Very true, that was.   A good point, you make.  :)


There are many people who speak Spanish around me, and it would, I'll admit, be cool to know what they're talking about.

Humans have been curious for ages

I embrace that curiosity, and try not to gossip about what I've listened in on

Sometimes it's just, so ridiculous gossip, I have to check if it's true, so I go to the source of the gossip, and inquire

I'll try to verify things with the person the gossip is about, generally when it's a 'did they really say that??' situation.   Usually I try to get the truth, and get the story straight, so I can pass along the correct version of the gossip.
Granted, that probably just makes me a "Gossip with a mission", but I'm okay with that.

verifying the truth is the right way, that way, malicious gossip can be manhandled and hopefully killed off

I just hope people would think the same, but yeah, most go for the most dramatic and gasp-worthy gossip

and you know, the funniest thing is, the truth is usually much worse or more dramatic than any gossip

Then of course, the person gossipped about can lie about what is true and not true, so one really should be very good at "reading" people

When unsure what the truth is, I won't tell the, gossip forward

Yes, it can be tough to untangle the truth from lies during in gossip.   People often put their own spin on things, inserting their own opinions on the person or the subject of the gossip to either fill in any blanks or to shade the facts that seem to be known. And their version is then passed on to the next person as the original gossip.

There's a game played here, usually among school children at summer camp or other gatherings, where a dozen or more people sit in a circle.  One person tells a complicated story, usually only a few sentences, to the next person, whispering it into their ear. That person whispers the same story into the ear of the next person, and so on, until the last person tells it to the original person, who has the original text of the message written down.
Inevitably, the message has been changed, sometimes drastically, by the time it gets to the last person.

we have that too, we call it "broken telephone" and in the line of kids, there is always one to change the story completely, just because...

so the original sentence might be "here we sit playing the broken telephone"

half way in some kid will change it to "the mirror is shiny"

Or something much much meaner, just because it's fun...

so essentially, that game, should be used later in life to highlight how gossip works....

damn... why haven't I made that connection before?

Okay, so I can't sleep

I had this mind-blowing idea, okay, mind-blowing for me...

anyway, what if one had a story, where a serious researcher of wild-life after doing his biggest break-through, suddenly starts being obsessed with mythical animals

the twist of course is, his biggest breakthrough was proving that Phoenix evolved from a certain dinosaur, instead of another as has been believed for 60 or so years.

and the mythical animal he's obsessed with? A cow

the setting is, the animals we consider mythical is normal animals, kappa (japanese river-children that drown people), tanuki (raccoon with huge balls), bigfoot, chupacabra and harpies live like they are normal animals, in their respective countries then

and yes, most of the animals from legends are magical and dangerous to humans, don't wonder one human would love to make up and try to find these, elusive nice animals. Cows give milk, ergo food, chickens give egg, spiders eat flies. Yes, flies still exist.

Does this sound too crazy?

In reply to CuteSue (msg # 816):

I think I remember some people calling it "broken telephone" as well.   It was such a fun game, but most of us don't connect it to gossip. After all, we're all convinced that we always get rumors right. :)

In reply to CuteSue (msg # 817):

That's a very intriguing idea.  A world much like what they thought the world was like in Medieval times, where people were convinced that there were monsters lurking in every shadow.
A bit like Piers Anthony's "Xanth" series, where even the cutest animals were dangerous and weird. :)

I like the concept.  There's plenty of room for stories, I'll bet.

Would the setting be in "modern" times, with modern technology, or would all the monsters and dangerous creatures have kept humankind from developing past frightened villagers living behind high wooden walls or castles?
Perhaps the researcher is actually a medieval alchemist, in a royal zoo, trying to "domesticate" the monsters?

Or perhaps there's a rift between worlds, and a scientist, or perhaps even a normal everyday person, travels from our world to the "magic creature" world, to meet an alchemist who's struggling to help humans survive.

well, there needs to be some kind of contact, hoe else would the researcher know about cows, that actually exist and isn't just stuck in a fantasy book

and modern is the way but they have to be modern in a different way, no tunnels, cause dark places breeds weird animals, boats need protection guards to fight off the sea-monsters

and holy places is, not touched, as they have protective animals and monsters

So it's like the modern world, only with monsters?   that could be very cool.

Humans have developed, but with ways of protecting themselves from monsters.  There are trolls under bridges and serpents in the seas, but they stick to roads and fields and they're fine, more or less.  :)

perhaps the researcher finds an ancient "fairy tale book" with pictures and descriptions of cows, goats and other animals who have the "magical property" of not being vicious killers.   They'd be edible and relatively docile.  Compared to trying to eat a dragon, they'd almost be like a steak and hamburger tree.

They wouldn't build bridges, the bridges that exist is old ones, from times before figuring out how to make troll-killings lessen

and sea-serpents, there is water-guards, to kill them, and the least poisonous animals are eaten, the rest like hydra's should have poisonous meat

dragons are hunted to get their gold, and well, their eggs are considered aphrodisiac, so they steal those too

but yeah, I'll figure it all out, first I need a list of every mythical beast and edible or not, then which human-looking mythical being is considered smart enough to be the top of the food-chain

humans, elves and gnomes

Then it's the beast-chain, one supposed dragons and beasts of the seas tops that list

and then the bugs...

holy crap, I think I bit of more than I can imagine to chew here...

it's very possible to have too much detail, and be tempted to make a thousand page manuscript on every plant and animal in the world, but it's better to take it in small bites.

It's like the Harry Potter books.  J.K.Rowling put her own spin on dozens of monsters and creatures from mythology, and made up a few of her own, but didn't introduce them all in the first book.   Instead, she talked about half a dozen or so each book.   Focusing on goblins in the first, elves in the second, werewolves in the third, and so on, with a few more sprinkled in for flavor and atmosphere.

I would say don't worry about all the creatures in the world, just concentrate on the story and the main characters, and use creatures and monsters as you need them. :)


So do the old bridges predate trolls?  I'm not sure I understand that part.
I would think that perhaps they'd build new bridges now that they might have developed "troll killing technology".  Perhaps some "greek fire" or "Naptha", kind of like medieval napalm.

nah, the bridges was built, and then the trolls appeared, and humans didn't put the two together at first, so a few bridges were built before someone put 2 and 2 together

and maybe a troll killing technology is better...

or then a modified monster that kills and eats trolls

so much different ways *enjoys flow of ideas*

and yes, J.K.Rowling knew hos to keep it as a good flow, not too much, just enough

Is there going to be a time in this fantasy world when there were no monsters, then?  That would be interesting to have a timeline (that might not be revealed all at once, or even in the first book) where the monsters appeared only in the last couple of hundred, or thousand years.

That way humans would have "the dark times" when they were nearly overwhelmed by the monsters, killed off by the thousands, before they learned to fight back and adapt to their scary new world.
Perhaps with new weapons, new government or religious orders of monster fighters, or even learning magic or alchemy from the monsters.

Hmmm

maybe the monsters always existed, but humankind didn't spread so far as to bother them until the dark-times

first monsters thought "foood!!"

and when too many humans "Oh crap, need to fight them before too many"

uh oh.. too late

hmmm

Or maybe the monsters think 'Awesome more food!'

Nature has proven that where there is an abundance of food, life will fill in the space to help the population reach an equilibrium.  More humans for food might mean more monsters.

Hmmm

yes, loads of humans equals loads of monsters

and then humans needs monster-hunting squads

and poachers to kill some monster for their medicinal crap

oooooh

Yes, it makes sense that there's be a symbiotic relationship between the humans and the newly discovered monsters.  Or, at least, that many humans would learn to benefit from the monsters, cultivating the skill of taking valuable materials from the monsters, or learning how to fight them.

An entire market for monster glands, horns and bile would be booming.

The ideas are nice and tempting, we shall see if I ever can write it as my mind sees it

but yay, I has an idea that isn't criminal

I always think about criminal stories and mysteries

this is more fantasy :)

I tend to think more in Fantasy or Sci-fi.  Usually it's the result of 'What if...'

cool

what if.. is a great start at everything

what if CCCP had broken into even smaller parts, what would those non-existent countries be named

oooh

also, china broke into smaller parts

aaaand there is no united states of america, only america as a continent and all the states are countries, would Utah have monarchy while Texas had presidency...

ah, sorry

Alternate Histories are a very popular genre of books, even ones set in modern day.
Some have premises like:  "What if the American Civil War had been won by the Confederate States, rather than the United States?"  Or, What if the Native Americans had been able to fend off the White Americans as they colonized the country? (that one was a good story, where a visionary Apache leader named Juh organized the tribes into a powerful army).

European and Asian histories can be just as fascinating.  There's been so much upheaval in the world in the last century or so, especially in World War I and World War II alone) that history could have easily gone in many directions.

saw a documentary about the ottoman empire today

it mentioned how they were the reason WW1 happened, cause of a lot of problems between muslims and christians

and weirdly enough, it reminded me of, today's problems

so at some point, one side will do something terrible, and it will lead to their ruin, the ottoman empire disappeared cause of their stupidity

I wonder who will disappear and what the new world order will be?

and I do hope it won't involve any World Wars...

*smiles*  yes, "The Great War" literally changed the world.
I read an article about it, and the events in WWI changed things in nearly every part of the world, even places that were untouched by the war.

Several empires in Europe and the Middle East vanished, and nearly all the countries there have borders that were redrawn after that war.  Entire migrations of populations occurred in a dozen country at least, including America.
Africa was transformed, as was Russia and much of Asia.

Yes, I actually wonder sometimes if the world would have been better off if the Ottoman empire could have survived WWI.