And Another Thing...

I do peculiar things. People who know me will vouch for this. Sometimes I do them for seemingly no reason at all, sometimes I actually have a decent reason for the junk that I pull.

One of these things is a concept that I can barely put a name to, since I never think of it as a concept and I’ve never heard of it outside of when I, personally, do it. If I had to put a label to it, I would call it...reverse plagiarism.

Plagiarism, as you know, is when someone passes off someone else’s work as their own, stealing credit for an idea. What I do is more or less the opposite of that. I take ideas of my own and pass them off as those of other people. I’ll do this several ways, such as if I think of some plot or something that I for whatever arcane reason don’t want to take credit for, I’ll say “I saw this TV show where...” or “I was reading this book, and in it...”

Basically, if you’ve ever heard me describing some fantastic and ridiculous plot from a book or TV show or anime or some such, but I mysteriously couldn’t remember the name of the show or the names of any of the characters, or any specifics beyond the fragment of plot I share with you, the odds are decent that I was actually the one who came up with it, and just chose not to take credit for it.

Why do I do this? Because most of the time when I come up with something that I’ll do this to, it’s a completely insane, fantastic, mindless, bizarre concept that sounds crazy even to think about, but I just think it’s cool. Chalk it up to a lifetime of too much anime and video games.

I realize that if I just tell people my idea for a story fragment, nobody will take me seriously. Years ago, when I shared all my ideas with everybody, people would give me looks like “Luke, whatever medication you’re not on, you need to find it and get on it, posthaste.” Now, when I tell them my bizarre tale but say it was from this one anime that has a long Japanese name that I don’t remember, they nod their heads and agree on how cool it is.

I suppose that if people think it’s from an outside source, they’re free to shake their heads with disbelief at how crazy the unknown author was while still being able to appreciate the story fragment itself. If they thought it was from me, their incredulity at the plot outweighs their sense of thinking it’s interesting. (Or not. This is also a way to shield myself from taking flak for bad ideas, because if what I’m saying tanks horribly and nobody likes it, I can just shrug and never mention it again.)

Let me give you an example of the sort of thing I’m talking about. This has been drifting through my head for the last few days, starting when I heard “The Night” and “Perfect Insanity” by Disturbed, off their new album Indestructible.

A callow youth trains to be a swordsman, and everyone expects great things from him because he is the descendant twenty generations down the line from a legendary hero swordsman who was fantastically skilled and extremely powerful. Upon completing his formal training, he’s granted his ancestor’s blade and given a sudden realization – the “inheritance” is more than a weapon, the legendary swordsman’s personality has actually survived through the generations and emerges as a separate personality inside the hero’s head.

Normally, this would be a good thing, as the legendary swordsman can take over the body in times of great need when the hero is completely outclassed and defeated. And he really is legendary, being skilled and generally badass enough to do things like catch enemy blades (in his open palm, between two fingertips, in his teeth) or deflect bullets with his sword...from a machine-gun. (When this switch occurs, his eyes go all crazy-red and such.)

Unfortunately for the hero, the legendary swordsman is also homicidally insane and prefers to slaughter his opponents, the friends of his opponents, and anybody who happened to be nearby while he was butchering one of the first two groups. So the hero and the legendary swordsman start to bicker and battle for control of the hero’s body. (The hero, being a swordsman himself, is certainly skilled and no stranger to killing, but there’s a difference between killing your opponent in an honorable way and indiscriminate murder, which is what the legendary swordsman prefers.)

This all comes to a head when the hero is in a climactic battle against many foes, which he just can’t win alone. The legendary swordsman figures this is the perfect time to rise up and gain control, so the two of them battle it out while the hero’s body, controlled by one personality or the other, fights the group of swordsmen.

Whenever the enemies are about to score a killing blow, the legendary swordsmen pushes his way forward and asserts control, as he really doesn’t want to see his last descendant die without an heir, and with his skill he starts smacking around the entire group. Whenever the legendary swordsman is about to kill one of his enemies, the hero, who wants to stop the legendary swordsman from killing everyone he meets, manages to retake control, and he fumbles the blow.

Eventually, the hero, in a burst of heroic willpower and resolve, manages to win the battle for control, but resigns himself to dying at the hands of his enemies, as he lacks the skill alone to win. His opponents, though, are so completely freaked out by his constant switching from “strong, but outclassed” to “clearly able to win disarmed and blindfolded” and back again, that they panic, assume he’s just toying with them, and flee before he decides to get serious and rip them all to pieces. The hero is left standing alone, wondering what just really happened.

See? That sounds like the plot of an anime, and I presented it to one of my friends in just such a fashion. He liked the idea. But were I to have told him it was my idea, he probably wouldn't have listened through the whole thing, dismissing it as just some random byproduct of my craziness.

Yes, technically I could be making this up, but why? It seems like a whole lot of unnecessary effort and talking to convince you of a lie that nobody remembers any specifics of. So that's that, really.

I guess...that's it.