Bonus post of the week: "Open source" ideas to share
I have a lot of ideas. They come relatively unbidden and linger for a time. I flesh out ideas and concepts in, but eventually I'll forget about them and never use them.
I've decided this should change, especially as some of them are quite good!
And while they're good ideas, some of them I have no intention of ever using. Instead, I'm going to start writing them down and post them here, giving all of you permission to take them and use them as your own if you're inspired by them.
Today, for our first instalment, we have two ideas. One's a romance story and another is a character concept. Both of them are based off song lyrics I've heard while on the bus. This is unsurprisingly one of the best places for me to daydream. :p
Thirsty Merc - Summertime
Take me back to the sweet times
Everything is gonna be alright
And even if I have to wait til next year
All I know is that I'll meet you there
A man lies in the grass, dozing in the sun. A cool breeze brushes over his cheek, caressing his face, and he smiles without opening his eyes. He enjoys the gentle caress of his lover, bathed in her warm embrace, and allows her to lull him to sleep.
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One hot summer, a man falls in love with a woman unlike any other he has met before. She is as graceful and fickle as a warm, wafting breeze, and as passionate and hot as the summer sun.
She is, he soon discovers, the elemental personification of summer. Her presence and attitude on the physical plane is mirrored by the passing of the day and seasons. On hot, shining days she is in her element, and it is those times when their passion and lust burns hottest. At night she fades, but her presence is still reflected by the light of the moon. She changes, becoming almost silvery and insubstantial, and gentle and loving.
When the days are overcast, or hot or humid, she becomes lethargic and moody, almost as if sick. But when the rains do come, she laughs and dances among them, celebrating the release and respite.
As the seasons slowly change to autumn, her effect and presence on the material plane slowly fades, growing more ghostly and transparent until she can no longer manifest in physical form. Then, the two lovers must reluctantly be separated until the next year. The man eagerly waits as the days grow hotter, watching her slowly grow stronger and stronger until they can be fully reunited again.
But how long can such a relationship last? Can a man live his life only seeing the woman he loves for three months a year? How long can a mortal keep the Elemental of Sumer enamored? Their passion burns hot and bright, but eventually a choice will have to be made and sometimes it is the brightest lights that burn the shortest...
Personally, I think that idea has some great potential, but romance isn't really my forte (though I have started a Dwarf romance in another story I'm writing... I think. It's complicated. :D) so I'm more than willing to pass this one on to someone else who can do it justice. My only request is that if you do pick it up that you give it a really terrible cheesy title. :D I've been trying to figure out some on my own, but all I've been able to come up with so far is Summer Loving, Heat of Passion or The Season of Love, which are all delighfully groan-worthy. :p
Second up and not so great is a basic character concept. I'm not sure it's useable, but I wanted to put it out there anyway to show everyone.
This one's pretty obvious. We have a villain capable of both shapeshifting *and* limited reality-altering capabilities. Also they're armed with a whip, I guess? Balls if I know. :D
What makes this one interesting though is that they don't merely change the past, they somehow *trick* it, and can only *bend* the truth. This presents interesting possibilities. Do they have a limited time before reality 'catches on' and 'undoes' the changes? Of course, it wouldn't be able to completely revert back, otherwise the villain would also be set back to where they started and it would be a useless power.
Potential example: Our villain wants to gain access to a prison. They use their power to alter reality slightly. 'What are you doing here?' The guard asks when they're found. 'I belong here,' they say, and presto! it's true. Kind of. It's *technically* true, but not quite the way It's meant to be taken. (I'm using gender neutral terms for the character deliberately here, as I don't want to suggest a gender for this imaginary villain. On a side note, a whip would suggest a feminine character. Why is that? Has anyone seen any masculine characters with whips as weapons? Whatshisface with his chain whip (Ghost Rider? I don't know his name) might count, but then again chains are very masculine, and would it really qualify as a whip in the traditional sense? Anyway, I digress. Moving on.)
So... There's not really a lot I've done with this one. Partially because it doesn't really inspire me to many situations where it could be used, and also because, limited as I've made it, it still seems overly powerful. As DRN007 has pointed out, I prefer to create characters with more 'subtle' powers. The idea of characters with reality-altering powers, telepaths that can lift massive items, or manipulate things at a molecular level, or infinite regenerating powers don't appeal to me at all, as there's no challenge that can really beat them. In a slightly unfair comparison you may note all of those examples can apply to X-Men characters, who I think are particularly guilty of being over powered, which is probably why I don't really enjoy them all that much. That's aside from my general dislike of a number of cartooning trends that really turns me off comics in general, and is starting to turn me off video games, too... But that's a rant for another day.
Suffice to say I've done what I want with this character, and while a curiosity, I'm not sure I can put enough meat on its bones to make it worthwhile, and so I turn it into the public domain. If you like it, go for it! Take it! Make it yours!
Please, reblog this post and spread the word around. I'd love to see someone take these ideas and make something great with them!
As per creative commons licencing, the ideas contained within this post are licenced BY - avaliable to take, use and change as you like, as long as you cite this blog as your inspiration. The full licence can be viewed here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
