WRITERS: Some Rules And Guidelines To Writing Ovyah And Her Story

A few writers have had an interest in telling stories about Ovyah. This is cool -- Ovyah herself originally came from a launching point by OmegaJay on a different site, and other people wrote in that 'Addventure.' Ovyah isn't quite the same, but I wanted to give a few pointers about writing her and her adventures.

First, a few really simple rules (which you'll need to follow to be taken out of review if you post to the story):

• Don't jump on someone else's storyline without asking: Ovyah storylines tend to be complicated, and writers often are building pretty deep stuff over time. It's sometimes exciting to see something someone's built and wanting to jump in and be a part of it, but you want to be sure they're up for it. (That said, being open to other writers on a storyline means opening up new ways of looking at the story -- one of my favorite subplots came from another writer throwing in their take.)
• Do Feel Free To Launch A Second Storyline With The Same Master: Back on the old site, I actually started my Peter Parker story by going a different direction than another writer. Their story was awesome -- I just wanted to tell a different one. I've got a Peter Parker story here that's standalone, but if you want to tell a Peter Parker story, you can! We'll just launch it from the top level the same as mine was launched!

That said, don't be mean. If you launch a Peter Parker story and fill it full of passive aggressive knocks on my story because you don't think I write a good Peter Parker, I'm not going to approve your posts. It's the same with other writers. If you think we're doing it wrong? Just do it right, and let your story stand on its own. It's all cool!

• Don't Kill or Free Ovyah: Ovyah is eternal, and Ovyah is a Djinn bound to the lamp. If either of those things stops being true, then the Ovyah stories don't... um... have any point. So don't do either of those things.
• Don't break the Site Rules: This is a given. If you break the site rules (ultraviolence, depiction of underage, etc?) then I'm not going to approve your post. For the record, in all of my stories all characters are of legal age, period. Even if I have to jump through massive hoops to get there.

• If you really want to tell a different story, launch a different story: If the Ovyah story you want to tell doesn't fit the guidelines I'm putting down below, or if you want to launch into a very different kind of genie wish fulfillment fantasy? Just launch a new story here on CHYOA and have at it! You may want to change the djinn's name to avoid confusion, but otherwise I'm hardly the person who invented Genie stories. (I'm not even the person who invented this take on Genie stories -- and I changed that character's name when I came here -- Ovyah instead of Ova.) The power is yours!

• ---

That's the end of the rules. Now, the stuff below this paragraph are guidelines -- essentially, they're a quick snapshot of what I'm thinking of when I write Ovyah. They're by definition optional, because we're different people, you and I. That said, if Ovyah doesn't have certain points in common in her stories, then there reaches a point where the stories have no reason to be connected -- so think of these as channel markers and have fun! The below has spoilers for various Ovyah storylines. Prospective writers should actually read the stories first because of course they should.

• Ovyah is a Djinn -- but not from a recognized source in our world: A djinn (plural djinni) is a spirit or daemon. They originally come from pre-Islamic Arabic culture, and versions of the djinni continue to be a part of Islamic mythology and theology. There is a distinction made between djinni and demons, usually. However, the concept of djinni have spread almost universally across the world, with the anglicized concept of the 'genie' being the most familiar to Americans. Djinni are usually servants -- guardians, servitors, malevolent bound entities, or playful tricksters though they may be -- and in the most familiar forms to Western audiences are bound to an object -- a lamp, a ring, a bottle, or what have you. 'Genies' may be all powerful or sharply limited, and there is a sense that there are different 'classes' of djinni with different levels of power. The standard fantasy trope as seen in Western Culture is usually one of two types: the all powerful djinn who grants three wishes (and often uses tricks of language or the foolishness of their 'master' to pervert their intent), or the much less powerful djinn servitor who may willingly or unwillingly serve a master with abilities that can vary in strength, usually without a limited number of 'wishes' but nowhere near as broad a reach. (Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie is the most obvious example of the latter.) Many comedies -- and admittedly, a lot of sex farces -- blend the two, having a cheerful subservient female who will do whatever her master wants until they have used their three wishes and then they go away forever. Interestingly, the Genie from Disney's Aladdin falls into this archetype as well -- and also brings the concept of bound servitude to the forefront. The Genie can do literally anything, violating all of space and time (though not mind control, but that's as may be), but lives in an "itty bitty living space" and can only be free of the lamp in a master frees them with a wish. (And if we look at the television series, the Genie -- after being freed -- loses a large amount of his 'phenomenal cosmic power' as part of the price of being free of the lamp, making him more of a Barbara Eden Genie -- albeit one who has no actual officially master.)

Ovyah comes from a fantasy world untold aeons ago (she usually has been 'nonexistent' for tens of thousands of years whenever she is incarnated by a new master), and this world has different rules of magic -- and different rules for djinn like Ovyah. She is not an Arabic djinn and she's not a Hollywood Genie. She's... well, she is what she is. Her universe as defined in the Introduction is, if anything, based on 'savage sword and sorcery' works like the original Conan novels, and the world she comes from hasn't existed for much longer than... well, than our universe has existed. So, eh.

• Ovyah is Happy To Be A Djinn: As alien as the concept is to many of us, Ovyah doesn't chafe at being a servant. She had an unhappy existence before she was 'cursed' into her Djinn form, and ever since no matter how she changes from one master to the next one element that's a constant is she enjoys it. She doesn't take it hugely seriously since she has a very long view of things. She's had 'immortal' masters before. They're dead now and she isn't, so if this isn't so much fun? Eh. She can wait it out. And in using her abilities Ovyah indulges in passions and fantasies that she adores. In fact, she has at least claimed that if she ever is truly and completely freed from the lamp and her service, she will be irrevocably destroyed, with even her soul being consumed and leaving nothing behind. Is that true? Who knows. She stands by it, though.
• Ovyah is also happy to do evil things for evil masters: If we step away from her 'definitional personality' that we talk about below, and look at Ovyah as a whole? She doesn't seem to have any problem with doing horrible things. By the same token, she isn't above messing with her master whether they're good or evil (or kind or vicious to her). She will generally be willing to be whatever your story requires.
• Ovyah is specifically a Djinn of Lust... and she's never quite clear on what that actually means: Ovyah's 'variety' of djinn is on the 'epic' power scale, but she is firm that her power can only be used for wishes connected to lust, desire, sex, and the like. That said... what that actually means is always up for grabs. Sometimes she seems to interpret 'desire' very broadly, and sometimes very narrowly. What this means is -- once again -- you can write whatever sort of story you want to write and she'll play her part.
• Ovyah's personality and power shifts based on her Master and her Master's world: Ovyah claims that she always incarnates as someone desirable to her new Master -- literally being redefined after she's released from the lamp. Her personality in particular can vary widely, based on what her new Master would want a djinn he or she finds desirable to bw. In some of the early stories, we see her being a wisecracking, sarcastic, playfully seductive woman with Peter Parker, a scatterbrained low attention span pest with Spider-Gwen, a poison tongued loyal lackey to Lex Luthor, and a CW Guest Star of the Week with Carlos Ramon. Similarly, her power tends to fit those same parameters. She claims that her master chooses (subconsciously) how much discretion and latitude she has, though it's not certain how much that's true. For example, the Peter Parker Ovyah is able to make pastries (because they're 'sex on a plate') and the Spider-Gwen Ovyah can 'pay for pizza' (meaning she automatically has money to buy pizza, rather than just making it appear), because 'buying pizza sets up date night,' while the Lex Luthor Ovyah is much more tightly controlled and has far less latitude. She's more likely to limit a wish based on wording than give a bit extra to a wish based on discretion. Again, tell the story you want to tell. She'll fit it.
• Ovyah always uses the least amount of power she has to use: When Cisco Ramon's Ovyah offers to heal Harry Wells's headache, she literally gives him a shoulder massage and breaks up the tension causing the headache. Maybe there was magic involved too but if so it was tiny. When bringing Gwen Stacy 'back from the dead,' Ovyah doesn't actually resurrect Gwen Stacy -- she plucks Gwen Stacy out of time just before she could die and leaves a dead duplicate behind -- history doesn't change, but Gwen never died. When ordered to seduce Superman and for Superman to be incapable of resisting her, Lex Luthor's Ovyah doesn't Superman to break his fidelity to Lois through sheer power, she becomes one of Superman's lost loves and sets up conditions for Superman to 'save' her, but needing to use sex to do it. Why does she 'conserve' unlimited power? Interesting question, huh? Because of this principle, she will generally match the 'special effects' of power of a given universe -- so when Lex Luthor's Ovyah uses her power, it can be epic and glorious in appearance because the DC Animated and Prime Universes are like that, but Cisco Ramon's Ovyah seems to be limited to a CW show's special effects budget. That's just part of the fun. That said? Your story, your power levels. Do what you like.
• Ovyah always has her own agenda: When Ovyah incarnates for a new master, she knows everything about that master and everything they need. She may be surprised by some of the things that master does, but she doesn't need to 'learn' about her new master. And... along with that knowledge, Ovyah generally has an agenda of her own. Does she intend to help them? Hurt them? Do something else? She generally doesn't say.
• Ovyah cannot be 'lost' or 'stolen,' and once she incarnates the lamp is just a chunk of metal: This point is made in most of the stories, but to be clear -- Ovyah incarnates when a new master frees her from the lamp (usually by rubbing or cleaning the lamp, a la the Aladdin story). When that happens, Ovyah is no longer bound to the lamp -- she is bound to her Master, and will remain bound to her master until he or she dies. At that time she will vanish and once again be within the lamp -- and typically she doesn't 'exist' while she's there. She can't be stolen by another person while her master lives, and if her master dies, even briefly, then she will be incarnated by the next person to get her lamp and incarnate her, and be as permanently bound to the new one as she was to the old. (Though if her new master dies and a revived old master reincarnates her, she'll go back to being who she was... usually). Even if the lamp is destroyed, it will reappear if her master dies... though it always seems to be pretty old and battered, never new.
• Ovyah is eternally patient while in the lamp, and incredibly needy once incarnated: If a master doesn't use Ovyah's powers -- specifically to fulfill their desires, then Ovyah will get bored, then angry, then destructive. Her latitude seems to increase with greater amounts of neglect. And to be clear, tossing Ovyah a pity fuck doesn't count. She's not a succubus and she's not a nymphomaniac -- she's a djinn, and she exists to serve, so get wishing, meat boy.
• Ovyah facilitates the plot, but the master always drives it: The point, if there is one, of Ovyah's stories of the Wonderful Lamp isn't that Ovyah can do anything or make other people do anything. The point is that Ovyah's master has just gotten this incredible thing. What they do is what the story's about. In one sense, it's a little like an old television program called The Millionaire. The basic plot was that an unseen millionaire (played by the voice of Orson Welles because of course it was) has way more money than he can spend, so he selects people to receive a million dollars. (At the time the series came on, a million dollars was about four and a half million dollars as of January 2019.) The recipient got the million, with the taxes taken care of... and then the rest of the episode was about what they did with a sudden unimaginable fortune. Sometimes they were smart, sometimes they were stupid, sometimes they were kind, sometimes they were selfish. The money facilitated their story. In the Peter Parker arc, Ovyah ends up being the centerpiece of both Peter and a number of the people he's close to, including Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy -- and how that group uses the power she represents is the point of the story. In the Lex Luthor arc, Ovyah is both the lynchpin of a plan Lex has for world domination, and a chance for him to take petty on Superman. Both are his schemes. In the Cisco Ramon arc, Ovyah is, if anything, a 'metahuman of the week' that Team Flash has to deal with, both as a macguffin and as a problem.

That said? If you want to try something else? Go for it. I'm not the God of Stories!

• Ovyah can 'become' other people: One thing that you may notice at least in my Ovyah stories -- yours may vary, of course. Whenever Ovyah takes on the role of an existing person, she doesn't refer to it as duplicating them or disguising herself as them. She claims to become them. It's a good enough 'becoming' that Spider-Man's Spider Sense can't tell the difference and Superman can't detect the difference down to the cellular level. There are also hints that things a master does in a fantasy with the 'become' character happen in the world, just... minus the sex. What does all this mean? I'm not 100% sure myself -- but it's pretty solid to her character. What happens if Ovyah becomes someone right next to them, and the two are trying to convince someone to shoot the other or some other standard trope? That's up to you -- but I'd be inclined to make it impossible to know which one was which. And... since Ovyah can also be in more than one place at the same time, it's not impossible that they'd get it wrong and never know the difference. At least, not until Ovyah's master died and anyone Ovyah became vanished at the same time she did...

I hope these come across as springboards for your ideas, not restrictions. I've found Ovyah to be a fascinating concept for playing with characters in fan fiction, and I hope other people enjoy her as well!