General Fan Fiction Thread

[Jinzoningen MULE]

There's a second idea for a fic I've been tossing around:

What if Pilaf was able to make his wish?

Would this be an interesting idea?

Depends on how far you take it. It's vague enough that it could be anywhere between fantastic and mediocre. All depends on how it's written.

[Alruneia]

I want to address something I see turning up in a good percentage of Dragon Ball fan fiction for a moment:

Please, please try to think Toriyama when you're coming up with names for original characters. 99 % of the names in Dragon Ball are puns on something, so your original character names should be as well. It feels extremely out of place if you introduce someone whose name doesn't follow that trend. Usually when this happens it's because the original character has a real world name... which tends to be the author's name as well.
It's so easy to find something to make puns out of, too. It's almost as easy as a "the first thing to your left" challenge. So there's really no good excuse for using real world names. (Not counting name puns that just happen to match, such as Mr. Satan's first name Mark, which is from "akuma", the Japanese word for devil.) It's such a small thing, but it's so important for the immersion.

[Anime Kitten]

I don't use name puns because I'm not clever in that department. Unless "Dawn" or "Zella" happen to pun something (which I doubt).

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I don't use name puns because I'm not clever in that department. Unless "Dawn" or "Zella" happen to pun something (which I doubt).

It's easy. Think of the food that your character can most relate to, and switch up the letters. For example, a character named after a potato could be "Topa" or "Pato", or even "Potao". With one-syllable foods, like Plum, the character's name could simply be "Plum". It's also worth looking into puns in foreign languages, for variety's sake.

[Alruneia]

I don't use name puns because I'm not clever in that department. Unless "Dawn" or "Zella" happen to pun something (which I doubt).

You can use Dawn as a pun since it falls into the category "words for times of day". Dawn, noon, sunset, twilight, dusk, midnight... All these words can be turned into pun names. You can also expand the category into being words related to the sun in the sky in general, which would then also include things like eclipses and auroras (which are caused by the sun so they count).

To come up with a Toriyama name pun, you find a category of words (this is what I meant by 'the "object to your left" challenge') and then rearrange the letters a bit or remove a few letters. To be picky, you'd rearrange or remove kana. This is how almost all of the names in Dragon Ball were made (Goku, Gohan and Goten are notable exceptions, along with the numbered androids).
With short names such as your Dawn, there's nothing left to remove, and there's no way to rearrange the kana properly. Dawn is ドーン (dōn), and you can't really do anything with those three symbols. Toriyama came across this sometimes as well, with names such as Cell (セル, seru), Hit (ヒット, hitto) and, a personal favourite, Bulla (ブラ, bura). In these cases, where rearranging or removing kana would lead to losing the original word completely and/or lead to a mess, Toriyama left the words as is. You can and should do this too.

I guess what I'm saying is you got a bit lucky with "Dawn". You hit a sweet spot similar to the one Toriyama hit with "Mark". These two names work as puns of something, but are real world names as well. 99 % of the time, this is not the case; the names are one or the other. If they're strictly real world names, don't use them. (The ruling's out on names you've pulled out of thin air that are neither puns nor real world names. I say go ahead, though.)

[Anime Kitten]

I really did strike gold, because Dawn is introduced in Chapter 3, which is focusing heavily on time. I suppose I could use something along the lines of Twile (TWIE·el) for previously Zella. Obviously it comes from twilight. I may use evil counterparts for characters, which would leave me with Dusk and perhaps Midni (MID·nie; from midnight).

Also, I really admire your English skills seeing that you're Norwegian. I'd easily think you were from the US based on your English alone (okay, maybe a little because of the FUNi terms ).

[Alruneia]

Also, I really admire your English skills seeing that you're Norwegian. I'd easily think you were from the US based on your English alone (okay, maybe a little because of the FUNi terms ).

tch, you flatter me
We learn English from 1st grade all the way up to the first year high school (so 11 years in total). You'd find that most Norwegians (at least most of us born in or after the 90s) are just as or almost as good as I am. Of course, the internet and has helped out quite a bit as well. I attempt to write British English, though, so the US bit is most likely the Funi names.

[Anime Kitten]

Random question! Battle-damage isn't exclusive to males, correct?

[Alruneia]

Random question! Battle-damage isn't exclusive to males, correct?

Correct! Gotta be a little careful with clothing destruction, though. At least if you want to keep your work not rated M.

[Anime Kitten]

Correct! Gotta be a little careful with clothing destruction, though. At least if you want to keep your work not rated M.

Don't worry, I'll always keep a top of some kind. Just making sure no one thought it was weird like the entirety of Dragon Ball staff. Females can lose their shirt at some point (or take it off, for that matter).

Kind of off-topic, but it'd be great if you could make a Wikia and manage it yourself (i.e. no random people editing your articles).

[SilverArmada]

The name puns don't have to be obvious, either. I have a character named "Dax," which while that IS a name, it's a pun on the Aussie word "dacks" which are pants. Another character is named "Corvus" which means "white crow" - he has white hair. Nothing stupendously creative here, LOL. Although most of the names I use are completely made up, because there are just too many people in my fic that need names.

[Sailor Haumea]

How do you guys handle Tapion's future counterpart?

Future Trunks DID get his sword from a Tapion...

[Jinzoningen MULE]

How do you guys handle Tapion's future counterpart?

Tapion takes off in the time machine. Almost instantly, Future trunks shows up (but with green hair). He then gives an abrupt "Fuck you!" to little Trunks, steals the sword, then leaves.

[ekrolo2]

Tapion takes off in the time machine. Almost instantly, Future trunks shows up (but with green hair). He then gives an abrupt "Fuck you!" to little Trunks, steals the sword, then leaves.

And that's how it's fucking done folks.

[Sailor Haumea]

Android 16 gets a name, and Lapis and Lazuli discuss what they think their father's up to:

"Hey, Lazuli, maybe the big guy should get a name," suggested Lapis, as they drove down the road.
"How about...Garnet?" suggested Lazuli.
Lapis snickered. "Are you going for a gemstone there, sis?"
"Why not? Dad named us after gemstones, you know."
"Wonder how Dad's doing right now...His colleague abducted his kids. Think he knows the guy made us into cyborgs?"
"Maybe. Dad was an expert on androids. Didn't he make that Frankenstein's monster thing with Doc?"
"Come to think of it, he did. That android was weird. He's like Garnet's weirder brother."
"I like this name, Garnet," stated Android 16.
"That settles that, then," sighed Lazuli. "Garnet it is."

For reference, in my fic, Lapis and Lazuli are Dr. Flappe's kids.

[Sailor Haumea]

Are there any fics about Timeline 1's Trunks actions in Timeline 2 (the "unseen timeline")?

By this, I mean fics about the Trunks from Cell's timeline and what he was doing in the timeline he got the blueprints from. We never see this timeline, and I was wondering if any fics set in that timeline exist.

[Sailor Haumea]

Preview of Androids arc:

Goku collapsed to the ground, dead.
"Excellent work, No. 19," remarked Android 20.
"They killed dad...," cried Gohan.
"And you're next," replied 20, rushing towards Gohan, hand extended. Gohan shut his eyes, bracing for the pain.
But it never came. He opened his eyes to see Piccolo impaled on the android's arm.
"R-run...", gasped the Namekian.
Meanwhile, 19 had snapped Krillin's neck and had Tien Shinhan in a chokehold.
20 threw Piccolo's corpse to the ground. He turned to face Chiaotzu, and within seconds, the jiangshi was gone for the third time, his head detached from his body.
"Krillin...Dad...Mr. Piccolo...Chiaotzu...Yamcha...Tien..." Gohan was crying.
"RUN!" yelled Tien. At this, 19 applied more pressure, crushing his trachea.

[Alruneia]

How do you guys feel about "tragic" villains? In this case I mean something like a villain who was originally a neutral person, but was wronged by a Z Fighter or ally and now seeks revenge.
An example: Imagine the God of Destruction in one of the six universes Zen'ou destroyed surviving. He would then seek revenge on Zen'ou, which makes him a villain in the heroes' eyes, but in reality, Zen'ou is the one to blame. (This is not a plot I'm using.)
I think villains like that would produce pretty deep plots, at least morally speaking. It brings up the subjectivity of good and evil, as well as the "actions have consequences" thing. If the characters in the story notice these dilemmas and interactions spawn from them, I think you'd have an interesting villain and a really interesting plot. What do you think?

PS: Zamasu doesn't fit here, as he's out to kill all intelligent life, not for specific revenge.

[Anime Kitten]

They're definitely interesting, especially if you wait until near the end of the plot to reveal their origin. In one of my non-DB stories, I'm planning on having a very major villain be shown as a "I was only doing it to avenge X" character right at the end of the entire story. So yeah, definitely go for it; plus, if you did do it with Zen'ō, I'd like to see him antagonized.

[Sailor Haumea]

What do you guys think of portraying Turles not as a villain, but just as a man who has a job to do?

Basically, he holds no grudges. He's only attacking Earth because he's being PAID to do so.

Would this be in-character for him?