• Katana314@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    The fictional world I’m building is at an interesting point. For decades, a few people have held most of the magical power and control, thus dominating entire battlefields. But firearms have just been refined to precision, meaning a good sniper can take down one of these mages in a surprise shot in one go. No sudden “spider sense” escape buttons.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Writing, or rather written, a book, but it’s hard to find interested literary agents. So, I’m working on a complicated plan to leverage an audience for self publishing.

        I suppose I’m implying such an assassination is how the book opens, but it mostly just translates to a shift in the way warfare is conducted - fewer battle lines, more war of information.

        • stinky@redlemmy.com
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          5 days ago

          One of my school friends was close to Sarah Maas. I hung out with her a few times, and we played online games together for years. The secret to her success was her parents’ money; they poured funding into her editing and publishing, and so she became a “self-made” literary success. I have mixed feelings about her.

          I’d be curious about your work if you’re willing to share an excerpt? Lemmy might be a suitable test audience if you’re into it

  • Ryanmiller70@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    Something about the big bad in the first MHA movie whipping out a gun and shooting somebody just hit hard. Like this is a world where people can whip out black holes and use their skin to create anything they want, yet a pistol made everyone stop immediately and collectively shit themselves.

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    I really appreciate that there’s one character in Demon Hunter that has a gun. It works, and is incredibly effective… against lower-level demons. The world-ending upper-rank variety need at least a decapitation, and half the time, a secondary decapitation or dismemberment of some kind. Simply asploding demon parts with one or two shotgun slugs is not enough in that case.

    As a storytelling device, it really grounds the entire power-system in both the supernatural and super-human. We get periodically reminded that a gun absolutely holds its own in raw firepower, but the situation is just a bit more of a problem than it can handle.

  • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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    6 days ago

    My protagonist has the ability to wield a franction (a word for a small amount in my verse) of the vitael energies of potential offspring (“poffspring”) they decide not to have, so like if they date someone of the opposite sex and things are going well and they’re thinking of moving in together, and then they ghost them my protag gets the power of the potential unborn babies (well some of it). They have made enemies of pretty much everyone in their hammelit (small village in my world), but have grown that much stronger with each jilted partner.

    Anyway, they pulled this with the shire riff’s (reeve of a shire in my lore) daughter and got shot with a pepper shot blunderbuss and exiled from town, but they are able to carry approx a handful of extra sticks using the strength from their poffspring, which they use to heat the abandoned hut they live in upwind of the hammelit’s middens.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        5 days ago

        I think so, yes, that feels right. OK, this is powerful… I think I’ve got the hook for my second book

        • Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it
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          5 days ago

          Maybe you can do that they will get a “bad power” that is more a problem than something useful because the children had that power and so that would explain why no one ever wanted to adopt him

          • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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            5 days ago

            Ooo yeah like a curse and at first you think it’s the children’s fault, but then at the halfway point you find out they’re the victims. Would also provide some good tension since it’s the only way for the protag to get more power after the pepper shot removed their ability to make more poffspring.

            I mean I was joking in my original comment, but you could tweak it a bit and maybe obscure some of the details to make the story halfway evocative.

    • Knightfox@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      I was thinking that this was a relatively bullshit example, but the movie “The One” featuring Jet Li makes this an awesome example. On it’s face the impacts of one person likely aren’t even enough for one person to notice, but if you had someone with the knowledge and means to take advantage of this they could be incredibly powerful.

    • KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      “If you hold a gun and I hold a gun, we can talk about the law. If you hold a knife and I hold a knife, we can talk about rules. If you come empty-handed, and I come empty-handed, we can talk about reason. But if you hold a gun and I only have a knife, then the truth lies in your hand. If you have a gun and I have nothing, then what you hold in your hands isn’t just a weapon, it’s my life."

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        The Rwanda genocide wasn’t carried out with guns as the primary weapon. It was machetes and fire.

        It’s only very rarely one-on-one like a movie gunfight.

          • treesquid@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Sometimes they did. It’s not like nobody got shot in the Rwandan genocide. Lots of people did, and when it happened, it went like it almost always does, the people with guns killed a bunch of people with impunity unless the people they were shooting at also happened to have guns.

            • drspawndisaster@sh.itjust.works
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              6 days ago

              I’m hearing a lot of things that are true but I’m getting confused as to why they were said. Like what does the Rwandan genocide have to do with the post other than the almost unnerving lack of firearms involved? Ik you aren’t the one who brought it up but just had to ask.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          The Rwanda genocide wasn’t carried out with guns as the primary weapon. It was machetes and fire.

          It was volumes of people, primarily. An oppressed underclass poisoned with fascist ideology who overwhelmed they’re wealthier tribal neighbors not unlike how the French ended up butchering their aristocracy at the end of the 18th century.

          Had the Tutsis been more heavily armed, they might have given as well as they took.

          • Triasha@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            The genocide ended with the victory of the rebels led by Kagame. They were mostly Tutsis.

            The armed Tutsis did indeed hit back.

      • AnotherUsername@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        This is only true for exactly as long as the weapons are held, though. Unless you plan on holding someone at weapons -point for life, the power eventually reverts.

        • KingGimpicus@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          That’s why weaponizing ideas is such an insidious practice. Give a man a gun he carries around in his mind and you have a never sleeping army.

    • thecaptaintrout@lemmy.zip
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      6 days ago

      I think it’s the ‘equalizer’ aspect. A knight would have to train for years to be proficient in swordplay, horse riding, and usage of a lance. Longbowman had to train from childhood. A wizard has to study magic for years.

      A peasant could pick up a gun and theoretically kill any of them.

      Americans in general are also more familiar with guns than swords or bows, so the “effectiveness” is more intuitive for our minds.

      • Corelli_III@midwest.social
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        6 days ago

        that’s what i think is so perplexing

        modern war completely negates your individuality, i mean unless you count your individually starved ass, but uhhh the world won’t

        maybe if you’re lucky your incineration shadow on a wall will become part of an artistic photograph

        there’s nothing to equalize but Americans think a glock and sunglasses mean something other than your suicide or a childhood gun accident

        • thecaptaintrout@lemmy.zip
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          5 days ago

          It absolutely does, cogs in the meat grinder.

          That said, It brings everyone down to that level.

          With guns, the mightiest general can still be killed by a lucky private. In most fantasy worlds, that would be near impossible for a basic untrained person to be a threat to a skilled warrior or mage.

          And you are right, in the US there are an insane amount of gun deaths from murder, suicides, and accidents. Too many of us treat them like toys or emotional support Glocks, use them to be their masculinity.

      • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        Is this the same America where words controlled the people who controlled the guns on 6January?

        • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          Yes, but also that doesn’t really mean anything in relation to what’s being talked about. Americans have more exposure to firearms on average I’m sure the folks of Svalbard would have a similar thing going on, same with basically any country with mandatory enlistment. Whoopty fucken doo folks can be controlled with words this observation was first made in writing in the fucking early bronze age when mammoths were still extent.

      • Triasha@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        The Nazis built the gas chambers because shooting crowds of women and children was giving their low end grunts PTSD, even the hardcore SS. They needed something where you didn’t have to watch them die.

        • stinky@redlemmy.com
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          5 days ago

          I’m afraid I have to ban you. Your original comment is hateful and toxic towards a particular group of people, millions of whom are innocent. My users deserve better than to be threatened and insulted by the likes of you.

          You’ll be left with this:

          • many Americans campaign for gun control, meaning we want fewer guns available
          • citizens of countries other than the USA think guns are powerful
          • wishing nuking or genocide on anyone is evil

          there’s so much wrong with your statement that I don’t have time today to scrutinize it all. I wish you the best of luck in your personal growth journey. Goodbye.

          Stinky of Redlemmy

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      Why do you think nukes and genocide are such a big deal? It’s like you’ve never been hit by a gamma ray burst before smh