'Sup, folks? I've been extremely busy lately, not due to school work but rather due to working on my computer. Last Friday I came home for break and instantly slapped my new hard drive in my lappy, and so ever since then I've been working on getting the kinks out of Ubuntu (aka, Linux) which I've decided to switch to for my main OS. I'm running a dual boot setup with Windows still, but mostly for games and such which don't really work on Linux. This has led to quite a few things I've had to overcome, such as getting my mouse's side buttons to work as I want. I've also found myself needing to adapt to new programs, such as OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office (I tried using Office in Crossover, but it was too slow...), Rhythmbox instead of Winamp (which I'm actually liking; I hadn't really given the iTunes style library system a try before but it is pretty nice), Deluge (and at first Transmission) instead of uTorrent... I have retained Alt.Binz run through Wine though, since I can't for the life of me find a binary Usenet reader as good as Alt.Binz. Fortunately, it runs well through Wine.
With the deadline for the Serebii Sci-Fi fanfic contest bearing down I've also started to feel some pressure there, mostly due to how much I've slacked off in terms of actually writing my entry. In order to give OpenOffice 3 (which I managed to update to after much struggle... Stupid Ubuntu for not having it in the official repositories) a try, I pulled myself together to work on it some today after a spree of virtual computer hacking in Uplink (the only game I have which has a native Linux version) and getting a game over once (I still don't know how I was caught... I swear I deleted my logs... I was just trying to do too much at once that I guess I slipped up somewhere...).
Dumbest thing you've ever put in your fics. And I mean THE dumbest. Don't be shy here.
Well, it's kind of hard for me to remember specific details of my old, worst fics now, but from what I can recall the overall worst thing which I did for several years and fics in a row was pretty much directly insert me and my friends (and sister) into the fics, complete with unchanged names. The hero was always called Mike and acted like me, there was always a pair of ninja-like girls called Ally (my sister) and Ky (her friend, and as I felt I had to make clear in the middle of every single story back then, is pronounced Kay). Mike always had a friend named Zack...hey, wait, I still do that. That's intentional, though. Zack is like my Cid, with me always having some guy named Zack in every thing I write as a sort of inside joke that only I get.
Beyond that there's really only the standard cliched stuff, but one thing notable is that I never have fallen into the whole giving the main character an extremely rare Pokémon as a starter. In fact, another thing I've kept consistent through all my stories is that the main character always has a Cyndaquil (or Typhlosion—well, technically a Quilava when they first met—in TRINITY) as their starter. It's likely that if I were to write another story with no link to TFC except for maybe being in the same universe that I'd use a different starter, but for now...
Well actually, there is an exception to that. In my stories that I shall not speak of nor post here and which are definitely not porn (and I'm ****ing serious about that!), the starter is always a Mightyena. Odd, that. I think it's because I'm mostly
copying inspired by another fic I read.
@Evil guy as head of corporation thing: Eh, I think that depending on how you do it, it may or may not be bad. If you look at it solely from the angle of it being cliché, that's being a little close-minded (as I tend to think about most clichés and how people avoid them like the plague when if done right they can still be good). Look at Giovanni, he's the head of a corporation (Team Rocket) yet he's still cool because he actually reasonably acts like some big hotshot. He's not coming out to pester you at every turn personally or anything, and it's only after you've pretty much foiled every single one of his plans does he finally take you on personally. And then after you defeat him he
stays defeated, like any good villain should.
If someone writes the villainous corporation head as stalking the hero(s) and battling them at every turn using Pokémon of equally-matched level and continuously returning while seemingly doing nothing actually corporation head related, than that's pretty bad. But if they actually act like a CEO or something, I don't see any problems there. In fact, the villain of TRINITY is also the head of a corporation and I'm not afraid to admit that, the reason being that he actually acts like one. He never confronts the heroes directly, instead staying in the back and just controlling everything.
Post Office Buddy said:
I've hated that idea as well. I've been toying around with a Pokemorph idea for a while, but mine is a little different than most I have seen. I can't reveal how exactly my idea works right now in case I decide to use it, soooo I'm going to remain vague on it until then.
Is it like a crossover between Pokémon and Animorphs or something, with the humans being able to morph into different Pokémon and all through some method? :D A fanfic like that was what got me into writing fanfics way back then, but of course it completely sucked and all that I wrote about it sucked too. I really think the idea could work, though, hence why I've given some thought into how I could remove the suck from it...Step one, for the love of god remove the Yeerk ripoff Caterpie/Weedle hybrid mutant thingy. Good God, that was a terrible idea in the original fic I read (although of course I didn't see it back then). Replace them with a psychoactive drug that allows the subject to be easily persuaded to do stuff. Step two, remove the whole thing with infected Pokémon being the villains. With the Yeerk ripoffs, that worked, but with this new drug it wouldn't. There'd need to be some human group behind the drug and the whole taking over the world business. Step three, remove the whole taking over the world business. God, I write about that too much. Step four, use some kind of anti-Mew toxin or something as they were way too overpopulated in the original. I understand that their
tails render them as the most likely Andalite analog, but...no. Just no. I am not going to have a bunch of cute, pink, fetus cats fighting against
the whole taking over the world business whatever they're trying to do. Step five, change how morphing works. Period. The idea isn't to write a complete ripoff of Animorphs, so the "Ditto Device" has got to go. Oh wow, it being a sphere makes it so much different...yeah. Drug maybe? But wait, that's like the same thing you all were complaining about... The only way I'd see it working is if the drug injected them with some sort of retrovirus that...oh hey, that's a neat idea. Their morphing powers come from different drugs they have that they need to inject themselves with. The drugs contain a retrovirus that rewrites their DNA VERY VERY VERY fast, morphing them into a Pokémon. To get back they have to inject themselves again, which...would be difficult with some Pokémon.
So, in short, that story needs a lot of work and I now think I am an inner druggie. Yep.
Oh, and the drug injections would so look like in Bioshock when you inject plasmids, complete with the spazing out and falling off railings.
DGexe said:
I ask that because at some point in my fic, I want one of the Poké Balls a character has to be shot with a bullet like a set of pool balls; bullet as the cueball, Poké Ball as... the other ball. It wouldn't be a direct hit, but I don't neccessarily want the 'ball to shatter on impact with the bullet.
That sounds so badass, I can just visualize it. Some guy walks into a bar, only to find that the pool table lacks any balls. Or cues. So he says, with a drunken slur, "Balls? Ye don't have balls? Well I have yer balls, right here!" And he throws some Poké Balls he mugged off some random kid onto the table, and they just happen to fall into a perfect triangle. He then pulls out a pistol—no wait, a revolver, as they're just so much more badass, and goes "And this...this is
my cue!" And he shoots the Poké Balls which miraculously all ricochet into the holes at once in an ultimate display of badassery.
Oh yes, I so should steal that idea...
Oh, right, your question:
yes, it sounds awesome. DO IT.
And that's it as I'm too lazy to go any further back. Yep.
AND I KNOW I'VE BEEN NINJA'D BEFORE I EVEN POST, AND I DON'T CARE, SO THERE! You can take your question and
suck it!
/me skips off into the distance
