# Writing exercise



## Javarod (Jun 3, 2008)

Ok, not sure this is the place for it, but its a bit hard to categorize this. Basically I've set up a Live Journal, http://woggle.livejournal.com that is a bit of a writing exercise, and I wanted to see ifn anyone else wants to join the game. While the characters may never interact (though you never know), I'd like to create a tapestry of sorts, a network of friends.

So, what's the game and the rules? A disease referred to as flash has been around since the late 70s. Initial systems is aches and pains, including headaches, and itchiness. Fevers and irritability are also sometimes known to happen. The nickname of flash comes from the last 48 to 72 hours of the disease, in which the participant changes into an anthropomorphic animal. Initially the species seemed to tied to ethnicity, but over time, that's prove to be untrue. All species are either digitgrade or plantigrade, anyone that changes into an equine or other ungulates are plantigrade.

Rules
This is set in the current world, how interesting your life is is up to you and your writing ability, it can be boring like mine which is heavily based on my RL life, or far more exotic if you choose. No sci-fi allowed.
No fantasy creatures (dragons, fairies, etc)
No transgendered characters as the disease modifies one's DNA in certain areas, but not gender, and sex changes are plastic surgery to make the body match the mind, genetically your gender never changes, so flashing would restore your original gender (this could make for an interesting story)
No crossbreeds, one species only (Woggle is typically a leopard fisher except here for example)
No avians (this is up for discussion, but I think the differences between avians and mammals make such a change difficult to believe)
No tauroids or other hybrid body styles, all flash victims become bipeds (growing a tail, fur and other changes like leg design, leg length, spine length, etc are unrealistic, and would be painful, growing a second body would likely kill)


Right now that's about it, I'd like to get others to join me in this so we can create our own little world where a very small (no more than 15%, likely less) have become animal people, and have to deal with how the world treats them. This is meant to be a realistic story universe, but you're not required to duplicate your RL life, feel free to embellish to whatever degree you like, but keep it believable and realistic.

I think that's it, questions and discussions are quite welcome.


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## TakeWalker (Jun 3, 2008)

Just a detail of clarification, that's more a roleplay/interactive story it sounds like you're setting up. Good luck with it!


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## Ð˜Ð²Ð°Ð½ (Jun 3, 2008)

Hey, I'm doing something similar. (or, at least I gathered from the somewhat vague OP that it was similar)

I'm a little lazt to explain, but I have a few journals up regarding it.
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/336188/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/342314/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/349965/
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/353492/

Oh, read the comments too. They're kinda important.


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## Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage (Jun 3, 2008)

This doesn't really have much to distinguish it from most of the other "Disease that suddenly turns everyone into furs" settings I've seen, like the Blind Pig stories or Morphing period, except for your banning things you don't like.


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## Poetigress (Jun 3, 2008)

Yeah, that brought Morphing Period to mind for me, too.

I'm kind of unsure if this is supposed to be an RP, a round-robin-type story, a shared universe, or what, but it would have to be a little more distinctive (or at least more developed in terms of specifics) to catch my interest, personally.

(EDIT: Okay, read through the LJ... I'm still not sure how other people are supposed to get in on this, though.  It strikes me that a community would make more sense than just a bunch of private journals.  I'm also a little weirded out by how this sort of journal would look to someone who didn't know what was going on... you might want to make that clearer in your userinfo.)


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## Javarod (Jun 4, 2008)

TakeWalker said:


> Just a detail of clarification, that's more a roleplay/interactive story it sounds like you're setting up. Good luck with it!





Nods, "I've been loathe to call it role play as I typical think of that as requiring interaction, when the idea here is that its journals from people who've been a flash victim, or know someone who is. The journal writers very likely will never meet, they just know one another via the internet."


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## Javarod (Jun 4, 2008)

Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage said:


> This doesn't really have much to distinguish it from most of the other "Disease that suddenly turns everyone into furs" settings I've seen, like the Blind Pig stories or Morphing period, except for your banning things you don't like.




"Actually I've tried to keep the banning to things that I'd have a hard time realistically explaining, like turning into a dragon, science while not always correct, usually is, and says there's no such thing. Transgenderism/sex changes are plastic surgery and hormones, while it looks like your gender has been corrected, on a DNA level, you're still your original DNA, so likely something messing with your DNA to an animal person would base your final form on what your DNA says you're supposed to be. I've nothing against these types of characters, they just don't make too much scientific sense."

"Blind pig I'm not familiar with, but I know of the Morphing period, far as I know, that project never went particularly far? It was rather restrictive on species, whereas this is basically open, if it exists in nature, and its reasonable to believe that someone could change into it, then it can happen. The only thing that is original to my knowledge is the 'real time' Live Journal nature of the writings."


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## Javarod (Jun 4, 2008)

Poetigress said:


> Yeah, that brought Morphing Period to mind for me, too.
> 
> I'm kind of unsure if this is supposed to be an RP, a round-robin-type story, a shared universe, or what, but it would have to be a little more distinctive (or at least more developed in terms of specifics) to catch my interest, personally.
> 
> (EDIT: Okay, read through the LJ... I'm still not sure how other people are supposed to get in on this, though.  It strikes me that a community would make more sense than just a bunch of private journals.  I'm also a little weirded out by how this sort of journal would look to someone who didn't know what was going on... you might want to make that clearer in your userinfo.)



Laughs, "Already explained that in other replies, but shared universe. At the time of writing this post, I was having trouble coming up with that term. Its inspired by Tales of the Morphing Period, I loved the idea, didn't like the restrictions, I think the total number of possible species was around 28 IIRC, where as here, there's no real restriction aside from what's realistically possible to change into."

Grins, "That's kinda the point, its a shared universe, but the idea is that its happening right now, a very small number of the population is going through life as an animal person. They got no choice in it, and have to live with it, and how people react to them, these are their Live Journals, their daily diary, no different that anyone else's Live Journal... except for what they are. Basically for those that want to join in, the idea is that you're writing daily, weekly, monthly or whatever entries about  living with the change, how people are treating you, etc, its as interesting as your life is, and as close to reality as you choose (mine's prolly 90% real life with a few tweaks). I'll admit mine is rather boring, I have a rather boring life, though I'll admit to liking it that way."


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## Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage (Jun 5, 2008)

Javarod said:


> Transgenderism/sex changes are plastic surgery and hormones, while it looks like your gender has been corrected, on a DNA level, you're still your original DNA, so likely something messing with your DNA to an animal person would base your final form on what your DNA says you're supposed to be. I've nothing against these types of characters, they just don't make too much scientific sense."




So messing with DNA to turn someone into an 'animal person' is believable, but swapping out an X chromosome isn't?


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## Kindar (Jun 6, 2008)

Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage said:


> So messing with DNA to turn someone into an 'animal person' is believable, but swapping out an X chromosome isn't?



seeing as it's his world, he can set the rules as he likes, can't he?


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## Kindar (Jun 6, 2008)

I was wondering, are you expecting us to put ourselves in this or to create a character for it? also, if we participate, where do we post is there a community for this?


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## Javarod (Jun 6, 2008)

Le_DÃ©mon_Sans_Visage said:


> So messing with DNA to turn someone into an 'animal person' is believable, but swapping out an X chromosome isn't?




Not so much unbelievable in its possibility, but rather how would it know to do it? Despite earlier expectations that species was determined by ethnicity, we now know, or at least believe we do, that its entirely by random. If the template for the changes is totally random, then gender would either be random, or more likely, unchanged.


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## Javarod (Jun 6, 2008)

Kindar said:


> I was wondering, are you expecting us to put ourselves in this or to create a character for it? also, if we participate, where do we post is there a community for this?



I've been thinking of creating a community journal for it, initially it was the idea of a shared universe, those that are part of it would friend the others, then your friend's page would let you read other's journals. That's kind of why I thought of using LJ, its easy to create a shared universe that's nearly indistinguishable from the real, except to those that know about the game.


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## Kindar (Jun 7, 2008)

Javarod said:


> I've been thinking of creating a community journal for it, initially it was the idea of a shared universe, those that are part of it would friend the others, then your friend's page would let you read other's journals. That's kind of why I thought of using LJ, its easy to create a shared universe that's nearly indistinguishable from the real, except to those that know about the game.




ok, let me know once it's created


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## Javarod (Jun 8, 2008)

Kindar said:


> ok, let me know once it's created




Actually the big question is do we need one? The concept here is a network of LJ's linked via their friend's page, and possibly even interaction within their journals. Right now with you the only person showing any interest, I have to wonder ifn its worth it, the rules and guidelines for example could be posted either to my shared universe journal, my regular journal and/or my FA page.


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## Kindar (Jun 12, 2008)

the thing is that I don't post fiction on my LJ, I'd have to create a second one, and I have no idea if I can do that


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## Javarod (Jun 15, 2008)

Kindar said:


> the thing is that I don't post fiction on my LJ, I'd have to create a second one, and I have no idea if I can do that




Yep, you can, I actually have two journals, you do have to have separate log ins for each. I use XJournal on my Mac, and it easily allows me to log into the journal of choice, Javarod for RL, Woggle for the shared universe.


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