I'm Glad I'm Not An Elephant.

[rionaleonhart]

I love the Charlie Brooker fandom, but it's terribly damaging for my confidence as a writer. The standard is simply too good. Even on the anon meme, my writing feels mediocre amongst all the anonymous brilliance; I feel guilty about taking a prompt because I'm sure someone else could fill it better, and I feel embarrassed despite the anonymity

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

I agree with you on the incest thing. I'm not that bothered about the genetics, generally (if they're having kids, I tend to be a bit concerned, but if they're the same gender, infertile, using extremely reliable contraception, or not having that particular type of sex, that deals with that). But growing up with someone as family and then having sex with them really sounds like incest

This is part of the reason why, during my trashy V.C. Andrews phase, I was actually less squicked by the original books where they were siblings than the later ones where they'd conveniently turn out to be not related. Because in the earlier ones, it was written as creepy and not totally okay, and stemming from a complicated series of childhood traumas that had warped them into it. In the later ones it came off very "You're not my sister? Awesome! I always thought you were hot. Want to be my girlfriend?" and wasn't written with the awareness that there's something fundamentally creepy about having a thing for your sister.

Night Watch really needs to be crossed over with Life on Mars somehow. They're both about policemen named Sam who get flung over thirty years into the past and have to sweat it out over the predestination paradox and other such complications (and yet, significantly different).

[m31andy]

Night Watch really needs to be crossed over with Life on Mars somehow.

This is such an awesome idea I'm surprised it's not been done yet! There was a LoM/Discworld crossover, but I can't remember what it was about. hmm.

[wolfy_writing]

Technically, it would be a bit tricky. Either Sam Tyler would be going "Hello, I'm trapped in a fantasy novel" or Sam Vimes would be in a world that made less than no sense where everything would need explaining, and "So, that's powered by a tiny demon, right?" would never be true.

[m31andy]

Or they could be the same person, separated in time and space - Sam's got to solve both...

Hmm. May be not. I always had Gene pegged for Sam Vimes, anyway. Colon and Nobbs would be Chris and Ray, Carrot as Sam and Angua as Annie...

It's possible I think about this way too much...

[wolfy_writing]

Yeah, Sam and Sam come off different.

I don't see Anagua as Annie, but they'd be marvelous together. They should really meet.

Maybe some sort of magical thing has resulted in universes colliding?

[m31andy]

Oh. Yes. And (once they get over their suspicions) Sam V and Gene can bond over policing. Nobby, Colon, Ray and Chris can have a rather competitive drinking and darts match and once Sam has got over his misapprehension that Carrot is as thick as two short planks, they can bond over Procedure.

Why do I get the awful feeling it's all the fault of Jeremy Clarkson and his big hammer???

[wolfy_writing]

To be fair, it's not Jeremy's fault that someone swapped out the handle on his hammer for a wizard's staff.

It is Jeremy's fault that, upon discovering he had a magic hammer, he went around hitting as many things as possible with it.

...in Discworld, Jeremy would never stop teasing Richard about being a dwarf who'd shaved his beard, would he?

Of course, Richard would end up having a terribly good time in dwarf bars, what with the fighting and the drinking and everyone there knowing what it's like to be on the receiving end of a million short jokes (plus, he'd look quite tall in contrast).

James would somehow find Ponder Stibbons and get into a hopelessly complicated effort to mesh physics and magic theory into something logical. And also complain about having to work with great shouty lunatics.

[dracothelizard]

Why was I not informed there was a debate on Top Gear/Discworld?

The Patrician would either be so secretly annoyed by them, or secretly pleased by all the fuss they're causing.

[wolfy_writing]

He'd initially be annoyed, but then come up with some marvelously complicated way of using them as a distraction for something else, which would ultimately further some complicated secret goal of his.

[dracothelizard]

Oh yes, they're definitely very distracting, and even Carrot is having some trouble remaining nice to them.

[wolfy_writing]

Carrot would be incredibly tense. Because he's clever, but he's also sincerely nice, and he'd have trouble trying to work out how to deal with them.

Meanwhile, the Patrician would be increasingly cryptic and smug.

[dracothelizard]

And at some point Jeremy and Richard tell Ridcully about cars, and Ridcully's far too intrigued.

[wolfy_writing]

And, of course, they're a lot easier to make if you use magic instead of petrol.

[dracothelizard]

On the one hand, he objects because it's not the proper engine noise, but on the other hand, no environmentalist will ever bother him again.

[wolfy_writing]

Of course that means he can't shout at environmentalists, which is a downside.

[dracothelizard]

I'm sure Clarkson can find other people to shout at - like the university students who're supposed to make him a car.