both of which he used to become the greatest male prostitute in the land, bound to no pimp or madame. Occasionally, he will take an off day from whoring and don his tights to play superhero (these endeavors are a running gag in the story and not actually the center of it).
One day he is attacked by a ninja using the very same form of ninjitsu he learned years ago. From that point onward he is pulled into a series of misadventures in which he meets a multitude of strange individuals, experiences mind-shattering personal tragedies, comes to terms with his demonic nature, learns about his past, and saves the world from the forces of evil.
I suppose I should make it clear that the story in which he resides has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Neither he nor the other characters in the story are meant to be taken seriously most of the time.
Your system seems quite a bit more tight and fully developed than mine, actually. I confess jealousy.Marik Bentusi said:
The language aspect of the system is one of my prouder innovations. Essentially the Eight Tongues are entire separate languages that have magical power woven into their words so that even a single word uttered in one of the languages produces some kind of magical effect.
Basically, spellcasting and the Tongues is an operating system for utilizing the powers of the Gods.
Gods can generate whatever effects they please at will with but a thought. They have a profound knowledge of the forces of nature (aka science and chemistry) and can shape reality as they please.
Mortal spellcasters have access to the exact same powers, but limited greatly by their knowledge of the Languages and by their own inner strength. Mages can only perform what magic they know to cast. And it is highly ill-advised - even suicidal - to just start speaking in one of the languages, because each word has power and there's no knowing what effects you can produce if you're not casting a tried-and-true spell.
This allows near-infinite value of research and experimentation with the powers of the arcane; new spells and new marvels are always being discovered, many that render previous iterations entirely obsolete.
One of the things that'll help to understand the languages is to think of normal languages, except that the magic languages have a specific function and there isn't a whole lot of overlap as far as what needs to be described. Take French and German; you have your basic conjugation structures and slightly different alphabets, but each language has to adequately describe nearly everything that exists in the world, from desks to birds to the act of running to emotions. Everything. And that's the key difference between normal languages and the Tongues; Geomancy only needs to describe solid matter and doesn't need to have words for "love" or "light" or "future." Likewise, Psychomancy is extremely elegant in describing the mind, emotions, thought, and dreams, but you can't use it to talk about fire at all. That's Pyromancy's job.
Let me give an example of the way the languages system works by describing a spell that brings a tree to life; gives it the power of thought and reasoning, and allows it to move. Here's how such a spell is conceived:
Since one of the goals of the spell is to directly influence the life energy of a living being, many of the words of the spell will be taken from Biomancy. There also may be language from the Tongue of Geomancy (or solid matter). But most importantly, since Biomancy and Geomancy are woefully inadequate when describing the mind and intelligence (think Eskimo language having 7 words for snow and no words for, say, palm trees), many of the most important language will be Psychomancy. So what we get is a magic spell that utilizes language from several different tongues to complete the intended magical effect, and we get a talking, walking, thinking tree.
This may not actually be the correct way to go about it, but I think it's a good exampleof how it works.
At some point I wondered what makes the languages magic; what gives the magic words their power, and my solution was to explain its historical origins. In the time of the Old Gods, man had no access to the power of the gods except through the gods, and in turn through their priests. The priests prayed for healing or transmutation or whatever they needed, and if their god approved then it was done. All was well and fine; this was the case for thousands of years.
And then in the elder days of the Old Gods, the Goddess of Libraries and Knowledge, nicknamed the Spectacled One, became infatuated with one of her High Priests, a genius and a charmer, and the two had a very torrid affair for some time. This was not particularly noteworthy at the time, but when the Spectacled One foresaw the great cataclysm, as a result of her deep affection for humanity, she realized that mankind would be crippled without the grace of the gods. So she labored for years to create her legacy, the Tongues of Magic, and entrusted the secrets to her priests, who became the very first Wizards.
Sorry if this is dragging out, but I'm having fun.
I'm actually relieved to see you poke holes in my knowledge of real world chemistry, so I'm going to have to be more on top of that. One of my plans is that there will be certain common knowledge about utilizing magic to, for example, transmute things, the actual science of which the in-story characters know nothing but which really is supported by real world chemistry.
For example, to transmute iron to gold you must submerge the iron bars in water (providing the necessary H2 atoms), then nail them with bolts of lightning (providing the energy required for sub-atomic restructuring). For a reason no one really understands, the transmutation consumes all the water and there's a funny aftereffect of a feeling of general euphoria in the practitioner if he doesn't wear a mask (as a result of the increased O2 in the air thanks to the enormous numbers of H2 atoms consumed by the process).
This gives a few interesting quirky details to the casual reader about using magic in my world, but also gives science nerds something to squeal about.
So the end result is that the physics of the world is no different from real world physics, except for the ability to change and shape the world around you by speaking magic words, as opposed to understanding science and building tools.
I'm unsure about revealing the tragedy of my religious antagonist early on. I would rather the Church remain a purely villainous entity until near the end; I think I can avoid it looking like a dumb shift of tone by having some preexisting support/foreshadowing.
As for the magic stuff being cool and unique, yeah that's pretty much exactly what I'm going for. And I agree Harry Potter is the closest thing there is to what I'm going for specifically concerning the integration of magic and modern life, but I hope there's enough different that people don't just call me a hack. Sometimes I really do feel like one.
About balancing the five characters, my secret is in narrative structure. What I've got is 20 chapters of 20 pages apiece, roughly split up into five 4 chapter/80 page story arcs, and each character gets a turn to tell his or her section from his or her own first-person point of view. It starts from behind the eyes of my sarcastic nurturer, then once his arc is complete it'll shift over to the perspective of my fearless leader, picking up chronologically when the previous arc finished, and it'll go from there.
First person really works best with my writing style, and despite its limitations I think I do well with it. I also feel pretty comfortable jumping from person to person, and I think I have the ability to shift tone entirely, with completely different styles, vocabularies, modes of internal monologue, etc.
Prometheus is actually the mythological entity that I'm reminded of most in a ton of my planning and storybuilding. The aforementioned Spectacled One is my direct version of him, metaphorically giving fire to the people.
Again, sorry if I ramble. I couldn't sleep and it's just an hour before classes start so I really have nothing better to do.
Thanks again for your comments, and in any future criticism please be as harsh and probing as you want.
Well, since I came up with the story four years ago or so I had lotsa free time during bus rides to think about the details. I'm actually unsure how much detail I can put in and how much is hindering the flow.Charisma said:
Aha, I see. Magic words and chants work like passwords to speak with the Gods and unlock part of the Gods' powers, huh? That's actually pretty clever (I imagine they're getting heavily spammed tho, but hey, they're almighty, right?). My story doesn't have Gods*, so something in that direction is nigh impossible for me, haha.
It's fairly simple yet clever I think. It's actually close to the original role of priests and oracles. It raises the question tho: Doesn't that make casting spells really easy? Or are the "Giant Fireball of Doom +3" spells really fucking hard to pronounce?
I can hear an Old God giggling somewhere.
Oh you.
That sounds so... ungodly, somehow. It sounds in my ears like "That one kid with the glasses". It also sounds pretty distanced, human cultures are somehow always trying to get the Gods closer to earth because they can't become closer to the gods. It starts with names like Jupiter and ends with Jesus.
Please do go on, I believe I'm about to develop a lore fetish or something. Makes you wonder tho why the Goddess of Libraries and Knowledge becomes infatuated tho. I imagine a Goddess representing such an attribute would be a cold tactician. It may be cliché to create a human character that's smart, cold, calculating and wears glasses, but it's different with Gods representing certain attributes, in my opinion.
Haha, I can see people abusing transmutation to replace alcohol. But there could be a bit hard. The problem is that water is frikkin' weird.
You need H2 molecules** or at least H atoms for your reaction, right? Well, it's tough to break those out of the water. First of all, you cannot combine any atoms you want to a molecule because atoms are really picky about with whom they want to spend their life with. It has to do with the amount of electrons, but basically when you strip one H from H2O both partners will become incredibly sad and become H+ and OH- and like magnets anything that's + and anything that's - is attracted to each other, so you need a lot of energy to break the two up.
Then there's also the problem that there is never, ever a free H+ in the water. It always sticks together with H2O and becomes H3O+. Why? Because the structure of H2O makes it a tiny bit of a weak magnet and H+ instantly joins the "-" part of the magnet.
So if you really want to drag out H out of water, you've got to first separate H+ from H2O twice.
I think the easiest way to do that is to use magnetism. It could separate H3O+ from OH- because the magnet's positive pole will attract OH- and the magnet's negative pole will attract H3O+. That's basically what electrolysis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis] does if I recall correctly. Once you have H3O on one side, you could work your magic to rip the one H+ away, so you have H2O again and your H+. Ideally, you'll rip HO- of one electron it has to much and give it to H+ so both are neutral again. In that case, HO- would most likely separate again into H and O and because both H and O are "incestuous elements", they'll most likely instantly get together with other Hs and Os and become H2 and O2. And then you'd have to separate the H2 again to get a single H.
P.S.
After writing this I was actually curious how experts fill those huge hydrogen tanks we use in school chemistry and guess what? The answer is using water and electrolysis. *pats on own shoulder*
Then there's also the problem that there is never, ever a free H+ in the water. It always sticks together with H2O and becomes H3O+. Why? Because the structure of H2O makes it a tiny bit of a weak magnet and H+ instantly joins the "-" part of the magnet.
So if you really want to drag out H out of water, you've got to first separate H+ from H2O twice.
I think the easiest way to do that is to use magnetism. It could separate H3O+ from OH- because the magnet's positive pole will attract OH- and the magnet's negative pole will attract H3O+. That's basically what electrolysis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis] does if I recall correctly. Once you have H3O on one side, you could work your magic to rip the one H+ away, so you have H2O again and your H+. Ideally, you'll rip HO- of one electron it has to much and give it to H+ so both are neutral again. In that case, HO- would most likely separate again into H and O and because both H and O are "incestuous elements", they'll most likely instantly get together with other Hs and Os and become H2 and O2. And then you'd have to separate the H2 again to get a single H.
P.S.
After writing this I was actually curious how experts fill those huge hydrogen tanks we use in school chemistry and guess what? The answer is using water and electrolysis. *pats on own shoulder*
I guess what I want to say in the end is that you better have an Arcane Electrician on speed dial that knows how magnetism works - but since electricity and magnetism go hand in hand, that shouldn't be the problem.
You know what also often works for chemical reactions? Fire. Put something on fire and the molecules will become so energized they ditch their partners who become free for chemical reactions. Doesn't work with water tho for obvious reasons.
Jesus H. Christ, do anything but that! It will probably just make things obvious for the reader. I mean just hint that there's more to it than what people see. From the top of my hat, make a mentor-like "good" character talk calmly with one of the bad guys. You know they're not angry at each other because they understand the necessity of evil. The reader doesn't. It can hook them, it can fool them into believing the good guy is a traitor - and in the end they'll realize they were wrong to make assumptions.
As long as you don't write a high school drama with four houses in primary colors and a little boy defeating an Ex-Team Rocket member at the end of each volume/episode, you should be fine. If you're somewhat self-aware, you'll notice it when you take a lot of inspiration from a single work first, maybe nobody else will notice at all.
Which is why I started taking refugee in Deconstruction [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Deconstruction], haha, parodies and critics just have to spice up something boring, not pretend to come up with something new entirely. Tho after the first one or two years of writing and rewriting thankfully more and more original content came into the mix and I could get rid of most of the "crutches" I used. I think at some point I subconsciously represented the internet in a certain culture I wrote, at that point of time I realized I need to go outside more often, haha.
Hm, interesting. Certainly a new approach to me. I try to switch perspective when I know something uninteresting will happen for some time and I want to tell the readers*** something more interesting instead. For example, young hero will train for 2 weeks so the next fights are gonna be awesome. I think one of my strengths is to describe stuff you cannot see like concentration, lose thought, emotion, but even if concentrating on a complicated spell is awesome the first time, you'll eventually get bored of it and lose the pacing. Instead, cut to our heroine who is trying to keep up her disguise for a bit.
That's for slow pacing. It's an even more useful tool during fast pacing if you manage to describe two interesting situations simultaneously happening. Why? Because cliffhangers of course! Nobody likes cliffhangers, but they leave something for you to look forward to. If they don't get into the way of fun, they'll actually keep your thoughts racing while you read through something else, searching for the part where the cliffhanger continues and being interested in what's currently happening, too.
You could say it's an additional tool for stopping the reader from laying the book aside.
I can't really imagine writing with solid numbers for pages for each chapter etc. I do try to find a good length for every aspect of what's happening, but I'd hate to say "damn, I have to shorten this by one more page, but I'm so happy with what I've written now I'd be sad to cut out anything more".
I wrote the first two chapters or so of my story in first person. Then I rewrote everything in third person because it's much easier to describe stuff objectively. You can also describe stuff the character is not and will never be aware of such as something stalking them. You can write they have a feeling like something is stalking them, but that's not exactly the same. I also enjoy being free to talk about the emotions and thoughts of any characters and it just felt weird to let the own character talk about subconscious actions or emotions they normally would never tell anyone about - but they do tell the reader.
Whatever, it all comes down to preference I believe.
Ah, good to see I'm not the only one who thinks a lot about the style certain characters talk like and act like. Sometimes it's hard to remember every aspect of a character, but I try to at least keep track of the aspects of the major characters - and of course I know the protagonists the best.
It's funny actually. I decided to turn one of the secondary characters into a protagonist for at least a small portion of the story so the reader gets as many different impressions from the world as possible. The guy was hospitalized, but quickly wanted to get back up and do research on the foe who actually got him hospitalized in the first place. I imagined him talking with a nurse because of it, because nobody in the history of badass superheroes who get into hospital can just leave early because he wants to kick ass - there always has to be a party pooper doc or nurse that tries to talk him out of it because bitches don't know about his plot shield [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PlotArmor], yo.
When I wrote the nurse, for some reason I wanted to make her interesting and gave her a complicated speech pattern that sounds "like a book", I let her quote fictional works within the story and then at the end of the chapter I let her spew out a bit of political comment about the city she's living in (giving the reader an impression of that city - it's the same the aforementioned hospital is located - was the main reason for that part of the chapter) and when I wrote the last words I realized I had actually created a pretty deep character I wanted to know more about and that the character focus had almost switched to her without me noticing.
I rewrote her till she wasn't a puny little nurse but a fully capable doctor and now I'm using her to deconstruct healer clichés (design sketches here [http://marikbentusi.deviantart.com/art/I-m-up-to-something-180592180], more of her in the rest of the gallery) and she's become the second protagonist. What a promotion, haha.
When I wrote the nurse, for some reason I wanted to make her interesting and gave her a complicated speech pattern that sounds "like a book", I let her quote fictional works within the story and then at the end of the chapter I let her spew out a bit of political comment about the city she's living in (giving the reader an impression of that city - it's the same the aforementioned hospital is located - was the main reason for that part of the chapter) and when I wrote the last words I realized I had actually created a pretty deep character I wanted to know more about and that the character focus had almost switched to her without me noticing.
I rewrote her till she wasn't a puny little nurse but a fully capable doctor and now I'm using her to deconstruct healer clichés (design sketches here [http://marikbentusi.deviantart.com/art/I-m-up-to-something-180592180], more of her in the rest of the gallery) and she's become the second protagonist. What a promotion, haha.
I like it, keep the info coming. If you think it's reaching the thread's boundaries, feel free to PM me.
Hey, asshole, why do so many people in this thread come up with magical systems that have a scientific/realistic component attached to them? I thought I had something unique until I heard of Full Metal Alchemist, but you guys are killing me, haha.
Take care.
What comes close to Gods are authors because in this universe, every reality is actually just fiction, a world created with a story in mind, many worlds with stories that have ended long ago and have been forgotten by the author, but they don't stop existing. Thus every author on any world is de facto capable of writing a story and the world bends around it so it can come into existence.
(And by author I don't refer to some abstract alias, I mean anyone who uses a medium or thought alone to create a somewhat complete world.)
(And by author I don't refer to some abstract alias, I mean anyone who uses a medium or thought alone to create a somewhat complete world.)
If it's H2 it's a molecule, if it's 2H it's two atoms. The difference is that H2 is connected and shares the two electrons it has between the two atom cores.
I keep thinking of the readers, but I never share the story/plan on doing it, lol.
damn you, you quoted me before i could edit out all that "Why is this you ask? Good question!" college science lecture bullshit. i'm in school, sue me.Marik Bentusi said:
I like the use of spoilers to minimize the length of my posts, so imma do that.
The magic words don't really act as conduits to speak with gods; the magic of the languages is that in speaking the words, you actually cause the magic effects to happen independent of any intelligent will besides your own. That's the gift that the Spectacled One gave to humanity.
The way priests use magic is much more in the line of that kind of magic use - praying with your god for a certain magic effect. Sorcerers/wizards/whatever don't need godly permission; their magic doesn't go through any god.
Remember that in the current timeline of my story the Old Gods are long gone. The only divine entity now is the One God, so it's a lot tougher to produce magical effects from godly sources than it used to be.
There's a secondary mechanic to limit the power of the magic you can perform that's based primarily on (and I confess I'm not totally pleased with this) the abstract concept of "inner strength" or "willpower" or something similar. As in, casting magic spells is like exercise in that it builds the "muscle" of your spellcasting limit.
Casting spells drains your physical energy in exactly the same way that hard exercise does. Too much casting can make you feel fatigued, drained, and even start to make you light-headed and dizzy. You can even pass out from (literally) over-exertion. For this reason, it helps you as a spellcaster to be physically fit, which I thought was an interesting and unique departure from the "wizards are frail" fantasy convention.
So the other side of the coin is that after years of training and experience and magical "exercise" and with advanced familiarity with the way the energy of your body interacts with spellcasting, you can start using more of your energy in your spells, allowing that Spell of Fireball you've been casting since you were a snot-nosed mageling to be bigger and more powerful.
It's similar to (and inspired by, cough cough) Shaolin Qi training, so if it helps to think of it like that, go right ahead.
The way priests use magic is much more in the line of that kind of magic use - praying with your god for a certain magic effect. Sorcerers/wizards/whatever don't need godly permission; their magic doesn't go through any god.
Remember that in the current timeline of my story the Old Gods are long gone. The only divine entity now is the One God, so it's a lot tougher to produce magical effects from godly sources than it used to be.
There's a secondary mechanic to limit the power of the magic you can perform that's based primarily on (and I confess I'm not totally pleased with this) the abstract concept of "inner strength" or "willpower" or something similar. As in, casting magic spells is like exercise in that it builds the "muscle" of your spellcasting limit.
Casting spells drains your physical energy in exactly the same way that hard exercise does. Too much casting can make you feel fatigued, drained, and even start to make you light-headed and dizzy. You can even pass out from (literally) over-exertion. For this reason, it helps you as a spellcaster to be physically fit, which I thought was an interesting and unique departure from the "wizards are frail" fantasy convention.
So the other side of the coin is that after years of training and experience and magical "exercise" and with advanced familiarity with the way the energy of your body interacts with spellcasting, you can start using more of your energy in your spells, allowing that Spell of Fireball you've been casting since you were a snot-nosed mageling to be bigger and more powerful.
It's similar to (and inspired by, cough cough) Shaolin Qi training, so if it helps to think of it like that, go right ahead.
Ironically enough the Spectacled One is characterized as being the warmest and most caring of the Old Gods. One of the chief failings of the Old Gods (and, some theorize, one of the reasons for their fall) was that they were stagnating. For a long, long time human society was evolving, changing, with the slow growth of the massive city, with the advent of Wizardry (which was thought of at the time as a big glorious F*** You to the Gods, who were beginning to lose mortals' faith), and with the emergence of post-modern city-based civilization, the Old Gods began to lose touch with their children. They grew cold and distant while society continued to evolve, while their own powers were being used against their will to unnaturally make easier the lives of men.
Enter the Spectacled One, who lives isolated from the rest of the pantheon and doesn't really share their point of view. She stays close to humanity, even going so far as to have an affair with her High Priest in a time when the other gods stopped dabbling in those kind of lewd shenanigans ages ago.
So I don't see the Goddess of Libraries as a cold calculating scientist; I see her more as a cute librarian who blushes and giggles but has a powerful mind and a big heart. That's why she gives fire to the people: she is the only God who still cares.
Enter the Spectacled One, who lives isolated from the rest of the pantheon and doesn't really share their point of view. She stays close to humanity, even going so far as to have an affair with her High Priest in a time when the other gods stopped dabbling in those kind of lewd shenanigans ages ago.
So I don't see the Goddess of Libraries as a cold calculating scientist; I see her more as a cute librarian who blushes and giggles but has a powerful mind and a big heart. That's why she gives fire to the people: she is the only God who still cares.
It's obvious I don't know as much about chemical reactions as I should to accurately create stuff like that. I'll have to befriend a chemist.
Your idea of having a good character interact respectfully with a bad character is pure win, and I will definitely find some way to use it.
LOL I have the same problem with allowing internet culture to sneak into my writing! I've got another, superhero-based story where in a first draft the narrator and main character literally makes tongue-in-cheek references to internet memes like rickrolling and over 9000.
You think I'm joking but nah i'm not. I got rid of those fuckers pretty fast once I found out how stupid they really were, loool.
You think I'm joking but nah i'm not. I got rid of those fuckers pretty fast once I found out how stupid they really were, loool.
I like how first person allows the reader to get deeper into the story. It lets you create a closer experience, lets you have them live the story rather than just reading about it. If your narrator is being stalked, it's more exciting for me if the reader doesn't actually know about it until the main character is ambushed, or learns about it naturally.
Plus it allows me another mechanism to strengthen the personalities of the characters without spending too long on exposition.
Plus it allows me another mechanism to strengthen the personalities of the characters without spending too long on exposition.
Your nurse sounds like a great character. Some of the best characters evolve spontaneously. Before I started writing from his perspective, my sarcastic nurturer character I felt was the weakest and most shallow and pointless of all five. Now that I've written through his arc I feel he's definitely my strongest.
Maybe you should explore the idea of writing her story too. When you get a person like that you know that no matter what they do, it'll be good.
Maybe you should explore the idea of writing her story too. When you get a person like that you know that no matter what they do, it'll be good.
and that's that. it feels a lot like way too much time so far has been spent with me rambling and you reading, so if you've got some rambling of your own besides what i've already read please do it. i love reading superior writing, especially from people who haven't got their foot in the door of creative success, people who aren't totally famous (Orson Scott Card, Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, etc etc etc).
so yeah, i'm all ears. or eyes in this case, thanks intertubes.
I've written a decent amount of short stories, especially in the last year between my English and Creative Writing classes, and there are two I'm particularly proud of:
The first is about two men who were both originally characters I had made for the Marvel Universe RPG. If you're not familiar with it but enjoy tabletop RPGs, look it up and you'll probably at least be interested if not think it's as awesome as I do. One had a power that was essentially Rogue's powers from X-Men except dialed up to 11, and it had driven him totally insane (oh, he's also red due to minor genetic imperfections). He decided that he would kill using this power whenever he could get away with it to "better" himself and took the name Mirror. If you aren't aware of how this logic makes sense, Rogue's and his powers involve making skin-to-skin contact with someone to take their abilities and absorb an impression of the victim's mind. If you maintain the contact long enough, the victim will either die or go comatose and you have their powers forever as well as their personality permanently inhabiting your psyche. The other character was pretty much bland except he had poison claws and a slightly troubled backstory. I had wanted to have the first character absorb the second permanently to basically truly break the game, but my GM said no. I decided that I would write a story within which exactly that happens, and in it Mirror happens upon the other one and kills him. The rest of the story is mostly Mirror talking with the other guy in his own head, and they actually become friends at the end. I'll link to a place where I posted it for those who are interested.
http://www.gaiaonline.com/arena/writing/fiction/vote/?entry_id=101777029
The other is a science-fiction story about a girl who is part of a military patrol squad that gets shot down in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and is the only survivor of the crash. Shortly after crashing, she attempts to contact her base, but instead finds the man who shot down the squad taunting her and giving her one hour to get back to where she came from or else she be nuked (literally) to smithereens. She decides to instead track him down and deal with the threat rather than run. I would link it, but I haven't put it online at all and it ends on a truly shameless cliffhanger.
The first is about two men who were both originally characters I had made for the Marvel Universe RPG. If you're not familiar with it but enjoy tabletop RPGs, look it up and you'll probably at least be interested if not think it's as awesome as I do. One had a power that was essentially Rogue's powers from X-Men except dialed up to 11, and it had driven him totally insane (oh, he's also red due to minor genetic imperfections). He decided that he would kill using this power whenever he could get away with it to "better" himself and took the name Mirror. If you aren't aware of how this logic makes sense, Rogue's and his powers involve making skin-to-skin contact with someone to take their abilities and absorb an impression of the victim's mind. If you maintain the contact long enough, the victim will either die or go comatose and you have their powers forever as well as their personality permanently inhabiting your psyche. The other character was pretty much bland except he had poison claws and a slightly troubled backstory. I had wanted to have the first character absorb the second permanently to basically truly break the game, but my GM said no. I decided that I would write a story within which exactly that happens, and in it Mirror happens upon the other one and kills him. The rest of the story is mostly Mirror talking with the other guy in his own head, and they actually become friends at the end. I'll link to a place where I posted it for those who are interested.
http://www.gaiaonline.com/arena/writing/fiction/vote/?entry_id=101777029
The other is a science-fiction story about a girl who is part of a military patrol squad that gets shot down in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and is the only survivor of the crash. Shortly after crashing, she attempts to contact her base, but instead finds the man who shot down the squad taunting her and giving her one hour to get back to where she came from or else she be nuked (literally) to smithereens. She decides to instead track him down and deal with the threat rather than run. I would link it, but I haven't put it online at all and it ends on a truly shameless cliffhanger.
Zombie apocalypse novel. Work in progress. XD It's online, if anybody wants to read it.
Dunno if it's any good or not, but I'm certainly having fun writing it.
Dunno if it's any good or not, but I'm certainly having fun writing it.
I'd sue you, but I'm trespassing the "university laws" at the moment, too. No, I'm not missing any lessons so I can write you, but I'm using one of the computers that are not supposed to actually go online. They're only supposed to list the books of the library and stuff and thus they utilize a very compact browser for their own intranet. You can't even put in an URL manually, thus it's impossible to visit Google with this thing.Charisma said:
In theory, anyway.
I managed to visit part of the university homepage with this thing and this university homepage has a search function that eventually led me to Google, after I clicked a few more connected links.
We're also allowed to use other computers that have full internet access and full-fledged browsers, but getting the permission card for that costs 5? and you're "only" allowed to have 4h of internet usage per week. If I keep getting free hours during which I can write you, that won't be enough, haha.
So why limit myself when a few clicks are enough for unlimited access (with a limit browser, I'll give them that).
This will probably raise the amount of spelling mistakes on my part as I'm German and my standard browser by default has a spelling correction for English. It finds more neologisms than mistakes, but it's still handy to have.
Right, after that smalltalk, let's talk srs bsns. Everything with a * is a trope you may or may not want to look up on TV Tropes.
Ah, alright, thanks for clearing up all that stuff. The Bookworm Goddess (s.c.n.r) sounds like she's the "main devine being" that's actually interacting with humanity and is relevant for the lore and story. Or is it just this topic that gives me that impression?
I just high-fived my own face because I forgot the Old Gods are gone and that's how the antagonist god got his free will in the first place. Dangit.
Ah yes, "how to make people actually run out of mana so wizards are not OP?", a question many authors have and are struggling with if they import that feature from games.
You're approach is interesting, but also fairly vague. That's okay because magic is very vague in general, but if you make part of it "scientific" and the other part vague it may produce confusion. It's good to compare it with the type of monks that are actually training their body because they believe that "in a strong body lives a strong soul" or something like that. A philosophy that never made it to the United States of Hamburger (I count Europe to this, too) for one reason or another.
Here's my approach, maybe it'll give you another idea: In my magic system, magic in general is a form of energy that doesn't interact with matter. However, it is able to affect the world of matter we live in through the soul. If your body is an incredibly complex accumulation of matter, your soul is an incredibly complex accumulation of magical energy. It is also connect with the body, is born with it, lives with it, dies with it. If the body falls apart, the soul will fall apart, if the soul is destroyed, your body will start to decompose. Just to give you an image of how strong the connection (for an average humanoid) is.
Now if you cast a spell, your soul is taking part of its stored energy and uses it in accordance to your will/way the electrons move in your brain. How exactly this is happening or how the soul takes notice from it is a scientific field the user doesn't have to study, much like you can use your arms without knowing the basics of muscle structure.
Your soul can "recharge" its energy by simply absorbing lose magic energy that's pretty much every in the world. Unlike eating for the "body of matter" (the soul being a "body of energy"), this effect is passive and usually can't be influenced. Drugs and potions may - we lose focus.
You can try to force your soul to use its last reserves and in a way to "digest itself" in order to give you the power you need, but obviously this isn't healthy for the soul. If the connection between soul and body is seperated - which happens if one of the two things is in a such "unhealthy" stage that it can't keep up the connection - both things die. So you stress your soul too much, you will die. Freud and Jung would be proud of this late but eventual realization.
However, you can't touch your soul, it doesn't turn red, you wouldn't notice it. However, the soul has a certain connection with the brain like I already mentioned before. If your body wants to tell you "stop overusing me you idiot, I'm gonna break at this rate!", what does it do? It hurts, you feel pain. Or at least your brain makes you think you feel pain - after all, you also don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain that translates the data into pictures.
Thus the soul hijacks the same mechanisms in the brain and makes you feel pain just like you've been working out too much. As the soul is connected with various parts of the body, it can also give you a pretty detailed damage report. If you used a lot of magic to make your legs go faster, the routes connected with the legs will be under heavy stress and you'll feel pain in your legs.
It's actually stealing a lot from existing biology and linking it to an outside source of information that tricks your brain into believing you just ran 5km without a break, but I think it fits well together with the logic applying in biology we use today, so it sounds a bit more realistic. Psyche does have the feeling to change your impression of the world and give you fake pain after all. Alright, I digress. I'll talk with Cyber-Freud about this once Cyber-Jung shuts up.
I just high-fived my own face because I forgot the Old Gods are gone and that's how the antagonist god got his free will in the first place. Dangit.
Ah yes, "how to make people actually run out of mana so wizards are not OP?", a question many authors have and are struggling with if they import that feature from games.
You're approach is interesting, but also fairly vague. That's okay because magic is very vague in general, but if you make part of it "scientific" and the other part vague it may produce confusion. It's good to compare it with the type of monks that are actually training their body because they believe that "in a strong body lives a strong soul" or something like that. A philosophy that never made it to the United States of Hamburger (I count Europe to this, too) for one reason or another.
Here's my approach, maybe it'll give you another idea: In my magic system, magic in general is a form of energy that doesn't interact with matter. However, it is able to affect the world of matter we live in through the soul. If your body is an incredibly complex accumulation of matter, your soul is an incredibly complex accumulation of magical energy. It is also connect with the body, is born with it, lives with it, dies with it. If the body falls apart, the soul will fall apart, if the soul is destroyed, your body will start to decompose. Just to give you an image of how strong the connection (for an average humanoid) is.
Now if you cast a spell, your soul is taking part of its stored energy and uses it in accordance to your will/way the electrons move in your brain. How exactly this is happening or how the soul takes notice from it is a scientific field the user doesn't have to study, much like you can use your arms without knowing the basics of muscle structure.
Your soul can "recharge" its energy by simply absorbing lose magic energy that's pretty much every in the world. Unlike eating for the "body of matter" (the soul being a "body of energy"), this effect is passive and usually can't be influenced. Drugs and potions may - we lose focus.
You can try to force your soul to use its last reserves and in a way to "digest itself" in order to give you the power you need, but obviously this isn't healthy for the soul. If the connection between soul and body is seperated - which happens if one of the two things is in a such "unhealthy" stage that it can't keep up the connection - both things die. So you stress your soul too much, you will die. Freud and Jung would be proud of this late but eventual realization.
However, you can't touch your soul, it doesn't turn red, you wouldn't notice it. However, the soul has a certain connection with the brain like I already mentioned before. If your body wants to tell you "stop overusing me you idiot, I'm gonna break at this rate!", what does it do? It hurts, you feel pain. Or at least your brain makes you think you feel pain - after all, you also don't see with your eyes, you see with your brain that translates the data into pictures.
Thus the soul hijacks the same mechanisms in the brain and makes you feel pain just like you've been working out too much. As the soul is connected with various parts of the body, it can also give you a pretty detailed damage report. If you used a lot of magic to make your legs go faster, the routes connected with the legs will be under heavy stress and you'll feel pain in your legs.
It's actually stealing a lot from existing biology and linking it to an outside source of information that tricks your brain into believing you just ran 5km without a break, but I think it fits well together with the logic applying in biology we use today, so it sounds a bit more realistic. Psyche does have the feeling to change your impression of the world and give you fake pain after all. Alright, I digress. I'll talk with Cyber-Freud about this once Cyber-Jung shuts up.
Now that you humanized her that much (which isn't a bad thing and actually pretty close to how most myths eventually characterized their gods after millenia of re-writing "prophecies" and "witness testimonies"), I feel even more she needs a name - but maybe that would make her *too* human again. So I'm content with your choice.
Character-wise sounds like a - and I hope I'm writing this correctly - Megannekko. Maybe there's an k or n too much in that word, but you should be able to see the character archetype if you consult TV Tropes. By the way, are you a troper (frequent user/visitor of aforementioned site)? If not, I think you should give the site a try, I think it's very helpful both for research and for avoiding traps many authors fall into.
Character-wise sounds like a - and I hope I'm writing this correctly - Megannekko. Maybe there's an k or n too much in that word, but you should be able to see the character archetype if you consult TV Tropes. By the way, are you a troper (frequent user/visitor of aforementioned site)? If not, I think you should give the site a try, I think it's very helpful both for research and for avoiding traps many authors fall into.
Befriending a chemist might get you there, but personally I find doing research on those parts is too much fun to miss it. I was horrible in Physics in class and decent at best in Chemistry, but once I dug through a few pages and helpful forums I realized it was the teacher's fault all along. Now I finally have a decent grasp on Volt and Amphere, thank god. Electricity is becoming increasingly important for my story the more research I do on it and get ideas on how to use it.
"Your idea of having a good character interact respectfully with a bad character is pure win, and I will definitely find some way to use it."
Thank you, thank you. I actually used something similar to that in my story, but it leads to revealing the good guy being a traitor. Until halfway through the story or so anyway, I have the goal of making all the good guys become bad guys and the bad guys becoming good guys without making them turn around their character completely. It's "just" big character development. A goal I've set myself you could say. I'm still not sure how to turn an antagonist good that not only Crossed The Line Twice* but also is a Complete Monster* past the Moral Event Horizon*. I'm talking about a Magnificent Bastard* with Xanatos Gambit* in his middle name. He's an illusionist, a Trickster* and a manipulator of both emotion and intelligence. He's also a shapeshifter and the horror he projects are not (only) ugly monsters, it's psychology that exploits your fears and wishes and turns them against you. He exploits your deepest hidden desires and announces them in public, he rips apart every single good memory you have, he drains your will and burns you out, all while keeping that smile, that smile of a skull, a dead man's grin that tells you "I am dead. And so are you soon. You cannot run or hide. You will die. Just like me. There is no. way. out."
I think I have a character concept of him in my gallery at marikbentusi.deviantart.com/gallery if you want to take a lot. The file should be filed under something with "Karive" in it.
Ah, I meant a different sort of internet culture. You know at some point the characters find together in one big society that unites people from literary everywhere - much like the internet - and its currency is not based on money you earn, but rather reputation - much like on the internet the big sites are big because they got high reputation, every link is the same after all. Because some very absurd creatures also join the mess from time to time and racism is not a thing they want, it's not a law, but an act of general courtesy to leave your home in a concealing black cloak - much like internet anonymity and avatars hiding a person's identity. Leaving your home without a cloak when you're in a hurry or something will make you look like somebody in our world ran outside without putting clothes on because they were in a hurry.
It's not a completely mixed society, for purposes of personal comfort there are districts seperating certain species and the zones inbetween two districts are only inhabitated by those who have no problem with walking outside and your neighbour is a floating jellyfish that changes its color 64 times per second (I just made this up, there isn't actually such a species introduced in the story).
There also *appears* to be an infinite amount of room for everyone and everything - just like there's seemingly no end to websites or webspace - and while transportation isn't instant or teleporttion, it's still pretty damn fast and available almost everywhere, at every time, no matter where you want to go - just like opening a different webpage is really fast and easy, tho not instant.
I don't have memes in my story, but I do try to make up new sayings or quotes people more or less frequently use, like in our world with sayings like "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" or something. One saying used in the story for example is "I breathed fire" for when you went through hardship to gain something. For example "I breathed fire to get some pizza in that storm outside and YOU realized we still have some in the fridge?! GRR." It's a saying derived from the feeling of your lungs if you inhaled too much cold air while doing sports.
"Your idea of having a good character interact respectfully with a bad character is pure win, and I will definitely find some way to use it."
Thank you, thank you. I actually used something similar to that in my story, but it leads to revealing the good guy being a traitor. Until halfway through the story or so anyway, I have the goal of making all the good guys become bad guys and the bad guys becoming good guys without making them turn around their character completely. It's "just" big character development. A goal I've set myself you could say. I'm still not sure how to turn an antagonist good that not only Crossed The Line Twice* but also is a Complete Monster* past the Moral Event Horizon*. I'm talking about a Magnificent Bastard* with Xanatos Gambit* in his middle name. He's an illusionist, a Trickster* and a manipulator of both emotion and intelligence. He's also a shapeshifter and the horror he projects are not (only) ugly monsters, it's psychology that exploits your fears and wishes and turns them against you. He exploits your deepest hidden desires and announces them in public, he rips apart every single good memory you have, he drains your will and burns you out, all while keeping that smile, that smile of a skull, a dead man's grin that tells you "I am dead. And so are you soon. You cannot run or hide. You will die. Just like me. There is no. way. out."
I think I have a character concept of him in my gallery at marikbentusi.deviantart.com/gallery if you want to take a lot. The file should be filed under something with "Karive" in it.
Ah, I meant a different sort of internet culture. You know at some point the characters find together in one big society that unites people from literary everywhere - much like the internet - and its currency is not based on money you earn, but rather reputation - much like on the internet the big sites are big because they got high reputation, every link is the same after all. Because some very absurd creatures also join the mess from time to time and racism is not a thing they want, it's not a law, but an act of general courtesy to leave your home in a concealing black cloak - much like internet anonymity and avatars hiding a person's identity. Leaving your home without a cloak when you're in a hurry or something will make you look like somebody in our world ran outside without putting clothes on because they were in a hurry.
It's not a completely mixed society, for purposes of personal comfort there are districts seperating certain species and the zones inbetween two districts are only inhabitated by those who have no problem with walking outside and your neighbour is a floating jellyfish that changes its color 64 times per second (I just made this up, there isn't actually such a species introduced in the story).
There also *appears* to be an infinite amount of room for everyone and everything - just like there's seemingly no end to websites or webspace - and while transportation isn't instant or teleporttion, it's still pretty damn fast and available almost everywhere, at every time, no matter where you want to go - just like opening a different webpage is really fast and easy, tho not instant.
I don't have memes in my story, but I do try to make up new sayings or quotes people more or less frequently use, like in our world with sayings like "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" or something. One saying used in the story for example is "I breathed fire" for when you went through hardship to gain something. For example "I breathed fire to get some pizza in that storm outside and YOU realized we still have some in the fridge?! GRR." It's a saying derived from the feeling of your lungs if you inhaled too much cold air while doing sports.
Right, I guess that makes sense, our stories have a different approach there. I'm actually playing a lot with the Fourth Wall* so it's important to me that the reader knows at all time that there are characters in the book, there is an author writing this and there is readers reading this. It sounds like a complete immersion killer, but I hope the battles are intense enough to forget about everything and the more "philosophical" parts are good at reminding the reader what they're doing right now without a character pointing out and saying "lol I think we're being watched, I'm sooo meta and post-modern and lulzy".
^That's the name of the once-nurse-now-doctor-since-the-beginning-of-the-story.
I suppose the best characters develop spontaneously. Hell, the whole story I'm writing didn't even have an idea, leave alone a design, to begin with.
With 13 I read a forum roleplay story revolving around my fav game universe called Homeworld. I didn't think I could keep up with the standards of the forum, so I decided to just write my own version for myself offline on my computer, but to bring in everything that happened in their story. So for example when character X suddenly blow up the nearest meteor, the character in my character could see it outside the window. I guess that's what you'd call a fan-fan-fiction? I wrote about 300 pages in Word/"Star Office" (which later became Open Office) and at some point around I got tired of waiting weeks until somebody posted in the forum again and so I developed the story myself, my way, and distanced myself from the original plot in the forum (which at that time didn't have a different plot that "old enemies rise anew" and the forum was taken offline before it could become any more than that). Eventually tho I grew tired of spaceships after 300 pages and 2 years of every now and then add something to it. But you can't just "stop" writing after coming that far.
So I made up a new story solely to entertain myself. I didn't care what it was, I just wanted to write away what came into mind and have fun with new, fresh characters. Over time I took it much more serious and actually designed and composed the whole thing and that's where I'm now. It's been 4 years and school didn't let me be as active as I'd like to be and I spent the majority of the time completely rewriting the entire thing over and over again. I think I'm having big rewrite #4 now. It certainly feels good to revisit your work and laugh at what silly things you wrote tho. Well, if it doesn't reach the heights of embarrassement anyway.
So yeah, so much for spontaneous decisions and not so spontaneous ones.
Imma not so sure what you mean by "writing her story, too". Do you mean rewriting everything from her POV? I do enter the world from behind the shoulder (thirdperson and all) of all major characters, I think that's enough. Do you mean writing her background story? Done and done, I imagine it's incredibly hard to dive deep into a character without taking their childhood in mind.
Let's say her background is not pretty. Not pretty at all. "She keeps a fake smile up at all time"-not pretty. "silent waters are deep"-not pretty. I don't want to write another essay about this character and bore you, but if you're interested, I suppose you can dig up some bits from this conversation I had with someone else on devianTARD: http://comments.deviantart.com/1/177882722/1648137615
Especially the last post revealed a lot if you want to skip the rest. Which I could understand.
I suppose the best characters develop spontaneously. Hell, the whole story I'm writing didn't even have an idea, leave alone a design, to begin with.
With 13 I read a forum roleplay story revolving around my fav game universe called Homeworld. I didn't think I could keep up with the standards of the forum, so I decided to just write my own version for myself offline on my computer, but to bring in everything that happened in their story. So for example when character X suddenly blow up the nearest meteor, the character in my character could see it outside the window. I guess that's what you'd call a fan-fan-fiction? I wrote about 300 pages in Word/"Star Office" (which later became Open Office) and at some point around I got tired of waiting weeks until somebody posted in the forum again and so I developed the story myself, my way, and distanced myself from the original plot in the forum (which at that time didn't have a different plot that "old enemies rise anew" and the forum was taken offline before it could become any more than that). Eventually tho I grew tired of spaceships after 300 pages and 2 years of every now and then add something to it. But you can't just "stop" writing after coming that far.
So I made up a new story solely to entertain myself. I didn't care what it was, I just wanted to write away what came into mind and have fun with new, fresh characters. Over time I took it much more serious and actually designed and composed the whole thing and that's where I'm now. It's been 4 years and school didn't let me be as active as I'd like to be and I spent the majority of the time completely rewriting the entire thing over and over again. I think I'm having big rewrite #4 now. It certainly feels good to revisit your work and laugh at what silly things you wrote tho. Well, if it doesn't reach the heights of embarrassement anyway.
So yeah, so much for spontaneous decisions and not so spontaneous ones.
Imma not so sure what you mean by "writing her story, too". Do you mean rewriting everything from her POV? I do enter the world from behind the shoulder (thirdperson and all) of all major characters, I think that's enough. Do you mean writing her background story? Done and done, I imagine it's incredibly hard to dive deep into a character without taking their childhood in mind.
Let's say her background is not pretty. Not pretty at all. "She keeps a fake smile up at all time"-not pretty. "silent waters are deep"-not pretty. I don't want to write another essay about this character and bore you, but if you're interested, I suppose you can dig up some bits from this conversation I had with someone else on devianTARD: http://comments.deviantart.com/1/177882722/1648137615
Especially the last post revealed a lot if you want to skip the rest. Which I could understand.
Ahaha, and here I actually felt like I've been talking too much about me and my story (and wrote too much in general - sorry for that) when I really wanted to talk about yours. I'm very interested, please do go on about... everything, really. If you got nothing more to talk about the setting and "background science" behind magic or something, you could also tell me more about the plot - if you got the time that is.