by MagicKeys
A good start. I just wonder if this one will go the distance, or will it peter out without any conclusion like most genie stories seem to?
Oh please let this story continue....please let this story ultimately be finished..and not fizzle out like most stories.
*hopes, prays, begs so sweetly*
Put off a little by the genie's use of modern vernacular. It would have enhanced her character if you had perhaps given her a more formal and more historic speech pattern.
re:
Modern Vernacular
Put off a little by the genie's use of modern vernacular. It would have enhanced her character if you had perhaps given her a more formal and more historic speech pattern.
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Agreed.
The usual way a genie story gets around that is the genie reads the new master's mind to learn it, but then she would have known his name and not asked.
Nice start to a good story, looking forward to reading the rest.
Or do these rules mean that if a cancer patient with a week to live gets the journal, he/she can't wish to be cured? It would "extend their lifespan" after all! Or maybe they can wish for that, but they'll still die in a week? If the master is dangerously overweight, and wishes to be a healthy weight, do they lose weight but still have a higher risk of heart attacks, etc? So many different ways this rule makes no sense, unless the entity/genies who came up with it were sadists.
And "... something that can cause harm in the future." What? Is the genie omniscient and/or precogniscient, that it can know the potential future consequences of every single wish the master makes? I mean if the master chooses to wish that a woman will sleep with him, and she happens to be in a relationship, and the guy or gal she's with finds out and hangs him/herself out of heartbreak, is that not "causing harm in the future"? Granted, that's an extreme example, but it happens.
Or less extreme, the master wishes to sleep with a woman, and as a result she doesn't meet her originally intended husband, and they don't have the kids they would otherwise have had, one of whom would have invented a cure for cancer, or stopped a mass shooter, or put out a campfire in a forest before it could start a massive wildfire... Do the kids who weren't born, and/or the people who wouldn't have died, but now will, or the forest that wouldn't have burned, but now will, count as future harm?
Again, what?
Same problem with "... make a wish that will reveal my powers to anyone."
So if a busful of kids is teetering on the edge of a cliff, and help is too far away but the master could wish them to safety, these rules say "sorry kids, too many witnesses, bend over and kiss your asses goodbye!"? Damn. That's cold.
And "...you may not use my power to ascend to power yourself..."
Even just the ability to change his appearance could help him "ascend to power" for goodness sake! He wishes for hight, physical attractiveness, and a bit of charisma/more confidence, and he's well on the way to whatever office he'd like. However, unlike the other rules, this one can make sense if you interpret it very strictly and literally, namely that he can't explicitly wish for power, but if he gets power as a side effect of other, unrelated wishes, he's fine.
You could argue that for the "reveal my powers" rule, but that would make it a meaningless rule.
The "lifespan" one, no, that just makes no sense. Same with the "future harm" one. The "future harm" one *could* be interpreted to imply *direct intent to cause harm* but that makes it toothless.
Aside from that, and a couple other issues (using "your" instead of "you're", changing tenses ("caressing and pulled at me") and saying he "filed her mouth" with his seed (weird filing cabinet, that), this was definitely enjoyable. I'll keep reading.
Sorry about the Wall of Text, I just couldn't help myself when I read those rules...I felt a bit like Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movies (the Peter Sellers ones) (Google "Dreyfus eye twitch").
-Anubelore
Why don't authors save up a couple days of writing and have 2-3 page chapters. I can't stand one page at a time. Oh well.