Pokemon Uranium

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So, I've been away for like a year or something... I wonder if anyone still know who I am Tongue

Anyway, this is what happened:
So on one fateful day my laptop charger stopped working, and I scramble to get every bit of important data and information onto my USB drive before my laptop dies. Uranium and my most recent save at the time was, sadly, not among the stuff that was salvage in time. As I was getting busier and busier with studying for my Masters degree, only having an outdated save kinda put Uranium to the back of the list of things I care about. I then got a new laptop, but you know, Uranium was still not a priority.

Around last December, I got into writing, mainly because it's less time consuming than gaming. So whenever I'm not busy studying, I've been writing a fictional novel.

A few months ago, I got my old laptop fix, and got back Uranium as well as the save. But still not enough free time to be active again.

Yesterday, I saw 's post on Facebook, so today I'm back just to update my guide before going "back into my cave" again.

But before I go, there this one thing I'd like to know. So this fictional novel I'm writing, the story is this:

There's this world that exist along side Earth, where all of our myths and legends are reality, and every "heroes through out the ages" may live here after they die. There are also concepts of rebirth and reincarnation, etc. But here's the twist, everyone goes to this world when we go to sleep, but upon leaving, we forget most of what happened, or simply believe it's just dreams. Well, the normal humans do, there are certain people, called Two-Worlders, who can cross back and forth between the two worlds at will. Current series is basically a fantasy based on old Vietnamese and other Asian countries' folklore and myths with double-life elements that may remind you of Code Lyoko. And the main characters are Vietnamese secondary/middle school students, draw from my own memory and experience at that age. Sequel series may explore other region of the worlds, but I'd like to start where I'm most comfortable with my knowledge, before branching out into the areas where I don't know a lot about.

My story is currently being written in Vietnamese. But, I can translate it into English if my old friends here, and/or a lot of people would be interested in reading that. The The average chapter is around 4k-6k words, and I'm already writing chapter 45 in Vietnamese (well, would be book 4 already if I was to divide the novel series by each small story arc). I speak English as well as my mother tongue, so translate would not be hard for me, just takes time.

I'll check back in a few days, if there's interests, I'll start translating in my free time and post the links here. If not, well, I'll just be continuing in Vietnamese as this could be consider my life project (the original idea actually started since I was in Grade 5, but only after I'm comfortable with my knowledge and writing skills did I started writing seriously last December).
MonkeyLord!! Oh dear, what a neat suprise to see you again, I honestly didn't expected that you'd ever make an apperance again - of course I remember who you are!~

I would definitely be interested in reading what you're writing up if you are indeed up to translate it into English and share links to the story here on the board. I kinda like the idea of a world where myths are real that you can enter during your sleep.
Hey Monkey! Been awhile since I've seen you around, and let me tell you it's nice to see an old hat like myself come and pay a visit! Come here, you! *Gives them a friendly noggie!*

Personally, I'd like to read the epic fantasy you are making, as it heavily reminds me of Fate/Stay/Night, a visual novel I really enjoyed. However, I don't think its worth the trouble of translating your work to only a small potential audience, so if you don't get enough pull for your work, I'd say save yourself the effort and focus that energy on finishing/adding onto it.
Good to hear from you again, Monkey!  Now how could I ever forget you, when you were the one who nagged me encouraged me to check out the Breeders' Discord?  One of the best decisions I ever made in this community... I wouldn't have made so many of the friendships that I have, gotten an opportunity to join the Uranium Team, or started the Creators Collective if not for you -- so thank you!  Big Grin

And my heavens, that story sounds hella interesting!  It reminds me of (just vaguely) of a concept that I came up with years ago involving shared dream worlds that could be influenced by special lucid dreamers.  If you do decide to translate it into English, I would LOVE to read it, it sounds really awesome!

You should drop by Breeders some time and say hello... I'm sure there's a lot of people who would love to see you again / meet you for the first time.  Like I said in the other thread, don't be a stranger!
(10-03-2018, 05:40 PM)Lord Windos Wrote: [ -> ]Hey Monkey! Been awhile since I've seen you around, and let me tell you it's nice to see an old hat like myself come and pay a visit! Come here, you! *Gives them a friendly noggie!*

Personally, I'd like to read the epic fantasy you are making, as it heavily reminds me of Fate/Stay/Night, a visual novel I really enjoyed. However, I don't think its worth the trouble of translating your work to only a small potential audience, so if you don't get enough pull for your work, I'd say save yourself the effort and focus that energy on finishing/adding onto it.

It would be time consuming, yes, but I face writer's block often enough these days that I might as well be doing something productive like translating the chapters I've already written. And it would be a lot less work than you'd imagine because:
1. The first draft I started all the way back in fifth grade (13 years ago, geez, time flies) was, in fact, in English as I was still learning English at the time and was using writing as practice. So translating the work into English is always in the plan, if for nothing else, then to play tribute to that first draft.
2. Thoughts in my head are in the form of motion pictures, films, comic/manga panels, and the dialog can be in either Vietnamese or English. So even when I write my story in Vietnamese, sometimes what I'm actually doing is translating English into Vietnamese on paper.
3. My writing speed fluctuate between that of a snail, and that of a lightning strike. You can't rush arts after all. When ideas come to me, I can write 10-20 pages (1-2 chapters) in 2 hours. When my mind is blank, I can spend 5 hours looking at a blank pages and can't utter a single word. So I'd just be using time I'd be wasting on nothing to do something productive anyway.

And then, there's this:
The majority of Vietnamese readers seems to:
1. Want quantity over quality, so I don't have too many readers anyway. The up side is that I can afford to take it slow since no one cares if I'd be a week or a month late on releasing new chapters (cuz you know, no readers). XD
2. Be too familiar with Vietnamese cultures (or at least, they THINK they do) and seems to want Western/Chinese cultures in what they read. Even though the cultural references in many of the works I've seen are mostly trash due to the other writers having no real experiences and just making bs up. =.=
3. Want harem route. Like I've seen at least 3 requests asking me to write harem route for the main character (who is only 11 in my novel right now for crying out loud, what is WRONG with these people?!) And while I have some romance planned in my novels, I will have it naturally and in ways that stay true to the essence of my characters' building.
4. Want lots of killing and main character being cruel. I swear, some of these people are kids who are realizing life is not how they thought it would be when they were 5 years old and all they see is darkness everywhere. And I refuse to let my main character (an 11 years old kid) to EVER view the world that way. Novels and stories are meant to inspire and make people better (or at least want to be better), not crushing dreams and fill life with cruelty and hatred (like so many other fictions Vietnamese my age are writing), we have enough of that as it is, thank you very much!
So I've been thinking about making it available to an audience who would actually appreciate what I'm doing anyway.

Meanwhile, I:
1. have a small audience anyway, because I don't aim to just gain readers by compromising certain values.
2. take my time for quality instead of rushing for quantity. The site I'm currently posting it on gives "writer exp" for daily posting, and subtract exp whenever I don't post daily, and as soon as that system hit, I've been posting once a month (mostly because I was busy with exams). I would be with negative exp if such a thing exist. And quite frankly, I don't give a heck about that exp system.
3. prefer 1 reader who gets everything I say instead of 1000 readers who just read and don't take the time to feel anything at all. Again, quality over quantity.

So I mean, I could start translating it. And if you like it, you can introduce it to your friends. I'd much prefer a small audience who actually cares over a big ones who just demands more but don't even get half the work I put into every chapter.
I so agree on quality over quantity. Like, what's the use when you've got a long and wordy story when it's mostly tiptoeing around things, used for side stories that could gladly be ignored as they barely add to the main story, filled of grammar or spelling errors, or, worst, unnecessary lemon scenes just because. Eh...

That system of writer's XP is probably meant to encourage writers and keep them working on their projects/posting on the site, but me feels it's going into a bit of a wrong direction/backfires if a negative XP Pool is possible.
That's awesome. Sounds like you have made a ton of progress and you have a very interesting concept. I'll read it if you post it.
Now there's a friendly face I haven't seen in a long time, glad you're still building the dream, it was nice hearing from ya!
(10-04-2018, 01:21 PM)PhantomUnderYourDesk Wrote: [ -> ]I so agree on quality over quantity. Like, what's the use when you've got a long and wordy story when it's mostly tiptoeing around things, used for side stories that could gladly be ignored as they barely add to the main story, filled of grammar or spelling errors, or, worst, unnecessary lemon scenes just because. Eh...

That system of writer's XP is probably meant to encourage writers and keep them working on their projects/posting on the site, but me feels it's going into a bit of a wrong direction/backfires if a negative XP Pool is possible.

Well, you know what they say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I get the site has good intention, but their method to go at it is not to my taste. They have a system that sorta "pay" writers some in-site currency that, when reached a certain amount can be convert into real money. This is to encourage writers, ofc, but then they tied the amount paid to number of words posted weekly. And as a result, lengthy chapters that says literally nothing on various works was born just so some people could get some extra mullah. And it's quite funny cuz the paying is not even that good, it doesn't even cover my daily spending even if I was paid (and I never even quite gotten to the "paying level" of the exp ladder, still writing for free, cuz I'm a lazy ass who only write when I'm in the best possible mood and mentality).

Then there's the exp ladder, to decide how much one could possible get paid. When I started, their exp ladder gives points when you post but does not subtract points when you don't. So after months of crafting over 30 chapters filled with 3 story arcs, I actually got to like level 2 or something like that before the new system hit. Here's what wrong with the new system: For every 2k words you post everyday, you get 10 points (rounding down, so 3999 words still just mean 10 points); but for each day you don't post, you lose 100 points. So naturally, about a few weeks after that, I was back to level 0 with 0 exp. Thank goodness you can't go lower than 0, or I'd be level negative 5 by now. XD

But yeah, I get what the site is doing. I appreciate their intentions. I even understand why they do it from an economical point of view. But I still find the way they go at it distasteful. It puts pressure on new writers to have something new to post every single day, and that is NOT how good story is told.

But I'm not even going to bother telling them off because they MIGHT just assume I'm just salty cuz I don't get paid LOL. I know they would actually think that because I've told some "fellow writers" off for using improper Vietnamese grammar. And they hid behind the site admin who said that abysmal use of grammar is a "writing style", one that "readers like". Basically it started with novels from English and Chinese that was translated by google, and poorly edited, so the grammar is understandably horrible. But then some people actually start writing using that broken grammar, and then cast it off as "writing style". And because I spoke up against it (as I believe it's the same as disrespecting our own language, and what is a country when it loses its language?!), I was shunned by quite some people on that site LMAO.

Yeah, I've been in quite some dramas since y'all last saw me. XD
'Abysmal use of grammar is a writing style', even one 'that readers like'? I've barely ever heard nonsense of such a caliber. o.o; If it's done on purpose and deliberately for parody reasons I understand - doesn't mean I'd enjoy it much - but if there are a lot of grammar or spelling errors in a story it only serves to turn me off. Isn't correcting these one of the tasks of a beta reader?
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