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[Frumple]

Rub is some folks don't find that sort of conflict to be interesting. I know I'm kinda' iffy about it, m'self -- those bits of NGE never really peaked my interest, when I watched it.

So they replace it with different conflicts, making it more interesting through that method. It's not like the setting doesn't have a dozen other venues for interesting barriers to story progression besides malicious incompetence, after all.

[UXLZ]

And a lot of interest in re-writing some sorts of stories comes from making it not a crapsack world, or making certain characters die, etc.

[Flying Dice]

Eeh. Two different sorts of fix-fics. There's ones that aim to fix problems with the setting to make it more interesting to read about, and then there's ones that aim to "fix" "problems" with the setting &c.

[UXLZ]

The type I'm talking about relies on the writer being good at what they do. For instance, someone rewriting Code Geass with the perspective that Shirley doesn't get killed, or One Piece where Ace doesn't get killed, or a version of Harry Potter where Voldemort somehow repents and so forth (it would have to be a rewrite of all his scenes to make him less evil.)

Obviously, if the writer is bad these will be horrible. But I just can't help but imagine how curiously interesting they would be if the writer knew their stuff.   

[Reelya]

The type I'm talking about relies on the writer being good at what they do. For instance, someone rewriting Code Geass with the perspective that Shirley doesn't get killed, or One Piece where Ace doesn't get killed, or a version of Harry Potter where Voldemort somehow repents and so forth (it would have to be a rewrite of all his scenes to make him less evil.)

Obviously, if the writer is bad these will be horrible. But I just can't help but imagine how curiously interesting they would be if the writer knew their stuff.

Actually, you can rewrite stuff that leaves the scenes intact from the viewpoint of the main characters but changes the motivations behind the acts. I'm not very familiar with Harry Potter, but wasn't there a prophecy involving Harry and Voldemort? You could write a version where Voldemort was aware of the prophecies too, and had to "go along" with things even though he didn't actually want to do a lot of it. Maybe write it such that Voldemort actually has incredible prescience: "at 5pm today i will do such and such" to the point he no longer has much free will.

That could kind of deconstruct how baddies in fantasy series with prophecies always try and go against the prophecies even though they know it's impossible. Actually, they seem to have selective amnesia about the prophecies. If one part of the prophecy says they will become the king, they will have 100% faith in this part of the prophecy, yet paragraph 2 where it says "and then gets killed by the Hero", and suddenly they're like "well, it's just a prophecy, surely I can prevent that!"

[Culise]

The type I'm talking about relies on the writer being good at what they do. For instance, someone rewriting Code Geass with the perspective that Shirley doesn't get killed, or One Piece where Ace doesn't get killed, or a version of Harry Potter where Voldemort somehow repents and so forth (it would have to be a rewrite of all his scenes to make him less evil.)

Obviously, if the writer is bad these will be horrible. But I just can't help but imagine how curiously interesting they would be if the writer knew their stuff.

Actually, you can rewrite stuff that leaves the scenes intact from the viewpoint of the main characters but changes the motivations behind the acts. I'm not very familiar with Harry Potter, but wasn't there a prophecy involving Harry and Voldemort? You could write a version where Voldemort was aware of the prophecies too, and had to "go along" with things even though he didn't actually want to do a lot of it. Maybe write it such that Voldemort actually has incredible prescience: "at 5pm today i will do such and such" to the point he no longer has much free will.

That could kind of deconstruct how baddies in fantasy series with prophecies always try and go against the prophecies even though they know it's impossible. Actually, they seem to have selective amnesia about the prophecies. If one part of the prophecy says they will become the king, they will have 100% faith in this part of the prophecy, yet paragraph 2 where it says "and then gets killed by the Hero", and suddenly they're like "well, it's just a prophecy, surely I can prevent that!"

In Harry Potter, at least, Voldy was aware of part of the prophecy as well, though, and also well aware that he only knows part of it.  It's actually the (series spoiler, in case someone popping in hasn't read the series yet)...

Spoiler: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix spoilers (click to show/hide)

crux of the fifth book that he wants to get the complete prophecy, to know how he can prevent or manipulate it.

It's also a minor plot point that prophecies in HP are mutable, because Harry is not just the boy who survived, but the boy he chose; one other character matched every single detail of the prophecy as well, and if Voldemort had killed his parents instead, the first book would have been...

Spoiler: More minor spoilers (click to show/hide)

Neville Longbottom and the Philosopher's Stone.

 

I think it's actually a logical consequence of certain assumptions, rather than selective amnesia.  If you decide that prophecies are mutable, then it makes perfect sense to go about them like an a la carte buffet.  "I'll take an order of emperorship with a side of world domination, hold the heroes."  It's not like these villains typically would have just sat back and stayed home if they had never heard the prophecy at all; they were already going for the emperorship with a side of world domination.  Heroes, certainly, are perfectly willing to turn the screws on prophecy as well if it doesn't suit them.  In both cases, it's not like they just decide to sit back and relax under the logic that the prophecy will do all the work for them.  Usually.  Though, that actually might make an interesting story as well; the heroes hear this prophecy that assumes they'll succeed, decide its true, and just sit back and wait for it to happen.  And wait, and wait...

EDIT: Fixed to take in account the post immediately below.

[i2amroy]

-snip-

I'm fine with your post (agree with it even), what I don't like is that you used transparent text for your spoilers. There are many of us with sensible browsers that logically treat transparent text as "always transparent", not that silly "transparent until you highlight it" thing that some of you still seem to have. For those of us with said browsers, the only way to see your text is either to copy/paste it into a text document (which is a bit of a pain) or to click the quote button (which can also be a bit of a pain if we don't want to respond to you). Just something to keep in mind.

[Culise]

-snip-

I'm fine with your post (agree with it even), what I don't like is that you used transparent text for your spoilers. There are many of us with sensible browsers that logically treat transparent text as "always transparent", not that silly "transparent until you highlight it" thing that some of you still seem to have. For those of us with said browsers, the only way to see your text is either to copy/paste it into a text document (which is a bit of a pain) or to click the quote button (which can also be a bit of a pain if we don't want to respond to you). Just something to keep in mind.

Ah, sorry about that.  I had no idea there were browsers that worked that way; it seems distinctly odd to me from a usability and accessibility (depending on how it works with screen-readers) standpoint.  I've fixed my post.

[Frumple]

No, no... transparent is probably better for spoilers. Or better yet, transparent text inside spoilers. There's a lot of people that are apparently completely incapable of stopping themselves from looking inside spoiler boxes. People with cruddy browsers can suffer as they deserve :V

[Arcvasti]

No, no... transparent is probably better for spoilers. Or better yet, transparent text inside spoilers.

Unfortunately, we can't nest spoilers. That would make it quite a bit easier.

[Reelya]

That still wouldn't solve the problem of people who pathalogically must open every spoiler. They couldn't stop themselves opening one spoiler and then there was nothing but a spoiler in it, labelled "really spoilery honest!" So, are they not going to open that one since the empty outer-spoiler sated their curiosity?

So is there going to be a heirarchy of spoileryness that posters must adhere to in a nested fashion. What if you opened a level-1 spoiler but the contents were clearly of a level-5 spoilery nature? You were lulled into a sense of security that spoilers didn't actually contain spoilery material, then you open one and - bang - entire end of a major series blown. If we had a convention with nested spoilers and level 1 spoilers were "safe enough" that people just opened them anyway, then it just moves the problem along while making the site harder to read.

Personally, I think rather than nested spoilers we need an alternate "Block" collapser which is for collapsed material that isn't spoilers, such as collapsing down images or walls of text, but indicating that they're not actually a spoiler. Perhaps, add some code such that automatically wraps images in a block if you spam a lot, or big, images? That would actually be pretty cool since it would be an anti-troll feature, as well as preventing newbs from posting too many images, and save time when you're trying to actually provide a gallery of images.

[Arcvasti]

That still wouldn't solve the problem of people who pathalogically must open every spoiler. They couldn't stop themselves opening one spoiler and then there was nothing but a spoiler in it, labelled "really spoilery honest!" So, are they not going to open that one since the empty outer-spoiler sated their curiosity?

Just have the last spoiler have the first spoiler inside it so they open spoilers forever.

[Calidovi]

That still wouldn't solve the problem of people who pathalogically must open every spoiler. They couldn't stop themselves opening one spoiler and then there was nothing but a spoiler in it, labelled "really spoilery honest!" So, are they not going to open that one since the empty outer-spoiler sated their curiosity?

Just have the last spoiler have the first spoiler inside it so they open spoilers forever.

Hyperlink to a website where you can press buttons endlessly.

[Rubidium]

That still wouldn't solve the problem of people who pathologically must open every spoiler. They couldn't stop themselves opening one spoiler and then there was nothing but a spoiler in it, labelled "really spoilery honest!" So, are they not going to open that one since the empty outer-spoiler sated their curiosity?

Just have the last spoiler have the first spoiler inside it so they open spoilers forever.

Hyperlink to a website where you can press buttons endlessly.

Think of your computer keys as buttons.

[Hawkfrost]

People should really put massive story spoilers behind proper tags, because damn am I lucky I already knew of the ones that just got dropped in this thread.