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Plot Bunny For Oh! My Goddess
06-17-2011, 12:59 PM
So, Mark Skarr posted this picture of his WIP over in the Divine Mess forum. Upon seeing it, my brain automatically tagged her as Urd even though she somewhat lacks the... assets of our favorite Norn of the Past.
Thing is, though, the scene gave me a nice little plot bunny. After all, how many fics depict Urd getting herself a steady boyfriend?
So, today's Hiro Protagonist is a Dresden type: the blue collar mage, decent skill set, likes to take his time and do it right the first time (workman's ethic). Odd quirk in his mage abilities: he's on silent running by default - having to sneak around a hyper-sensitive and abusive father gave him a paranoid streak and he has a nasty habit of sneaking up on people (even other mages) without even realizing it. His foibles: strange attractor (weird shit just happens around him), tends to get foul mouthed when he's pissed (fit to make a sailor look like a monk). He's also an alcoholic with a tendency towards benders.
On the mundane side of things, he's a great mechanic and has a hobby of restoring antique cars and building hot rods. He comes to Japan by way of being hired on as the new automotive sciences teacher at Nekomi Tech. And yes, alcohol was involved in the decision. (Though more enlightened people, such as Bell-chan, will say otherwise... though he does need a bit of help with his drinking problem.)
He's about twenty-five, and while his in the 'prime of his life' he still can't help but feel like he's lost.
The story starts off with Hiro hanging out someplace near the docks. It's oh-my-god-in-the-morning, but earlier in the day he had the amazing fortune of finding a liquor store that specialized in importing American booze. At that moment, he'd love to just sit there and enjoy the little bottle of Southern Comfort he's got in his pocket. It's a nice night for a drink - cool, but not too cool and a fog just rolled in so that helps with the visibility.
Somewhere in the distance he hears the sounds of a good thrashing going on. Besides a concerned look, he does nothing - he knows better than to get involved. Although he mentally prepares himself for trouble when he hears a few bars of loud and raucous rock and roll followed by a muffled explosion.
And then She shows up. Tall, dark skin, platinum blonde hair, and curves in all the right places. She's seems startled by your presence at first, but as he tips the bottle in silent greeting to her, she relaxes and then saunters on over. As she approaches he notes that she's actually taller than him by an inch or two.
"Morning there, stranger," she says in a sexy, husky voice that's as smooth as silk. "Got enough in that bottle for two?"
And it goes from there.
He starts entering the lives of others as the new teacher at Nekomi. He's surprisingly engaging and notably passionate about his trade - though not to the extent that Tamiya and Otaki take things, of course. At first, Urd tries to keep him out of the Shrine, but he starts showing up anyhow to pick her up for dates despite her efforts. Inevitably, Belldandy notices and he is soon invited in. Belldandy is Belldandy, and Skuld is a precocious little kid-sister that never let's up on the fact that Urd's got a boyfriend. Good thing Hiro likes kids - he gives back as good as he gets from Skuld and with a smile to boot.
He gets involved with club projects, soon enough falling into the role as their faculty adviser, and even gets caught up in Mara and Hilde's plots - these come as major surprises as the others see him work his mage mojo and he sees the Norns in action. Soon enough the question of whether he should really be involved with a Goddess comes up. In answer, Urd merely forcibly points his head at Keiichi and Belldandy: problem solved. He also has his alcoholism and his past to confront (child abuse is a bitch).
No guarantee that I'll write this one, but if sooner becomes later and no one's picked this up...
That aside... Thoughts?
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It could work...
Just needs to introduce a little bit of conflict somehow, not something easily resolved.
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Conflict one: Urd comes on too strong. Kinda geeky guy (even if his geekery is acceptably macho), getting flirted up by an utter sexbomb, is gonna be a little gunshy. "She's hot and talking to me.... when is the other shoe gonna drop?"
Conflict two: Viewpoint Joe's own flaws and "unreliable narrator."
Just a couple mundane sources I see already in the set-up.
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Conflict three: the families. Urd vs. Hiro's father won't be pretty... and there's even odds that Hiro, even with the history of abuse, will defend him. (Better-than-even odds if he's never had professional help in coming to terms with his childhood.) On the flip side, when Hiro meets Peorth, he's going to start wondering just how a goddess is supposed to act...
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How many fics shows Urd getting a steady boyfriend?...only one off the top of my head. Some Aussie guy 15 years or so back. He also wrote a BGC/Star Trek cross over.
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Agree with all comments.
Also point - no such thing as coincidences in OMG! land - The Father evidently has decided that Urd needs to get out of her usual self-centered focus. Unfortunately, Father's plans always equal pain and growth for all involved which is never smooth (trials, irons-sharpens-iron and all that) - this is also canon. Expect both to react badly when they decide they've been 'manipulated'
Also point - Urd is a good example of child-abuse herself and really has issues relating with people - expect both would inflict heavy damage on each other and surrounding people at the point where they both start getting vulnerable to each other.
Final point - No way in HELL Hilde would stay out of this - expect that both Hiro and Urd would end up dealing with a passive-aggressive mother-in-law - possibly active aggressive given that Hilde is unlikely to approve of her daughter's serious interest in an insect.
Note that in Kechii's case he has unstated approval and semi-protection of the Father. Hiro would not be likely to have this at least at first - which makes his chances of survival very low. There's a reason why Urd hasn't tried to have a real relationship with anyone.
With all of this would it be necessary to give Hiro such a massive flaw as an abusive background? Although it would explain his attraction/understanding of Urd.
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People have often accused me of writing too-powerful OC's without enough character flaws to justify them. Maybe he isn't potent enough, especially considering he may be gaining unwanted attention from Hilde. Put it this way: If he's gonna be an insect in her eyes, then why not make it an insect worthy of respect? Say, how one would respect a Tarantula Hawk - normally docile, yes, but not to be taken lightly due to it's intensely painful sting.
This is not to say that what he does would incapacitate the likes of Marler, let alone Hilde, but it would probably be a pretty good 'sucker punch' that would make for a much-needed opening for someone else to follow up on.
Question: is cold iron effective at all on Demons in OMG?
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blackaeronaut Wrote:Question: is cold iron effective at all on Demons in OMG? Only as effective as it is against anyone else... (Anti-demon defenses in OMG are more religious or spiritual in nature - good-luck charms are very effective.)
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AdmiralTigerclaw
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Urd is a bit more complex, and she's very, very smart.
Observe her interactions with Keiichi and that Young Man she helped put a spine into.
Urd is a tease, straight up. She likes to play with people, especially the meek ones. She'd never hurt them, but she likes the challenge of making them come out of their shell a little.
To put it simply, she is her mother's child. Urd is Hild Lite. There's lonelyness, but it'll take more than just a drunken foreign instructor to get through to her. She would deliberately distance herself from a relationship of this nature and make efforts to avoid him if she realized it early on. The way I would see getting through to Urd in this manner is if said person become her colaborator and 'buddy' first. The kind of situation where the two of them are more just goofing off and challenging each other than trying any romantic stuff. Or in a different phrasing. They aren't TRYING to be anything other than drinking buddies. But they have enough fun together, and mesh well enough that it just kind of evolves over time that they don't even realize it at all.
For that to work, the Hiro would have to have a certain tolerance for Urd's personality. When urd gets mischievous, he shrugs it off. When she tries to toy with him, he doesn't care, and she gets little reaction out of him, thus he's no fun to play with directly, though he's okay with her brand of fun and helps out.
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blackaeronaut Wrote:Ah, so holy water then? Never shown in canon, but I don't see why not...
There's one early manga chapter where K1 and Bell borrow every good-luck charm Ootaki has - and he's a collector of them - in order to keep Mara out of the temple grounds. Lucky arrows, lucky tanuki statues, luchy paper charms... anything that represents good luck causes demons some trouble.
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And that does mean anything. There's another manga chapter where Bell ends Mara's possession of Megumi by (politely) forcing a cup of lucky tea on her.
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AdmiralTigerclaw
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Good Luck charms are specifically MARLER's weakness.
Other demons pretty much ignore it. I think it's supposed to be an intended 'take that!' to prove to the reader the Marller is really just THAT incompetent.
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Well, Senbei claimed that he couldn't touch them either after Mara got hit by Banpei's head mounted, rotary, tri-barrel charm launcher. But that may have just been him enjoying Mara's misfortune.
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And Mara appears to be the only demon inconvenienced by rock music... why would she have multiple person-specific weaknesses?
Edit: Went to the bookcase to get my copy of http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/10-926/O ... Colors-TPB]Oh My Goddess! Colors, only to discover it's Ah My Goddess! Colors and in Japanese instead of being the English translation. [size=smaller](I had to clean up quickly recently - so quickly that I needed help - and many things have gone astray.)[/size] Anybody who's writing a large amount of OMG fanfic really should have a copy of this book, if only for its Encyclopedia. I'm reasonably sure the matter of good-luck charms is addressed in that, but without the English copy, I can't be certain...
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AdmiralTigerclaw
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Why? Because marller's a joke.
Personally, I think she got her status on the account of two points.
The first being that she was Urd's childhood friend before Urd went off to become a goddess. Which means she'd be in good with the 'family', and the associated perks that go with that kind of reputation.
The second being a result of the first. Being around the likes of Urd helped Marller pick up a lot of raw power and skill in Magic, making her powerful. Unfortunately, not too bright. So rather than let someone as powerful as she is stick around lower echelons where her incompetence can get all kinds of demon world things broken and busted, she gets booted upstairs to 'Demon First Class' and sent to Earth to go for wishes. A position that's not really all that sensitive, since all failure does is make her look stupid. While success is.. well... Good Job.
So Marller's really just a case of safely getting an idiot out of the way of real work. Though once Hild arrives on the scene, she takes interest in things, and kicks back with a little fun at Marller's expense. (All Hild's plots almost invariably end with Marller getting blown up, electrocuted, or otherwise injured in some comical manner.)
And there are some comments traded about how Marller 'broke the rules' and got sealed in the CD in the first place. I have to wonder what stupid scheme she was plotting that ended up backfiring so bad that 'He' decided to lock her up. (And Hild made no moves to stop it. Naturally.)
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Glad that this is drumming up so much interest.
Funny thought: anything that's a good luck charm can be used as a weapon, right? I can just see Hiro having a 'lucky' tire iron... and then finding out that it really is lucky when it's used on Marller with devastating effect. Like, 'Get this woman to the emergency room' devastating. That'll make for some excitement.
"Huh. And here I was thinking that it was just a coincidence that I only got flat tires whenever I didn't have it with me." That said, he tossed the tire iron back into the trunk of his car, knocking aside the 2x4 used to prop it open and allowing the trunk to slam shut with a certain finality. "Hey, Skuld? Why don't we get some icecream while your sisters set the big bad wolf back to right."
Oh, and Rob? Thanks for that link. I'd order a copy now, but with us being this close to the moving day it would be better to wait.
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