sure is a lot of pregnant ladies in these ideas . . .

Yeah, I noticed that my self. Probably has to do with getting to my late twenties, but my mental illness making haVing kids for real a really bad idea for the near future. I guess being a guy gives me like 15 more years of wriggle room, but I don't think my subConscious cares.

Anonymous 2014/08/07(Thu)10:56 No. 84521 ID: d315b1
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>3 out of 4 ideas involve pregnant women

Well /that/ bit is really not a sex thing. Other parts, are a little yeah.

But I tHink I just am interested in stories about being a parent.

I like idea #2; there's not enough stories about what happens AFTER the heroes return home, especially if they bring some magic along.

...Well, I guess there's Hagure Yuusha no Aesthetica, but I feel that one rather misses the point, since the thousand OTHER returning heroes form a huge organization + school, so it all turns into a kind of normal unrealistic fantasy storyline.

Oh, and bonus points if one of the girls got pregnant in a previous relationship with an Elf or some other fantasy race. Special dietary needs, doctors reacting to the weirdness, implications for genetics research, etc... Lots of story potential there.

My initial reaction to 1 is a lot of those tropes seem familiar. But then again, I do have a fondness for the whole the whole becoming the mask, face-dancers lost in the act thing. And identity messes, and weird moral situations / obligations. I dunno how quickly you plan to get through the intro, but forcing us to deal with / learn to process completely alien inputs could be an interesting exercise. Kind of how Jasper started out, only more so. Execution might be tricky though.

2 kind of reminds me of The Sword and the Chain, although they cheated and bullied a wizard into sending them back again when they came home with one friend catatonic and another a burnt corpse. The paranoia is something that we'd take right to. Preexisting and fucked-up interpersonal relationships could potentially make things interesting, since it would fuck with our usual friend-making tactics.

3, to me, sounds kind of like the exact thing /quest/ would be terrible at, if it's played strait. Our gut reaction would be to be paranoid and not trust the other nobles around us, try to take charge, build up friends and allies the way we usually do. Except we'd be in a situation where we wouldn't have direct power, and trying to take charge would backfire. Where everything would be about compromise, letting ourselves be used to put ourselves in a position to use others. Survival / not ending up as a pawn would be a long con (and we have problems thinking that far ahead, or sticking to plans for that long). Granted, playing to our weaknesses isn't the worst idea.

4 seems like it could vary wildly depending on where you take the characters. Just how broken or fucked up is the PC after a TPC, cutting ties with her family and allies, living on the street? How much is the kid a kid, versus how much is it a literal alien monster? And on top of that, how much does the PC see the kid as what it is, versus her own perceptions? Could be played very strait or could be played as a completely fucked up headgame, or somewhere in between.

>stories about being a parent
Not a theme that's explored in very many quests. At least, beyond using the kid as a plot object that needs to be protected. It's been interesting in the cases where it was dealt with well, and it's something I'd be interested to see more of.

Thanks useful thoughts.

Idea #1 is at least partway a cliché, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If this is a medium you're not used to working in that may even be a benefit since it gives you and everyone else participating strong ideas on what to expect that are similar. Simple initial ideas don't necessarily limit how far a story can go or how interesting it can be.

Idea #2 looks like a punishment: You were special, go be normal again in a world where nobody understands what you had and lost. Teenage pregnancy in America has high correlation to lower incomes, lower educational attainment, and a bunch more things that say, "You lose at life," as well. In countries with better social safety nets it might not be as bad though, I'm thinking Denmark and Sweden.
If you like the idea of the extraordinary trying to hide within the ordinary however, there's other options. For one, there's modern-day horror/paranormal stories, and a genre of stories I don't like much, called superheroes, that may also work for you.

Idea #3 might take too long, with decisions towards the end being irreparably constrained by earlier decisions. If I wanted to think about, and regret, not being more of a brown-noser in grade school while considering my options in the present I've got reality to force those kinds of thoughts and choices on me. On the other hand, lots of people did like Princess Maker and plaing The Sims.

Idea #4 is something that I can't really comment on, except to say I don't like it because I don't like 'magical child' stuff. The whole genre presumes that these little girls are getting powers from cute little imaginary critters that are actually real: If they were real why wouldn't they instead go find an adult that has adult intelligence, reasoning and ability to rent and use powertools instead?

>If they were real why wouldn't they instead go find an adult that has adult intelligence, reasoning and ability to rent and use powertools instead?
Well, the naive happy answer might be they need the innocence or imagination of children more than they need hardened adults with other resources.

The more realistic answer might be that they're manipulative fucks with their own agendas and kids are easier to sweet talk into things. Possibly less genre savvy, more of a need to be told they're special, that they can have powers that flat out outclass all the parents and school and shit that is growing up. They're not looking for competence or maturity. They're looking for someone they can play. It's not like preying on the vulnerabilities of adolescence is a new idea.

>>84551
Yeah, 1 is the most normal story by far. Still the core of the story is about themes I haven't seen, at least not together. Also I think I can do better at world building then most. But yeah 1 is about old ideas in new combinations more then new ideas..then again so are 2 and 4.

>>84583

Responding to paragraphs in order.

Good points.

I didn't mean for it too be a punishment exactly, but I think I see your point. I think the second half of your paragraph is off the mark for me. But I am not sure what you mean exactly. I also don't much like comic book "supers". The settings and characters tend to be shallow, and the stories confuse noise for dream.

Not that it can't be done well, but the publishing model of DC and Marvel don't really encourage it.

Then again the most popular manga is almost as bad.

3) yeah I think you might be right about the problem.

4) Well, your critique doesn't really reply to any of the Magical Girl stores I've watched. I mean some times the reason is fairly contrived, but there usually is a reason.

And I do have reasons for it here. I mean the story can kind of be summed up as girls think they are in Magical Girl story but are actually in a Urban Fantasy/Secret History/Horror universe.

>>84607
>I didn't mean for it too be a punishment exactly, but I think I see your point. I think the second half of your paragraph is off the mark for me. But I am not sure what you mean exactly. I also don't much like comic book "supers". The settings and characters tend to be shallow, and the stories confuse noise for dream.
In countries with healthier social investment and concern for your neighbours, you don't have the same, "You got pregnant as a teenager/university student, now your life is over," type of problem that can happen in the U.S.A. If you're familiar enough with Danish or Swedish civil society you could set it in a nicer place, where instead of battling addictions and poverty you could have a much more positive tone for returning to the ordinary. Might lack drama though.
Also, superheroes was just one of the options mentioned, we've still got our alien infiltrators, our vampires trapped in the modern day, our fairies and pixies in the margins where most people don't see them, and all sorts of other possibilities for stories about the heroic/supernatural trying to make it in the 9/5 world.

I'm not strongly acquainted with all of the more notable 'magical girl genre' stories so I can't comment on your explanation that it would be about a world used to the existence of them. Frankly, they're usually way too pedophilic for me, just like the majority of other Japanese cartoons, so the extent of my understanding is reading about them just so I know what people younger than me are talking about. My point was an aimed takedown of the founding assumptions of that kind of story: Children having dangerous amounts of power, license to use it, and authority to make important decisions on matters outside their experience, is nuts. Therefore if you want to do something interesting with that 'genre' I might counter-suggest that you take the Puella Magi Madoka Magica idea of, "These girls are being exploited," and go at it from another angle, or explore the insanity of the genre assumptions in some other way.

>>84613
Regarding the magical girl genre, it's important to remember that this is a genre mostly filled with shows for children. There're exceptions, but the target audience is generally about the age of the magical girls and largely the same gender. In that regard, it's no different from any other children's show that have the underaged heroes doing dangerous things. Essentially, it's a power fantasy for children. You see this stuff in western works, too--I recall a lot of my beloved children's literature featuring similarly young people getting into some rather dangerous situations and wielding an absurd amount of power for children. (And then there's Evangelion's (in)famous skewering of the 'children given power and responsibility' trope.)

Of course, the audience of this site are largely adults, so that's a whole different deal. It's noteworthy that a fair number of the magical girl quests we've seen on this have featured adults (including the currently running Magician Girl Quest by Charm, though that's quite a bit different from the general magical girl genre--probably the main and only similarity is the cute animal granting powers).

Also, in the case of Sailor Moon which started a lot of the tropes we associate with the genre, they had the whole reincarnation deal going on which made things a little weird re: degree of life experience. (In fact, Sailor Moon herself starts becoming more mature after she gets her past life memories, to the point where her family actually notices and remarks on the change.) But then, Sailor Moon had a lot of weird stuff and I'm not surprised its creator did comics about stuff like alien girls that turn into cockroaches.

> My point was an aimed takedown of the founding assumptions of that kind of story: Children having dangerous amounts of power, license to use it, and authority to make important decisions.

I guess. Hmm. Really I am completely uninterested in such a "take down". Mostly because it just feels mean spirited. I mean the only shows I can think of where its even a relevant criticism are ones that are not meant to be taken remotely seriously.

Also humans /need/ a sense of accomplishment/responsibility which is often denied people (and especialy children), (for good reasons), so a fantasy that lets them feel that is a very important thing.

Sorry for the maybe kind of mean critique of your critique, I don't want to silence you..

-----

On the other note, I think what I maybe left out of the description of idea 2) is that this is still supposed to be a heroic story, i.e. one where the challenges are unreasonable and the MC rise up to it anyway.

And now maybe I am doing the arguing with criticism thing which is often counter productive.

Hrrrm...
A different angle to look at idea 2 is somewhat of a 'veterans of war returning to normal life' type thing-something Farmer's done with one of his/her (I don't recall gender at this time/don't want to insult) quests, but you seem like you're looking at a different angle of it, what with it being a small group we could end up working with and whatnot...

>>84626
That's definitely an angle I was looking at.

>>84625
Your responses were perfectly valid, and as the person who is proposing to do these stories your opinions on the matter would matter more than mine would anyway. Sorry, I know that without the use of emoticons or tone of voice it can be hard to tell but I was really making points about the ideas instead of saying that you are dumb and what you like is dumb.

Don't worry. Even if I don't agree with your criticisms exactly, they still helped me figure out what I wanted to run.