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Post by Tam on Oct 1, 2011 22:20:28 GMT -5
NaNo 2009: KanataquestNaNo 2010: Bold as BrassCamp NaNo 2011: Matter (script)November, 1899. The world is at war, and the humans are winning. Indeed, the humans' future has never been more promising; the last of the Greater Gods is dead, and recent advances in the fields of medicine and technology would have the people living in the lap of luxury if only it weren't for those darn fairies. Ancient, secretive, and incredibly dangerous, the fairies continue to resist all attempts to expand the human empire into the last wild places on earth, and they have begun to fight back in earnest. As a result, more quickly than anyone could have predicted, a great and terrible war has crept across the surface of the planet. The humans, who crave the resources the Fae Kingdom hides, have taken to calling it the Iron War. The fairies call it the Winter, and they see it as what it is: a fight against the end of all things. On the island of Angelica, in the city of Stormbridge, the humans doggedly beat back an enemy they cannot see, an enemy that looks like them, smiles like them, and walks among them. Damien Alfonzo Dickerson, a student at the prestigious Auges Academy, has problems enough of his own to work through — but when his childhood friend turns out to have been a fairy changeling all along, he is swept into the fray against his will. Now on a desperate mission to protect his friend and uncover the mysterious Secret that has been locked away by his own people, Damien will be tested, hunted, broken, claimed and abandoned... and ultimately, he will decide the fate of his world. ----- Oh man, guys, this story is going to kill me I swear. xD; It is kind of ridiculously complicated for the kind of story I would normally choose for a NaNo, but I really, really want to write it. I will possibly fail. This November... will not be the most ideal November for me to contemplate writing a novel in, thanks to multiple creative writing projects and essays and midterms and research projects that have also been slated for the same month. But I will try.And it will be so much fun.Likely influences: Gunnerkrigg Court, Homestuck, Fight Club, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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Post by Rikku on Oct 2, 2011 2:18:21 GMT -5
Ooh ooh this! <3 I've been excited about this for ages. <3 Well, vaguely excited. Since that Damien-story. "See, I'm the crazy one." Eee yes.
... Had a moment of glee thinking that the himself who he was picturing in that story was in actual fact the changeling childhood-friend, but checked and it isn't. Decided that having a changeling childhood friend is perfectly awesome on its own.
And and just steampunk and fairies and mmm. ^_^ I'd say this should definitely be fun.
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Post by Zylaa on Oct 2, 2011 15:26:22 GMT -5
^_^ This sounds like fun indeed! And I'm quite interested in how humans manage to kill off Greater Gods, my world's backstory requires people to have killed Gods and I don't know how they'll manage it. XD
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Post by Tam on Oct 3, 2011 11:43:30 GMT -5
Ooh ooh this! <3 I've been excited about this for ages. <3 Well, vaguely excited. Since that Damien-story. "See, I'm the crazy one." Eee yes. ... Had a moment of glee thinking that the himself who he was picturing in that story was in actual fact the changeling childhood-friend, but checked and it isn't. Decided that having a changeling childhood friend is perfectly awesome on its own. And and just steampunk and fairies and mmm. ^_^ I'd say this should definitely be fun. Oh ha ha yes, that is a confusing story. xD; I imagine November's story will be somewhat less perplexing and angsty than that mostly because I seem incapable of not writing fluff, but yes. That was just Damien. Childhood changeling friend is actually terribly normal until she finds out she's a changeling. Then. Well. I haven't gotten that far yet. I certainly hope so! =D Thank you. ^_^ ^_^ This sounds like fun indeed! And I'm quite interested in how humans manage to kill off Greater Gods, my world's backstory requires people to have killed Gods and I don't know how they'll manage it. XD =D Thank you! And the basic idea I have in my head right now is mostly to do with a decline in faith; the Gods' power over the humans' lives is directly related to how much the humans believe in them. It's also related to how much of the world still belongs to the Gods, and how much has been created by humans. 'Cos I have this insanely innovative human steampunk society breaking down the bones of the earth and replacing it with an artificial skeleton that the Gods can stake no claim on. One by one, they wither and die. (...'Course, in my story, they didn't completely kill off the Greater Gods. There's one left, and he's never been more powerful. But. More on him later.) |
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Post by Shadaras on Oct 3, 2011 15:48:23 GMT -5
Fae! And steampunk! =D I love the title you have for this, by the way; it's rather brilliant and beautiful and sounds like it should be all awesome. Though awesome-sound in a darker, harsher, way than you'll probably write it, but whatever. xD Should be awesome no matter what.
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Post by Zylaa on Oct 3, 2011 16:57:16 GMT -5
^_^ This sounds like fun indeed! And I'm quite interested in how humans manage to kill off Greater Gods, my world's backstory requires people to have killed Gods and I don't know how they'll manage it. XD =D Thank you! And the basic idea I have in my head right now is mostly to do with a decline in faith; the Gods' power over the humans' lives is directly related to how much the humans believe in them. It's also related to how much of the world still belongs to the Gods, and how much has been created by humans. 'Cos I have this insanely innovative human steampunk society breaking down the bones of the earth and replacing it with an artificial skeleton that the Gods can stake no claim on. One by one, they wither and die. (...'Course, in my story, they didn't completely kill off the Greater Gods. There's one left, and he's never been more powerful. But. More on him later.) That is so cool. @_@ Such widescale upheaval of a planet is one of those things I hate to see in real life but think "WOAH how does that work awesome" when it's in fiction. |
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Post by Rikku on Oct 4, 2011 0:46:16 GMT -5
Seriously curious about that last Greater God, by the by. xD
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Post by Tam on Oct 4, 2011 2:42:47 GMT -5
Fae! And steampunk! =D I love the title you have for this, by the way; it's rather brilliant and beautiful and sounds like it should be all awesome. Though awesome-sound in a darker, harsher, way than you'll probably write it, but whatever. xD Should be awesome no matter what. I would like it to be dark and harsh, because it's that kind of world, and those kinds of fairies, and those kinds of secrets — but I suffer no delusions that I can actually write that way and still end up with something halfway decent. So. Darker and harsher than Sam-story? Yes, I hope so. xD As dark and harsh as my head says it should be? Probably not. =D Thank you! And the basic idea I have in my head right now is mostly to do with a decline in faith; the Gods' power over the humans' lives is directly related to how much the humans believe in them. It's also related to how much of the world still belongs to the Gods, and how much has been created by humans. 'Cos I have this insanely innovative human steampunk society breaking down the bones of the earth and replacing it with an artificial skeleton that the Gods can stake no claim on. One by one, they wither and die. (...'Course, in my story, they didn't completely kill off the Greater Gods. There's one left, and he's never been more powerful. But. More on him later.) That is so cool. @_@ Such widescale upheaval of a planet is one of those things I hate to see in real life but think "WOAH how does that work awesome" when it's in fiction. Exactly! You can drop all sorts of sweeping and vaguely metaphorical events on a fictional world that would be... somewhat less than awesome were they to occur to a real planet. Mind you I find the generalized and metaphorical conflict thing kind of gets tiresome sometimes, but I'm hoping to focus more on the characters than the battle itself. xD;Seriously curious about that last Greater God, by the by. xD You would be right to hate me for this, actually. But I swear I haven't rigged a receiver for some sort of evil listening device into your brain so I can hunch over the opposite end for hours on end frantically scribbling down your ideas. I don't even think I've read most of your plottings for Wind City yet. ...I'm still sorry, though. ----- I'm having a bit of trouble getting into the let's-organize-my-thoughts-on-these-characters mindset, which I suspect and fear may be because this is coming too soon after my last big writing project. >__> So this isn't really organized by name or nice to read. It's just a ramble. The protagonist of the story has been bouncing around my head for ages. His name, as you already know, is Damien Alfonzo Dickerson. He's harmless-looking enough: gangly, blond, usually all smiles. His cheerfulness means he's never had a hard time getting along with people, and his good humour means he's never had a problem being the target of the occasional (...or frequent) joke. But like most people who look carefree, Damien has issues. His more serious than most, if we're being honest. And the worst part is, most of them aren't even his fault. See, he wouldn't be coping with a rather predictable split personality disorder if it weren't for his already shaky psychological state. His psychological state would be less shaky if it weren't for his rather debilitating addiction to an anesthetic commonly referred to as Vapour. He would never have become addicted to Vapour if it hadn't been administered to him in order to aid his recovery from the near-lethal poisoning he experienced when he was eighteen. He wouldn't have been poisoned if there hadn't been an unknown toxin tucked into the pipes of his house already, and if it hadn't been meant for his father. And the poison probably wouldn't have been there if his father didn't have so many enemies.
Damien knows his father holds a particularly important position in the shadowy branch of the Angelican government known as the Ministry of Affairs. What he does not know, and what no one else can quite agree on, is what this actually means.
Then I have Sun. Whereas Damien is the mechanically-minded one with no mind for math, Sun is academically brilliant but has a hard time finding her way around a jigsaw. Or a hammer and nail. Or a hallway. She's always been extremely clever, though, and she's always been Damien's best friend. She's the quietly grounded, often sarcastic but never exuberant, stone in Damien's hurricane of a life. Needless to say, Damien is quite upset when she is stolen by fairies. Sun, possibly more so.
But the fairies made a mistake with her. See, fairies just don't understand humans. They can't. As a race that exists outside of time, the fairies have no way of comprehending bonds that are forged because of time — forged because of the subconscious knowledge in every human that one day, everyone you love will die. Sun is a fairy with a family. She now truly belongs to neither race. But there are some who will fight for her in spite of it.
...Soyeah, we've got some snuggly friendship!story going down here too, hopefully, although it probably won't get any more relationshippy than that between these two because I believe Damien is aromantic-asexual (not quite sure yet, need to get to know him a bit better before I set anything down). He's still quite adorable, though. And not above a bit of casual flirty banter either, I'd expect. Heck, he rambles about everything else; it would be silly to expect him not to gleefully dance around relationships he doesn't really want.
And the last one for now. The last of the Greater Gods (who are called Greater, by the way, in order to differentiate them from fairies, who have many of the same abilities but on a generally smaller and less diverse scale from individual to individual).
His name is Skep. Skep exists as an amalgamation of the Trickster Gods of a thousand peoples. He escaped the aforementioned divine extinction because by his very nature, he draws his power from breaking the rules of the Gods — the same rules that bind the other Gods to their physical existence. Of course he would survive. He always survives. He thrives in chaos; he adapts to any circumstance, even obscurity. He is at the top of his game, he is on no one's side but his own, and he is having a blast.
'Course, his current idea of having a blast is messing with humans, Damien in particular. Damien is an amusing person in general to mess with, to be sure, but his placement in relation to his father makes him especially interesting to Skep, who seeks a Secret that he claims is being guarded by the Ministry of Affairs. Well. It's not so much he seeks it for himself, as it would be a relatively easy task for him to steal it from under the humans' noses — it's more that he wants the humans to unravel the conspiracy themselves. Only then can the humans win the war, according to Skep (although it's always best to receive a trickster's advice with extreme caution, of course).  Why do all my characters have blue eyes. It's entirely inexplicable. I don't even like it any more than green or grey or brown what is this why.Also I guess I might put up more pictures later if I can manage to draw a picture of Sun that actually looks remotely like how she's supposed to look. |
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Post by Rikku on Oct 4, 2011 3:55:30 GMT -5
... Damien is so. Adorable. <3
And I was going to be like 'oh, dude, just because we both have gods? My ones aren't even gods really, that's just a convenient thing for me to call them', and then I read your rambles (this sounds so cool. And Damien is intriguing! And friendship, yay!) and, wow, yeah, trickster. Really awesome sounding trickster. Does remind me a bit of my tricksterling - if that's what you were referring to? - but I think just because Skep sounds so very, very trickster. xD I mean. 'He escaped the aforementioned divine extinction because by his very nature, he draws his power from breaking the rules of the Gods — the same rules that bind the other Gods to their physical existence.' I was like yes, they break the rules, exactly! So I just think this is awesome. Dude they're not even that similar. Except sort of really similar because tricksters, and because messing with one person's life in particular, but mostly really not, and - tricksters awesome yes! <3 Eeeee.
... /incoherency
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Post by Kathleen on Oct 4, 2011 17:17:09 GMT -5
Damien looks very perfectly-innocently-adorable for someone with so many issues. In a good way. His hair! <3
... and I love the sound of this, with a fairy-iron-war and changeling-friends. Also I admire your courage in tackling such a project in November, of all months. =D *stands back in admiresome awe*
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Post by Tam on Oct 21, 2011 12:09:39 GMT -5
Hello NaNo! I did not forget about you. I was just avoiding you, because you steal my brain and don't give it back when I nee it for studying and stuff. But don't be upset. If anything it just means you're more interesting than studying.
ANYWAY I guess I should get back to this now! Replies! <3 Thank you so much for replies! *glees* And plans! Plans plans plans. I need more plot. And a whole lot more characters. I need to populate a school setting, so if anyone for any reason has random ideas for schoolkids in about the 16-21 age range, or teachers, or janitors, please feel free to shout them out here. "GINGER KID WITH BRACES AND A PET CAT" and "SOME GIRL WHO LIKES SPOONS FOR SOME REASON" are both totally acceptable suggestions. I just need lots of characters for this setting. xD;
Also I'm fairly sure I'm going to have a serial killer named Jack. Not the main villain, but definitely a bit of an inconvenience in the lives of my protagonists... er, well, actually, pretty much everyone. He was a normal guy who's gone a little hyper-vigilante, I think, and he's just going around on this manic, paranoia-fuelled killing spree, taking out anyone he thinks could possibly be a fairy in disguise. Which. Is pretty much everyone he meets.
He is going to be creepy as heck.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2011 15:38:39 GMT -5
Oooh Tamia this sounds so great. Steampunk and faeries eeee!  Damien and Sun are so fascinating. @__@; The fact that Sun is a faerie but she has this knowledge that some things are temporary and that she's swept from one world to another and doesn't really belong in either gahh. <33 That is all I can really say. As for random character suggestions if you will take them - KID WHO LIVES LIFE THROUGH HIS CAMERA LENS BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THAT IF IT ISN'T RECORDED IT DIDN'T HAPPEN, GIRL WHO IS ALWAYS DOODLING OWLS ON EVERYTHING ONLY OWLS NOTHING ELSE, JANITOR THAT KNOWS EVERYONE'S SECRETS AND/OR MIGHT POSSIBLY SPEND HIS NIGHTS ROBBING BANKS. |
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Post by Rikku on Oct 21, 2011 16:35:46 GMT -5
Oh. <3 Oh your serial killer sounds fun. I mean. Um. Disturbing. >.> Yes.
... Er. *helpless grin* I cannot think of any! That's odd.
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Post by Tam on Oct 26, 2011 12:00:36 GMT -5
Oooh Tamia this sounds so great. Steampunk and faeries eeee! Damien and Sun are so fascinating. @__@; The fact that Sun is a faerie but she has this knowledge that some things are temporary and that she's swept from one world to another and doesn't really belong in either gahh. <33 That is all I can really say. As for random character suggestions if you will take them - KID WHO LIVES LIFE THROUGH HIS CAMERA LENS BECAUSE HE BELIEVES THAT IF IT ISN'T RECORDED IT DIDN'T HAPPEN, GIRL WHO IS ALWAYS DOODLING OWLS ON EVERYTHING ONLY OWLS NOTHING ELSE, JANITOR THAT KNOWS EVERYONE'S SECRETS AND/OR MIGHT POSSIBLY SPEND HIS NIGHTS ROBBING BANKS. Aw thank you so much Reve! =D <3 Yes! I am really looking forward to writing Sun. I don't usually write a lot of female protagonists, mostly due to them always feeling awkward for some reason, but I feel like I might have a handle on this one. Something about lost characters is beautiful, I think. AAAAH YES I am totally stealing adopting all these persons. xD Thank you, Reve! Those are just the quirky, simple-but-lovable sorts of characters I need to round out this setting. And a budding conspiracy theorist will probably be quite useful plotwise, too, so bonus! Oh. <3 Oh your serial killer sounds fun. I mean. Um. Disturbing. >.> Yes. ... Er. *helpless grin* I cannot think of any! That's odd. Yes. Disturbing. In a totally not-cool and not-creepyfun-to-write sort of way, naturally. >__>; Ah. Well, I suppose I'll have to bring myself to forgive you for this great injustice. In time. *magnanimous gesture* ----- I've had an explosion of NaNo ideas over the last couple of days. xD Which is great, because I had been getting worried about this theme of general ennui that has been following me for most of the month. This is also weird, though, because I feel like most of it has been spurred on by Homestuck-related excitement. Whether that means I'm being directly inspired by Homestuck or just that a feeling of excitement ups my creative output, I have no idea. xD; But one way or another, I think I'm going to have to count Homestuck as an influence on this NaNo. It's going to be kind of impossible for it not to be. Gunnerkrigg Court, too, and of course Fight Club, which was kind of the original inspiration for most of Damien's issues. *should just start a list in the first post like she did last year* It's funny, though. Some of this thing, which is an admittedly contrived plot that happens to pit steampunky humans against the faerie realm, has just sort of... fallen into place. xD; In this war, for example, I have a race of ethereal beings who favour stealth and trickery over outright force, so they have stealthy and tricky weapons. They have a dust that, when inhaled, makes the mind vulnerable to suggestions of the sort that generally involve stepping off of buildings. So how would humans defend themselves from airborne dust of this nature? Maybe a clunky tech'd-out respirator or something. Oh hey, that's actually kind of steampunk. Faeries can naturally also entrance and lure humans to their doom through less complicated means, though, like eye contact. So humans would need a way to — goggles. They use goggles.... Why does this story actually make sense? |
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Post by Tam on Oct 28, 2011 12:18:26 GMT -5
Ha, see, it makes sense that Sun wouldn't know she's a fairy already through typical human interactions with iron and such, because she's been eating the food. Fairies hate bread, everyone knows that. Some people think it's because it speaks of human innovation, a corruption of the natural world, but it's not just that the bread belongs to humans; the bread makes you human. She's spent her whole life living among the humans, and the substances she's built her body from have come from the humans. Chemically, her body has been tricked into thinking she is human. She's lost the iron effect, just like she's lost any of the magical ability that being Fae would normally endow one with. 'Course, once the fairies steal her back, they can bring out her true nature pretty easily. Flush the human out of her system. Fairy detox.
...Geez I'm nervous about this. Not feeling particularly comfortable at all, in fact. I don't think I'm really ready to write in three days. I guess all I can do is go scribble down plot outlines some more in the hopes that it it might make me feel a bit more confident with things by the time I have to start writing. >__>
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