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My Random Fiction Bits and Pieces

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ConfusedPotato said:
We need to organise a committee for that first.
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So, a grass roots movement to form a committee to investigate the viability of forming a grass roots movement to get a committee to investigate the feasibility of having a commission to investigate the logistics of having another committee organize having someone write more chapters?

That seems inefficient. How about we just politely request that @mp3.1415player writes more chapters instead?
 
mp3.1415player said:
How do you know they didn't lose an eye?
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Because I saw them get hit and they didn't lose an eye :)
Here's the downside of producing very vivid imagery in your writing.

OK, experiment time. You get a friend to, without warning, knee you in the stomach then as you gasp in pain, spray a full flow garden hose into your mouth and nose.
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Not relevant because then I'd be immediatly chocking on the water and coughing, not sanding and blocking the water stream with my hands.
Yes, I could write out several pages of detailed description of precisely how all this happened, which might satisfy you, but it would be a waste of time.
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No, that would definitely not satisfy me.
You might be able to describe a sequence of events where it was plausible events occurred as you described them, but that doesn't matter because that's not what I read in the story (and this applies even if it's what you wrote).

To clarify, I didn't (and don't as a general rule when I post comments on a story) mean my comments as "This was badly written and you need to change it". I was pointing out how I read it (which appears to be different then what you wrote) and why I didn't find that belivable. Unless you get a whole bunch of people with the same complaint I'd expect you to ignore it.

If you start dissecting my nitpicking, I tend to think that's because you enjoy nitpicking.
 
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TheUnicorn said:
Because I saw them get hit and they didn't lose an eye :)
Here's the downside of producing very vivid imagery in your writing.

Not relevant because then I'd be immediatly chocking on the water and coughing, not sanding and blocking the water stream with my hands.
No, that would definitely not satisfy me.
You might be able to describe a sequence of events where it was plausible events occurred as you described them, but that doesn't matter because that's not what I read in the story (and this applies even if it's what you wrote).

To clarify, I didn't (and don't as a general rule when I post comments on a story) mean my comments as "This was badly written and you need to change it". I was pointing out how I read it (which appears to be different then what you wrote) and why I didn't find that belivable. Unless you get a whole bunch of people with the same complaint I'd expect you to ignore it.

If you start dissecting my nitpicking, I tend to think that's because you enjoy nitpicking.
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No, I don't for the most part enjoy nitpicking. I do, however, listen to people who can politely and cogently provide an explanation of what they think is a problem, even if I don't agree with it, and I try to come up with an explanation of my own why I think they are wrong. Or even in some cases right :)

Take that how you will ;)
 
The Nazi philosophy about leaders has some weird fetishism which resembles the 'divine right of kings' bit... Also, the strange romantic distortion of history that makes the 'Golden Age' ("In the good old days") look almost rational. Then, there's the things you are allowed to apply rationality to, and the things you are very definitely not. Sort of a mixture of a deliberately broken moral compass and blinkers.

So Kaiser, by definition, can not be wrong. And their actions, such as the attack on the Docks, are right, even if they make them feel sick in the stomach. History requires it.

But, of course, as usual, I may have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. :)
 
Hmm, in review to the DWA being called Cold Blooded Murderers, I am going to disagree. Here is why:

The DWA started by using their Presence to try to convince the E88 to be Law Abiding Citizens. Sadly, it failed. The E88 actually started with the threat of Lethal Force.

The DWA proceeded to use Verbal Commands to convince the E88 to be Law Abiding Citizens. Sure the form wasn't normal for Verbal Commands, but it still counts. Kaiser humored the attempt, while continuing to use the threat of Lethal Force.

At this point, the DWA concluded that the protections the E88 had would render Soft Controls, Hard Controls, and Intermediary Force less than useless. So they went to the threat of Lethal Force. It was the E88's response to the threat that triggered the actual use of Lethal Force.

Anyone in the US Military would applaud the DWA's use of restraint. After all, in the US Armed Forces, the threat of Lethal Force can justify Lethal Force from the threatened.

The black humor merely proved that the DWA has a number of Cold Blooded Killers, but not enough to prove they were Murderers.

If you want to use the DWA ensuring E88 members died as proof the DWA are Murderers, don't. They had a responsibility to protect their own lives over that of hostiles. Helping Alabaster after he fell for a trap? Great now he either has a hostage, or just killed a Dock Worker. Not cool. Moving Hookwolf into wet cement? While he was under all of those girders, they could not confirm that he was unconscious. If they allowed him to remain conscious, then he remained an unacceptable risk. Using a forklift to move him mitigated the risk of checking on him, and allowed the DWA to take action to ensure he was no longer conscious. That he died from those actions, well, they could not afford the risk of him being conscious.
 
Black humor doesn't even mean "cold blooded killer". It just means "trying to ease the stress of a combat situation or relax after a high stress combat situation". I'm not a heartless killer, but I've been known to use black humor when feeling stressed.
 
ScyBlade said:
Hmm, in review to the DWA being called Cold Blooded Murderers, I am going to disagree. Here is why:

The DWA started by using their Presence to try to convince the E88 to be Law Abiding Citizens. Sadly, it failed. The E88 actually started with the threat of Lethal Force.

The DWA proceeded to use Verbal Commands to convince the E88 to be Law Abiding Citizens. Sure the form wasn't normal for Verbal Commands, but it still counts. Kaiser humored the attempt, while continuing to use the threat of Lethal Force.

At this point, the DWA concluded that the protections the E88 had would render Soft Controls, Hard Controls, and Intermediary Force less than useless. So they went to the threat of Lethal Force. It was the E88's response to the threat that triggered the actual use of Lethal Force.

Anyone in the US Military would applaud the DWA's use of restraint. After all, in the US Armed Forces, the threat of Lethal Force can justify Lethal Force from the threatened.

The black humor merely proved that the DWA has a number of Cold Blooded Killers, but not enough to prove they were Murderers.

If you want to use the DWA ensuring E88 members died as proof the DWA are Murderers, don't. They had a responsibility to protect their own lives over that of hostiles. Helping Alabaster after he fell for a trap? Great now he either has a hostage, or just killed a Dock Worker. Not cool. Moving Hookwolf into wet cement? While he was under all of those girders, they could not confirm that he was unconscious. If they allowed him to remain conscious, then he remained an unacceptable risk. Using a forklift to move him mitigated the risk of checking on him, and allowed the DWA to take action to ensure he was no longer conscious. That he died from those actions, well, they could not afford the risk of him being conscious.
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This is basically my feelings on it, nicely laid out. Thanks.

FaerieKnight79 said:
Black humor doesn't even mean "cold blooded killer". It just means "trying to ease the stress of a combat situation or relax after a high stress combat situation". I'm not a heartless killer, but I've been known to use black humor when feeling stressed.
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Very true. If you've ever hung around trauma doctors or EMTs when they're relaxing, you'll hear some absolutely bloodcurdling things said for the same reason. I'm reliably informed it's also very common in the armed forces, in fire services, and so on. People need to destress and weird humor is one of the more effective methods. It tends to appall people who don't have the same background and experiences, of course...

My_Game_Account said:
@mp3.1415player do you have a patreon or something like it ?
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No, I don't. As far as fanfics go I have quite strong feelings that while they're entirely valid forms of work, directly profiting from them is over the line, and thus using something like Patreon to get money for such a thing is ethically not something I'm comfortable with. I've wondered about salving my conscience by just letting people donate to me if they so feel, but again it sort of puts an obligation on me that I'm not too happy about :)
 
Also even if they are cold-blooded killers there's still a chance nothing is wrong with them even so. One thing that is acknowledged but not talked about or displayed in most fics is what would be the mental effect of growing up in Earth Bet. Earth Bet is a Grimdark Crapsack world and between the Endbringers, the S-Class threats, and the just general violence that seems to be prevalent in Worm it wouldn't surprise me if every person on Earth Bet who has a developed enough brain has at least some sociopathic tendencies and some lack of empathy, even as just a defensive response to the world around them. And that's perfectly fine, I know a guy who has a similar if not a bit more severe case of what I described (sociopathic tendencies and lack of empathy) and apart from the fact that if your not his friend or family he could watch you die or kill you himself without feeling much he's perfectly normal, hell he's even a mental health counselor.
Do I think that's what this is? No. Do I think this means that you can get away with a hell of a lot as long as people are very normal outside of violence? Yes.
Edit: Clarification and grammitical errors.
Edit 2: Further Clarification cause I realized I missed a major point.
 
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mp3.1415player said:
No, I don't. As far as fanfics go I have quite strong feelings that while they're entirely valid forms of work, directly profiting from them is over the line, and thus using something like Patreon to get money for such a thing is ethically not something I'm comfortable with. I've wondered about salving my conscience by just letting people donate to me if they so feel, but again it sort of puts an obligation on me that I'm not too happy about :)
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From my perspective, people are donating in thanks of past events, not paying for future events (if it were the latter, then it'd be employment, not donation).
 
mp3.1415player said:
Fair enough, although I feel that given the circumstances and the people involved, it's more black humor than any psychotic joy in the situation. They didn't want to get pushed that far, since very few would, but having had no choice they just got on with the job. I've certainly heard plenty of stories about people in combat making far worse jokes and only a couple of those were people I'd say actually enjoyed the whole process.
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If it was intended to be black humour, it didn't come across. And I, at least, never got any impression of 'psychotic joy' from the scene. Rather, it was the lack of reaction that was an issue. The fact that they were morally (and, debatably, legally) in the right is irrelevant - killing a man shouldn't be easy, and it's hard to like or feel sympathetic for a character who can calmly watch someone asphyxiate.

If it had clearly been done in anger, well, people can do horrible things when they're angry, and the DWU have some damn good reasons to be angry. If it had been done as a grim necessity, by people who obviously hated and were disturbed by what they were doing, but were soldiering on anyway, then I'd have been fine with it and them. But instead, the impression I got was more 'He looks dead, but let's give him another 5 minutes to be sure. Say, did you catch the Lakers game last night?'.
 
The thing is, they are fighting Nazis. Nazis who want to kill them or their friends for having the wrong skin colour. In a city where they have been murdering people for 20+ years. Calmly watching them die does not seem too weird for people there. Sort of like soldiers used to brutal killings.
 
I forget which movie it was, but there's a quote I like dealing with that: "Who's the toughest gang in this city, (name?) No, it's not our boys. The toughest gang in this city wears blue, and if you fuck with them too much they might call in the guys who wear green. That's why we keep things quiet, quiet means everything keeps going smooth and steady and profitable. Stick our heads up too far and things get loud. Loud means some of the boys got orphans and widows to take care of. Loud is bad for business."

e: I am very confused about the pages between when I wrote that and where it appeared... but it still basically fits, so whatevs.
 
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Dr. Mercurious said:
You might want to look at hi-fi then which reads more like 'tipping' then 'pay x, get x'.
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Still runs into the risk of profiting using someone else's IP without permission. You get permission by the original author to write a novel set in their world setting, then making money off that work is perfectly fine. You create your own 100% unique world setting to set your novel in? That's also fine to make money on. Fanfiction is a legal grey area however. Good fanfiction is transformative while still being recognizable for the source material. Thus it's likely a bad idea from a moral and a legal standpoint to try making profit off it. There's a reason why at the start of almost every fanfiction (and sometimes at the start of each chapter) you'll see a disclaimer listing the properties that show up in the story, and which ones you do not own. Also that you are making no money from it, and don't seek to do so.

Remember that while 50 Shades started out as a Twilight fanfiction, before the author even considered trying to make money on it they first scrubbed 50 Shades of any and all elements from Twilight.
 
To be honest knowing people enjoy my work is most of the time reward enough :) I'm not saying I would be angry if someone wanted to gild a few posts and get me the ability to spam cats on posts, but I'm not looking for financial gain from this sort of thing. That sort of turns it into work, which is the opposite of what I want it to be. I do this because I enjoy it and for the most part it's a pleasantly relaxing diversion from real work, so if I end up feeling obligated to write, I'm more likely not to. I'm perverse like that :D

I'll also add that my various stories, specifically Taylor Varga, got me through some unpleasantly stressful periods in the last few years, and I've run into some interesting people as a result too who I'm pleased to think of as friends even if I've never met them and probably never will. That's a benefit of a hobby that's often underappreciated...
 
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mp3.1415player said:
Disciplined fighters is covered by being people who work together enough to trust each other as above.
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What's that quote? "No organized force is ever outnumbered by a mob"?

macdjord said:
You've obviously never read the pre-2000 BOFH stories. Even the modern ones occasionally have him delivering suspiciously heavy rolls of carpet to concrete pours, but the old stuff? He was pretty casual about the murder and mayhem back then.
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You forgot the quicklime.

Never forget the quicklime.

Gindjurra said:
The thing is there should have been a very effective, very possibly lethal Contessa interrupt in play the second normals decided to use guns to take out capes. There are reasons why nobody tries to snipe capes even though SWAT teams have sniper rifles — it NEVER works.
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Except that BB is explicitly exempted from Cauldron interference -- they want to know what happens without them.

Contessa not stopping sniping fits perfectly with that.

mp3.1415player said:
I genuinely don't know what the hell your problem is, and I wish you'd stop complaining.
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Careful, that's dangerously close to something that'll get you infracted.

Ace Dreamer said:
The Nazi philosophy about leaders has some weird fetishism which resembles the 'divine right of kings' bit...
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You mean it's _not_ the Divine Right of Kings? [Citation Required]

macdjord said:
If it was intended to be black humour, it didn't come across.
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To you. It didn't come across to you. It came across perfectly well to me.
 
Warning: Don't do this again, yeah?
  • Staff Post
    • need to address a thing real quick
    Lycanthromancer said:
    @mp3.1415player: Isn't this story exactly the kind of thing you were mocking me over the other day? Where things actually get done and massive amounts of violence ensue because plot can't happen any other way, when what I actually meant was, "it'd be nice if plot happened reasonably often"?

    Isn't this just a tad bit hypocritical in the extreme?
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    Lycanthromancer, you're getting more than a bit too hostile here buddy. While I understand that you have disagreements with mp3.1415player, no one really needs to be talked to like this, so I would advise that you calm down there more than a bit, alright? I don't personally care for it, and I don't want to have to go farther than this warning when I'm sure that you can practice self-control and good discussion etiquette in the future. Please don't make a habit of this, yeah?
     
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    • sdwood said:
    Except that BB is explicitly exempted from Cauldron interference -- they want to know what happens without them.

    Contessa not stopping sniping fits perfectly with that.
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    While it's true that they're running their experiment in Brockton Bay, I expect that they're not as absolutely handsoff as you're implying. Even if we assume the outing of Cauldron secrets during the Noelle fight ended their experiment so Alexandria's involvement with Taylor's arrest doesn't count, if things in Brockton Bay threatened an important enough parahuman or became a national/worldwide threat then they'd get involved.

    In this case, if it'd been Lung that Danny planned to kill instead of Kaiser then I'd expect the plan would fail somehow. Lung faced down Leviathan solo and even if he doesn't show up to Endbringer fights, ensuring he survives to be useful in the Scion fight makes sense.

    Similarly, while Contessa might not stop some minor snipping, if their actions would provoke a national response of normals doing so widespread as a means of handling parahuman criminals then she'd likely have gotten involved as well.
     
    Foxy Boxes said:
    Including Alexandria.
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    The trick with Alexandria is keeping her there. With her flight and her strength, it's highly unlikely one could contain her long enough to be a lethal issue. Skitter pulled it off because neither her flight nor her strength helped her against bugs, but concrete is still bound by gravity. It's conceivable a puppet-master like Regent could keep her still long enough for it to work, but normals wouldn't have much of a prayer against her.
     
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