The Grimoire,

Shameless self-promotion/crossover:

I know that in some universes, Meical buys an old, dilapidated mansion for her niece to live in, that eventually becomes home to numerous other kids as they live and learn under Meical (usually because these are low-income kids and her niece at the time wanted to give them a chance). This results in her also buying surrounding land and constructing new facilities, all attached to the old one (or letting the kids do the construction themselves)

Getting off-topic

I want to have a game (in my vision it is probably a video game, but whatever) where the player(s) in some post-anarchic apocalypse world have to, for whatever reason, enter this old school-building… only the ‘school’ is a lot like a mansion with its sprawling grounds and multiple attached wings. It would be beautiful if it weren’t abandoned and in desperate need of repair
The PCs go in expecting to have to fight tooth and nail against whatever gang has made their home there (par for the course with the game’s atmosphere), but they wander the halls and rooms, only to find them empty. The few people who were there are already dead, and if the PCs turn their backs the bodies disappear.

Throughout their time there, the player(s) see shadows moving right at the corner of their vision, hear footsteps echoing in the halls, even glimpses that another person is their with them, but they never find anything solid. Finally, they find the room they are looking for, and in the middle of it, with her back to them, is a woman. This figure looks over her shoulder, and her gaze meets theirs for a moment, before she calmly turns and walks out one of the other doors in the room. Where the woman was standing, there is a coffee table, with whatever the player(s) were looking for sitting neatly, waiting for them, but if the player(s) go looking for her, the woman is nowhere to be found

Clues within the mansion itself (and probably press release ‘word of god’) would reveal that this mansion used to be the house where Meical raised her niece and taught so many kids. Thing is, the niece who lived there died several generations earlier, and Meical’s most recent niece lives in a completely different dimension. In the decades that passed, the world changed, governments fell, and the people of the society ran amock, leaving this place behind. The only reason Meical was there at all is because it was the anniversary of her niece’s passing, and she was visiting the girl’s grave (which was either on the grounds somewhere, or in the basement)

Maybe it's just the tea talking, but here is a blurb

In classic mythos and literature, it is common to consider other realms to physically be other places- heaven is somewhere 'above' and hell 'below'. Completely different worlds

well, what if these other realms aren't different places, per se, but rather just different versions of the one we currently inhabit.
And emotions, energy, etc can permanently change the world, or even create a new version of it

so, heaven for instance could be where there was once a mansion full of loving people, and what we as humans see is a dilapidated old house, but to another's eyes it could still be a wondrous and well-maintained dwelling, just like in the olden days

of course, this works better with individuals' visions of heaven, hell, and the like

...meh
idk

inspired by Swan Princess

: the princess was kidnapped by a dark mage, but it turns out that the dark mage was actually saving her from machinations meant to kill her and take over her kingdom. The dark mage ‘kidnaps’ her, but makes it very obvious that she is not a prisoner, and does what he can to make her feel at home while at the same time trying to fight a shadow war to save the kingdom
All while actively being pursued by the kingdom, because he has long been considered a bad guy. He is not necessarily a ‘nice’ man, but he does have a heart, and he does care about others

Continuing post about Akasha the tiefling bard and her merry band of badasses

So the princess of a country is kidnapped, and ends up chained in a cave with another girl. Is panicking before the other woman casually slips off her unlocked cuffs, picks up a knife off the table, says, ‘just a moment sweetheart’ and walks out of the jail room. A few screams later, the woman walks back in twirling the key around her finger. Unlocks princess’ cuffs while the girl is confused as fuck, asking who she is.
Turns out it is none other than Akasha, who begins suiting back up in her usual gear. She had gotten wind of something foul about the girl’s country and stepped in to see what she could do. It is about this time that Nigli walks in, having torn her way down to them, and the two adventurers ride out of there, princess in tow
But they don’t take her directly back to her father- they need to know more right now, or at least Akasha does.
They make their way to a nearby port town, and drag the princess into a ramshackle old bar by the docks. Akasha leaves Nigli and the princess (Mata) alone at a table for a moment and comes back with three tankards of ale, which the adventurers quaff with no problems, while Mata gags and sputters.
Suddenly, a bawdy male voice starts singing a song whose lyrics make the princess’ ears go red. And then Akasha starts singing right alongside him, and the entire bar is laughing and singing along
But the song eventually ends, and Akasha buys the dwarf a drink. It is only when they get back to their table that Akasha pulls out a necklace with a strange symbol and a small notebook, and the two bards get very serious looks on their faces.
Dan joins them, and along the way so do a few others on the adventures over the next couple of months.
Mata goes from fearing and being embarrassed by these people to respecting them highly and considering them her friends. She learns to fight alongside them, learns to tell very dirty jokes, takes up a few phrases in several different languages, figures out how to get people to leave her alone or only pay attention to her, and figures out that there are a lot of things wrong with the nobility she grew up in, and that a number of people she never would have given thought to actually have things pretty well put together.
Finally, it comes down to a conference between two kings who are about to go to war, and who shows up but Akasha. Turns out she doesn’t know one king, but is good friends with another, and undertook this job without his knowing to keep his kingdom out of an unnecessary war.
A war that advisors on both sides were trying to instigate, and also involve the hobgoblins of the north and a dragon that has been harassing the lands to the southeast
With her at the forefront, the entirety of the organization is exposed and either arrested or executed immediately, and those few who escaped are quickly tracked down by Akasha’s old scout buddy and his recruits from the one king’s military.
And with all of this done, Akasha beckons the king closer and pulls down the hood of the woman next to her. Father and daughter have a tearful reunion
The king offers to give Akasha anything he wishes, but Akasha says that rewards will have to wait. While she turns the highborn hobgoblin boy (whom she also rescued) back to his father (who was also at the conference) she says that she has a dragon to attend to

Along with the princess, she makes her way to the dragon’s lair, and engages her in conversation. The dragon was harassing the lands because her clutch of eggs, the last of them all, had been stolen. Akasha says that they recovered them, and consulting the best knowledge they had they are incubating them, and will be transporting them as soon as possible. Unfortunately…
She pulls out a large, ornate box and sets it down with utmost care
…not all of them made it

Inside the box are the remains of the dragon’s clutch- 4 eggs, broken, but put back together with painstaking care
The dragon is heartbroken, but thankful that this little demon went to such trouble to bring them back to her. She offers the bard anything she wishes, but Akasha asks only for a story, and not on today of all days
The dragon laughs, and agrees to treat the bard to a story when happier days are upon them, and tells the little princess to return to her father with the news that the countryside is now safe
The princess is changed by her journey with these bizarre individuals, and is sad to return to dull days in court, but it is not long before Akasha returns to her doorstep with another conspiracy to uncover

Skeletal, I know, but I think the message gets across
Whatever the group she is with, Akasha serves as an ambassador for various groups, and is always acting as a detective of sorts, seeking out problems in order to end them before they can permanently damage the world around her, while at the same time brightening and changing the ways the people around her view the world

Sudden vigilante story idea

Most stories involving protagonists who go after crime organizations for any reason either involve said protagonists running around in whatever unreasonably recognizable outfit the writer dreams up or holding doing so from the shadows and hiding among the populace

So, what if you had a protagonist who instead slipped into a criminal organization and takes part in their acts, primarily acting as a leg-breaker and a cleaner. This way, not only do they get closer to their main targets of the heads of the crime family, but they also get to kill or maim other criminals and crime families And they get paid to do it (and probably more than they would at their average 9-5 cover job).

And when all is said and done, and they have wiped out that particular crime family, they drop their persona, let that façade die, make up a new identity, and start the process all over again.

I don't know if this is just me liking villain protagonists or what, but i suddenly want to see a story where you have a disney-esque princess who is tormented and abused her entire life

until she meets a demon

and whether the demon does it with its own power or slowly encourages her to take command of her own life, the girl's life improves

because... i just think it would be so funny to see people's faces when they see a creature that is commonly, i daresay universally, is considered evil, but it is the one person who actually cares for this girl's health and well-being

could also play the angle of demons are spirits that can be summoned to help you
i mean, hell, if you read into some of the background of the bible, king solomon summoned demons to build his temple
they weren't necessarily evil, you just had to be careful in dealing with them

Really quick one:

we have stories where soulless monsters and the corpses of the dead rise to attack the living
and
we also have stories about social/moral dystopias(dystopii?) where man is proved to be the real monster

so, what would happen if you put the two together?
if you had an apocalyptic story about the dead rising and monsters rousing from the shadows to attack the living because some god or other force of balance has decided that the spark of life is wasted on the current living and future generations will only make it worse

so, in killing the living, the dead gain new life, and monsters do the same, and from the ashes and dust of the old cultures, new life arises

Two old-school mafia families
competing criminal organizations, but they respect one another

a day comes when one finally overcomes the other, and the don of the winning family stands over the other with a gun in his hand
and the one who is about to die makes a request, that the don take his daughter in
not drop her off at an orphanage, but raise her as his own child
and in return, he would tell him about the hidden treasures of the family, secrets that no one would have found otherwise

especially important because the girl is A) in the room and B) old enough to understand the implications of what is going on. she tries to argue, but her father promises her that the opposing don is a good man, and will take care of her

at this point the don asks his doomed rival if he is lying to him
to which the man replies that he has been many things but, 'what is one thing I have always been, ever since we were kids?'
and the don answers, '...a man of your word'

so the deal is struck. the father dies, the daughter is taken in by her father's killer, and raised with all the care and affection he shows his own children

and it turns out to be good for all involved, because not only does the girl grow up safe and secure, and the don gets what he wants, but as it turns out the secrets of the family include secret rites to magic that can only be used by members of the deceased don's bloodline, and in order to invoke them the user has to be willing, for any amount of stress via duress would cause the magic to fail

this one is going to be uncoordinated as all holy fuck, but I've got all this written out and i just want to get it down, so here. we. go.

*drops*

Weird idea I had for a kind of…I don’t know, dystopian superhero fantasy world

There do exist ‘superheroes’ and ‘supervillains’ in this world, as in there do exist people with powers that at least slightly beyond the ken of normal humans (though the abilities of normal humans are also upped slightly), and there also do exist specific organizations specifically for Title: Heroes and Title: Villains
But, that said, they are all just people

The actual organizations themselves are actually more of businesses, and via the publicity and public opinion of the goings-on of superhuman activity, they basically control everything. Through public appeal, they dominate politics, economics, commercial and industrial distribution.
Literally, the entire point of ‘the fight for justice’ of ‘good guys fight bad guys’ is to make money

They basically recruit heroes by either a sales pitch or, if that fails, blackmail and public pressure. They pidgeon-hole you into a role, and you basically have to serve that role.
You are basically alone once you are taken in by them: the people within your assigned organization (read: your fellow heroes/villains) usually have some idea of what you are going through, but there isn’t much they can do to actually help you. Most of the public is completely unaware of your personal struggles (if they even recognize you in the first place), and the few who do know what you go through (much like your ‘comrades’) can’t really do much to help you

I…know I had a number of cognizant points that I was trying to use this to convey, but for whatever fucking reason they aren’t coming to me
Basically, if you really fucking twisted DC comics; like, majorly twisted

Examples:
This world’s version of Poison Ivy? A fairly young girl who just happened to have a talent for making plants grow by expending energy. The organization basically isolates her and tries to condition her to hate people. Then, they purposefully poison/burn/generally destroy plants to incite a commotion, forcefully pump this girl full of synthetic energy supplements (which coincidentally makes her appear to mature, kind of like Kii from MonMus) and release her to cause destruction and mayhem
Evangeline is this girl’s name

This world’s Joker? A fairly brilliant and clever man who makes all kinds of inventions, good and bad. Thing is, every time he tries to put forth an invention that is helpful to someone besides his persona’s ‘self’ he is more or less tortured and humiliated, which created a man who does indeed appear crazy, but is also very broken and afraid
We’ll call him Jax

This world’s Harley Quinn (god, I am going all-villains, aren’t I?)? Lovely girl who had a future ahead of her who was pulled away from her studies just because she had powers. She is now being forced to play both sex-kitten sidekick and personal therapist to a man she barely knows, and has little more than pity for. She is comfortable with neither role, but she has nowhere else to go. Also, she is black, because I saw a really pretty black girl on tumblr and for some reason I have been picturing that girl whenever I think of solitaire. Sorry
Amanda, she shall be
EDIT: I fucked up here, here name (alter ego or not, i haven't decided) is Solitaire. the above paragraph should make a bit more sense now

Mr. Freeze? Actually doesn’t change that much. Still a cryogenics researcher who started using his technology to preserve his sick wife until a cure could be perfected. Where it changes is his wife is kidnapped by the organization and held captive, her fuel cells being disconnected if he refuses to play the part of the villain for the organization.
Mann, he is so named

Oh, and Batman? Kind of the same, except not quite the model of perfection, and mixed with some Judge Dredd. Incredibly draconian lawman who just happens to be a jack of all trades with really good foreplanning


side notes:
Evangeline does like plants, and does instinctively know how which plants fit where, so she ends up making a personal botanical garden out of the land she is isolated on, that she ends up trying to open to the public, and leads people on personal tours and answers questions about growing plants. The organization may or may not claim eminent domain to force her out or otherwise try to destroy it
It is at one point suggested to the protagonist by one of the villains to go to ‘Joker’ and just ask for an enhancement suit. So, the next time they encounter one another she gets herself caught, and while she is captured she just asks him, and he goes from off-his-rocker crazy to kind of loopy, cloudcuckoolander who is also kind of nice who is happy to give her one to try out (but quickly asks her not to mention where she got it)

Protag: this world’s version of ‘Batgirl’- a 17-year old girl who was found to have some flavor of superpower and was given as a sidekick to ‘Batman’, but the whole point I wanted to cover here was that she is just a kid, who is now much more aware of how little control she has of her own life and image, suffering very clear manipulation and peer pressure
Oh, also, she is primarily meant to be marketed as ‘jailbait’ in-universe, and she fucking hates it
On that note, she got her name from a hero who can pop through dimensions, who picked her name from a video game. He hadn’t seen her beforehand, and named her Rayne, and was thoroughly disappointed when she was not as…curvaceous as he imagined. Yeah, creepy as hell, and that’s the point. She tried to make it her own and call herself Sanguine Fall or something, but pretty much everyone ignored her

Umm, kind of want to cover the question of…oh how do I put this…age gap dating. Because, I want to kind of tease/explicitly state that Solitaire (Harley Quinn) and Rayne (Batgirl) end up being friends and dating on the sly, but there comes a point where Solitaire pulls back because she doesn’t feel right about dating Rayne. In part, because she already wasn’t really comfortable with dating due to both past experience and to the persona she has to uphold, but also because she feels that she could has the ability to manipulate and affect Rayne and her ability to handle relationships, and it makes her feel…skeezy. Cheap. Dirty.
Kind of want to make a message out of this, but not sure I have the relationship talky-talk experience to make it work.

Let’s see: the most clear ‘storylines’ I have are A) Rayne being out on a bike ride and literally running into Solitaire, both of them recognizing each other via injuries, and becoming friends and B) Rayne by chance riding out to an abandoned mental facility on a hill overlooking the old town, and meeting Evangeline there, because that is where she has been ensconced. Both are kind of nervous and shy at first, but eventually Rayne gets her talking, then walking around the grounds together. Then Rayne pedals a second-hand bike to the garden and leaves it there, running back home, and returning the next day on her own bike. All of this so that she can teach Evangeline how to ride a bike, and get her out and about, so that she doesn’t have to be isolated anymore

As the story progresses, she actually manages to get in contact with several of the other villains and heroes, and they actually form friendships and support groups with one another. It’s not much, but it makes it a little easier to get through the weekly slog of forced acting for the world stage when you know that someone is waiting to pick you up and help you, however they can
Example: Rayne finds out that Evangeline burns a metric shit-ton of calories when she does her business, and when the fight is over she desperately needs to get some fuel. However, because of the way she is prepped for battle (lots of needles, tubes, forced consumption, lots of protein and meat), she actually undergoes massive levels of anxiety and nausea when presented any of these items. So, Rayne shows up one night while Evangeline is sitting there, arms shackles behind her back, and pulls out an extra-large slab of chocolate; literally just sits down and starts hand feeding her, one piece at a time.
…that may have sounded a bit more creepy on paper than I pictured it in my head. I imagined it being kind of sweet and quiet- the kind of thing that the cops actually went out of their way to go around, just so they could have some space for the moment. Whether it came out that way or not? Who knows


Anyhow, no ending plot point in sight for this one. atm, feels more like a rather grim slice of life than anything else, but idk.
there you go

Okay, so this was kind of a stupid anime concept I came up with after reading the first chapter or two of Hanaukyo Maids. It’s… a little weird, so just bear with me
Shy girl has been homeschooled for most of her life and is just entering public high school for the first time. She is kind of nervous, but makes a couple of friends really quickly. Lunchtime rolls around and it turns out she forgot her lunch at home, so she’s a little bummed, but she finally has friends to talk to, so who really cares?
That is when the lunchroom rowdiness kind of focuses in on something- her table looks up to see at one end of the room someone is standing on a table. It looks like someone’s cool older sister- pretty and sporty, wearing trip pants, a midriff-baring top, and a long, dark coat. The girl ducks her head, but she’s been spotted. With a smile, this mysterious girl gracefully leaps down the line of tables until she reaches theirs. She puts a sack in front of her, ruffles her hair, and says, ‘you forgot your lunch!’. And then she sidles back out of the room.
Suddenly everyone’s attention is on this new transfer girl- who is that girl? Is that your sister? Your sister is so cool! Can you introduce us? It was really cool of her to bring you lunch
And suddenly this girl (Eira) just kind of goes back in her shell; head down, avoiding eye contact, all of that, and her new friends are so confused. Like, why are you so embarrassed?

Well, turns out not only does she forget things like that all the time, but that wasn’t her sister.
It was her mom

Her mother is a professional dancer, which keeps her in such good shape that she looks like she is in her early twenties, and attracts a lot of attention. She is super chill, and loves Eira a lot, but we find out pretty early on that Eira’s entire family is super intimate and have virtually no boundaries. Which, for the bulk of the loving family is great; for super-shy and introverted Eira? Nooot so much.
So, she mentions this when she gets home- her mother is kind of confused, but is like, ‘kay’.
Next day, girl is prepared. She is bringing snacks And a lunch, so that if she forgets one she still won’t go hungry, and no one has to bring her stuff. Well, no, she forgets both, so she is gearing up for a miserable day when things suddenly get worse because the teachers lock down the doors due to there being a strange man in the building.
And then… a knock at the door. Security, it is, so the teacher opens the door. But it is not just the security man- into the room steps a man, face like a thug and built like a brick shithouse. But, he doesn’t have an angry look- instead, he is smiling, and of course he walks right up to Eira’s desk (which she is doing her level best to melt into) and puts both her lunch and her snacks down next to her. Seeing that Eira is mortified, he shrugs bashfully and leaves the room.
A similar question-fest occurs, with similar results. The vast majority of the school think that she somehow has a harem of sorts set up, and the rumor mill is spinning something fierce.
As it turns out, the man was her dad- a mechanic who owned his own shop, catering to top-end luxury sports cars. Since her daughter was so flustered when she showed up the day before, his wife asked him to take her lunch today instead.
I think you can see where this is going

Eira’s entire family is almost painfully attractive, and most of them are top-tier in their field- Her mother a world-class dancer, her father a well-respected automotive engineer. Her older is a banker, and everyone thinks he is a gigolo when he shows up and causes most of the guys in the school to swoon, much less the girls. Her older sister, a game developer and professional beta tester, looks like a loli and causes everyone to have a nosebleed when she brings Eira her medicine and takes her out to lunch. Apparently one of her aunts is an Olympic weightlifter. The list keeps going.
And Eira is the baby in the family- she doesn’t really stand out in any field, and she isn’t really all that pretty. Then again, she is still developing (come on, she is a first-year high school student) and the only thing she is really interested in is food

It’s around the time that her sister shows up at school that her friends realize something is up with Eira, though, and her family confirms this not too long after- Eira is actually chronically and incurably ill. She has inherited bad gene combos from both sides of the family, and she isn’t expected to live very long, so the family basically babies her as much as she will allow. They would actually do just about anything she wanted, but her shyness just doesn’t let her do all that much

Oookay, this one was probably all over the place, but I’ve been meaning to get this one out for about two weeks, so there you go

Weirdest fucking idea just occurred to me:
Have a world where the most carefree and cheerful of the gods is actually the goddess of the dead
Basically, once you pass on, the afterlife is basically one huge fucking party where people can finally let go and relax after a life of hardship
(technically you can do anything you want to relax- go to the library and get away from everyone, for example, but the majority of people join in the drinking and merry-making)
And the funny thing is when no one has known about this previously, so everyone is terrified of dying, and someone finally finds a way to contact their ancestors to ask for advice, and the person is in such a good mood and is piss-drunk and huggy and shit
And everyone is super-confused because the afterlife is terrifying? And said ancestor is like, ‘gimme a minute’ and goes and gets the goddess herself who is just like, ‘naw, everything is cool over here’

But she also has some kind of weird policies?
Like, while she is always happy to have new party pals, she absolutely loathes people who take their own lives, because while the afterlife shouldn’t be feared, life also shouldn’t be run away from.
And she also thinks the concept of sacrifice is kind of weird, especially live sacrifices. Like she’ll get summoned to receive a human sacrifice and she is just like, why? And she actually gets a little pissed off if people expect others to sacrifice themselves but won’t put their own lives up for sacrifice in a million years, because ‘if you aren’t willing to do the thing, the last thing you should do is ask someone else to do it for you’
Oh, and there isn’t a dedicated servant-class in the afterlife; everyone takes turns doing the things that need to be done, which not only gives people a chance to sober up (kinda) but also encourages people to be better to one another, because if they are assholes to someone who is doing their job as a server, it only gives reason to the offended party to return the favor when the roles are reversed

And over time she eventually becomes the world’s most beloved goddess, because the world is kind of a crapshoot and really hard to get along in, and she gives people something to look forward to

Really short one, because I've got a longer one that I'm working on:

A new story of Death Note, except that instead of strictly 'punishing the guilty', the new bearer of the Death Note uses it instead to save people, taking abusers from the abused, saving would-be victims from stalkers and murderers, specifically taking out corrupt officials and military officers who would otherwise pose risks to ordinary civilians

not really for any other reason than: it hasn't been done yet

Slime girl
This one was actually part of a story prompt I put in the grimoire some time ago, and actually have a character or two for. Now in this prompt, I said that the world had a massive problem with industrial waste and environmental destruction, and the only hope the world had was a slime girl; kind of the point
So, now I have a little bit going on, although I will forewarn you I think my imagine-spot is a bit light on the waste and destruction (closer to our world today, so might need some re-work)
Anyway, the story starts with rumors flying around of some sort of monster or serial killer lurking about and industrial plant. Does nothing to dissuade an environmentalist from going out to check if the levels of industrial waste at the plant are at acceptable levels. Much to her surprise, they are; in fact, they are actually far below expectations. Still a little fuzzy, but it is while she is doing a walkabout that she comes across our slime girl
Said slime girl is kind of childish, in mentality if not in action, and is really only interested in one thing in particular: eating. As to what she eats? Chemicals, heavy metals, and the like. Literally, industrial waste is her bread and butter. She has in fact killed people, but only did so because of outright aggression against her, meaning someone attacked her with intent to kill her, and she responded with like force.
Lessee, physically I have very little, other than that she is some strange color (not unnatural, just doesn’t belong in this particular place), and that she is fairly large, but grows as she eats. She often just looks like a blob, but can take on any form she wants (and since she actually ends up liking and bonding with the environmental engineer she ends up taking her form [partially] a lot). She is not stupid, per se, but she has hung around long enough to pick up speech (somehow) and has some basic understandings of a variety of subjects, but mostly on disjointed subjects, having little or nothing to do with each other. About the level of a smart kid, but still a child level of intelligence. This changes somewhat, and she does have some hidden depths
Actually, kind of a big thing, she actually goes through cycles/phases of hunger and satiation, where she can eat so much, gain so much mass, then she has to stop for a bit to reacclimate to her new size, and then goes back to eating with renewed vigor and some new degree of aggression. That said, she can force herself to stay still, rest, ‘digest’ if that is the term, and shrink back down, changing her feeding requirements and her drives. Pushing to new levels in either direction causes changings accordingly
Even more surprisingly, for how limited her knowledge of psychology and physiology are, she is very in-tune with her own body, familiar with where each level is, where she has crossed over to, and what it will take to change back.

As far as eating, she can eat pretty much anything, but it is a question of does she want to. Example- she could eat people, very easily in fact. We have nothing appealing to her. She can eat crude oil, but straight petrol is basically like eating really greasy McDonald’s- if she has another option, she’ll probably take it. Heavy industry run-off is her favorite, for some reason, and she wandered around various factories at random until she found one she liked (which is where the story starts).
Where her meals go when she digests them is unknown, but it is all gone: if she cleans up an oil spill (which I’m getting to- she does), the oil company doesn’t get the oil back; it’s all gone

So, not a whole lot I have to go on, but at one point we basically have another exxon valdez- a giant oil tanker hits a reef off the coast and is spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the ocean. Emergency personnel are scrambling but it is shaping up to be a disaster. Suddenly, one of the engineers on the project has an idea, and asks the oil company if she can borrow one of their tanker trucks. She joins up with the driver and heads up to the factory to meet her friend. She shows the slime girl pictures of the developing disaster, explains how bad this is for other living creatures (because slime girl just thinks it looks like food), and asks for her help. The slime smiles, as much as she can, and says that she doesn’t completely understand but if her friend thinks it is important then she will do what she can.
Slime girl gets loaded into the tank of the truck and driven down to the coast. Some hilarity ensues, but eventually they reach their destination. A small crowd watches from a distance as the slime emerges, and the engineer shows her what is happening. She explains that the ships offshore have the actual tanker pretty much under control, but they need her to take care of the oil approaching the coast.
The slime girl looks up and down the coastline, then bends down and tastes the crude on the shore, grimacing slightly at the taste, but accepting the meal.
48 hours later, the spill is no more
The president himself flies out to see this phenomenon, and journalists are everywhere trying to get the scoop on just what happened to all the oil, because they all went to bed, woke up, and it was Gone. Engineer actually has to brief the president on why the slime girl isn’t available to meet- she ate too much and is going to need a few days to shrink back down so she won’t accidentally eat anyone.
Finally, our slime girl comes back ashore, and people are going crazy, wanting to know just who or what she is, what she did, where she came from, blah blah blah, to which she responds with confused looks as she makes her way to her friend. She ends up meeting the president and attending a press conference of sorts, the end of which entails just what her plans are for the future, and she surprises everyone by saying that she has seen very little in her aimless wandering, so she wants to travel the world.

I imagine this series as kind of dark and gritty, but with a good share of silliness, and with the slime solving a lot of the problems presented to her in very simple, straight-forward ways, and sometimes even by accident

Had an idea when reading some stuff for Sleeping Beauty

in this version, when the prince is captured, and the faerie tells him he may go free in a century, when he is old and wrinkled and the princess is still young
and instead of declaring his love and boasting that he will fight his way out, the prince simply confirms that he will live to see his release date, and gets the faerie's word that the both of them will in fact be released

and accepts the fate
as a test and testament to his love for the princess

(off in the distance: gaaay)

thing is, he wouldn't be able to actually love the princess, because while he would be an old man, based on the lore the princess would still have the body and, more importantly, the mind of a sixteen-year old. so he would basically need to be a grandfather/guardian/mentor or risk going into creep territory

Imagine a girl wielding a blade much like the Blade of Antwyr (basically a fragment of a great demon, or a physical god, imprisoned within a weapon). Fantasy/d&d or 40k-verse


I also want to write a short story (short…right) about a girl (why is it always a girl with me?) who gets ensconced in a dreadnought sarcophagus and slowly has to adapt to piloting a walking tank (whilst dealing with all that fun shit [having her broken arms dragging along as she pilots the thing, simulated drowning when she ‘breathes’ amniotic fluid in order to speak]) and about how the experience slowly drives her insane via ptsd and shock

I am going to start writing this down, otherwise I don’t think I am going to be able to ever write it. This is another story idea that isn’t really going anywhere, so bear with me
had this idea awhile back, about a guy who gets caught up in shady magic dealings- not unusual, but also not original. What makes it so is that his introduction into it via his life getting saved and his continued exposure via getting dragged into it all is an entity that is a construct but acts more like a spirit
So, let me explain. This figure was created by a mage to carry out jobs, a man who does not consider her highly, viewing her mostly as a tool. She has no set ‘body’ but has the ability to drift between ‘appropriate’ forms, most often taking over mannequins.
Guy who is following her is kind of flabbergasted and sad that she doesn’t really try to fight the mage’s shitty influence over her life, but I think she uses that regard as a blind spot so that she can act a little more independently
She can inhabit any suitable body, from a 10-ft tall statue to a child’s toy, but I have two that were inspired
The first was inspired by a display at a fireworks stand- 6 feet tall with painted, green eyes and black hair. Dressed in a denim miniskirt and one of the stand’s t-shirts, with an American flat bandana acting as a mask on the lower half of her face. The great deal of exposed ‘skin’ is alabaster white
The second was inspired by a clothing display at a flea market. Also six feet tall, but more of a dove-gray skin tone, this one was dressed in gray compression shorts and a hooded, gray running jacket, hood up to hide whatever hair there was, and partially unzipped to show a neon-green undershirt, matching the trim of the jacket and compression shorts.
Kind of want to say that the guy is some shade of redneck, both for the expected stuff like mannerisms and also for the unusual stuff, like him being intelligent and being the one to express emotions.
I don’t know, this is sounding really rambling and probably isn’t going anywhere, but I feel like I have to write it down, just in case I find some way to actually make it cohesive.

Not sure if this belongs in the actual Worm fanfic tag, but I figure since this is actually something I intend on writing, I'mma put it here:

The locker caused Taylor to trigger w/ a shard that manifested as an implacable blood-borne disease- not even Panacea can fix it

Taylor has ~6 months to live, and decides to do things

Leaves Winslow with a pretty epic 'fuck you' speech:
'For the sake of the person I used to know, whatever it is you got from all of this? I hope it was worth killing the person who used to be your best friend'
-Emma is actually pretty fucked up after this speech, as is Madison, most of the hangers-on, hell even Sophia is actually taken aback with all of this, and it doesn't improve when word gets back to the PRT when she starts doing shit

Taylor gives exactly zero fucks and throws herself into crazy situations because no death will hurt her nearly as much as the months of helpless agony she suffers as her blood turns to acid in her veins

Okay, going to see if I can get the bare bones of this typed out in ten minutes or less:

The Ringlord
This story follows along similar lines to both fairy mythos and Lord of the Rings, but that is not overly important for the basics

In the world this story takes place in, there is a reclusive figure of immense power known only vaguely as the Ringlord, for his power with circles, and particularly in creating rings with vast and varied magical powers. He likes them for their power, but moreso for their beauty. He does not involve himself in the affairs of men, for they are a brash and violent lot, preferring to spend his time in the caverns beneath the earth.

One day though, a young woman is walking through the forest searching for herbs and berries, and comes across a man, simply out for a stroll and to search for rare bits of lost metal. Odd, but the man is polite and respectful, and they walk together for some time, exchanging tales and laughter.

Finally, the man sits down and crafts a ring for her out of the metal he found, pouring love and life into the ring to reflect the woman’s spirit, and only then does the woman realize she has been in the presence of what essentially amounts to a god. She panics slightly, but the Ringlord assures her that this is a gift, a thanks for such pleasant company on one of his rare trips to the surface. He bids her good day, and returns to his caverns.
Things do not go well, however, as the woman spreads her tale to her family and friends, and news of the ring of power scatters to the far corners of the world. The woman is murdered, and a bloody war erupts to claim the artifact. When the victor stands atop their bloodied opponents, wreathed in smoke but triumphantly holding the ring, the artifact’s maker steps out of the haze

For you see, the Ringlord was in a terrible rage, for in their greed and lust they had killed one of the few people who gave him faith in humanity. However, he tempered his anger, and sought to teach humanity a lesson instead. Towards that end, he congratulated the victor, and began making expeditions out into the world, spreading his magical rings far and wide.
But with them went a curse. Oh the rings brought power to their wielders, yes, but through their influence he began to dominate them, strip them of choice, and leave them prisoners within their own minds and bodies.

But this was not to last- the Ringlord sought to teach humanity, not rule it, and towards that endeavor he waited for assistance from the most unlikely source imaginable. From the masses, a descendant of that poor, bestowed village girl emerged, leading an uprising. She sought to end the Ringlord’s reign of tyranny, and create a time of peace and freedom. Finally, she stood before the tyrant’s throne, but as she raised her blade he greeted her in a friendly fashion. In her desire to free humanity, she had fostered in her followers and in the people she protected the very life and livelihood that had once given the Ringlord hope when he saw it within the eyes of the girl’s long-dead ancestor.
The Ringlord made no effort to retain his rule, simply standing and walking to the door. On his way, however, he made one final gesture- from his pocket he took out the very artifact that had started this entire chain of events, the ring of power he had crafted for the village girl long ago. This he set on a table for the revolutionary, before taking his leave.

What the girl did with the ring of power, whether she took it and used it to spread the peace the Ringlord had hoped for, hid it away, or simply tossed it into an abyss is never shown- that is not the point of this story. What is shown is the Ringlord’s trek back into the mountains, where he disappears into the caverns in the deep, not to be seen by generations of men until the tales of his actions have faded into the mists of history

…19 minutes. Fuck. Me.

Notes for alternative power!taylor
Was going to create a whole new topic, but then I remembered that this topic was a thing
SO!

apathy- maybe not. i see a lot of anger that results in something that looks like apathy, but i'm not sure it IS apathy
need to run a personality factor analysis
McAdams reading?- level 2 of personality descriptions. concerns, motives, tactics, etc. might help define her


disassociative disorder?
hitting off a LOT with paranoia- symptoms include mistrust, hypervigilance, difficulty with forgiveness, defensive attitude in response to imagined criticism, preoccupation with hidden motives, fear of being deceived or taken advantage of, inability to relax, or being arguementative
kind of hitting with schizophrenia: constant feeling of being watched, strange body positioning, indifference to very important situations, change in personality, withdrawal from social situations, bizarre/inappropriate behavior. just not feeling it
PSYCHOSIS- bizarre thinking, difficulty w/ emotions/appearing apathetic, paranoia, strange/out-of-character behavior, inappropriate emotional reactions
schizoid personality disorder?
possibly a subtle version of ptsd? avoidance of thinking or talking about things related to the event (most everything about her old life), negative feelings about others (and maybe self), inability to experience positive emotions, emotional numbness, lack of interest in activities once enjoyed (not that that existed much anyway), hopelessness about the future, irritability, always on guard for danger, self-destructive behavior (cutting self off entirely). much like schizophrenia, i don't see it.


matter conversion? antimatter?

actually having a bit of a crisis here, because archangel!taylor is very similar to another taylor i have imagined up: kraken!taylor
basically the same, except macro-psychokinesis instead of dynakinesis, and manifests ghostly green *tentacles* instead of wings
kraken!taylor didn't have a public trigger event (didn't have enough control at that point, and doesn't ditch the world; would probably fight to protect brockton bay, but only because she lives there. More artistic/expressive than archangel!taylor (AA!T has more of an aching need to experiment with energy generation/creation/storage; K!T plays up the artistic angle shown subtly in canon)
personality-wise, though, they are actually pretty similar. don't care much for the hero/villain conflicts, mostly just wants to be left alone to enjoy whichever pasttime strikes their fancy
main difference i see is meetings: AA!T gets the cape community's attention early, no sells a few people who try to attack her when she was testing her powers, and tells alexandria to fuck off. K!T makes nighttime sculptures and representatives from all the local cape organizations track her to her home, only for her to tell them to fuck off

Just had a new idea

You know how in horror movies/games/stories in general, one of the biggest complaints is that the protagonists do something stupid and that is what unleashes the terrible monster? And how we say, 'if they had just left that alone, just looked at it, recognized that 'bad juju' was ahead, and turned around they all would have been safe?

Turn that on its head

The spirit at the start of the game? was a young spirit, trapped in the dark, alone, and every time someone came close begged and pleaded for someone to help them, to get them out, or even just to talk. and every time, without fail, the 'genre-savvy' individuals who came across the plot turned around and left
and our poor little spirit remained, alone and terrified, with the overbearing darkness as their only cold comfort.

And eventually, this fear and loneliness turned to bitterness and rage, and this gave the spirit strength, strength enough to break free of the plot they were bound to
and though they were now free, their cynicism lead them to abandon humanity, either chuckling in amusement as misfortune befell people, or perhaps attacking humanity outright

I think it would be an interesting turnaround on the typical sort of ghost story, to see that we, humanity, create these sorts of problems; that it isn't the spirit that is the problem- no insane psychopath or murderous child- but someone that humanity abandoned to the darkness, and if we want someone to blame for the misfortune that follows, we need only look into a mirror

Guess I should go ahead and at least try to explain Archangel!Taylor's power

it's been said (i think) in canon and definitely outside of it that the Entities never managed a work-around for their energy problem
AA!T's shard dealt with energy,an experimental shard dealing with energy manipulation and generation. Basically, it's dynakinesis (like Behemoth's) but deals more with energy production, generation, storage, and efficiency
also functions (or may function) on some advanced, inter-dimensional and esoteric theories in attempt to pull energy from multiple dimensions, hypercompress, produce something from nothing, and so on
May or may not be capable of creating antimatter
May or may not also be capable of matter-to-energy conversion. she is definitely capable of pure energy manipulation (which allows her to no-sell energy-based Blasters like Purity or some of the New Wave capes)
also may be capable of draining thermal energy from objects/areas to the point of near-subzero temperatures

Basically, she is a cross between a nuclear power plant and a mobile artillery platform... that is also dragging future!Cernd and DARPA along for the ride


Tentative ratings:
Mover: 4-5
Shaker: 10+
Brute: N/A
Breaker: 3-5
Master: N/A
Tinker: 2-4, to parcel how she deals with advanced dynamic sciences
Blaster: 8-9
Thinker: 2-4, related to Tinker
Striker: ?? N/A
Changer: N/A
Trump: 5-9, due to dynakinesis allowing power imitation and interaction
Stranger: 1-4, manipulation of light and sound waves allow for stealth

I originally just called her a Shaker, but after consideration and deliberation I found that I had to count her as more than that, because the rating system is, first and foremost, a threat evaluation. honestly, she might count as a striker as well, and her Tinker, Thinker, and Trump powers very well might warrant higher ratings, so this is me being conservative in my estimations

Funny thing, I may have found the thing to snap AA!T out of her funk, and it's already a meme
The Simurgh did it!

She traveled around the world, sure. played with her powers, met the S9, etc
but one day she was minding her own business, floating in the atmosphere, reading a book,
and she bumps into the Simurgh
She 'scanned' the Simurgh, discovered what TT usually does in canon, receives headache
gets idea for energy generation and storage from the scan of the Endbringer's core
they stare at each other for awhile, lost in her thoughts, before floating their separate ways

And the world is Freaking The FUCK OUT!

Also, she might be stupidly powerful, but consider for a moment, if you will:

Legend. Purity. Grey Boy. The Siberian. etc. etc.

Stupidly powerful capes who are limited in their power by technicality, but are still head and shoulders above other capes.

She is an Energy. Generator.
that is literally her job. Generating and storing energy
there is literally no reason she shouldn't be this powerful. Or at the very least capable of getting there with time and experimentation.

Another Worm fic i just had a spark for today, though not sure I'll go with this one

this fic goes a very different direction. Taylor does not trigger in the locker, and becomes very withdrawn in the week afterwards. the monday she goes back to school however, she awakens far before dawn and leaves her father a note.
she breaks into the school and in an empty classroom she draws a razor blade across her wrist and writes a note to her former best friend, leaving it in her locker when she's done. Locker left unlocked and without much left in her, she makes her way to Mrs. Knott's computer lab, leaves a final note for her favorite teacher, and dies in her chair, blade still in hand and a free smile on her face

Emma shows up to school and immediately starts noticing the blood trail, leading right to Taylor's locker. Finding it open, she reaches in to find the note addressed directly to her. Not too certain on the details yet, but I am planning on it being something like the letter in V for Vendetta. Feeling uneasy, she follows the trail of blood to Mrs. Knott's room, and finds Taylor there.
Screams follow, but surprisingly few jeers.
Mrs. Knott is in shock, especially after finding the note addressed to her, which reads something like,

The school is in shock, everyone is reeling. Shit gets back especially bad after Danny finds Taylor's bullying journal under her note and turns it in. Sophia probably gets it the worst, as now everyone in the Protectorate and the Wards hates her guts
But the one who gets it worst is Danny, whom Emma and Alan Barnes try to apologize to, only to meet with Mr. Hebert's tranquil fury.

and Danny, having lost his wife to accident and daughter to neglect and torment, has nothing left to hold him back and starts being angry and argumentative in general. He sees himself as losing everything to this city, to the gangs dragging it down, to the companies that crippled it, and finally to Leviathan who cut off its primary source of economy.

I don't know what he triggers with, but I know that he does, and starts trying to fix his fucking city. Pretty sure he brings the Dockworkers Union- his main friends who stuck with him through thick and thin- along with him.
also debating having Emma and/or Alan triggering out of guilt and joining him tentatively.

as far as powers go I am thinking either city-based tinker (literally and figuratively fixing the city) or Master with the ability to give powers to people in his group (might actually steal Teacher's shard for this) or a mix of both

When Levi comes to town and Legend is talking about how he is going to target the aquifer to drown the city, I know Danny will go, 'heh, that won't be a problem' but i don't know why yet
best i can come up with so far is that he enlists the help of Bakuda and Squealer in some way to help him build a relativistic engine (squealer for the actual 'engine' and Bakuda for the controlled explosion that drives the engine) to let him put the city in the sky (a la Columbia from Bioshock Infinite)
there are other options though, from him just generally reinforcing the city to arming most of the city to be a deathtrap for Levi to just being able to rebuild once it's done
would be amused if his gang was looking for empty buildings to work in and reinforce and accidentally running into the Undersiders
would also possibly be interesting if the city were kind of destroyed and condemned, and Danny and company just stay, and rebuild the city for their own

but yeah, this Danny would just generally be stern, abrupt, and take no shit from anybody, not even Alexandria, though if you haven't given him a reason to be an asshole he's probably okay (actually thinking of having him and co. save Dinah from Coil's goons and basically adopting her when her powers say it's safer with him)