Changes and New Stuff

For humor.

Still, I'm good with humor, but when it's something serious, and the prey is actively portrayed as stupid, then that would get to me. Especially if it's a neko. Because I'm neko-centered, for the 50th time.

GREGOLE wrote:

.... Ok, now, at what point was anyone obligated to make nekos inherently stupid? I don't recall anyone ever implying that they were or needed to be stupid. So what's with this "Hope you don't mind" tomfoolery?

It's a good question

I think it's because the writers don't want to developp too much the characters and don't feel sad when it dies. You flesh a character just to make it to die is very painfull. That's why they look dumb sometime.

Quote :

I think the point was that many stories tend to portray the prey as, well, dumb.

I read many vore stories which focuse on the prey who doesn't look dumb and end eaten by the predators.

There an infinity of potential in, each characters can be the main character of their own story where other characters are shown in a different way.

Cypress wrote:

Sean Okotami wrote:

But come on, that's not the only thing about it. If is was, every single Felarya stories would be carbon copies of each other. I mean, it's a fantasy world whose main distinguinshing feature is that most sentient preds vore people, not the opposite.

[Cypress] I beg to Differ!

[Me] this is a valid point though. there is a surprising void of culture forming... and i blame myself for some of it. I haven't continued the Juggle bowl in a while, and that was one of the few differing pred view stories I know of>.> and my attempts of writing about Ur-Sagol have fallen short.... perhaps i should try and get back on the horse a bit ^^;

oh and on character driven stories... GREGOLE is right. besides the cluless protaginist is needed to act as a surrogate for the reader, so when they learn about the culture and society of the world, so does the reader. problem is writers aren't filling any one in DX

Well, I actually made my very own version of what caused Ur-Sagol to expand and be destroyed, because I couldn't wait for the whole legend.

S-Guy wrote:

Just don't mess it up! I'm very neko-centered.

GREGOLE wrote:

.... Ok, now, at what point was anyone obligated to make nekos inherently stupid?

eep! I clearly must tread lightly about this subject.

I've seen what happens when writers piss off their fans.

Yeah, I think I saw that happen once.

*flashback*

Microsoft: "And so, from this point forward, we're going to make Master Chief a girl!"

Halo Fans: *NUKE*

Now, I think the two biggest thing Felarya needs a change in is, more stories centering around a prey trying to survive in Felarya, not a pred trying to eat preys. Don't be a pussy of having your OC be a 'prey' and fear of being eaten. Beating impossible odds is what makes stories great and captivating.

The other thing is more character development from the part of many characters that were in Felarya since the beggining. I mean, they are growing up in Felarya, so show that they are going through growth in it. And, this mostly concerns characters like Crisis. I don't hate Karbo's characters, I love them. But in my opinion, they feel too much like generic RPG NPCs who does nothing important or relevent to the whole story. It was good when they started, but if they were growing up in term of development, that would spark so much life in Felarya it would look like it is reborn. I don't mean alter them, just show they are constantly changing from experience, contact, and such in Felarya, like they are maturing.

S-Guy wrote:

Microsoft: "And so, from this point forward, we're going to make Master Chief a girl!"

Wow, glad I never was a Halo fan.

Feign wrote:

S-Guy wrote:

Microsoft: "And so, from this point forward, we're going to make Master Chief a girl!"

Wow, glad I never was a Halo fan.

Let's not go off-topic, shall we?

Sean Okotami wrote:

Now, I think the two biggest thing Felarya needs a change in is, more stories centering around a prey trying to survive in Felarya, not a pred trying to eat preys. Don't be a pussy of having your OC be a 'prey' and fear of being eaten. Beating impossible odds is what makes stories great and captivating.

Most of the stories I have in the works are told from a "prey" point of view. I do have to disgree with you somewhat on that last point- not everybody has the drive or opportunity to beat impossible odds, and a story quickly becomes a parody when characters routinely accomplish the impossible. Once they reach that point, there's not really anything that challenges them.

It's not "beating impossible odds" that makes stories great and captivating, it's conflict in general that drives a story and makes it interesting. More often than not, the only conflict present in a lot of stories I've read is Predator (a particular predator, like Crisis) vs. Prey; there aren't a whole lot of stories (but there are some, like The Jungle Bowl and others) that portray the Prey vs. Environment/Predator vs. Environment angle as well.

Which is what I believe you were referring to in your first sentence. I'm not fond of the "invincible predator" or "stupid prey" concepts, but they do have a place in some stories, where the focus isn't immediately on how clever or determined to survive the prey species are, or how hard the average predator has to work for a meal. *shrug*

Sean Okotami wrote:

The other thing is more character development from the part of many characters that were in Felarya since the beggining. I mean, they are growing up in Felarya, so show that they are going through growth in it. And, this mostly concerns characters like Crisis. I don't hate Karbo's characters, I love them. But in my opinion, they feel too much like generic RPG NPCs who does nothing important or relevent to the whole story. It was good when they started, but if they were growing up in term of development, that would spark so much life in Felarya it would look like it is reborn. I don't mean alter them, just show they are constantly changing from experience, contact, and such in Felarya, like they are maturing.

Again, I'm going to have to disagree. Not because I don't believe the characters could use more development, but because it's very hard to do that in a plausible way when you don't have some sort of time scale. There just isn't a time scale that applies to all of the stories about Felarya as a whole, so it's very difficult to depict growth when the stories are happening at random intervals in a character's life.

Katrika's Diary does an excellent job of showing off the growth of several characters, but a big part of that is that there's a (loose) time scale defined; you can look back and compare Katrika from the moment she first arrived in Felarya, against any of the later stories, and easily see how she's changed.

TheQuantumMechanic wrote:

Sean Okotami wrote:

Now, I think the two biggest thing Felarya needs a change in is, more stories centering around a prey trying to survive in Felarya, not a pred trying to eat preys. Don't be a pussy of having your OC be a 'prey' and fear of being eaten. Beating impossible odds is what makes stories great and captivating.

Most of the stories I have in the works are told from a "prey" point of view. I do have to disgree with you somewhat on that last point- not everybody has the drive or opportunity to beat impossible odds, and a story quickly becomes a parody when characters routinely accomplish the impossible. Once they reach that point, there's not really anything that challenges them.

It's not "beating impossible odds" that makes stories great and captivating, it's conflict in general that drives a story and makes it interesting. More often than not, the only conflict present in a lot of stories I've read is Predator (a particular predator, like Crisis) vs. Prey; there aren't a whole lot of stories (but there are some, like The Jungle Bowl and others) that portray the Prey vs. Environment/Predator vs. Environment angle as well.

Which is what I believe you were referring to in your first sentence. I'm not fond of the "invincible predator" or "stupid prey" concepts, but they do have a place in some stories, where the focus isn't immediately on how clever or determined to survive the prey species are, or how hard the average predator has to work for a meal. *shrug*

Sean Okotami wrote:

The other thing is more character development from the part of many characters that were in Felarya since the beggining. I mean, they are growing up in Felarya, so show that they are going through growth in it. And, this mostly concerns characters like Crisis. I don't hate Karbo's characters, I love them. But in my opinion, they feel too much like generic RPG NPCs who does nothing important or relevent to the whole story. It was good when they started, but if they were growing up in term of development, that would spark so much life in Felarya it would look like it is reborn. I don't mean alter them, just show they are constantly changing from experience, contact, and such in Felarya, like they are maturing.

Again, I'm going to have to disagree. Not because I don't believe the characters could use more development, but because it's very hard to do that in a plausible way when you don't have some sort of time scale. There just isn't a time scale that applies to all of the stories about Felarya as a whole, so it's very difficult to depict growth when the stories are happening at random intervals in a character's life.

Katrika's Diary does an excellent job of showing off the growth of several characters, but a big part of that is that there's a (loose) time scale defined; you can look back and compare Katrika from the moment she first arrived in Felarya, against any of the later stories, and easily see how she's changed.

1. People too often has predators as main characters. This tones down the danger Felarya is supposed to represent by a lot.

2. Crisis is the main character of Felarya. If we take it like a Manga or Anime, she hasn't gone through any development, and keeps doing the same things over and over. As long as Crisis is stale, Felarya is stale.

3. The example with Katrika'S Diary summed up exactly what Karbo's characters need to go through. The timescale thing is a shitty argument. I can't possibly expect to have my OC stuble in Felarya at a random time period, and then uses someone else's character in that time period which is incompatible.

Sean Okotami wrote:

3. The example with Katrika'S Diary summed up exactly what Karbo's characters need to go through. The timescale thing is a shitty argument. I can't possibly expect to have my OC stuble in Felarya at a random time period, and then uses someone else's character in that time period which is incompatible.

I don't think you understand what I mean. What happened in Katrika's Diary (the character growth) is possible precisely because there's an internally consistent scale of time applied within those stories. It's not a "shitty arguement" in any way; the same thing happens in comic books. Up until recently ("recently" in this case meaning "within the past four to five years"), everything in comics things stayed the same or just kept happening over and over, with very few exceptions. Characters didn't age, cities got destroyed one week and a couple of issues later, it's as if it never happened. Things started changing around 2003-2004, because the editorial departments for both DC and Marvel started coming up with dedicated timelines and sticking with them.

Unless you can point at a certain moment in a person's life, and say definitively whether it takes place before, concurrently, or after another moment in their life, you can't really show how they've grown since that moment. If you think you can, you're welcome to try. It shouldn't be any harder than you remembering some major life-altering event that hasn't happened yet.

I'm not saying that Felarya is going to remain "static", or anything like that. But since most of the events that happen within it are a collaborative effort of sorts, people are going to have to work harder at working out how their stories relate to those written by others. You want to show Crisis' growth? Find a story about Crisis you like, say yours takes place "sometime after" that one, and show how the experiences changed Crisis. Then you or others can build off of that, or write stories set before it happened, when she hasn't "learned the lesson" yet.

In any kind of ongoing story, the event-to-event and event-to-character relationships are as important as the character-to-character relationships.

Feign wrote:

S-Guy wrote:

Microsoft: "And so, from this point forward, we're going to make Master Chief a girl!"

Wow, glad I never was a Halo fan.

That never happened.
...but wouldn't it be totally hilarious if it did?

Ok, you're right. We are getting a bit off topic. XD

TheQuantumMechanic wrote:

Sean Okotami wrote:

3. The example with Katrika'S Diary summed up exactly what Karbo's characters need to go through. The timescale thing is a shitty argument. I can't possibly expect to have my OC stuble in Felarya at a random time period, and then uses someone else's character in that time period which is incompatible.

I don't think you understand what I mean. What happened in Katrika's Diary (the character growth) is possible precisely because there's an internally consistent scale of time applied within those stories. It's not a "shitty arguement" in any way; the same thing happens in comic books. Up until recently ("recently" in this case meaning "within the past four to five years"), everything in comics things stayed the same or just kept happening over and over, with very few exceptions. Characters didn't age, cities got destroyed one week and a couple of issues later, it's as if it never happened. Things started changing around 2003-2004, because the editorial departments for both DC and Marvel started coming up with dedicated timelines and sticking with them.

Unless you can point at a certain moment in a person's life, and say definitively whether it takes place before, concurrently, or after another moment in their life, you can't really show how they've grown since that moment. If you think you can, you're welcome to try. It shouldn't be any harder than you remembering some major life-altering event that hasn't happened yet.

I'm not saying that Felarya is going to remain "static", or anything like that. But since most of the events that happen within it are a collaborative effort of sorts, people are going to have to work harder at working out how their stories relate to those written by others. You want to show Crisis' growth? Find a story about Crisis you like, say yours takes place "sometime after" that one, and show how the experiences changed Crisis. Then you or others can build off of that, or write stories set before it happened, when she hasn't "learned the lesson" yet.

In any kind of ongoing story, the event-to-event and event-to-character relationships are as important as the character-to-character relationships.

The whole thing is that some events must happens that will changes Crisis' life drastically. If things like that doesn't happen to Karbo's characters, they'll be the most artificial felt characters ever in history. Since Crisis is the main character of Felarya, she's the one that makes it stale or no. Since she has slim to no character development, Felarya is thus stagnant.

I disagree with that. I don't feel that Crisis needs to change for there to be a breath of fresh air. In fact, I feel we need to focus less on the pre-existing characters if we want some fresh air. Write a story that has minimal interaction with the current cast, place it in a new area (Perhaps the Temple?), perhaps even a different time frame [20 years prior to 'modern' Felarya?].

Malahite wrote:

I disagree with that. I don't feel that Crisis needs to change for there to be a breath of fresh air. In fact, I feel we need to focus less on the pre-existing characters if we want some fresh air. Write a story that has minimal interaction with the current cast, place it in a new area (Perhaps the Temple?), perhaps even a different time frame [20 years prior to 'modern' Felarya?].

Then what was the point of having pre-existing characters in the first place? If she's the main character, she needs to go through development sooner or later.

Again, I'll have to respectfully disagree with you. Felarya is a big place, and regardless of what does or does not happen in Crisis' life, life will move on for other people. Do you really think Crisis not experiencing any life-altering events makes the slightest bit of difference to a Miaxi Hive, or the inhabitants of the Jungle Bowl, or the creatures in Bulvon Wood?

There is so much going on, or so much that can be going on, in Felarya at any given moment that putting the entire status of the world on Crisis' shoulders is fallacious thinking; she just is not involved in everything that goes on in Felarya.

I agree more with Malahite's line of reasoning; if you really want to make things less "stagnant", then don't focus on the same characters everybody writes about. Explore something that hasn't seen much light, or use established characters more as cameos rather than focal points. You can use pre-existing characters without having the story revolve entirely around them. Writers have been doing it for centuries.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Then what was the point of having pre-existing characters in the first place? If she's the main character, she needs to go through development sooner or later.

Background. One need not write a story that involves the Master Chief or the other Spartans if writing a Halo Novel. One need not focus on Jim Raynor or Kerrigan if working on a Starcraft fanfic. Pre-Existing characters add a nice bit of background, but saying "You need at least one from this list:" to someone writing a story seems a bit silly.

Malahite wrote:

Sean Okotami wrote:

Then what was the point of having pre-existing characters in the first place? If she's the main character, she needs to go through development sooner or later.

Background. One need not write a story that involves the Master Chief or the other Spartans if writing a Halo Novel. One need not focus on Jim Raynor or Kerrigan if working on a Starcraft fanfic. Pre-Existing characters add a nice bit of background, but saying "You need at least one from this list:" to someone writing a story seems a bit silly.

Then the main character is just background. Felarya's star is just a background.

Everyone goes through life altering events, and I actually have one planned that will alter Crisis' life. And you will understand what I mean.

And at points where she do is involved, she'll have to go through events that will change her life. My story involves her at some points, she'll go through changes.

TheQuantumMechanic wrote:

Again, I'll have to respectfully disagree with you. Felarya is a big place, and regardless of what does or does not happen in Crisis' life, life will move on for other people. Do you really think Crisis not experiencing any life-altering events makes the slightest bit of difference to a Miaxi Hive, or the inhabitants of the Jungle Bowl, or the creatures in Bulvon Wood?

There is so much going on, or so much that can be going on, in Felarya at any given moment that putting the entire status of the world on Crisis' shoulders is fallacious thinking; she just is not involved in everything that goes on in Felarya.

I agree more with Malahite's line of reasoning; if you really want to make things less "stagnant", then don't focus on the same characters everybody writes about. Explore something that hasn't seen much light, or use established characters more as cameos rather than focal points. You can use pre-existing characters without having the story revolve entirely around them. Writers have been doing it for centuries.

My thought exactly... At this point Felarya is not meant to be a story told with a beginning and an end.
And I don't plan to have Crisis go through any "life-altering" event any time soon.
I do plan however, to have soon a long serie of short strips on various Felaryan characters that will hopefully help developp them more.

And Sean, I'd be grateful if you could make your point known without this constant hint of agressivity I keep feeling in your interventions...

I don't really see Crisis as the 'main character' of Felarya, except in the stories specifically featuring her. She is more of a mascot to me. What I feel is that too many people seem compelled to involve other, pre-existing characters instead of creating new ones. Some stories seem to go so far as to even lead a character across half the continent just to involve said character.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Then the main character is just background. Felarya's star is just a background.

Yes. Yes, she is. Just like Elminster is just background in the Forgotten Realms. Crisis is only "Felarya's star" under two, and only two, conditions:

1) In the general sense of the term, since she is Karbo's "flagship" camera. This is only important in a real world context, to people who enjoy his art and reading about Felarya.

2) In stories explicitly about Crisis, that focus on her as the main character.

That is it; in just about any other situation, Crisis gets goes from "Felarya's star" to "guest star" or even "totally irrelevant". Crisis in Katrika's Diary filled the same role she would have in Anna's story- she was a mentor character, rather than the star of the show. In the Jungle Bowl, Crisis is totally irrelevant. Yes, there's a naga named Crisis who lives in the same world, and maybe some of the inhabitants of the Jungle Bowl have an idea of who she is. For the majority of them, the fact that she exists is not going to impact their lives in any meaningful way unless she directly comes into contact with them.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Everyone goes through life altering events, and I actually have one planned that will alter Crisis' life. And you will understand what I mean.

Yes, everyone does go through life altering events. But the life-altering events that occur in Crisis' life are no more important to the entire world of Felarya than those of any other character, except to Crisis and her friends.

Whatever, but she needs development so she won't be stale. I still have my surprise for her that WILL change her. People who are familiar with my past stories knows what I'm talking about. If you know, say nothing, I don't want it spoiled.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Whatever, but she needs development so she won't be stale.

The right wording.

Sean Okotami wrote:

As long as Crisis is stale, Felarya is stale.

Wrong wording.

Whatever. The point is still that every characters need development. No matter who they are, they need development, no matter how they are developed, as long as they're developed right that is.