Bad Hair Man writes...

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Bad Hair Man writes...

Postby Bad Hair Man » Tue Feb 07, 2012 5:22 am

Bad Hair Man puts write what once went wrong!
Bad Hair Man. Write here, write now!
Bad Hair Man takes a left, then write.
Bad Hair Man doesn't think the word write looks like a real word anymore.
Bad Hair Man does it by wrote.

Okay, now that you know what kind of person I am, I will tell you why I'm here. I wrote a fanfic. Well, part of one anyway. But that's okay! Even just in part it's still pretty good I think. It's called The Hero of Algol and it's about... uh... somebody. Who was it again? ... Oh, that's right! The hero of Algol!

Kind of like Wingeye's Phantasy Star Replay (which is awesome, by the way) The Hero of Algol is a retelling of the story of Phantasy Star 1 from the beginning. Except instead of comedy, I use pretentious melodrama. And for every picture that Wingeye simply draws, due to the fact that my medium is pure text, I am forced to write one thousand words.

I did this because I really like PS1. It's my favorite game in the series, in fact. Even though IV has the best gameplay and storytelling, II has the best story, and III the best... uh... music! The first is my favorite because of its incredibly charming and earnest setting. It's like classic sci-fi mixed with classic fantasy. Seriously, it has swords and sorcery and laser-rifles and spaceships and clunky robots and dragons and a wicked king who's up to no good in his invisible flying castle.

My one complaint though, is the feeling of wasted potential that the game leaves me with. Against such an incredible backdrop some really imaginative storytelling and fun character development could have occurred, but the story the game tells is ultimately pretty thin. So I thought I'd try my hand at doing better.

I hope someone will let me know whether or not I have achieved any measure of success. Ooh, just a word of warning: I explicitly alter some of the canon (like, right there in the prologue I tell you what I'm screwing with). Please try not to get bent out of shape over this. I only did it because I think the story I want to tell will be better for it.
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Re: Bad Hair Man writes...

Postby Bad Hair Man » Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:01 am

The Hero of Algol has returned.

You may recall Chapter 1: The Martyr's Sister, in which a fifteen-year-old girl's only surviving family member is killed, tragically re-orphaning her, and she is then forced to try to make her own way in a society undergoing a slow-motion civilization collapse, venturing across monster-infested landscapes to escape the tyranny that ended her brother's life, burdened by the weight of his final request.

You will be excited to learn then, that Chapter 1 has a sequel! I call it Chapter 2: The Friend in Need, in which the fifteen-year-old girl, after discovering that her dead brother's final wish is tragically unfulfillable, decides to proactively mount a rescue mission for a strange talking animal that she has never met, but who she has heard is in some trouble. This quest will take her to a distant world far, far from the home that she knows. Will she be able to find success on the harsh and sun-blasted Motavia?! Find out, only in The Hero of Algol!

The Hero of Algol, Chapter 2: The Friend in Need wrote:AW 342, June 22 (day 16)

It's late afternoon. I'm sitting in my crash-couch, waiting for take off. Today has felt like such an amazing adventure, and the best part hasn't even happened yet. This is what an adventure is supposed to be like. A real adventure. Everything else over the past two weeks has felt more like... a classical tragedy, or survival-horror. But this -- today -- this is what an adventure is supposed to be!

Striding bravely up to the robotcops at the checkpoint, waiting with my heart in my throat to find out whether or not my road-pass would be accepted. Riding the long, glass-enclosed moving sidewalk, high above the fields separating the spaceport from Camineet. What a view! What a sense of excitement as the spaceport draws nearer and nearer! Stepping out into the massive open space of the spaceport proper, built to handle so much more traffic than there is anymore. It felt vast and sad.
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Re: Bad Hair Man writes...

Postby Bad Hair Man » Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:33 am

Canonically, the story of Phantasy Star begins with Alis Landale swearing to kill Lassic as revenge for the death of her brother Nero. Okay. That certainly is a concise motivation for our heroine. And given the terseness of any plot and character development necessitated by the medium (Master System roms were not the most spacious things in the world), concision counts for a lot. But as you may have noticed, this is one of the big things that I changed in my version of the story. That's just not the Alis that I wanted to envision. On day one of the story, just after Nero's death, I don't have an anger and determination filled Alis wishing Lassic was dead, instead I have a pain and grief wracked Alis wishing she was dead. A very different start.

My conception of Alis as primarily compassionate, thoughtful, and hopeful has been formed, I think, out of such things as djpretzel's ♪♪ Alis Overture ♪♪ and this piece of art by nemissa.

Image

I see Alis as a gentle soul, deeply troubled and scared by the Algol she finds herself living in. And when she dreams of better days ahead, I don't think "revenge" is what her hopes entail.
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Re: Bad Hair Man writes...

Postby Missagh » Wed Mar 21, 2012 10:36 pm

I absolutely love that fan art. Where can we find more work by that artist?
-- Missagh Alami, webmaster of Phantasy Star Cave.
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Re: Bad Hair Man writes...

Postby Bad Hair Man » Thu Mar 22, 2012 4:21 am

Well, I got it off of her deviant art page. Unfortunately the above is the only work of hers there that is Phantasy Star related. Her other fan arts are kind of all over the place on such subjects as Metal Gear Solid, FFX-II, Persona 2, Persona 4, Suikoden III, FFV, Odin Sphere, Tales of Destiny, Valkyrie Profile, and other things that I don't recognize.

But yeah, I really like this particular picture too.
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Re: Bad Hair Man writes...

Postby Bad Hair Man » Wed Oct 10, 2012 8:20 pm

Don't worry, he's not coming for you NOW.

He'll wait until you're asleep.

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