BoM/TWS Message Forum

Name-checking and referencing *can* work on a "timeless" story, if you do it right.

I mean...sure, referencing a real-world individual will invariably cause the story to be dated as soon as something transcendental happens to them (more often than not, death - but it can also be incapacitation), but there's a frame where it can still feel as the present while making it believable. Say, someone who's approaching middle age, since they're not too young to be unknown, but not too old to be forgotten.

I mean: things can happen. You mention DQ and Panera - what if the franchise dies down five years from now? (The pandemic threatened a lot of businesses, after all). Also note that not everyone knows of these locations, since they're specifically US locations: they impart flavor, but at the expense of relative obscurity by others. I know about both because they're promoted in cable/satellite channels, but neither place has a location where I live (other than a brief stint of DQ that couldn't hold its ground, sadly). If those locations were to close, then the storyline could be in trouble...

...or not. This is where "alternate realism" comes in. Think of "I Am Legend", and how it promoted the "Batman vs. Superman" movie as a joke, eventually ending up with "Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice" some time in the future. IAL didn't nail the exact moment, but it nailed that it'd happen. Alternatively - who'd have figured that The Simpsons' writers would nail so many things about the future? They themselves explained it - they have an ear on the ground, taking what's probably ridiculous and making something out of it. They didn't imagine a certain presidency would happen; they thought the entire idea ridiculous. (Same with Pluto Nash.) And yet, it happened.

And yet, there's other things that didn't happen, or happened differently. How about Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming the governor of California? Well, in Demolition Man, they had him as the President. (Also, as a way to sneak a joke between the Schwarzenegger/Stallone supposed rivalry.) Arnold couldn't be President unless the Constitution gets changed, but what if it happened during some time, and eventually an earthquake leveled San Francisco and Los Angeles, creating the renovated city of San Angeles? Maybe not as in the movie, but it could happen. (And then the Franchise Wars!)

What I want to say is, there's ways to skirt the issue with reality. Giving your idea: how about sending Will to see the newest Star Wars movie, only to end up being based on the (now-decanonized) trilogies? How about having Adam Driver act as Jacen Solo, with Daisy Ridley acting as Jaina? How about...say, Scarlett Johansson acting as Mara Jade, the eventual wife of Luke Skywalker? That would be a thinly-veiled reference that complies with three things: first, it references something that actually happened; second, it references something that'll never happen (Disney declared those stories non-canon, even though they're reintroducing some aspects) and third, since it references something that happened but also never happened at all, it allows for timeless verisimilitude as you don't have to peg it at a specific time. Maybe the Star Wars newest movie never premiered on Christmas - maybe it released as a summer blockbuster?

History can be quite volatile. After all - Netflix exists now, and some time back, the shareholders at Blockbuster thought that'd never go on. Heck; they had a chance to *buy* Netflix. Imagine a world where Blockbuster bought Netflix? Maybe Netflix would exist, but as a subsidiary of Blockbuster - however, it wouldn't have original content as they'd funnel funds to keep the brick-and-mortar stores alive. Or - and hear me out on this - maybe Blockbuster stores would sell physical copies of Netflix Originals, as their sole distributor. Or maybe Netflix still exists, but under the name of "Blockbuster Online", working as an unholy mixture of Blockbuster, Netflix and Redbox. Maybe in this universe, Netflix also ventures into making video games? By changing one aspect of history, you can make a world that references the modern one while still making it too unbelievable to be real - and thus, it can't be dated, as you can't really put a time tag on something that never happened at all.

Conversely, what would happen if you reference Netflix now, only to have its shares plummet five years from now? Then, you'd either have to reference Netflix falling during the next five years, or leave things as it is. The first would unfortunately date the story, while the latter means you avoid that as it can refer to its good years or stress out that this world isn't the real one - it simply looks like the real one.

And isn't that the wildest form of meta? This planet, wearing a mask with the imago of our own world?

(P.S.: That's why, when I write my own content - not for BoM - I specifically date it. The story's alternate history anyways, meaning anything beyond that point will change anyways. Making references only helps add to the date, and with "advance" knowledge of history, you can work things to accommodate those. That doesn't mean you can't change some things, though - claim suspiciously similarly named people as alternate interpretations of real people, for example.)