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lycorogue · 2 years

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Master List of WIPs and Plot Bunnies (as of Jan 2022)

(roughly a 40min read)

As a means to try to get myself re-inspired to write, I've spent some time trying to collect all of my plot bunnies and WIPs in one place. Thus, I created a master-list.

Turns out, if you include things like my "365 anthology of daily writing prompts" that I’ve never completed, I have 22 WIPs (stories I have at least started, but haven't finished), and another 16 Miraculous Ladybug fanfic ideas (plot bunnies) that I haven't started yet.

Not to mention any Encanto plot bunnies that have been playing along the edges of my mind, but haven't quite formed enough yet for me to list them on the Plot Bunnies tally.

Speaking of, the current tally looks like this:

WIPs

- 4 ML fanfics started - 1 Hey Arnold fanfic I never meant to abandon - 5 X-Future (X-Men with OCs) stories - 1 D&D character study - 1 recounting of a World of Darkness (Vampire: The Masquerade) character (probably forever abandoned) - an attempt to novelize the Cirque du Soleil show Varekai - an on-going attempt to convert X-Future into an original series called Glitches - 5 stories within my original fantasy world of Gyateara - 3 writing anthologies built from writing prompts (at least one is probably permanently abandoned)

Plot Bunnies (in order of how far I’ve gotten with the plot build)

- The PV of ML (Felix as Chat Noir and Bridgette as Ladybug) co-exists with canon - Adrien is in need of a fake girlfriend, and decides on Marinette - Rewrite of canon so that Gabriel is actually a decent father who loves his son - Non-magic game streamer AU - 3 different continuations of my story Ladybug’s Simp Squad - Adrien tries out the concept that “if you want the truth, ask the same question 3x” on both LB and Marinette, to surprising results. - Another retelling of the 12th chapter of Remember That Time When.. by @mostlovedgirl-writes This time focusing more on Adrien’s isolation after Marinette literally locked herself away from him. - 2 stories involving the New York Special - Plagg’s POV of the episode “Puppeteer 2″ (a companion piece to my story Painfully Close) - Alya (as either herself or her superhero persona) pinning Adrien against the wall as she accuses him of hurting Marinette - Master Fu backstory filling in the time between the fall of the monastery and when we meet him in Origins. Mostly focusing on the 1940s and WWII. - Adrien discovers that Ladybug is Marinette, and tries to figure out who this boy is that she’s in love with - Adrien finds out HE’S the boy that Ladybug keeps turning Chat Noir down for. (may or may not end up part of the above plot bunny)

Now to get motivation to actually WRITE some of this stuff.... Maybe if people bully me???

Honestly, the following detailed list of all my WIPs and plot bunnies is mostly for my benefit. That way I have a reference online for times I don’t have my computer on-hand. But if you want to join me down the rabbit hole (and get more of a feel of what I have in the fire), I’ll gladly see you under the cut.

WIPs - Fanfics

Miraculous Ladybug:

One and the Same - The sequel to my story Peeping Tomcat. I’ve been struggling to get this story done since 2018. I have some great moments here and there, but the overall story just isn’t coming together. This time, instead of the story being exclusively Adrien’s 1st person POV, I am tag-teaming Adrien and Marinette as 1st person POV narrators. In this sequel, Adrien is trying desperately to get Marinette to fall in love with him, and she’s not sure how to handle this....

I Don't Care - I already have 2 chapters of this story posted because I wasn’t planning on it being a multi-chapter story, and yet, here I am. It’s my interpretation of Gabriel and Emilie’s romance: how they met, them dating, their marriage, and their years with Adrien before Emilie fell into her coma. The title is a nod to the inspiration of the second chapter: “I Don’t Care” by Ed Sheeran. Mostly because I see that as Gabriel’s attitude towards Emilie.

Seduce With Caution - A smut story I started writing the summer of 2020 that has become a slow-burn MariChat story. Chat Noir tries to show off his new flirting/seduction techniques on Marinette to prove that he can get Ladybug to fall for HIM. He accidentally hits the mark perfectly without realizing. Marinette fights against her newfound attraction for Chat Noir while Adrien tries to figure out why he keeps picturing an unmasked Ladybug as Marinette in his fantasies. Some extra awkward Adrienette moments as Adrien wonders if he can also get Marinette riled up as himself, and Marinette tries not to combust as Adrien flirts with her!

Love Square Fluff Week - Back before the pandemic truly hit, I was working on the 7-day Love Square Fluff Week writing prompts. I have the first 5 chapters up before I fell into my pandemic-induced writing funk. I just need to figure out those last 2!

“Hey, Arnold!”

What is Truly Meant to Be - Using the premise of the never-produced spin-off series “The Patakis” as a guide, Arnold had broken up with Helga when his parents moved away from Hillwood. He had assumed it was selfish of him to ask her to keep up a long-distance relationship. Now that they have both graduated high school, and nothing is keeping them apart, Arnold rushes back to Hillwood so he can tell Helga he’s still in love with her and ask her to be his girlfriend again. Unfortunately, Brainy has already helped Helga mend her broken heart, and she’s been dating him for the past two years (? it’s been a while since I went back to this story. I think it was 2 years). Now Helga has to decide between the sweet and supportive boyfriend she currently has and the boy she’s been in love with since she was 3. I got 8 chapters (and over 60k words) into this story before I unintentionally abandoned it in 2013. 😅 Each chapter was based on a song - which became that chapter’s title - which is why I subtitled it “A Hey Arnold Musical”.

X-Future (an X-Men RPG created by my husband)

Please, Let Me Explain - Originally a short story that my friend Ronoxym wrote, and I sort of unintentionally hijacked it. It’s SUPPOSED to be a collab between the two of us, but neither of us have touched it since 2016. In the roleplay, my character Willow thought Rono’s character Devon had betrayed the X-Men to an attack from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, which resulted in the Xavier mansion blowing up and killing at least 3 students. PLME has Devon trying to explain the situation to Willow, and how he had no clue what happened with the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. If he had, he would have come home. Willow isn’t sure she can trust him, though. After a LOT of work, Devon finally convinces Willow to use her psychic abilities to delve into his mind to prove he’s telling the truth. That’s about where the story derailed and we haven’t been able to get it back on track yet. Still, I did post the first two chapters back in 2015. I do want to go back to this story eventually, and it does tend to invade my thoughts on occasion.

Some Like it Flame-Broiled - Another story that was originally written by Ronoxym. This was probably the first bit of smut I have ever written. Not sure if it will ever see the light of day, but I am still periodically tweaking it. I had written a solo scene on X-Future (a play-by-post RPG) where my tertiary character Trish masturbated to a gas tanker explosion (she’s a pyrophile). Now, the players were all over 20yo, and even so, the scene I wrote was more a simple T-rated “she masturbated”, as opposed to NC-17 explicit descriptions. Anyway, since Trish was originally created as a potential love interest for Devon when he joined the Brotherhood (she ended up being a rival bent on killing him.... whoops....), Rono wrote a smut AU where Devon truly did turn evil (instead of playing a double-agent) and Evil!Devon had a weird sexual relationship with Trish. I took Rono’s story and RAN with it. But, like I said, I still have some tweaks to do.

Untitled battle between Devon and Trish - A battle to the death between the canon versions of Trish and Devon. Trish and the Brotherhood were holding Devon’s girlfriend’s parents hostage. Devon went to save them, and ended up in a knife fight with Trish. This battle is canon to explain what happened to Devon during a time jump in-game, but the only bits that were canonically posted were the fact that there was a fight, and the result. I went ahead and wrote out the full battle, but I’m still learning fight choreography, so I want to go back and tweak it. Haven’t touched this story since 2017 or so, though. I also want Ronoxym’s input, since it does involve his character, even if we aren’t playing that RPG anymore.

X-Future: The Second Generation Begins - My attempt to adapt the roleplay into a more traditional narrative. Our method of tracking time - and what scenes happen when - was poor at best, however. So the conversion ended up a more intense undertaking than I originally thought. The RP went on for about 2 or 3 years, and I only covered the first 2 months or so (which was still over 67k words) before this project got shelved. Still want to finish it, though.

X-Future Snippets - As my way of doing character studies and sorting out what to do next with my characters in the official RP, I wrote a series of one-shots using my X-Future characters Lia, Willow, and Trish. I last updated this 15-chapter/35k+ word anthology of one-shots in 2016. I hope to get re-acquainted with my characters, and hopefully add more shorts to this collection.

D&D

Too Many Names, Even For A Gnome - A character study for my gnome Elymoxa. A way to learn who she is by figuring out what all of her names are, and how she earned them. As of right now, I only have three chapters up. I also haven’t played this D&D character since 2018, so I’m not sure when I’ll be going back to learning about this character.

World of Darkness

Lottie's story - This was my NaNoWriMo attempt back in 2014. I was playing the World of Darkness game Vampire: The Masquerade. Lottie was my Brujah vampire that was turned in the 1940s. I wanted to capture our gameplay. I failed to do so, as I only wrote 3000 words. I will probably never get back to this story, sadly. It was fun, though, to re-read that opening chapter. I instantly remembered who played which character based on how the characters interacted. Good times.

Varekai

Adaptation of the Cirque du Soleil show into a novel - Since the early 2000s, when I first saw the Cirque show Varekai, I fell in love with the story of Icarus falling into a mythical and magical forest instead of plummeting into the sea. For my birthday in 2017, I got a DVD of the show, and wanted to write a novelization of the story Cirque du Soleil told. I even watched it live that summer to help inspire me. It was also the year I fell in love with Miraculous Ladybug, though, and I ended up working on Peeping Tomcat that NaNoWriMo instead. So I have yet to write more than the opening chapter of this Varekai story.

WIPs - Original Works

Glitches

A rework of the X-Future world and original characters (the player characters) as an original story with no ties to X-Men or Marvel. I’ve done a lot of world-build thus far, and character reworks to turn Marvel-owned characters that are significant for the X-Future story into original versions. I’ve also written a couple of scenes. I’m still debating between trying to write this as a comic (which requires an illustrator) or a series of novels (but it feels like such a visual story). I just miss my X-Future characters and the other player characters they interacted with. I want to go back to writing them again in some shape or form.

Case and point - maybe rework the above X-Future stories so they are more original stories within the Glitches universe?

Gyateara

Lost Loves and Paramours - My 2016 NaNoWriMo story where I explored the backstory I gave my D&D character Jolene Crisslebalm. While I stuck to the backstory I gave her for the campaign, I also reworked a lot of it so it could be original. There’s still a few bits that were original world-builds of my DM that I have to edit out, and I might also rework some of the canon backstory. Either way, I did hit 50k+ words, making this my FIRST NaNo win! I’m not even half-way done with her backstory, though. So it definitely needs a lot of reworking, and I need to actually finish writing out her story. I do poke at this WIP periodically. Aug 2021 I created a Spotify playlist that tells Jolene’s story. Maybe someday I’ll post something publicly.

The Race for Destiny - My first-ever attempt at NaNoWriMo, way back in 2012. The story itself was first formed shortly after I played the Xbox game Fable back in 2004. This story (with its terrible working-title that desperately needs to be redone) originated as a Frankensteined cross-over fanfic between Fable, Inuyasha, Vision of Escaflowne, Legend of Zelda, and Fushigi Yuugi. The story was a classic isekai where Natalie is from a sleepy New England town, and stumbles upon a stone platform with strange runes etched into it. As she inspected the runes, she got teleported to Gyateara. There she was saved from monsters by hero-in-training Connor. The duo find out a Big-Bad is attempting to unlock a fabled artifact to rule the world, and only Natalie (who is assumed to be a messenger of a lost goddess) can stop the baddie with the aid of Connor. During their trials, Natalie and Connor fall in love, and Natalie becomes torn between staying with him and going home when Gyateara is saved. The story was so horribly cliche, but I had pumped so much into the world-build, I hope to one day find a way to salvage anything from this story and complete it.

The People of Gyateara - An anthology of the various cultures that makes up the world of Gyateara. As of this posting, though, I haven’t updated since 2016, and I only had 2 chapters written. Whoops. I should probably get back into this....

The Divine Legends - the various myths and legends that the people of Gyateara tell. I haven’t touched this poor anthology since 2014. I really should get back to this. I should also go back and edit the 3 legends I already have up, now that I have a better understanding of myth structures.

Amara's backstory (untitled) - My first-ever D&D character. Unfortunately, I only managed to play her for 2 sessions, despite her living rent-free in my brain since 2003/2004. Her backstory does keep changing as I grow and learn how problematic different bits truly are (I originally had her as a fantasy version of a g*psy). Amara is still evolving, and as she does, my need to work on this backstory continues.

Writing Prompts

365 Stories: 2017 - Back in 2017, I received a book that provided a new writing prompt every day for a full year. I tried to stick with the practice of doing a writing prompt a day, and create an anthology of these one-shots. Unfortunately, I ended up tapping out at only 26 prompts (27k+ words). It was a good start, but I want to give this challenge another try at some point.

Ronoxym's Flash-Fiction Challenge - Also back in 2017, I lamented to Ronoxym that I can’t seem to write short and succinct stories *side-eyes this whole post* Seems I still can’t. He challenged me to write stories that are under 1000 words. I only managed about 6 of them - which I collected in this anthology - before I waved my white flag. I feel like I should try to start up this challenge again, though.

Writing Prompts: An Anthology - Another anthology of one-shot short stories. This time, the collection comes from various writing prompts. Most of the prompts were given out at my local writing group, but some were from random friends, my husband, or interesting prompts I found online. I again only got 11 prompts in before abandoning the challenge. I really should get back into finding prompts....

ML Fanfic Plot Bunnies

1. Concept: The PV (where Felix is Chat Noir and Bridgette is Ladybug) co-exists with canon

This story is FAR from ready for ANY writing to be done as I still try to world-build, but my world-building does already fill 4 pages in OpenOffice Writer.

The main idea was based off of the Smile Fruit in One Piece. Namely, that the Miraculous that Felix and Bridgette get are artificial, which is why the jewelry itself looks different (especially the cat ring), why the “kwamis” are roughly triple the size of canon Tikki and Plagg, why the power sets are different, and why Felix is cursed (as well as the antagonistic dynamic Felix has with his “kwami”).

I talked about the idea in full detail in this blog post, but here’s a “quick” recap:

A prominent wealthy humanitarian and philanthropist in London is secretly a criminal mastermind a la Marvel’s Wilson Fisk, DC’s Lex Luthor, or Disney’s Gargoyles’ David Xanatos. This man is the PV version of Hawkmoth. Somehow, someway, there are artificial “Miraculous” made, but deemed failed experiments. By some weird circumstance, Felix - now aged about 15 or 16 - ends up with the cat ring and puts it on before discovering it’s cursed. He is now tormented by a magical black cat creature that can go invisible so Felix is the only one who sees it (maybe only those wearing that specific “Miraculous” can see the corresponding “kwami”???). The creature loves to cause bad luck around Felix, but Felix can’t remove the ring without first getting a kiss from the faux-Ladybug.

Coincidentally, Felix’s classmate Bridgette, who has been obsessively in love with him, ends up with the artificial Ladybug earrings. Her “kwami” is much kinder, and they become fast friends. London’s HM sends out his first minion (I might have to nix Mr. Pigeon and Mime since their gimmicks are such classic Parisian tropes, and are both reused in canon anyway). Bridgette is taught how to become Ladybug, and runs into the fray (she’s the impulsive fighter in this duo).

Discovering what his ring is, the curse, and how to remove the curse, Felix also learns how to become Chat Noir, and joins Ladybug in battle. His priority, however, is to get the kiss and end the curse. After being reamed out by Ladybug, Chat Noir focuses on the battle (he’s the calm and calculating one of this duo, but Ladybug is still the crucial one needed to execute Felix’s plans to save the day). Basically, I wanted to balance out their partnership a bit more: Felix’s Chat Noir can’t defeat the villain by himself, he needs faux-Ladybug’s powers (be it her own version of purifying the akuma or whatever). Meanwhile, while Bridgette has the powers needed to defeat the villain, she needs Felix’s tactical strategy to get even close to winning.

The story continues with the normal affair: Bridgette is in love with Felix, who is annoyed by her constant romantic advances. Meanwhile, Chat Noir is quickly falling for Ladybug, and his requests for kisses become less about ending the curse and more about genuine desire. Ladybug is as put off by his advances as Felix is of Bridgette’s; she accuses him of caring more about spending time with her than saving London... she’s not exactly wrong. Eventually, Felix and Bridgette start to become friends, and Ladybug starts to fall for Chat Noir. Problem now has become that if Chat Noir ever accepts a kiss from Ladybug, it will end his curse, but he can no longer be her superhero partner. Does he accept his lady’s love, and end his curse? Or does he suffer through the curse and reject his partner’s feelings so he can remain by her side as they battle London Hawk Moth? Also, does he (can he?) tell Ladybug about the curse???

This is clearly a MASSIVE undertaking, so who knows when I will have the time to start this project....

2. Concept: Adrien is in need of a fake girlfriend, and decides to ask Marinette

Another one where I have a lot of building to do before I’m ready to actually write the darn thing.

I go over the whole concept in this post, but, again, here’s a quick recap:

For ReasonsTM, Kagame suggests that Adrien gets a fake girlfriend. After going though a few options, Adrien realizes that Marinette would be perfect. It takes some convincing, but Marinette eventually agrees. The two go through a lot of the classic “fake dating” tropes, and Adrien is starting to realize his true feelings for Marinette.

HOWEVER, before fully realizing he’s fallen for her, he first discovers that Marinette has been in love with him more-or-less since they first met. He hates the idea that he’s been playing with her heart (even if it was unintentional), and instantly breaks things off.

Problem is that he breaks up with her by telling her he’s already in love with someone else.... using almost the exact same speech Ladybug gave Chat Noir at the end of “Glaciator”. Of COURSE Marinette recognizes her own speech, and now has to deal with the knowledge that Adrien is Chat Noir.

Honestly, I don’t know where to go from there... would Marinette battling with her half-reveal knowledge be its own sequel story? Or do I have that be part of the overall tale? What is the reason behind Adrien needing a fake girlfriend in the first place? What “fake dating” tropes should I indulge in? How does Adrien find out that Marinette isn’t faking, and has been in love with him all along? Just so many questions I still need to answer before I can start writing.

3. Concept: Rewriting of canon where only one thing is changed: Gabriel Agreste is actually a loving and attentive father. Potential Title: When Love Matters

The trickiest bits of this one includes figuring out what continuity order I should put the episodes in - production? air order? streaming-service order? Piece them together into my own order based on in-episode clues? - as well as how to rework episodes like “Chat Blanc” and “Ephemeral” without completely negating them (since most of the plot of those episodes revolve around Gabriel being a complete asshole of a human being).

I talk more about the project as an answer to this ask from good lord 2018

4. Concept: Non-Magic Game-Streamer AU.

This was another one that I need to iron out the world-build, but I’m already 2 pages deep into building it.

I posted the original concept back in May 2021, but here’s the “quick” recap:

Adrien is afraid his real-world celebrity will taint his success as a streamer (he wants to claw his way to the top like everyone else so he knows people like him for his streaming, not his celebrity). So he only ever goes by his handle “Chat Noir”, adjusts his voice via his mic somehow, and only ever streams off-camera with a catboy icon, or he’s a vtuber using a catboy avatar.

Marinette knows how much female gamers get harassed, and she’s afraid of getting doxxed. So she also hides behind a handle - “Ladybug” - adjusts her mic to hide her true voice, and streams off-camera. Despite getting a fairly large following as a gaming streamer, she purposefully keeps that life separate from her fashion designing.

Chat Noir and Ladybug meet in a game, and become fast-friends. Adrien actually gets quite enamored with Ladybug, and becomes one of her biggest fans. He tries to meet up with her IRL, or do a private face-reveal via DMs, but she refuses, too afraid to let anyone know who she truly is. Eventually, she also admits that, even if they did meet IRL, they could only be friends since she’s already in love with someone.

Of course, that someone is her good friend Adrien, who is oblivious to her feelings. He does suggest that she should start streaming since she’s such a great gamer, and she kind of awkwardly laughs and shrugs him off.

Hawk Moth is also a streamer, but one of those toxic ones who riles up his chat, isn’t much of a team player in MMORPG or MOBA parties/teams, and kill-steals or takes cheap shots whenever possible. Ladybug and Chat Noir are constantly butting heads with him to help protect the other gamers from his toxicity.

I haven’t decided yet if I need to change up everyone’s handles, since “chat noir”, “ladybug”, and “hawk moth” feel too generic to be available as-is. I’ll have to think more about their gaming handles. I also need to decide if I’m keeping Gabriel as Hawk Moth, or if I should hand the reins over to Felix instead.

Lots and lots of other questions need answers, but it’s a fun AU to tip my toes into now and again until I’m ready to write the dang thing.

5. Concept: Continuation of Ladybug's Simp Squad, but a bit angsty as it centers around Adrien and Plagg.

This plot bunny is courtesy of @BFG_blueapple303 on AO3. In the comments of my story Ladybug’s Simp Squad, they asked me why Adrien didn’t include his swan-dive off the Montparnasse Tower while battling for Simp Supremacy with Alya. (real answer: I forgot about that somehow)

This story would follow that train of thought: why didn’t Adrien mention that when he literally mentioned battling Gorizilla?

Plagg would ask Adrien about that omission, mostly because, after knowing everything Adrien actually does for Ladybug, Plagg is a bit offended that Adrien walked away with the #2 Simp spot.

Adrien reflects, but I think he’ll eventually land on 3 things: 1) he didn’t want to stress out his friends by letting them know/reminding them that he leapt off one of the tallest buildings in Paris simply at Ladybug’s say-so. 2) he knows in his heart who he is, so it doesn’t bother him that everyone thinks he’s #2. In fact, it may be better to cover his identity as Chat Noir. Finally, 3) Alya probably won’t be able to be Rena Rouge anymore (the story takes place between seasons 3 and 4), and Adrien felt she needed a win to prove that she’s still able to assist Ladybug, even if she isn’t a superhero anymore.

BFG_blueapple303‘s original idea had this conversation between Adrien and Nino instead of Adrien and Plagg. I think I prefer it with Plagg because Adrien could be more open about more things only Chat Noir would know, but I do also love the original idea with Nino. Plus, we don’t get enough Adrien and Nino just being buddies content. So I might go back to that convo instead.

Either way, I have most of the components all sorted out for this story. I just need the motivation to write it. (and figure out who Adrien is having this conversation with)

6. Concept: Continuation of Ladybug's Simp Squad where Marinette makes Nino a “#1 Rena Rouge Simp” sweatshirt.

This plot bunny is courtesy of @livrever over on AO3 when she mentioned Nino needing a sweatshirt as well.

Again, the story I originally wrote - Ladybug’s Simp Squad - is supposed to take place between seasons 3 and 4. So, as far as Marinette and Adrien are concerned, Alya’s and Nino’s identities as Rena Rouge and Carapace have been compromised, but those two were mind-controlled at the time, and probably don’t realize it.

So Nino asks for a #1 Rena Rouge Simp sweatshirt. He thinks he’s being clever, not realizing Marinette knows EXACTLY why he’d want that shirt. He also thinks it would be a great surprise for his girlfriend.

Poor Marinette is torn, because it almost feels cruel to make Nino a “#1 Rena Rouge Simp” sweatshirt when Alya may never again get to BE Rena Rouge.

Eventually, she caves, and it does make DJWIFI super happy.

I just need to figure out all the middle bits of this story.

7. Concept: Cuddly Ladrien fluff continuation of Ladybug's Simp Squad.

This one is just straight out of the story Ladybug’s Simp Squad when Marinette cuddles with the sweatshirt she made Adrien. However, I did have a couple of comments on the story of people wanting to see Ladybug actually snuggling Adrien in his Simp shirt. And how can I deny the people? (especially when I’m one of them)

Ladybug, now knowing how large of a "fan" Adrien is, visits him. They start pseudo-dating and ALLLLLL the fluff.

Alternatively, I could go with ALLLLL THE ANGST (MWAHAHAHAHAHA!).

A little while back, I read Comfort from Each-Other by ScarletRedFox. The basic concept is that Ladybug was concerned for Adrien’s safety if they were to date, so she breaks things off. Soooooo, what if Ladybug at FIRST goes to have sweet Ladrien cuddles with her #2 Simp, but then realizes how much danger she could be putting Adrien in, so she breaks things off????

I’m still pondering the potential of Super Fluff Story vs Super Angst Story....

8. Concept: Adrien tries out the concept that “if you want the truth, ask the same question 3x” on both LB and Marinette, to surprising results. Potential Title: “The Rule of Three”

Adrien found out about a conversational tactic called “the Rule of 3”: whenever asking someone an important question, the first response is the knee-jerk, socialized response they have on standby; the second response is the calculated, defensive response; the third is the fully honest answer.

He tries the tactic on Ladybug to figure out if there is ANY hope of her loving him back. She admits she's torn, and that - maybe - if there was no chance with this other boy, then she could consider it. Chat Noir can't use the Rule of 3 to convince Ladybug to admit who she's pining for, but he does find out that she's never officially told him her feelings because she believes he's in love with someone else anyway. (She’s just hoping he moves on as much as Chat Noir is hoping the same thing of her)

Unsure where that leaves him with Ladybug, he turns to Marinette. She's always felt like more than a friend to him. She always seems so unsure around him though, sending mixed signals like avoiding him but also fighting for him to join them in New York. He decides to use the Rule of 3 to figure out where he stands with her.

Chaos ensues when he does get the truth from her, especially when she acknowledges that she knows he’s in love with someone else and that she has no chance of them being together, despite her hoping he’d pick her instead.

I’m.... not quite sure where to go with this story, but it does feel fun to explore....

9. Concept: Another retelling of the 12th chapter of Remember That Time When.. by @mostlovedgirl-writes

This time, I want to go back to Adrien's POV. While that’s the POV MLG originally wrote the chapter in, she also kind of breezed past that awkward night that Adrien and Marinette packed for the NYC trip: They packed, Marinette hid in the bathroom while Adrien watched anime, Marinette changed for bed and promptly locked herself in her studio, and cut to the next morning.

I want to delve in again and focus on how Adrien tried to handle the isolation of Marinette literally locking herself away from him. What was it like to be in that big bed and empty bedroom by himself after waking up with Marinette in his arms?

Darn. Guess I’ll just have to reread RTTW again so I can get back into that mindset. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

10. Concept: A companion story for the New York special. Potential Title: See Through My Eyes

I’m a bit less compelled to write this one anymore now that it’s been over a year since the NY special aired, and the salt has died off. However, this was largely inspired by the fact that there was a lot of unspoken subtext that I felt a lot of the fandom was missing.

I wanted to show the "missing" scenes of the special (scenes that would help with character growth, but wouldn't necessarily help with plot progression, which is probably why they weren't written into the special), as well as scenes from other character POVs to better showcase what I interpreted as that unspoken subtext in the special.

A way to kind of explain it better to those who were a bit salty about how some characters/scenes were written.

Knowing that Adrien going to NYC would leave Paris without Ladybug OR Chat Noir, why didn’t Tikki try to talk Marinette out of confronting Gabriel? Why did Plagg suggest not telling Ladybug about Adrien being forced to go to NYC with his class? Why did Adrien agree? How did Adrien react to Marinette switching seats with Ms. Mendeleiev on the plane? Why did Alya keep pushing for Marinette and Adrien to get together despite Marinette claiming she was getting over Adrien? Why was Adrien so excited to hear that slow song, and want to dance with Marinette again? Why was Ladybug so mad with Chat Noir, and how did that anger seem to ease with a quick cry? Where were Marinette and Adrien as they wandered NYC in the rain? How did Adrien react after Marinette refused to ask him to stay in NYC? Why wasn’t Nino’s plea enough? Why did Alya send Marinette after Adrien alone while the city was in a lock-down? Did Alya feel guilty afterwards? Why did Alya’s attitude towards Marinette confessing change? (I feel like there were more questions I wanted to answer, but those were the ones I can recall off the top of my head almost exactly 16 months later)

11. Concept: AU ending to the NY Special

Uncanny Valley actually couldn't figure out who Ladybug or Chat Noir were under their masks, and so she couldn't return Chat Noir's ring to him.

I used this concept for my last “Plagg Appreciation Story” I Need Him Back. Basically, the premise is that the magic actually blocks Uncanny’s scans, as opposed to her being able to see through them. So she still sees the mask and suit, she just doesn’t have the extra glamour to prevent her from piecing 2 and 2 together. Given a bit more time, I’m sure it would be easy to figure out that the French superheroes that just so happened to be in NYC were one of the French students that were visiting (or chaperones), but for the purposes of this story, she couldn’t figure it out before the end of the battle.

ANYWAY, the story more-or-less picks up the same way I Need Him Back does, where Marinette is lamenting that she lost HER Chat Noir. Due to the magic, neither Plagg nor Tikki - the only ones left who knew who Chat Noir was - can tell Marinette who her Chat Noir was. So they devise a plan to convince Marinette to give Adrien the ring as a “replacement” Chat Noir.

She’s hesitant after the problems Adrien had as Aspik, but Tikki offers that perhaps that was because Luka was meant to be the snake wielder, and Adrien DID try nearly 26k times to save her as Aspik. He’s determined. Plagg adds in how brave Adrien was to be bait for Gorizilla until Chat Noir showed up.

Since Plagg has to pretend he doesn’t know Adrien, he only chimes in for times that “Chat Noir” and “Adrien” could have met up, and Tikki largely leads the charge for making Adrien the “replacement” Chat Noir.

Lots of angst as Plagg misses his boy, but can’t say anything to anyone but Tikki. And Marinette mourning the loss of “Her” Chat Noir as she struggles to either a) find a way to circumvent the magic preventing the kwamis from telling her or b) cave in and just choose someone new.

In the end, she decides to give Adrien the Miraculous, and he tearfully transforms back into Chat Noir. Upon realizing Adrien was HER kitty all along, Ladybug drops her transformation, completing the reveals.

There is SO MUCH to sort out with this story before it’s ready for me to officially work on, but it’s a fun one to think about.

**UPDATE: Soooooo not even 2 hrs after I published this list “Kuro Neko” airs.... >3> Nooooot sure what to do with this story now....

12. Concept: Plagg's view of “Puppeteer 2”

Oddly enough, this dreaded “cringe episode” is my guilty pleasure. Feed me that sweet, sweet second-hand embarrassment.

I’ve already written a companion story for this episode, where Tikki narrates the events of “Puppeteer 2″. I am curious about Plagg’s take, though. Especially that painful drive home when Adrien tells Marinette “the girl I’m in love with doesn’t like [jokes] either.”

13. Concept: Alya (as either herself or her superhero persona) pinning Adrien against the wall as she accuses him of hurting Marinette

I posted the original seed of inspiration - the scene where Alya (in some form) rage-pins Adrien in defense of Marinette - here on Tumblr back in Oct 2021.

Honestly, nothing new has come to me since, so who knows when I’ll actually do anything with this scene?

14. Concept: Potential collab with Taurus Pixie telling the love story of Fu and Marianne leading up to their departure during WWII.

This was a project that @thetauruspixie and I tossed around briefly after the episode “Backwarder” hit Netflix. That was back in summer of 2019, and we haven’t really come back to this idea yet. But it is still brewing all the way in the back of my mind. Maybe one day....

What did Fu do after fleeing the monastery? When did he stop aging normally? When did he decide to become the official turtle Miraculous bearer? How often did he protect people as Jade Turtle? How public was he? How did he meet Marianne? How did their romance go? How long were they together before we saw them part ways? How does Marianne know so much about the Miraculous? Was she a wielder? Which one did she use? Were there other bearers while Fu had possession of the Miracle Box? How did the Nazis find out about Fu, the Miraculous, and the Miracle Box? Where did Fu go to hide from them? When did he return to Paris? Why didn’t he reach out to Marianne? Why didn’t he feel safe after WWII ended? Was he ever planning on returning to Marianne, and if so, when would he have felt safe to do so? So many more questions to ask and answer. This would definitely be a major project.

15. Concept: Adrien discovers that Ladybug is Marinette, and tries to figure out who this boy is that she’s in love with

Adrien finds out that Marinette is Ladybug, but doesn't confess his love (as he did in Chat Blanc) because he still believes Ladybug/Marinette is in love with someone else (Luka????). So he tires to figure out who this other boy is, in part to make sure this other boy is good enough for his lady, but also in part to see if Adrien has a chance of wooing her away from him.

At some point in the story, he finds a way to reveal himself to her as well (maybe he feels guilty about the half-reveal, or it’s a situation like in “Chat Blanc” where the reveal happens while he tries to save her).

Marinette then laments how often she turned him down for... him! She confesses this, and Adrien is blown away that the man she was in love with was himself! Likewise, Marinette is baffled that the woman he was in love with the whole time was Ladybug!

Yeah... I have no clue where I’m going with this. Parts of this concept come up in various parts of One and the Same, so this just kind of grew out of the scraps from that WIP. Maybe I’ll do something with it eventually....

16. Concept: Adrien's shock that the boy Ladybug has been rejecting him for is.... himself! (may or may not end up part of the above plot bunny)

As mentioned, this plot bunny may or may not get rolled into the above one. It could also easily work as a jumping point for a Ladrien story as Ladybug finally confesses to Chat Noir that she loves Adrien. Not sure where I want to go with it, but it’s still hopping around up there in my brain, waiting to mature.

Aaaaaaaand there you have it! All 38 works of fiction currently battling for attention... and here I am with no energy to really work on any of them (although, I have been periodically poking at Seduce With Caution lately).

Feel free to ask me questions about any of the above. Poke me. Bully me. Get me talking about these projects. Maybe that will finally get me re-motivated to write. Because I miss it so much, but my brain just blue screens whenever I attempt to write any sort of fiction.

Also, if you are reading this, thank you for taking this trip into Wonderland with me.

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lycorogue · 5 years

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Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 2 - Gyateara)

First and foremost, I meant to have this whole series to be sort of churned out the same day/week as Part 1. Life.... didn’t let that happen. I then figured “okay, I’ll update the series every Sunday” and then yesterday came and went...

Regardless, from the NEXT POST onward, I’m aiming to update every Sunday. Now, back to the series itself.

Ever since at least November, I’ve wanted to do individual posts for each of my OCs so you could meet them all. Well, I’m finally getting off my butt and working on this massive project (we’ll ignore that I’m spending hours working on this instead of my ML fanfic.... >_>).

In Part 1, I gave a broad overview of this whole Meet My OCs series, as well as gave some generic IRL background to the two main worlds my OCs hail from:

1) Gyateara

2) Glitches

Well, in this part of the series, I’m going to stay IRL as I explain where each individual OC within the Gyateara universe came from. If this is interesting to you, feel free to check below the break.

If you’d rather just skip ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one about my Glitches character Willow should be up in two weeks (sorry for the wait).

If I’m talking about Gyateara characters, I should probably talk about the one that first birthed the world:

Amara Yori

Amara was my first-ever D&D character. I had known of the game for ages since my father used to play it frequently (and apparently roped my mother into at least running the monsters so she’d be included; ignoring that she’d rather not be included XD).

I really got interested in D&D when I was a teen and saw the gorgeously stylized covers for AD&D ver 3.5. My father had passed away before officially introducing me to the game (although we did used to play Dungeon all the time, so that was a start...), and none of my friends were going to touch that “nerd culture” with a 10ft pole, so I simply admired the books, but never actually played. Then I went to college and managed to Nerd Out.

Hubby (then boyfriend) offered to help me build my first-ever character, but in 2004 the D&D 3.5 expansions were so massive I had far too many choices to choose from.

So Hubby had me go through some of his extra minis, and let me pick out one that I really liked. With his help, I ended up with the 2003 version of the Wood Elf Skirmisher.

Based solely on this mini, I started building Amara.

Hubby suggested that I try out the Scout class for my first one, since I couldn’t choose between a Rogue, Ranger, or Druid, and Scout is sort of in between at least the Rogue and Ranger classes. For whatever reason - I can’t remember it now - I also decided I wanted to play a half-elf.

Upon reading the generic backstory description the D&D books had for the Scout class, I figured my character needed some sort of Tragic BackstoryTM that would explain her scouting skills. Things like trap finding and dismantling, masterful rope use skills, hiding and tracking skills, and connection to animals.

I was in a big The Vision of Escaflowne kick at the time - which shows up in a couple other characters’ backstories - and was fascinated with the history between Van Fanel’s parents. Van’s human father Goau stumbled upon Varie, a Draconian woman, in the woods one day. Draconians have the ability to manifest feathered wings which allow them flight. It was rare to see a Draconian, and her beauty - with her wings shimmering in the moonlight as she waded in a small pool of water - mesmerized Goau. He instantly fell in love and brought Varie home to be his wife. The duo seemed to love each other deeply. Amara’s parents, on the other hand....

I’ll get into more when I break down their actual bios, but I took the idea of “Human stumbles upon exotic non-human in the woods and instantly marries her” and twisted it slightly. Amara’s mother was very much emotionally, and possibly even physically (I haven’t confirmed this yet), abused by Amara’s father. Amara, being a half-elf, also had to deal with abuse at the hands of many of her fellow clansmen - both the human and the elven clans; pretty much exclusively because she was a “half-breed” (Yes, I was really into InuYasha then too).

As I kept building Amara, I kept adding more and more tragedy to her backstory. I do enjoy what I created, but, especially after reading a lot of posts here on Tumblr, I’m afraid her history is nothing but a giant knotted ball of cliches and tropes. For now, though, I’m running with it. Perhaps I can figure out work-arounds later....

I never did get to play more than a session or two with Amara before the game disbanded (which seems to be a repeat thing with my gaming group), but she still lives on in my mind, and eventually in Gyateara.

Natalie

As I mentioned above, The Vision of Escaflowne very much inspired me while I was working on the earliest bits of Gyateara. Therefore, Natalie is your basic Isekai protagonist.

For those who don’t know the term (I didn’t know an official genre term existed until about a year ago), Isekai refers to a subgenre of fantasy/speculative fiction where the main character is abruptly teleported from their world to a new one; usually one with a fantasy setting.

It’s a massive subgenre and includes most of the fantasy animes I’ve watched:

InuYasha

The Vision of Escaflowne

Fushigi Yuugi

The Devil is a Part-Timer

The Rise of the Shield-hero

The Saga of Tanya the Evil

The Familiar of Zero

How to NOT Summon a Demon Lord

Sword Art Online (technically)

.Hack//Sign (technically)

Digimon (first season, specifically)

Psyren (manga)

The list can go on, but that’s not the point of this post. Getting back to the actual point, I clearly enjoyed this genre without even realizing there was a term for it, and created my own Isekai story. Natalie is from our world, but is abruptly teleported to Gyateara’s main Northern Isle, where she must save the country from being destroyed by a power-hungry, put painfully charismatic, villain.

I had taken elements from Kagome (InuYasha), Hitomi (The Vision of Escaflowne), Miaka (Fushigi Yuugi), and I think I had Ariel (The Little Mermaid) in there as well at one point. She was - and still kind of is - just “Generic Isekai Female Protagonist”, which is one of the main reasons the story she was in failed so soon into NaNoWriMo back in... 2014, I think. Almost a solid decade after I started dreaming up her Isekai story. She definitely needs to go back to the drawing board a bit to be properly fleshed out.

Connor

He was from the same story as Natalie. Connor was a denizen of Gyateara’s Northern Isles, and became Natalie’s traveling companion as he helped her try to find a way home. Ya know, that old Isekai chestnut. I even leaned heavily into the cliche and had the two of them fall in love throughout their journey. Which would lead to a third-act twist of “Okay, we can defeat the villain, but then what? Could they stay together? Would Natalie stay on Gyateara? Will Connor instead try to go home to Earth with her?” Real original. I know. Add in that Connor was a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of a character. Grab a snack, this is going to take a minute...

Connor’s traits included:

The basic backstory and drive of the player character in the video game Fable, in which his father was killed, his mother and sister tortured (and presumed dead, only to be proven still alive and captured), his home village burnt down, and he was taken in by the local guild so the guild master could train Connor to become the hero the GM believed Connor was prophesied to be.

The half-demon traits of InuYasha (InuYasha), which transformed him into a sort of were-cat. His mother, a full-demon, could become a 15ft (4.57m) tall panther with split tails. Connor’s half-demon heritage was hidden from him, and he only transformed under extreme moments of stress.

Yes. The “love interest is the only one who can snap the protag back from a monstrous rage” trope was heavily evident throughout the story.

His overall look was inspired by Link (Legend of Zelda video game franchise). His basic fighting style - swordsmanship and expert archery - was a sort of tag-teamed “thieving” from Link as well as Van (The Vision of Escaflowne).

A highly resistant, and begrudging submission to become the Hero of Prophecy lifted off of Tamahome (Fushigi Yuugi).

I know he was much more influenced by Van from Escaflowne when I was first making him. I even used Van as a reference guide when I tried to create character head shots of him. I just can’t recall now what else I swiped from that character.

I feel like there are also other male anime/video game protags I swiped traits from, but I can’t recall them anymore. Regardless, I threw them in a blender, and poured out the mixture that became Connor.

Jolene Crisslebalm

Ah, the character whose last name I always have to look up, because I can’t recall how I spelled it. Good starting point, right?

I am a very reserved person. In particular, a very sexually reserved person. But I do enjoy sex, and I love the act of flirting, and the “thrill of the chase” when it comes to dating, so a part of me always wonders what I would be like if I had let go of my reservations and just enjoyed the carnal pleasures of life.

So, two characters in particular - Willow (from Glitches) and Jolene - are my exploration of that Path Not Traveled.

A friend of mine was hosting a D&D campaign via Roll20.net, and wondered if I wanted in. I hadn’t been involved in a D&D game in a year or so at that point, and I’ve enjoyed playing a couple of one-offs with him DMing, so I leapt at the chance to join. I had almost always played a form of Rogue class (hence the internet persona) in previous D&D campaigns, so I decided to stay the course, but with a twist I hadn’t tried before.

I wanted Jolene to be a sort of reluctant adventurer, preferring instead to be a cat burgler, but I also wanted that sexual/sensual exploration of character. So, she was a traveling prostitute (not exactly legal without proper ties to a brothel; much like a Sex Trade Guild sort of thing), but she also used her “alone time with clients” to scope out the place to see if it’s worth robbing.

Fast forward about 3 years, and I end up watching the first episode of the Freeform Marvel series Cloak and Dagger... where I saw Tandy doing the same thing, but roofying her targets instead of sleeping with them first... Great minds, and all that?

Eh, Jolene figures “might as well make money off of them before coming back and robbing the rest... less to carry later...”

In the end, while Jolene had an.... interesting run... and one I actually did enjoy role playing, even if it did leave me a bit frustrated afterwards (a good frustrated?)... Jolene just didn’t fit the world the DM created, nor did she fit in quite as well as I would have hoped with the other players.

They were all AMAZING players, by the way. Some of the best role players I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and such fantastic writers as well. BTW, we wrote out everything in the Roll20 chat log instead of verbally playing or using video-chat. I must admit, I was quite envious of their skills. It was just a tighter knit group, and I wasn’t able to feel out their play-style well enough to continue with the group. Eventually they all had to go their separate ways anyway when their schedules no longer lined up.

Still, I LOVED Jolene, and she was the D&D character I had the joy of running the longest, so she NEEDED to live on. She did, in my first NaNoWriMo “win”. I managed to hit those 50,000 words, but I still had about 3/5ths of her story to write.

See, while coming up with Jolene’s jaded attitude towards love and her pull towards a more hedonistic lifestyle, I went with the good old cliche of Heartbreak Was The Culprit. (With so many cliches in my character builds, is it a wonder why I just stick with fanfiction... the characters are already created...)

Jolene had her heart broken five times between the ages of 13 and 21. She was the type who fell quick into love, and fell HARD into it, and always felt intensely betrayed by her lovers when they left her. To be fair... they did routinely leave her for a woman of better social standing, or - in her youth - someone more willing to put out, or just straight up abandon her without so much as a farewell note. Eventually, she gave up on trying to find love, and joined a brothel, and then the thieves guild, and then headed out on her own from there.

The DM thought it unlikely that she was a prostitute for the better part of 5 years without a single pregnancy, so he rolled for it, and Jolene had one miscarriage, one still born, and one healthy child she gave up for adoption. I was not expecting to include that in her backstory, but it actually worked fairly well.

And all of that was the subject of my NaNo project: Lost Loves and Paramours. Jolene’s full biography leading up to the campaign: every man she fell in love with, every person she slept with, the one client who tried to murder her to avoid a scandal of his lust getting the better of him, the pain of her miscarry, the devastation of her stillborn, the heart break of giving up her surviving child, the struggles against a stalker, and her over-all YOLO attitude.

(Bitmoji is a beautiful thing...)

Well, second long post of this series is now complete. Next week, I’ll talk about the IRL inspiration for my Glitches characters. Thank you so much for indulging me on these epic ramblings.

#writing #LycoRogue writing #OCs #Meet My OCs #character creation #IRL character inspiration #writing process #cliches #long post #Gyateara #Amara Yori #Jolene Crisslebalm #Natalie #Connor #series post #2 of 17?#LycoRogue original

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lycorogue · 5 years

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Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 3a – Glitches Originals)

Look at me, following my plan and actually having the next part of this series posted on a Sunday! Whoot!

As I have mentioned before, I've wanted to do this series since November, so I'm excited I'm able to actually follow through with it finally. If you're just getting into this series, the long-and-short of it is that I want to introduce you fine people with all of my main OCs. They will each get their own Sunday bio post to introduce them individually, but in the meantime, I wanted to give insight on how I came up with them.

In Part 1, I had given a broad overview of the whole Meet My OCs series, as well as some generic IRL background to the inspiration and creation of my two main worlds:

Gyateara

Glitches

In Part 2, I talked specifically about the IRL inspiration for my main Gyateara OCs:

Amara Yori

Natalie [Last Name TBD]

Connor [Last Name TBD]

Jolene Crisslebalm

Now, in this third part for the series, it's time to talk about my IRL inspiration and creation for my Glitches OCs. This list of characters is MUCH longer than what I have for Gyateara, so this may take a bit. In fact, there were so many characters - this post was 9 pages in Word - I had to split up this part into two more parts. So this first part (3a) focuses mostly on the Original Characters that are characters from the role play game X-Future. The next part (3b) - which will be published in a few minutes - will focus on the characters that started off as X-Men canonical characters, and how I reworked them into originals.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, feel free to keep reading below the break. If you'd rather just skip on ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one should be up next Sunday.

First, I should probably explain how characters are supposed to be formed in the game that birthed Glitches. As I mentioned in Part 1, Glitches started its life as an X-Men role play on a message board/internet forum in a Play-By-Post style. The role play game is called X-Future, and I loved the story we were telling so much that I wanted to re-tell it to the world. However, the more I build Glitches, and the more I try to make the story an original work, the more I realize that only a small portion of the characters and overall role played plot can truly transition over.

Regardless, the way characters are created for X-Future is as follows:

My husband has a lineage chart set up on the forum. There are two lists of available X-Men comic book canonical characters: list of usually male and usually female characters. I say “usually” because there are characters like Mystique, who is usually recognized as a female character, but is technically gender fluid, and has had long canonical runs as a male character.

The players get to choose ONE of the listed characters; therefore choosing either their character's father or mother. This allows the players to have a connection to at least one canonical character of their choice, and/or the potential for a power set they'd like to have for their character.

Hubby then rolls on the other chart to determine the other parent. Therefore, if a player chooses a female character for their parent, Hubby rolls on the male list to find the OC's father. There is also a “Sinister Shenanigans” option where the X-Men character Mr. Sinister created you as a clone of two mutants, in which case your “parents” could be both male or both female as well as the standard “a male and a female.” There is also a chance – again using Mystique as an example – for your character to have “same-sex” parents biologically, since Mystique could also be someone's “father.”

Once parentage is figured out – and Hubby posts the second biological parent on the boards – he then rolls on another chart to determine the character's power set. He does this because it keeps the players on their toes, evolution is weird, and real life is random, so why can't games be? Options he uses for a character's powers include: --> Character inherits powers from both parents in equal amounts --> Character inherits powers from both parents, but favors the father's powers with only hints of the mother's powers --> Character inherits powers from both parents, but favors the mother's powers with only hints of the father's powers --> Character inherits a variant of both parents' powers --> Character's powers are a mesh of both parents' powers (for instance, a fire manipulator and a rock manipulator could produce a lava manipulator) --> Character inherits father's powers --> Character inherits mother's powers --> Character inherits a variant of father's powers --> Character inherits a variant of mother's powers --> Character inherits neither parents' powers, and instead forms their own powers (I think that's all of the options he uses...)

Once Hubby figures out the mutation the character has, he posts it on the boards. After that, the player then gets (mostly) free rein to create their character. Some other restrictions include the starting age of the character being high-school-age unless special permission was given, the backstory of the character must not counter other character's backstories or the already established history of our Marvel continuity, the character has to be an Xavier Institute student or Brotherhood of Mutants member, and Hubby needs to double check character profiles for any potential issues before they can be posted. (It's rare that Hubby doesn't approve of the profile)

So, those are the basic 5-easy-steps to creating an X-Future character, which comes into play with 2 of the characters I'll introduce today. Speaking of, let’s get to them, huh?

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Chayse LeBeau [Last Name to be Changed]

Ironically, I'm going to start off with a character that isn't mine. Chayse is my husband's character, but he gave me full permission to use him in Glitches. Mostly because he trusts my treatment of his character – most of my Miraculous Ladybug readers will tell you I'm very good at keeping characters True-to-Canon – and because Hubby knows that I'll probably talk about nearly every single one of Chayse's lines and actions with him, just to make sure I'm keeping him in character.

Chayse, being my husband's character, was the first character ever made for X-Future. Hubby's favorite X-Men of all time is Remy “Gambit” LeBeau, so naturally Hubby chose him as Chayse's father. When Hubby rolled onto Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde as Chayse's mother, we had to do some quick continuity work to figure out HOW that relationship happened. We are HARD CORE Gambit/Rogue shippers. They are by FAR our OTP (with Shadowcat/Colossus as a close second). If Gambit was with anyone other than Rogue, we needed a reason for Rogue to not be in the picture; not a possibility at all. Hubby created an event called The Reaping where Professor Charles Xavier, Jean Grey, Magneto, Mastermind, and Rogue all die in battle. There may have been some other casualties, but those are the main ones I remember...

Anyway, once we realized Rogue had to be dead for Gambit to be with anyone else significantly enough to have a kid with them, we then went back to “X-Men: Evolution”; the show that inspired Hubby to create X-Future. In the TV series, Kitty and Rogue were besties, and so Hubby and I decided that Kitty and Gambit were comforting each other in their grief over losing Rogue. That grew into a tight friendship, and eventually a romance blossomed. The two got married, and Chayse was born.

Chayse is basically my husband without the anxiety and terrible knees. If Hubby could be as athletic and outgoing as he wished he could be, he'd be Chayse.

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Amelia “Lia” Mordeaux [Last Name Still Workshopping]

Lia was my first-ever character for X-Future. Since Rogue is clearly my favorite X-Men – I mean... check the handle and icon – I really wanted to chose her as my character's parent. However, after Hubby and I jointly determined that Rogue had been dead for nearly two decades, I struggled to figure out who else to choose. So many different power sets and great characters. However, in the end I ended up going with Amara “Magma” Aquilla. I am a bit of a fire freak – something that will come up later – so the idea of my character being able to manipulate magma seemed fun to try. In truth, though, the deciding factor – aside from how adorable Magma was in “X-Men: Evolution” - is the fact that her name is Amara.... like my Gyateara character; my oldest OC.

Rolling on the chart, Hubby landed on Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox. Based on the personality we saw in “X-Men: Evolution,” and ignoring that poor Jamie was only about 12 or 13 when depicted on the show, I lamented at how “lame” Lia's father was going to be. In the end, I did sprinkle in a touch of the badassness Jamie showcases in the comics, as well as whenever he's shown – usually as a villain *sigh* - in the cartoons. However, he's still LARGELY a nerd still for X-Future, and became a bit of a neurotic helicopter parent.

Lia ended up with her mother's powers exactly. The only difference is that instead of just a magma form, Lia encases herself within obsidian skin. I even designed her to look like Amara did in Evolution, with the straight brown hair and Brazilian skin. (It was easier for Evolution to just have Amara be Brazilian than trying to explain the existence of Neo Roma within the Brazilian rain forest so she could remain White with blonde hair and blue eyes) Lia being basically a carbon-copy of her mother – something I headcanon as Jamie's duplication DNA accidentally turning Amara's egg into a clone of her – meant my next struggle was trying to figure out why Lia was at the Xavier Institute. I didn't want her to have been raised there, but why couldn't Amara just train her daughter on how to control identical powers?

In the end, I decided that Amara has to go. Hubby and I came up with a mission where Amara went MIA. She is perceived dead, but isn't confirmed dead, along with Storm, who went missing on a similar mission a few years prior. Without his wife to help train their daughter, and having NO CLUE how to handle a 14yo blowing up his yard with geysers, Jamie sent Lia to the Institute, and promptly signed up as a faculty member so he could still be close to and keep an eye on his daughter: the last family he has left, and a reminder of his wife.

For Glitches, I did end up shifting Lia's race to Hawaiian (Polynesian? Should I specify?). Having her be part Native Hawaiian just felt more fitting with the lava-focused powers. Yes, there are volcanoes in Brazil, there is also one in Washington state. Still, you wouldn't necessarily equate Washington state with lava as much as you would equate lava with Hawaii.

Lia was SUPPOSED to be my naive rebel; a 14yo who was getting her first taste of freedom at the Institute. She was going to wear less-conservative outfits, be flirty, and maybe break a few rules: curfew, being in the guys' wing of the dorms, skipping a class or two, etc. She even started off like that... for about a game session or two. She instantly fell into her main personality though: reserved, shy, maternal, and unsure of herself. While I do love this character and who she is, she also wasn't who I initially wanted to play. Enter: Willow.

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Willow Driver

Originally, we had about a dozen players, which was fantastic. However, Hubby still wanted to “fill out” the school. He wanted a few NPC students the players could interact with when the other players weren't available. He had a small list of NPCs, some of which will make their way to Glitches as background characters. On this list was Willow. Hubby actually created her, designed her, and was all set to role play as her. Then we got to talking about how I loved Lia, but was a bit disappointed that she didn't turn out the character I was aiming for. Hubby knew that Willow was indeed much more like who I wanted to play, so he passed her over to me.

Soon enough, Willow went from an NPC I ran to my secondary character. Since she was the character I wanted to play the whole time, she quickly surpassed poor Lia as my preferred character. In fact, a lot of my “companion stories” that I have written for X-Future center around Willow. Specifically, Willow and my friend Ronoxym's character Devon. They have a.... complicated relationship. Willow is just a much more fun character to write. She's playful, manipulative, unsure, confident, loyal... she's just a walking ball of contradictions as she's trying to figure herself out.

If Chayse is who Hubby wishes he could be, then Willow is me with virtually no inhibitions. She's my playfulness, my confidence, my lust, my impulsiveness, my spontaneity, and the athletic prowess I wish I had.

In contrast, Lia is basically everything keeping me from being Willow: my caution, my fear of disappointing my parents (both the one who passed and the one who raised me), my maternal instincts, my reservations, my critical thinking, my constant knowledge of potential consequences, and my insecurity that I'm ever going to be the best version of myself.

There's one more side of me though. That's where Trish comes in.

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Patricia “Trish” Morrison

Trish did NOT turn out remotely close to who she was in my head. Heck, she even refused to be properly formed while I still was picturing her in her first incarnation. Trish truly did create herself.

Remember my friend Ronoxym's character Devon I mentioned a few paragraphs up? Well, he's the son of two Brotherhood of Mutants characters. In other words, he's the son of villains. He was orphaned as an infant, and when he was a teen at the Xavier Institute he ran into his father Pyro. The man suspected that Devon could be his long-lost son, and hinted that if Devon joined the Brotherhood then Pyro could help Devon figure out who he was. Devon eventually took the bait, and left to join the Brotherhood and discover who his parents were.

At the time, The Brotherhood was just made up of the Marvel canon characters; no one there for Ron to role play against aside from NPCs. I decided to create Trish so he would have a player character to role play off of. Originally, Trish was supposed to be a potential love interest for him.

Trish.... was not a fan. I actually had mental images of Trish gagging at the thought of her destined romance with Devon. Even when I tried picturing her flirting with Devon for the sole purpose of getting close enough to stab him or slit his throat: a sort of Black Widow character. She still gagged and REFUSED to let me have her show Devon anything other than disdain. He became her number 1 rival; her arch nemesis. She was actually in love with Pyro, and hated that Pyro's attention was now torn between her and his long-lost son. Her goal in life, aside from making Pyro fall in love with her; age be damned, was to murder Devon.

She then became more psychotic the more I wrote her. She has the power to create fire, and is completely fireproof herself. She loved playing with her fire, and became a pyrophile; getting highly aroused around flame. She had the stereotypical serial killer childhood of fulfilling her early bloodlust by torturing and killing animals. When she got caught by her twin sister, and her parents threatened to call the Mutant Police to collect her, Trish burnt everyone alive in their family home. She then lived on the streets, killing anyone who got in her way of survival. Eventually, she got taken in by The Brotherhood and Pyro, where her murderous tendencies were aimed at anti-mutant groups like The Purifiers.

If each of my main X-Future/Glitches characters (jointly named simply My Girls) is a part of my personality, then Trish is my anger, my love of fire, my dark desire to be an arson (ya know, if it didn't cause terrible destruction and harm), my ability to hold grudges, and my aggression. I wanted her to be fairly on-par with Azula from “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but with her manic end-game personality making more of an appearance. I wanted her to be like Minatsuki Takami from “Deadman Wonderland”, or Tanya Degurechaff from “The Saga of Tanya the Evil.” In other words: tiny and unassuming, but terrifying and intimidating if her true self is ever seen.

I don't know if I never played her correctly, or if Ron just couldn't picture a character I run as THAT intimidating, because Devon was always quite unfazed by Trish and her threats...

EDIT: Holy smokes! How did I completely forget that Trish has theme music!? The main reason Trish is yet ANOTHER fire user, when we already have so many in X-Future, is because of her theme song. See, I was fairly obsessed with Fall Out Boy’s song “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)” when it first came out. I would spend days just listening to it and “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons on repeat.

One day I was rocking out to MSKWYDITD for probably the 4th time in a row or something, and I lamented Lia being so mild mannered. I would have loved to have had a chaotic fire user that would follow the destructive high energy I felt whenever I heard that song. Someone who would as much fun as those women in the music video. I mean, just watch them. I wanted a character with their energy and vibe:

youtube

I wanted another fire user, and Devon had JUST defected to The Brotherhood on X-Future, so I figured it would be perfect to make that more chaotic fire user as a Brotherhood member. THAT was when I figured “She could be a good foil for Devon; two fire users, one more chaotic than the other”... and THAT was when Trish went “Fire yes; Devon fuck no!”

I haven’t been able to control her since...

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So, there you have it, the truly original characters that make up the core cast of Glitches. Next up, as in a few minutes, will be the adult cast of my story: the characters reworked from their X-Men canonical origins. Stay tuned!

#writing #LycoRogue writing #OCs #Meet My OCs #character creation #IRL character inspiration #writing process #long post #Glitches #Chayse #Lia #Willow Driver #Trish Morrison #series post #3 of ?#LycoRogue original

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lycorogue · 5 years

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Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 3b – Glitches Reworks)

Who’s ready for part two (er... of part 3...)?

If you’ve missed it, I’m doing a series to introduce everyone to my main OCs (and no, I’m TOOOOOTALLY not doing this to procrastinate on writing my fanfics... why do you ask?)

In Part 1, I introduced the series, what I wanted to do with it, and gave some insight on the real world inspiration for my two worlds:

Gyateara

Glitches

Then, in Part 2, I talked about the IRL inspiration for my Gyateara characters:

Amara Yori

Natalie

Connor

Jolene Crisslebalm

The first half of this third part of the series - Part 3a - I talked about how characters are created for the Play-by-Post RP X-Future; the game that birthed Glitches. I also talked about the inspiration for my main four truly original characters: my husband’s character Chayse, and My Girls: Lia, Willow, and Trish.

In this final part of the introduction series, I’m going to talk about the adult characters of Glitches, the X-Men/Marvel canonical characters they were derived from, and how I have started altering them to create original variants to use for Glitches.

If this sort of thing strikes your fancy, feel free to read about these characters below the break. If you’re more interested in the actual individual character bios, the first one will be up next Sunday. Catch ya then!

Marvel Canon Reworks:

The next series of characters were all originally canon characters for the X-Men comics. They are all significant for the X-Future characters, and therefore would need an original counterpart for Glitches. I have yet to figure out anyone’s last names....

Matteo

Emily

Ryder

Keahi

Cody

Ignatius “Iggy”

Ready to find out who they were originally?

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Matteo

In X-Future, after Xavier dies in The Reaping, Kitty (Pryde) LeBeau and James “Logan” Howlett take over as the headmistress and headmaster of the school. Wolverine has a strong presence in X-Future because of that, and also because of family created by some of the players. Now, I don't have the IP for any of Wolverine's children/grandchildren/clone's children... (it gets complicated...), but I like the idea of Wolverine being Kitty's foil. A sort of Magneto to Kitty's Professor X. So Wolvie needed an overhaul.

Matteo is half-Puerto Rican, half-African American. His Latino features are more dominant though. And, honestly, the only real reason I thought of including the half-African American part was because it was a suggestion of a friend. His character Lucas is the son of Wolverine's clone X-23. Back when I was first thinking of creating Glitches, this friend was very much involved in helping me figure out what parts of X-Future should make the cut. We jointly reworked Lucas slightly so that he is instead a kid whom Matteo rescued from government experimentation. Lucas was Black, and so my friend thought having Matteo be at least half-Black would help Lucas see a connection that would lead him to trust Matteo and bond with him. A sort of Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson sort of dynamic.

Said friend of mine sort of went radio-silent after moving a few states away, and so I no longer feel comfortable using Lucas in Glitches. Therefore, I'm not sure if I should just revert Matteo back to full Puerto Rican. It's still up in the air.

I needed him to have the feral personality and physical durability that Wolverine has, but he's now gruff and hardened less because of what had been done to him, but because his younger sister was killed in government experimentation. He is NOT a fan of humans and Glitches (my word for mutants) cohabiting. He no longer has the claws, but takes Logan's begrudging paternal personality and cranks it up a few notches.

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Emily

Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde, as mentioned above, is the headmistress of the Institute, and she's Chayse's very involved mother. I couldn't leave her out if Chayse was transitioning into Glitches. So, she became Emily. Since Chayse has both parents' powers in equal parts, it was a touch easier to manipulate both Shadowcat and Gambit so that Chayse still had the same power set, but the Glitches version of his parents SHOULD be different enough not not be blatant rip-offs.

I started off by giving Emily Gambit's powers, sorta. Instead of Gambit's ability to create kinetic energy, Emily can MANIPULATE kinetic energy. Not only can she build up or create kinetic energy out of potential, she can also instantly pull kinetic energy out of an object in order to drop it back into potential energy. This means, for instance, if she were to catch a ball, she wouldn't need to follow through with her arm; it moving with the kinetic energy transferred from the ball once it's stopped in her hand. Instead, her skin simply absorbs the kinetic energy and the ball stops instantly, as if it were gently lobbed over to her. Likewise, if she concentrates, she can make her skin impenetrable: instantly withdrawing the kinetic energy from things such as bullets, cars, blades, etc., before it can puncture or otherwise injure her skin. No skin injuries also tends to mean no internal injuries.

Of course, the main use of this kinetic manipulation is the way Gambit uses it: adding or building up kinetic energy in an object. This can be used to add force to an object, such as hitting harder with a bat or bo staff without added effort, jumping higher or running faster, or building up enough energy the object explodes. Emily and Chayse also figure out how to use the kinetic energy very similarly to The Flash from the DC comics. Namely, build up enough kinetic energy within their own cells that they vibrate fast enough to pass through other particles. This makes them intangible and capable of phasing through solid objects. It takes a LOT of practice to keep their feet particles on top of the ones that make up the floor/ground. Even more practice allows for “air steps” where they can actually climb the particles that make up the air itself. This brings things back full-circle to Kitty's phasing powers.

I have been so focused on Emily's backstory, ideals, and new powers, so I don't really have a mental image of her that is vastly different than Kitty Pryde's. I still need to work on that. The only real big thing is that Emily has eyes similar to Gambit: unnatural colored irises and sclera. Normally, Emily has the naturally occurring white sclera, and magenta irises. When she's using her powers, however, the magenta bleeds into her sclera. That's it. That's all the physical description I have thus far...

Personality wise, however, she is much more stern and focused than Kitty is shown in most canonical iterations.

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Ryder

Gambit is just as much of an involved parent as Kitty, so it's only natural that if Kitty has to become Emily, then Remy becomes Ryder. My biggest problem, though, was how to make a suave, Cajun, con-man with powers NOT feel like THE Cajun: Remy “Gambit” LeBeau himself. Granted, not having the ability to blow things up helps, but there's so much more to Gambit than just that.

I wanted to keep him suave, a reformed con-man, White with a non-American accent, and have a love of play cards. That's just TOO Gambit to not include. At the same time... it's SOOOOO Gambit to NOT be recognizable. So, I started off by changing the Cajun accent to one I find equally sexy: Australian. Next, Ryder is more a con-artist than a con-man. More of a manipulator than a thief. He still loves his cards, but he's more likely to play Three Card Monty with them than blow you up with them.

One of the side-effects to Gambit's kinetic powers is the “accidental telepathic manipulation.” He may not even realize he does this, but Gambit can mess with the kinetic energy WITHIN SOMEONE'S BRAIN! He can make certain parts of the brain fire off, making his target much more susceptible to believing his lies, manipulation, and over-all charm. Gambit also always has a kinetic shield around him that continuously shifts erratically. This makes it extremely difficult for telepaths to break through the kinetic field and attack Gambit's mind. Effectively making him highly resistant to telepathic attacks and/or manipulation/suggestion.

So, I figured I'd take this commonly overlooked part of Gambit's powers, and make it Ryder's main mutation. He has a “silver tongue” and has the telepathic ability of verbal suggestion, manipulation, and hypnosis.

Ryder looks like a normal human, albeit a gorgeous one. He has brunette hair instead of Gambit's usually auburn, and he has intense “baby blues” that helps him hold eye contact, which elevates his powers. I don't have much more by way of physical description.

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Keahi

On the one hand, Keahi is a major rework of her canon counterpart. In the comics, Amara “Magma” Aquilla is a blonde haired, blue eyed, White girl from the Roman-like society of Neo Roma. They wear togas still and everything. The Amara from X-Future is the version we see in “X-Men: Evolution” in which she's just a typical Brazilian girl of tan skin and brown hair and eyes. I shifted her again so that Keahi is Hawaiian. A bit of a change.

On the flip-side, you can only do so much with “woman who can manipulate tectonic plates and magma, can create fireballs, is immune to fire/lava/breathing in ash, and transforms into a humanoid walking ball of magma.” Lia has all of those powers, so her mother has to have them. Which means I can't really do much with Amara's powers to alter them for Keahi.

Since Keahi doesn't actually show up all that much in Glitches – ya know, since she's MIA – I didn't spend terribly too much time on her. I still need to sit down and figure her out a bit.

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Cody

Jamie “Multiple Man” Madrox is too much of a helicopter parent to not have him follow Lia over into the Glitches rework. The main reason he could be a helicopter parent to such an extreme is his ability to create duplicates. That way he can literally always be with Lia, except for when she needs privacy, such as when she's in the bathroom and/or changing.

In Glitches, Jamie is now Cody, a man who can still create clones of himself out of fresh drops of his own blood. Slightly different than Jamie's impact-created duplicates. The funny thing, though, is for someone whose powers requires bleeding, he's as Edge Lord as a middle-aged man with diabetes. Cody gets viciously protective of those he loves, so he can get some of that badassery his comic counterpart has, but... it's not wholly evident.

In order to use his power, I had Keahi design a special wedding band for her husband. It's similar to (Spoiler alert?) Annie's ring from “Attack on Titan.”

It has a spike hidden inside it that Cody can flick out to puncture or slash his skin whenever he needs blood in a hurry. Normally, he does keep a sleeve of sterilized sewing needles in his pocket, and pricks his fingers on those, but the wedding band is used in a pinch, and has helped him in the past.

Cody still needs some more work as well, but his build is mostly “generic over-protective dad.”

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Ignatius “Iggy”

Iggy started his life as St. John “Pyro” Allerdyce, aka: Devon's father. I was actually largely inspired to create Iggy after watching the anime “K.” Specifically, Iggy is largely designed after the Red King Suoh Mikoto. I mean, look at this guy!

(Sorry, I no longer have the artist credit after my computer crashed. If you know who put this together, please let me know.)

(Same deal; the file I had that listed where I found this fanart got corrupted when my computer crashed. Please let me know if you recognize the artist)

(There's just something about a fit man juuuuuuuust barely showing off his stomach that is just so yummy for me.)

Anyway... Throw in a little Billy Idol and flame-ombre hair, and you have the basic aesthetic for Iggy.

Iggy's personality is more manic than Pyro's. He can be calm and calculated, but also be enraged out of nowhere and go on a rampage; the same qualities his protégé Trish possesses. I wanted Iggy to have a “sexy British-derived accent” still, and with the red hair, I figured: go Irish. So Iggy is an Irish immigrant. The Brotherhood is now a street gang that Iggy turned into a terrorist group. So... again, semi-inspired by Suoh from “K.”

He still has the power to manipulate flame, without the ability to create it. However, there are so many fire manipulators/pyrokinetics throughout pop culture that I'm hoping Iggy doesn't feel like a Discount Bin Pyro.

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In the end, there's not much that I've really done with these character re-works yet, but you'll get to meet them further in later posts.

Until then, thank you for taking this time to see a broad look at my character creation process. If you have any notes on how I can make these characters more distinct from their canon counterparts, feel free to drop me a DM or something.

Thank you, and I’ll see you guys again next week for the first of my individual character profiles. I’m going to start with the “most vocal”: Willow.

#writing #LycoRogue writing #OCs #Meet My OCs #character creation #IRL character inspiration #writing process #long post #Glitches #Matteo #Emily #Ryder #Keahi #Cody #Iggy #series post #4 of 18?#LycoRogue original

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lycorogue · 5 years

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Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 1 - Creating Worlds)

Okay, so I wanted to do this for months now, but was always too lazy to just sit down and do it. Well, I’m feeling motivated now, so let’s give it a whirl.

I’d like to introduce each of you to my OCs with their own individual posts. You are more than welcome to AMA about them or send me asks requesting for a specific character to answer. I want YOU to know more about them, because that helps ME learn more about them. :D The thing, though, is I’d also like to let you guys know the IRL background for each character. I’d LOVE to let you guys in on the process of how I came up with these OCs in the first place. So I’m starting my Meet My OCs series with exactly that: a break-down on how I came up with them. I’ll be posting a new one every Sunday for the next few months. It became quite lengthy though, which is why I’m splitting them up into a mini-series. However, if you really don’t care, and wish to just jump to the info posts for the characters themselves, you can check out my first character intro: Willow Driver If you ARE interested in my character creation process, feel free to check below the break, and thank you for indulging me. :)

My main OCs come from one of two places, both of which includes role playing. I guess that means I can’t discover a character for a full-length story unless I’ve ran around in their skin for a few months...

For this first part of the series, I’m going to start large: introducing the main Inspiration Spring for my OCs and the worlds they live in.

Those two worlds/stories are:

1) Gyateara

2) Glitches

The second part of my series will talk more about the IRL origins for my Gyateara characters. And the third part will explain where my Glitches characters came from.

Then I’ll get into the actual character intros.

But first: the worlds!

Gyateara

The characters for Gyateara are (mostly) from D&D campaigns. This original world of mine (of which I’m still painfully building) is your classic High Fantasy/Tolkien-esque/D&D setting. However, Gyateara itself refers to the world a series of not-necessarily-interconnecting stories will take place on. There may even be multiple book series written within the overall Gyateara universe. Much like how Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind are all the Ender Series, meanwhile Ender’s Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the Giant are all the Shadow Series (following Bean), but they are both series within the overall Enderverse. Buuuuut, I’ll have to FINISH CREATING THE WORLD before I think of anything that in-depth.

My original inspiration for Gyateara was the Xbox game Fable, way back in 2005. I sort of took the world build around the country of Albion in that game, added in some Hyrule from the Legend of Zelda franchise, sprinkled in Feudal Japan as presented in the anime InuYasha, and finished off with a dash of Gaea from the anime The Vision of Escaflowne. Once I mixed that hodge-podge pot of environments and world-builds together, I poured it out into the half-baked cake that became The Northern Isles. This was the main setting for my failed first NaNoWriMo attempt: The Race for Destiny. (The story is so bad, you guys! TT^TT)

As years crawled along, I got introduced to the webcomic Order of the Stick (which is excellent and still going, btw). Strip #273 started a mini-series called The Crayons of Time, which told the world creation story. It also discussed the four main pantheons; which were typically the Main Four that D&D players use if they don’t want to put in the effort to create their own gods. The Northern Gods are the Norse pantheon, Eastern Gods are the Greek pantheon, Southern Gods are the Chinese Zodiac, and Western Gods are the ones created for D&D and presented in the Player’s Handbook. The gods battled each other frequently, and so they went to the four directions, promised not to really intervene with the other regions, and kind of ignored each other.

I LOVED this concept, and wove it into my world, where there are multiple pantheons, much like there was IRL, except, Gyateara’s gods are KNOWN to be real, but they don’t intervene outside their region of rule, so it’s rare for non-travelers to even know of the other gods/pantheons.

I’ll have to dedicate time to go more in-depth with Gyateara and it’s build in the future.

Glitches

While Gyateara refers to the world, and not the intended stories themselves, Glitches very much refers to one intended series/saga. I envision it as a large-cast project I’d love to one day create as a webcomic. Sadly, I can barely draw stick figures, and I have yet to accomplish the task of writing a comic script. I’ve written movie scripts before, but not comic scripts. I did debate waving the white flag and just going with my trusty skill as an amateur novelist, but Glitches just seems like such a visual story to me. Which is probably why I have multiple character images for Glitches, but not so much for my Gyateara characters.

Glitches actually originated as a message board play-by-post role play game.

Back in 2012, my husband and I rewatched the TV series X-Men: Evolution. Hubby loved how the show re-imagined a lot of the canonical X-Men characters, and decided he wanted to host a role play game using that universe. Hubby wondered what the Evolution characters would be like as adults in this universe. More importantly, he wondered what THEIR CHILDREN would be like. So he started up the game we titled X-Future.

In the RP, each player got to pick a parent off of a list Hubby provided and regularly updated. Then, because life is random, Hubby rolled on a chart to determine the second parent for the player’s character. Once that’s figured out, Hubby rolled on yet another chart to see what powers the character inherited. The player then had fairly free-rein to create from that moment on. Sadly, most of the parental pairings were suuuuuper random, and the players not THAT creative, and so we had a LOT of “one night stand souvenir” kids. Regardless, the actual character creations, development, and interactions were fairly good.

In fact, after a solid year or so of playing on X-Future, I realized I loved our overall story so much that I wanted more than just our players to experience it. At first, I attempted to just rewrite our game sessions as story chapters. It... got long and messy, especially when I tried to go back and re-organize the order of the posts. We... didn’t focus on continuity and timelines as much as we should have in those early sessions.... Nearly 70,000 words and 14 chapters in, and I had only recapped the first couple months of the game.

Perhaps someday I’ll attempt to continue (and complete) the project, but for right now it’s just too much for me to work on with everything else.

Eventually, while working on my rewrite project, I realized I wanted to polish things up, tweak others, and kind of just go down my own storytelling road. That’s when I decided I wanted to take some of the more prominent characters from X-Future and drop them in an original, non-X-Men-related, story.

For whatever reason, I pictured X-Future as being a sort of baby cyberpunk environment. Not as extreme as say Ghost in the Shell, or Blade Runner, or Johnny Mnemonic, or Æon Flux or anything like that. It’s more like the cusp of cyberpunk, like the world just as it’s transitioning into a cyberpunk one. Because of this, I thought that instead of “mutants”, my characters would be called “glitches.”

I talked a bit more about the world of Glitches in three posts back in November:

Generic History of the World

Explaining The GRID: Part 1

Explaining The GRID: Part 2

The Characters

Alright, now that you know a bit about the worlds and the IRL inspiration for them, how about the characters I’ll be introducing you to in this series?

From Gyateara:

Amara Yori

Jolene Crisslebalm

Natalie [last name TBD]

Connor [last name TBD]

From Glitches:

Willow Driver

Amelia “Lia” Mordeaux [last name not set]

Patricia “Trish” Morrison

Chayse LeBeau [last name TBD]

Matteo [last name TBD]

Emily [last name TBD]

Ryder [last name TBD]

Keahi [last name TBD]

Cody [last name TBD]

Ignatius “Iggy” [last name TBD]

I’d also like for you guys to meet Devon St. James from Glitches, but he’s actually my friend’s OC for X-Future, and I haven’t received permission to officially include him in Glitches yet. Likewise, I would LOOOOOOVE to include the characters Lucas and Lincoln from X-Future, but the player who created them specifically requested that he is the only one who writes them. So, sadly, they will not be making the transition into Glitches.

Also, all of those “Last name to be determined” for Glitches is because they all still have their Marvel Canon last names right now. I still have to tweak those.

Matteo, Emily, Ryder, Keahi, Cody, and Ignatius were all originally Marvel-owned X-Men canon characters that were parents and/or mentors for the characters within X-Future. While I reworked their looks, personalities, backstory, and even their powers a bit, I only focused on new first names. Eventually I’ll figure out their last names...

Chayse and Lia have their fathers’ last names, and their fathers are X-Men canon characters, and so I still have to tweak their last names as well.

As for the “Last name to be determined” for those two Gyateara characters? Well, they’re from “The Race for Destiny”. That failed NaNo project I talked about above. One of the failures was that I never really put in the effort to come up with last names for them... so I’ll need to work on that as well.

Phew... that... was a lot. Thank you so much for reading through it all!

Next up, further IRL creation stories for my Gyateara characters.

#writing #LycoRogue Writing #OCs #Meet My OCs #world creation #IRL inspiration #IRL creation #writing process #long post #Gyateara #Glitches #series post #1 of 17?#LycoRogue original

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