Question Adopt an Orphan Whateley member

I think it is unfortunate that Team Kimba has largely been forced into the background, due to the fact that the writers and creators for most of their POV stories have gone. I know that they can't be adopted for 1st person POV, but I am curious as to how permission is received to make major changes with them in use as secondary characters. Fey is an example, She's had a rough time lately in other people's stories. Losing Aunghadhail, finding the seed, the fight with Hank. the false lawsuit and her depression. I know Maggie is around-ish, but how do the writers deal with a character whose author has vanished completely?

Do we need to get Sally Struthers and do a children's fund campaign?

"Jade, we need you to use the Sad puppy eyes. No, Ayla, you can't fund the charity yourself. Vox? How's your Sarah McLachlin?"

" In the arms of the Angel..."

"good! And no Ayla, you can't hire the real one for this. Fey? Can you do sad droopy elf ears?"
"I AM NOT AN ELF!"

Since Ayla is Charge's love interest, you'll see Ayla in any story where Charge appears (after Wine, Women, and Ayla). Phoenix Spiritus touches them all in his Hank stories - more of which are in work. Kayda tutors Ayla in math, so there's overlap there. Kayda tutors Billie in math, too. Danny will maybe be on wondercute, which might mean more Jade. We saw Jade and Ayla in France in "Best Days of Our Lives". Some of those are bit parts, granted, but TK has NOT been forgotten. We are reluctant, however, to make major changes in the characters.

Besides, think about it! Jade? Sad Puppydog Eyes? On TV?

Think about the Economy! The Banking System can't take that kind of strain!

I can't imagine the hoops gone through just for Ayla and Charge to get together, and that felt pretty major to us folks who've been reading these stories since before Christmas 06 ever happened.

Without authors of their own, it makes sense only the smallest of changes or uses will be made of most Major Kimbas, and while Bek IS here, He hasn't touched Chaka is AGES (outside of references/uses in OTHER stories). Basically the only thing advancing Team Kimba at all was Diane, so without her... We're basically restricted to Hank and Chaka IF Bek's infamouse Muse EVER puts together a Chaka storyline.

Hey Bek, if that seems unlikely, could you at least clarify if there have been any major changes in Chaka's relationships or friendships prior to end of school year or over the summer?

Iwasforger03 wrote: Hey Bek, if that seems unlikely, could you at least clarify if there have been any major changes in Chaka's relationships or friendships prior to end of school year or over the summer?

I think they're keeping everything on the down low until she and N'Dizi announce the engagement.

I think they're keeping everything on the down low until she and N'Dizi announce the engagement

*Gigglesnort*

elrodw wrote: We are reluctant, however, to make major changes in the characters.

And the caveat to that is that as time goes on it becomes increasingly unlikely that the characters haven't experienced major character development. Which makes involving them in ongoing plot threads difficult.

Yolandria wrote:

I think they're keeping everything on the down low until she and N'Dizi announce the engagement

*Gigglesnort*

Rest In Peace
Iwasforger03
Date of Death - 05/21/2017 at 2216 hours
Cause of death: Asphyxiation as a result of several hours of continuous laughter.

Yes ma'am.

Iwasforger03 wrote: Basically the only thing advancing Team Kimba at all was Diane, so without her... We're basically restricted to Hank and Chaka IF Bek's infamouse Muse EVER puts together a Chaka storyline.

But I write good Hank and Team Kimba snark and banter stories!

What? It hasn't been released yet?

My bad, continue to reminisce and mourn.

Phoenix Spiritus wrote:

Iwasforger03 wrote: Basically the only thing advancing Team Kimba at all was Diane, so without her... We're basically restricted to Hank and Chaka IF Bek's infamouse Muse EVER puts together a Chaka storyline.

But I write good Hank and Team Kimba snark and banter stories!

What? It hasn't been released yet?

My bad, continue to reminisce and mourn.

While some people may complain about exactly what happens (or doesn't happen) in that story, I think anybody claiming it's not a good Team Kimba story doesn't know what they're talking about.

Oh, right, not released yet. Carry on.

Kristin Darken wrote: When IS that scheduled to come out... oh, wait, we don't want to take away the fun of the pastry gamblers.

It's obvious.
Real. Soon. Now.

Isn't it past due...Time for one of your wonderful stories..????

Arcanist Lupus wrote:

elrodw wrote: We are reluctant, however, to make major changes in the characters.

And the caveat to that is that as time goes on it becomes increasingly unlikely that the characters haven't experienced major character development. Which makes involving them in ongoing plot threads difficult.

Major character development doesn't necessarily effect overt character behavior. The Kimbas have bin pritty good at keeping there bad stuff from spilling over into there daily lives. With one or two major exceptions.

Astrodragon wrote:

Kristin Darken wrote: When IS that scheduled to come out... oh, wait, we don't want to take away the fun of the pastry gamblers.

It's obvious.
Real. Soon^TM. Now.

Fixed that for you.

Oh goddess the newbie rez's the thread.

Speakingn from experirence, I have been the lead and secondary on a few large scale collaborative projects in my time. I would say at least one is nearly the size of WU, but that's me working since 2014 just writing articles on a wiki. When information and stuff get's this big it becomes very hard to deal with so many cooks in the kitchen. Do you have a central team who can push forward canon stories or is it all written individually.

In the case of a central team this is usually what most large scale gaming an publishing houses do. An author or authors is commissioned to do a series of stories and ends their part. In the case of say larger works such as the Expanse each Author plays a key part in the story. If anything Whately is none of this as it is the first example, a team of semi-individual writers (this discounts the team written stories) who all add their own PoV character's to the greater meta of the story itself.

Realistically much like any good anime we can break Whately down into Arcs and Events. There's the Sarah Arc which melded into the primary stories of Merry. There's the early Kimba Arc's as well as the ones focusing heavily on the fall and changes to the Alphas. These major events shifted a lot of lore and prespective and the world at large, but all in all, they aren't necessarily game changers to people who want to add to the story.

When it comes to shifting PoV characters to new writers, this reminds me too much of one reason I am personally not the biggest fan of Marvel or DC. In both cases the writers and artists only impart their own "take" on the character and then eventually another group takes over. In author owned material the stories are generally far more consistent and often ring clearer to me as a reader over time.

I love Team Kimba, but handing over them to new author's just doesn't seem right to me. The best answer in my head would have the Canon authors agreeing to major shifts as a group and putting down some "suggested notes" on how that could effect major players no longer in the active PoV set. If approved they could then appear in and out of new stories, and not have their characterizations fall too far from where the original author went.

Another consideration would be to ask anyone who leaves or thinks of leaving _what they want_ to happen to their character. Some writers like me are suuuuper protective of our works. I fight tooth and nail for credit and that's just because I have lost control of works more than once. If a writer says "their free reign" I'd say go for it, and if they say "let them be" the Canon writers could as for a general outcome and let the character have a little closure.

Other than that there's not much else that can be done.

Wasn't this sort of situation Lampshaded in a conversation between Hartford and Ayla, when they were talking about the maths tuition software that was being used by Missy in Hawthorne?

It couldn't be marketed as there was too many people involved, and disagreements about what licences to use, which also meant that it couldn't be Open-Sourced, so it was used internally by Whateley, but was unavailable anywhere else.

---

I've had to deal with this sort of situation in bands. With one band we just got together to jam, then were offered regular gigs, and, then management deals leading to recording contracts, and it was only then that we started talking about where we wanted to go business-wise. Six-piece band, and three different directions that we wanted to go, so the band split up. We still jammed on occasion, but it wasn't the same.

---

If you are going to do anything like this, be explicit about what you want, be upfront about how you are going to do it, and be realistic about how it will be pulled apart, if it falls over, as well as being realistic about how the equity will be split if you get commercial success.

As long as everyone is entering with open eyes, then there will be less room for arguments.

---

Yes, i know. Hindsight is 20/20, and, experience is what you have when you don't need it.

It's good that the authors here are paying attention to this.

I don't know if anyone else remembers Star Harbor Nights? Web-fiction from 10-12 years ago, but that was an excellent example of what can happen. Superhero Fiction, with meta-humans, and a couple of baseline main characters.

The author was creating some really interesting characters, and the main story-arc was just starting to take off, when the author were signed as a writer to a film company, which meant that they had to remove ALL of their work from publicly accessible sites.

I never found out what happened with them after that.

I still would like to know how the story finished...

Just on the news, a situation with Steely Dan... one of the two core members died, and the other one and the rest of the band announced they would go on. But then the lawyers intervened:
Thing is, the band had a tontine-like agreement where if any of them died, the others inherited the rights to the band name and such. But the widow is disputing the agreement.

Lawyers... You can't live without them, but I still think ol' Dick Shakespeare had the right idea about them, the herd ought to be regularly culled to give the rest pause to think about how they interfere rather than forward business...

My personal feelings is that no matter how much I love Team Kimba, it was Morpheus and other's work who drew me into Whately. I love Ayla, but if her story peters out and new ones take off I'm fine. Because Ayla is right now Diane's character just as Sara is Branwen's. No one else understands them as well and while it would be great to see the characters see their journey continue as a writer it bugs me.

Now some of the side characters such as Scrambler, Delta Spike etc, who really don't have direct PoVs. I think it would be cool to learn more about them. Why not some of the Drow Collective?

There are ton of secondary, tertiary characters in Whately that can be added. Shouldn't those be the "Orphans" rather than the direct PoVs who have so much ownership already established about them?

It may have been Morpheus, Elrodw, and the Gen 2 Crew who convinced me to stick around and start reading the existing stuff, but above all, I've really been impressed about how the Gen 1 authors have managed to work in, assimilate, incorporate, or otherwise keep the continuity of Gen 1 going despite the bit of a mess they were left with as the other authors lost interest, were driven off by a unsympathetic fanbase, or dropped off the face of Earth.

It's not easy. If anything, it's painful.

The missing authors were friends and confidants.

I find that the more the existing authors keep the characters involved, while leaving them open to return as POV characters, is nothing more than utterly elegant.

There's a skill and delicacy involved that incredibly few fiction authors ever have to deal with.

ShadowedSin wrote: There are ton of secondary, tertiary characters in Whately that can be added. Shouldn't those be the "Orphans" rather than the direct PoVs who have so much ownership already established about them?

Probably so, but I don't get the impression that the canon authors are facing a shortage of characters and storylines to write about yet.

Kristin Darken wrote: Heh... you can say that again.

Probably so, but I don't get the impression that the canon authors are facing a shortage of characters and storylines to write about yet.



(Sorry! I blame Morpheus!)

I'd say the authors have tons of room to evolve and expand the universe. The Cunning itself introduced by Renae in the Merry stories along with rival schools also lends itself to new odds and ends.

Unless someone starts throwing money at us to print publish or because they want film/television rights or something like that... it will probably remain in this ackward broken situation. Which means 'adopting' orphaned characters not only isn't likely... its a legal mess. Even if we DID find someone who we thought could 'replace' another author who was the original 'voice' of that character. And look how long it took us to find the right person to voice Hank... and Hank hadn't even had his own author all those years.

Ok. for one...I did NOT know this was a copyrighted work. I mean, it's frakking independant!!! Plus it's obscure!!!! I only knew about this site via the dilapidated and very sparse TVtropes page, and even then I spent almost a year reading the page over and over before deciding 'what the hell??? I can't hurt to read these stories, even IF they sound like porn!!!'. Then I found this site, and I fell in metaphorical love with the characters and the setting. So here's my little input: the WA TEAM created the legal stuff. As far as I know, the PEOPLE who own the COPYRIGHT can alter the terms of the copyright, and as far as I know, the authors are still alive and kicking. If they are unable or unwilling to write more of the characters who pretty much damm started the entire universe, just get their approval to REMOVE them from the said agreement, and transfer ownership back to the entire team. Then, find someone who can write in the voice of the character. It isn't that hard. I was asked to write a minor magazine published story after the original author had a heart attack and died. I managed to create a story that was (as I'm told) just as good as the old one. No, I don't renember which magazine, yes, it was because a friend who works at the magazine publisher read my work and asked me to, and no, I'm pretty sure that the story isn't that renownd. It was called 'iPeople' and it was a 2000 word short story published in a Australian writers magazine that went under a few years back. My friend is now working for the Sydeny Morning Herald as a editor. But I was commended for my work by a few fans who sent in letters thinking I was actually the guy who died. I had to kindly correct them that I was not actually the same person. That was quite a few years back when I was in the late years of High School. But the point is, I've successfully written in the 'voice' of another author, and it isn't really that hard to do If you read the stories they wrote enough. I do agree that the legal stuff is the harder bit. BUT, every problem is solvable. It just takes effort. As Peter Quincy Taggart always said: 'Never Give Up!!! Never Surrender!!!'. Or even 'For the Tau'va!!!', if you're a wargamer. For those who didn't get that, that was actually 'For the Greater Good' as the Warhammer 40k race known as the Tau say consistantly....no one got that, did they????

CrazyMinh wrote: Ok. for one...I did NOT know this was a copyrighted work.

In the USA, everything is automatically copyrighted. You don't have to take any action at all; you don't have to register it and you don't have to have any sort of copyright notice on it. If you write something, it immediately belongs to you for the full extent of your life plus seventy years after death.

CrazyMinh wrote: So here's my little input: the WA TEAM created the legal stuff. As far as I know, the PEOPLE who own the COPYRIGHT can alter the terms of the copyright, and as far as I know, the authors are still alive and kicking. If they are unable or unwilling to write more of the characters who pretty much damm started the entire universe, just get their approval to REMOVE them from the said agreement, and transfer ownership back to the entire team.

Correct, but this only works for the authors who can be contacted. Babs at least has gone completely AWOL; we don't even know if she's alive, from what I understand. And the ones who can be reached would need to actually agree to that. Some people are very touchy about this kind of thing, so I don't know how many would. In any case, I'd assume that they've already gone down this road with the people they can reach.

CrazyMinh wrote: Then, find someone who can write in the voice of the character. It isn't that hard.

It's not just a matter of finding somebody who can do the character justice. That's the easy part. They also have to be reliable, capable of working together with the rest of the authors, able to keep the extremely huge amount of data and plotting involved in the WU straight, willing to work for free, and willing to do all of this rather than writing their own characters or even their own setting. Finding somebody who meets all of those criteria is non-trivial.

Babs is not the only one who we are concerned about. Liliandra only posted a few snippets of the first Feral story before being deployed to the Gulf (I think it was mentioned she was Navy or something) and never being heard of again. But even so, the New Olympians are her creations.

If she is Navy, then the deployment thing can get confusing. If she deployed or stationed for one. Most deployments are six months, but you can get extended (both of my deployments ended up being over 9 months). If she has gotten stationed overseas (say in Bahrain for example) she could be looking at 36 to 48 months. Also, when deployed internet access can be rather limited, sometimes even cut off completely. People stationed overseas tend to have greater access, but even then there are no guarantees. The last time I was in Bahrain I think there were maybe a dozen computers on base that were available for general use that had internet access, you had to sign up for a time slot and only got so much time per session. That assumes she has the time and motivation after her duty days and any collateral duties... Trust me, most days in the Navy when I got off my mind was on booze and sleep, not writing or even surfing the net.

Uh... that was about ten years ago.

I would said with how big Whately is, there is a lot of story tell, and a lot of it which can be covered via writers who make up the current team. So we don't have everyone from Team Kimba, personally while I love Kimba, I'm more of a Sara's Pack / Jadis fan. I've always loved my bad girls a bit more ever since I dipped my two into femslash fiction with Kigo fic.

That aside, to me, this is a free labor of love. Publishing in of itself is an expensive and harsh reality and we're asking people to give up time and energy to produce free works. As an author I don't mind doing that, but part of it is that said works still are tied to that writer. It's how we get known in our art, and how we get people to eventually maybe invest in us. Whoa got a little personal there.

So yeah, I'm all for adding more to Whately, but as Kristin has pointed out a lot. Bek is active and has been buiding up stuff about evilness with Project Zulu (sue me if i'm behind in reading) and Dynamorphs! I'm not even on Elrod's work and their one of my fav writers from fictionmania.