Catfish / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Catfish.

Count your toes after you swim

fieldstone 16 Sep 2018 06:28

Round 2 of the OCT: Agent Johnson vs. Wobbles the shark. _{I'm just messin around here you know I love you guys}

Thanks to OthellotheCat ("So many people are going to hate this. Or at least, hate Johnson.") and Captain Kirby ("How dare? I'd upvote, but how dare?") for feedback in chat.

Picture credits:
Strip mall CC on flickr here
Cabin courtesy of wikimedia commons here
Van CC here, edited by me

I hope your week is going well. Thanks for reading this.

Last edited on 18 Sep 2018 02:27 by fieldstone Show more

Petrograd 16 Sep 2018 09:32

I think this is the second OCT tale I've read where "fun" and grim canons meet and… it just doesn't work out.

This is well-written and probably the natural conclusion of such a meeting, and has some details I really like (the nasty portrayal of mnestics was cool), but… it's deeply unpleasant, without the contest wouldn't exist, and doesn't really give a reason for itself beyond that.

-1

fieldstone 16 Sep 2018 15:12

You had me at

it's deeply unpleasant

<3

I appreciate you letting me know you still thought it was well written! I knew I'd get a lot of negative reactions along these lines and fully expect this to be my last round, but when I was given a prompt to make these two characters interact, the thing pretty much wrote itself.

You're right that this wouldn't exist without the contest - these are different interpretations of the Foundation that aren't meant to go together, and inflicting Johnson on someone else's characters unprovoked would just be rude. But in this context, I took it as a challenge to come up with the coldest shit possible. In that regard I'm happy with how it came out, and the contest was a fun inspiration.

A Random Day 16 Sep 2018 16:08

I really, really like Agent Johnson. His work may skirt around the very edge of the Foundation’s core operations, but he’s one of the best at what he does. And unfortunately, what he does isn’t very nice.

fieldstone 17 Sep 2018 05:21

I'm glad you liked it! Johnson's positive attitude and wholeheartedness about serving humankind just make his whole deal more unsettling, and it's been fun to expand on that.

And if you're going to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, you might as well do it really well.

Genshed 16 Sep 2018 23:31

Another reminder that Good is not Nice.
I did feel sorry for the WWS personnel; they can afford to be both.

fieldstone 17 Sep 2018 01:09

The problem with relying on oppenness and a kind heart to accomplish good, in my experience, is that it only works until some beast comes along and decides to eat you anyway.

I still believe that love and kindness are the only ways to truly overcome evil, but unfortunately they make really poor defenses. Which is probably why evil wins so often. _{These are the thoughts that burned me out of social work so hopefully I'm just wrong about everything.}

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Last edited on 17 Sep 2018 18:08 by fieldstone Show more

psul 17 Sep 2018 17:59

This is smoothly told, and the Agent Johnson character is starting to gain some more nuance. It’s a shame that the other OCT character wasn’t given much time to develop, although admittedly that is particularly difficult here.

This is my kind of Foundation though - hoping you make it through one more round ;)

DrAnnoyingDog 18 Sep 2018 17:09

This made me feel some unpleasant feelings. But that was your goal, wasn't it?

+1

Last edited on 18 Sep 2018 17:10 by DrAnnoyingDog Show more

fieldstone 19 Sep 2018 02:27

It totally was, but in a "haha man that is fucked up" kind of way, not in an actual hurt feelings kind of way. Thanks for being a good sport about it.

I wanted Johnson to operate at his peak here because his brand of amoral pragmatism is such a good foil for WWS' wholesome innocence but, for what it's worth, all that bad karma is going to start catching up with him if I make it to the next chapter. Then again, this one's going over even less well than I expected, so you still have plenty of time to knock me out this round!

Shaggydredlocks 20 Sep 2018 02:55

At first, I wasn't sure this connection would pan out - the hyper-efficient, pragmatic to a fault Foundation (and by extension, Johnson) in these stories isn't something I thought could play well with WWS's general setup… and well, they don't play well. At all. +1, and headcanoned.

DarkStuff 20 Sep 2018 19:38

You monster!

+1

The problems presented with WWS are valid, but this does ignore the idea that there is an MTF-Beta-4, "Castaways", that specifically exists to supervise WWS and make sure nothing goes wrong (and are thus usually on-site at WWS). But I don't blame you for forgetting that. They've appeared in, like, two articles? Maybe even only one, and that one would be the original Wilson's Wildlife article. So clearly they didn't catch on to the general WWS headcanon.

Anyways, yeah, this is good. Not headcanoned, for obvious reasons, but fun to read, well written, and very good.