Category Archives: Plots

Plots

Flying Whales

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When I was younger, I had the idea of a world populated with whales like creatures that captured Hydrogen or Helium in internal sacks and lived their full life in the air… Of course, I’ve read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but these creatures didn’t spontaneously appear than came crashing to the ground after becoming self-realizing.

Now following this “what if…” thought process, other creatures (built on this same principle) also ruled the air, like flying manatees, flying sting rays, etc. What would life for us simple barely smarter than primates be like?

… trying to find the sketch I did of a flying whale, it’s buried in a notebook somewhere…

Comics, Nightmoor, Plots

Nightmoor: The Lady de’Kay

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Lady de’Kay is a combination of the old lady (Miss Havisham) in “Great Expectations” and the Lady de’Winter of “The Three Musketeers”. She’s a crafty old lady who looked beautiful at one time, but time has taken her toll.

The Lady is a widow. Her husband was the first Mayor of Night-Moor. She lives alone in a big old Victorian house, except for her one servant. The grounds and the house are unkept, and she lives a very reclusive lifestyle. She still shows up to big political events, but for the most part she avoids people. Everything she does is in the memory of her husband.

Most contact with the Lady is through her lawyer (name still to be decided). He carries out the Lady’s wishes in the world of people & creatures. In some respects, she has her own political agenda, that she uses her vast wealth to carry out.

Towards the end of Lord de’Kay’s career, he was surrounded by political scandal — so much that he took his own life shortly after he stepped down from office (to this day, the Lady strongly doesn’t believe the “rumors” surrounding her husband, but holds firmly to the belief that he was a saint & saviour of Night-Moor). He was a drunkard & did beat her, but she’s willing to forget about such things in light of his death (or some twisted, illogical love/hate she has for him). Overall, he really wasn’t a good man, but she tolerated/loved/respected/hated/despised/etc. him.

She has the classic victim mentality. She to be both pitied & feared, sympathize for, yet repulsed by. She’s a classic tragedy figure. …probably the most complex character in Night-Moor.

In the early days, the Lady was a social climber — she married for wealth & prestige. She has a lot of ‘old money’ & all psychological make-up that ‘old money’ implies — snobbishness, servants, dreams of the good-old-days, life-was-simplier-back-then, she was the head of many social events, she founded many of the social activities & the arts in Night-Moor, one of the leading pioneers of Night-Moor, she knew her place as a lady & didn’t question it, brought up in (& surrounded by) tradition, etc.

Plots

An Asgard Romance!

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Sci-fi Plot:

10 Word Sci-fi Plot: Boy-meets-girl in mining camp on Callisto. An Asgard romance!

I started uploading some of the old plots I came up with, that I posted on other blog sites to here. One of the exercises was to do a 10 word plot, then expound upon it. It’s a bit of a writing exercise and a mental one. To challenge oneself… but it’s not to be taken too seriously… throw away plots, to get the creative juices flowing.

I started to envision this as a Japanese mining company on some moon, where a boy meets a girl… and some of the cliché foibles seen in most common anime between boys/girls, are still experienced hundreds of years in the future… Europa has been done in Sci-Fi… Landed on Callisto… via wikipedia learned that it was voted as a good place to start colonization and about of it’s few surface features, like the Asgard, a impact multi-ring basin, the 2nd largest on that moon.

He could be the minor, she could be a recent scientist sent to the station. They might have grown up in neighboring rural towns in Japan, that they discover in a company mixer. Maybe she’s a robotics expert, sent to help out with a problem… they further cross paths dealing with robotic anomalies. Maybe one goes missing, and his big heart gets in the way and he risks his life to recover it, and she chases after him. Maybe they get trapped in a collapsed mine shaft, where they bond… fighting for survival, they come to respect each other’s experience/education, eliminating one of the barriers between them.

Something life-affirming, heart warming on a icy rock.

Plots

A Tale of Love and Romance, but Mostly about Harold and Steve

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I thought about writing a gay romance story… Something that’s a bit modern, interspliced with some day-dreaming/fantasy scenes, and references to fictional Asian gay folk-lores. Fictional in that they’re made up for this story, but not based on any real traditional folk-lores.

Two characters, something like Harold and Steve.. Haven’t decided on actual name, but one needs to be “sexy” and one to be unusual, but ordinary… but in terms of characters, the names don’t reflect the characters… The “sexy” name is given to the ordinary person, with low-self esteem, insecurities about their looks (the main character in the romance), but the one with a rich day-dreaming/fantasy life. The other lead is drop dead sexy, but hides it well… a coffee shop barista… out-going, self-confident, the total opposite, but you don’t know he’s gay until act 3… for act 1, he’s a background character… there’s no magical moment, just the guy making the coffee.

For act 1, the main character, we’ll call Steve, we learn about who he is; his insecurities…his social circles… his love of literature and Yaoi comics… we’ll even walk into one of his day-dreams — he briefly meets some god-like Adonis at a comic-book convention (in cos-play of course), that turns into superhero/sidekick fighting crime sequence that ends in… well, it ends. Unable to day-dream about the act of sex because of his low self-esteem, guilt, or some inner-turmoil. He does this maybe a 2nd time, with a different person, with a different fantasy, but ends short like before… At the end of act 1, he discovers a support group, where he realizes he’s not alone, or the only person with these hang-ups. Maybe a on-line group, or Reddit… or a fairy-drag-mother.

In act 2, Steve starts to explore Asian folk-lores and stumbles upon 2 tales that speak to him. The first is a tale of love between two men of nobility in China. The first family finds out and hires someone to kill their son’s lover to not bring disgrace upon the family. The lover finds out about the plot and runs away… Through some trials and tribulations, the first family becomes indebted to the shunned lover, through some turn of events. The two lovers are reunited and live happily ever after… There should be a hook between the tale and Steve’s life…

The other folk-lore is Japanese between two boys that grew up together, wrestling together, bathing together, and fell in love… Another tale of how the families shunned their love, but in the end, their love for each other was so strong, that the gods turned them into birds… or monkeys.. or some type of animal or flowers that becomes symbolic of pure love without bias.

As viewers in act 2, we become immersed in the tales. We have breaks, when Steve attends class or visits the coffee shop…. or has an argument with Harold over the who was the better writer, some Russian dude, or Dickens. The two folk-lores frame up Steve’s inner growth, in his otherwise mundane life. Maybe at some point, he discusses the tales with his fairy-drag-mother to understand the deeper meaning, that’s not right there on the surface…Points that hit home for Steve.

In act 3, Steve comes to terms with himself and who he is. Growing in self-confidence, find his voice… And for the first time, really meets Harold, by realizing the share the same love for Yaoi comics… what started out with the two bantering back and forth with each other over different literature, there didn’t seem to be any common ground between them… Steve ends up catching Harold reading his “dirty little secret” one day behind the coffee shop.

….it’s trite and stupid, I know.

Comics, Nightmoor, Plots

Nightmoor: An Alphabet

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A is for apple, that grows on the trees,
B is for bats, that fly on the breeze,
C is for cat, that is black as night,
D is for demon, that hide out of sight,
E is for eels, that go in a witch’s brew,
F is for frogs, that go with it too,
G is for ghost, that moan and wail,
H is for haunt, something they do very well,
I is for ink, that gets spilled on the page,
J is for Jack, who hangs in a cage,
K is for kids, that play with a mouse,
L is for Lady de’Kay, who hides in her house,
M is for moon, that shines like silver,
N is for night, so cold, you shiver,
O is for owl, his feathers are brown
P is for Peter, the mayor of our town,
Q is for questions, we ask before we sleep,
R is for rats, that go “squeak, squeak, squeak”,
S is for skeleton, who has a big grin,
T is for town, that Peter lives in,
U is for umbrella, the winds blow from the west,
V is for velvet, used to make a pretty dress,
W is for witch, who turns frogs into stones,
X is for xylophone, make of skeleton bones,
Y is for yell! A scream of delight.
Z is for … well… ‘Z’. My darlings, let’s call it a night.

Comics, Nightmoor, Plots

Nightmoor: Apples, Mirrors and Love

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So in the stuff we had in storage up north, I found a notebook containing ideas for a comic series I wanted to write — it was a little NMBC like, but different… I tried mythology building, played with symbolism, flesh out a few characters, created a town named Nightmoor, set up land marks, introduced elder-gods, etc. Even tried to outline a few simple stories… I obsessed over the mythology, trying to create something Halloween familiar, but not a rip-off of NBMC.

One story was to pull from an old victorian Halloween superstition about apples and mirrors, but more of an older lady, sipping tea in an empty bar, mid-day, sitting at a table near a mirror, cutting up and eating an apple. She is met by her friends — what seems like a common Tuesday afternoon affair — and they pick up from where they left of from the week before with talk… Secretly, the friends knows what she’s doing, the nine apple pieces, the quick glances into the mirror between bites. They tease her from time-to-time during the conversation — very subtilely at first, but as time reaches the point of calling it a day, they call her out on it, chiding her on her childish beliefs… but something unexpected happens…

The intent was set forth a few characters to play into stories later. The tea gathering conversation would give the reader insight into the town of Nighmoor and the local gossip. The twist was to tie the story up into a nice bow… or set the stage for something more sinister… I also like the idea of digging up an almost forgotten about superstition for the basis behind a story.

I should actually take what I wrote and expound upon it, giving it more details… adding tone and atmosphere; drawing upon authors I like to tell a more complex story.

Plots

Genesis of a Criminal Genius

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I’ve thought about writing a short Steampunk story; sort of a Commander Jake and his squadron of Zeppelins. He’d have a girl named Betty Lindbergh and a mechanic side-kick named Ito. All the classic elements to a good pre-World War pulp fiction, action hero. But first I wanted to create a worthy villain.

Drawing upon The Time Machine for inspiration, I thought what if someone did build a time machine, went into the future, saw the wonderful advances and decided that he wanted to live forever.  Let’s say he’s in his 50’s when he discovers the key to time, hatches a plan to give his younger self the technology (to travel through time) & future-knowledge to plan his future with — gaining power & wealth. However, the younger (and maybe smarter) self, upon hearing the older self’s plan & collecting his future-knowledge, formulates his own plan.

For the older-self (or future-self) to exists, and for the younger-self to be able to talk with him, can only exists for a short time. For once the younger-self makes any decisions, the future-self’s memory will become very fluid to reflect those decisions; and for both selfs to still be able to exist in the same point in time. You could use that to your advantage, make decisions then query your future-self on how it turned out… Then what if you could trap your future-self in time pocket; using wireless communication to you future-self in the time-pocket. After a point, the future-self would become insane, but still useful.

But then there are other questions like, if by trapping your future-self in a time-pocket or time-loop, can you prevent yourself from becoming older?

There are other things to consider the idea of choice could lead to the infinite possible futures or worlds… However, like AI, after exploring all the different choices, some branch-worlds would be eliminated because of bad-decision trees… so this idea of a governing force, or counter-balancing force, would guide most worlds down very similar paths (ie. most humanoid life found on most of these worlds would most likely all breath oxygen & speak english; there might be a counter-balancing reason why silicon based life could and would never exists, in this world or any other).

So, not only would this time machine need to travel through this world’s time, but be able to jump into the time-stream of other worlds.

What if, a time bubble could be made to wrap an individual human, say through a ring… or a pocket watch. Then that person wouldn’t grow old. And it would protect him from time anomalies.

It seems a little Dr. Who in nature… and since we’re talking about a criminal master-mind, more like the Master… but this wouldn’t be some Moriarty type of character, but he’d be a ruthless killer… with motives that are not easily seen, until certain future events unfold.

He’d have other things to consider as well, processing the watch would keep him young, but what would protect him from accidental death & if he did accidentally die, could he transfer his soul to another vessel and continue living? And to what end?

So the villain wouldn’t believe in an after-life, once he’s dead, he’s dead. To cheat time is one thing, but how do you cheat death? And maybe that is the questions our villain is tackling when our clueless hero crosses his path.

Plots

Evil Dead meets Tarzan

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So my 10 Word Plot from April 22, 2007 was this:

10 Word Sci-Fi Plot: Scientist creates worm-hole, unleashes elder-gods; man, gun, and monkey save world. Think Evil Dead meets Tarazan.

Hmm… This could be the plot of the next Hell Boy movie; substitute man and monkey with Hell Boy and you almost have the plot of the first movie…

Or you can set the story in a steam-punk world, full of mad-scientist, blitzkrieg-bots, and blimps (or airships built using Cavorite). Areas on earth still untouched and unexplored by men. Primitive cultures living nearby lost civilizations (maybe long descendants). World political tension building towards a world war; each country trying to build armies or the next super-weapon. Then from out of the jungle, a half naked man & his monkey emerge with a monster from the ancient world — elephant gigantus — a elephant twice the size of any ordinary elephant, with two trunks.

Or hero, Jack Howard, was orphaned in the African jungle until the age of 12. Jack was rescued by local natives & turned over to the US embassy. From there, he was adopted by Nathan & Martha Howard, former ambassadors to Africa. Jack was a bright boy, curious, with a strong affinity for science. The Howards sent Jack off to Yale, where he majored in anthropology, girls, and football. After college, Jack was quickly recruited by the US government as a kind of exploratory anthropologist — which gave Jack an opportunity to return to the jungles of Africa, where he met his monkey companion, Kima. Unknown by Jack, this gigantic elephant was the weapon the US government was looking for.

Meanwhile in Bavaria, scientist Josef Fuchs is performing an ancient Thule blood ritual, which he thought was to bestow more savage strength on to warriors, but they were swallowed up by a portal into another universe… and an ancient evil was released, the lesser of the ancient gods…

Quick Wrap Up:

Whatever creature the lesser god is based on, begins to reproduce and spread out from Bavaria… to the point where other nations are taking notice & Bavaria is asking for help. The US government calls in all “exploratory adventurers” to form a plan. Jack recognizes symbols on a picture taken from ground zero & realizes from African folklore what evil has been unleashed… the elephant gigantus is the key to earth’s salvation… and of course, Jack’s 50 cal pistol, Bess.

Plots

The Super-Human Race

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One of the ideas that I’ve been thinking about is a post-WW II world that didn’t have the a-bomb or the space race; but a super-human race. Countries like England, US, Russia, China, Japan, & some other countries start manufacturing post-humans.

In the United States, four different groups were set up for post-human production. First group’s goal was to create more intelligent humans – a post-human think tank. The second group was to create a super power human. The third group’s goal is to develop technologies for super powers. And the fourth group is to keep the other three groups in check – the place for information exchange between the three groups.

One image I keep getting is a child of a post-human tracking down one of the doctors that worked on the government projects, turned AWOL. A German in his late ‘70s, still very sharp, with traces of a great mind hidden behind wrinkles. He’s ex-Nazi, but really didn’t have a political affiliation – most scientist don’t – but was forced to work on government projects, the division of gods & monsters (insert German equivalent here). Later in the story, we find out that he’s gay – what forced him to leave the US government projects was the death of his lab assistant Karl, in an incident similar to Ictheas; the boy who flew too close to the Sun and crashed to his death. This, and some other policy changes in the fourth group forced him to leave. This post-human child is looking for some answers to his recent developed powers. His father was one of the earlier test subjects of the first group – his mind was chemically enhanced/altered. He became super smart, but the effects seemed to wear off over time. Adding more chemicals seemed to damage him physically & psychologically, that he could no longer used the drugs. But the alterations affected his son; he developed telekinetic & psi powers…

Plots

Comic Book Idea: Lithium & The Losers

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An idea I had for a comic book some time ago…

Endless Parody:
Probably one of the better ideas that I’ve had in a long time is to create anti-characters to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman… a farce on his seven Endless characters. These character wouldn’t take themselves as seriously as the ones created by Gaiman… sorta tongue-in-cheek… sorta their bungling counter parts.

The EndlessThe Losers
DestinyLucky
DeathLife
DreamLithium
DespairLost
Delight/DeliriousLoony
DesireLust
DestructionLarry

First Episode:
In the first episode, Lithium wakes up after following the Grateful Dead around for the past 20 years or so… he lost count because of the drug induced haze he’s been in since 1972. He’s looking to fill the empty void that Gerry has left in his life… his world is slowly crumbling, the new bands just don’t do it for him anymore. He first consults Lost of the Losers, to see there’s anything he can do about his dilemma — bottom line, he needs a new drug. Lost seems lost in her own problems… she has no direction herself, and Lithium realizes that Lost should have been the last person to ask for directions. In frustration, Lithium gets up, goes into the Lost’s room of symbols, picks up Lucky’s fuzzy dice in his hand, and repeats the following limerick:

“There once was a man named Luck,
who was good at winning a buck,
the women liked him,
but he’s not serious about them,
he only likes them for a good fu..”
He is transported instantly to Lucky’s domain before he can finish his sentence.

The Symbols:
One word should be said about the Loser’s symbols. Like the Endless, each of the Losers have their own sigil or symbol. Lucky’s is the pair of fuzzy dice. Life’s is two copper coins. Lithium’s is a rolled joint. Lost’s is a sign post pointing in many directions. Loony’s is the Warner Brother’s shield/logo. Lust is like a peep show window — you need to insert a quarter to get it to open up. And Larry’s is a book — the title changes every time. In Lost’s symbol room, it might have been Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or something similar…

Back to Our Story:
“God I hate that”, says Lithium as he picks himself up off the floor and goes over to the casino bar to get himself a free drink to settle his nerves. This is Lucky’s domain. He is a smaller deity of Native-Americans, of mobsters, and some rural regions of China. The one Loser who married all three of the Fates…