weirdratwrites

[weirdratwrites]

I like the idea of a creepy cozy setting.

You live alone ("alone") in the woods near a rocky beach. The mornings are so foggy you can't see past your porch, the days are overcast enough you'd think it was twilight, and the nights are as clear as glass. There's storms and high winds and all sorts of completely normal weather phenomena, but your normal is abnormal compared to those things.

You maintain your lifestyle throughout the day, and prep for Winter, and perform the tasks of your Job. What's your Job? Something. You can't really remember. The tasks don't really clear things up. You adjust antenna in the woods, and flip switches, and filter data that collects all day and night. Not that the data's particularly telling, either. 1's and 0's, random coordinates, and soundwaves.

It earns you money, at least. Money that you mainly use to pay for extra supplies through your services app, but money all the same.

And, like clockwork, those supplies come in at the start of each week. It's one of the few ways of telling time that matters at this point. You drift from shipment to shipment in a daze, breaks in your otherwise monotonous routine only lasting in your memory long enough for the next one to come.

Your supplies come in on a boat piloted by a man that you'd forget as easily as what you had for dinner last week, if he weren't your only physical contact with the outside world.

He wears overalls and knee-high waders and a boonie hat. None of it matches and all of it is well-worn. He's always smoking on something - cigarettes, usually, but he'll show up in a better mood with a cigar on his lip - and humming a toon that sounds just familiar enough to be nostalgic but not nearly enough for you to look it up and relieve the itching in the back of your brain that that nostalgia gives you.

Your supplies are simple fair, usually: freeze-dried mashed potatoes, rice, cans of vegetables, cans of soup, the occasional hunk of meat kept in a cooler that you'll need to run to the fridge as soon as possible, and then whatever additions you ordered. You started eating less when you got here, afraid of running out before the next shipment in those early days, and set aside the fair you found most unappetizing as a last resort. You've built up a good stockpile, now, however long you've been here (five years, the cans of butter beans tell you when you count them one night).

Your home - because that's what it is by now - has become lived in after being abandoned for however long. It's been repaired and furnished anew, and it's your safe haven in these lonely woods.

There's a plush sofa that you had to lug from the dock by yourself, and a new kitchen set, and a TV with a Blu-Ray player and shelves worth of content. A fire crackles in the woodstove year-round, combating a chill that's present regardless of the season, and rugs cover the otherwise frigid hardwood floors. The house is creaky, still, and you'll sometimes think you hear footsteps from the other side of the house, but it's always just you there (except for that one time, but that was more your fault for leaving a window open than Mama Raccoon's for raiding your cabinets).

You can't stay in your isolated slice of paradise, though. You only have this place because of your work, and you must continue to work to keep it.

It's usually boring, thankfully. You wait for a ping on your computer. Then you either walk out to adjust the heading of one of the 12 antenna sitting in the woods, walk to a substation to reset a breaker, or fiddle with your data until the computer is content with it. The walk to any of the antenna or the substation is far enough to be obnoxious, but not so obnoxious to be worth ordering some kind of transport.

On rare occasions, while you're out and about, something... exciting will happen, and that excitement will be enough for a lifetime, and you'll stay locked in your home for a few days.

There's always a sense of being watched out here. Sometimes, it's bad enough for your hairs to stand on end and your hindbrain to take over, taking cover behind closed doors until it goes away.

There's instances where you see Things out there, a shadow ducking behind a tree or some Thing standing in the distance, unmoving as you approach.

You've even heard Things, Things rushing you from behind before disappearing without trace once they get right behind you, or cackling Things in the distance that slowly surround you.

You've only ever met a Thing once, though.

She didn't follow you inside after trying to get into your blindspot all day, and you didn't invite her in either. Instead, she just stood there, on the other side of your screen door, head ducked like she was guarding her throat.

You messaged your superior from your computer in the basement, and you received a reply almost instantly. "Lock the doors, don't let it inside. Help is on the way."

Hard to argue with that, and she was still standing there when you went back up. She didn't even fight it when you closed the door in her face, nor when you locked the doors. She just stared, unblinkingly

"Help" turned out to be a dozen men on a boat decked out in the kind of combat gear you'd normally only see breaking up a riot. A quick check with you, and a number of scans and injections you still don't know the purpose of, and they were off.

You were told to stay in place and keep things locked down, and you did just that. They disappeared into the woods for a week, your usual duties out there apparently being handled by them, and left on the boat with as much fanfare as the usual delivery. A part of you forget to note the extra man leaving with them...

#writing #worldbuilding #creepy cozy #blue color liminalism #lighthouse keeper vibe #coffinwood aesthetic - i think

[weirdratwrites]

[weirdratwrites]

MLP OC:

Name: Mourning Wood

Nick(s): Wood, Woodsy, Spooks

Species: Unicorn

Gender/Sexuality: Cis Male Pansexual

Cutie Mark: A Gnarled staff intersected by two bones in a 'x' shape. A whisp of green magic wraps down and around the whole of it, emanating from the staff's head.

Specialty: Necromancy: Spirit-Calling

Personality: Professional, Compassionate, Good-Humored.

Mourning Wood is a lanky, white unicorn with a long, brownish-yellow mane. He is the current High Necromancer of the Crown. The comedic aspects of his name don't escape him.

Explanation of Necromancy in Equestria under the cut, since I don't want him to come off as edgy. Part of it is likewise headcanon regarding general lore, or outright AU if something therein goes directly against canon.

General structure of above text inspired by @howler-the-rainwing.

My headcanon on necromancy in Equestria is largely influenced by an Anon Fic and it's response: Dear Princess Sunbutt, and To: Anon, From HRH Sunbutt. Specifically, the chapters where Anon is reacting to Pinkie summoning a demon to help her bake something, and Celestia explaining that, while heavily regulated, the act is legal so long as the person is properly licensed (as Pinkie is, in that fic).

That said: Necromancy is no more evil than any other form of magic in Equestria. It was much more commonly - and openly - practiced before Luna's Rebellion.

The current state of the profession is the result of dogmatic nobles taking advantage of Celestia's multi-decade grieving period following her sister's banishment to "rid the world" of one of the Traitor's favored school of magic. Necromancy is one of the most highly regulated forms of magic in Equestria, and the title of Necromancer is exceedingly rare as a result of the sheer amount of bureaucracy involved to attaining it.

High Necromancer of the Crown is a largely ceremonial title that was created by Celestia in conjunction with a number of still-active Necromancers at the time she came out of mourning to circumvent these edicts. She couldn't undermine the nobility so openly at the time of her return, and it wound up being good enough of a system that she honestly forgets about it for decades at a time between High Necromancers coming into their role.

Basically, there's only ever one officially recognized Necromancer at a time: The High Necromancer of the Crown, themself. To be recognized as a Necromancer, due to those edicts, one must be fully accredited in all three "Schools" of Necromancy: Flesh-Weaving, Bones-Singing, and Spirit-Calling.

High Necromancer of the Crown is the full, official title. Only a select few outside of the secret society built around this position are allowed to not use it in full. This is one of the more direct ways of fucking with the nobility that neutered the business of Necromancy, by making them say and acknowledge the favor this position traditionally has over them in the eyes of Celestia repeatedly in each conversation.

Anyone not accredited in all three is free of the bureaucracy associated with the profession. However, a lack of Necromancers would mean that the resources necessary for these fields to be taught would disappear due to a "lack of interest", so one needs to be active at all times.

The Schools themselves are used in a number of useful professions (especially those associated with healing the body and mind):

Flesh-Weaving is used to mend wounds, perform surgeries, and put corpses into presentable condition in the case of a truly traumatic death. The "traditional" view of this school, in popular media, would be in reanimating the dead and creating horrors like Frankenstein's Monster.

Bone-Singing is used to mend broken bones and is part of lessons in golemancy, as used in certain mines and quarries whose conditions are too dangerous for ponies to mine themselves. The traditional view of this school, in popular media, would be in reanimating the long-dead, such as skeletons.

Spirit-Calling is used to help with mental illnesses, grief counselling, and in cleansing places of high spiritual activity or helping the long-departed in moving on to the afterlife. The traditional view of this school, in popular media, would be in calling ghosts to do one's bidding.

Across Equestria, under-accredited non-Necromancers serve as healers, priests, detectives, and coroners. These are the foot soldiers of the Crown, doing their ancient duties in an unseen and un-appreciated manner.

Instances do occur where someone among their number is either incapable of doing their duty or simply not present to do so. In those instances, the High Necromancer of the Crown will travel to undertake their official tasks themself. This is incredibly rare.

In the meantime, the High Necromancer of the Crown has traditionally taken on a more common job between such tasks. High Necromancer Mourning Wood acts as a grief counsellor, High Necromancer High Spirit was - and still is - a pediatric surgeon, and High Necromancer Marked Progress was a detective for Manehatten's Police Force.

High Necromancer Mourning Wood is actually an interesting case, as he wasn't read in on the details, and accidentally provided High Necromancer High Spirit with an early retirement from her position. She ceded the title at the age of 45, rather than the traditional range of 85-90. She still maintains contact with Mourning Wood to help him handle the details of his new job.

#Mourning Wood #mlp fim #mlp g4 #mlp oc #oc

[weirdratwrites]

Elf sexual dimorphism, but, like, the men are masterclass weightlifters, and the women are all amazonian goddesses.

They're all still considered beautiful/handsome. It's just half the species looks like GoW Thor, and the other half looks like Rhea Ripley.

#worldbuilding #fantasy #elves

[weirdratwrites]

God, but don't I just love massive vehicles that can serve as a mobile base/home for their crew.

Just… the idea of wandering aimlessly over the surface of some alien world in a truly massive mobile mining platform. A crew of 16 resides in your amalgamation of a Euclid R100 and a soviet Kharkovhanka. You and three others serve as a bridge crew, piloting, scanning, maintaining comms, and navigating. The rest sit on their asses until a new deposit comes up, then they get out in 10-feet-tall exo-suits equipped to tear through the earth and stone of this world.

The bridge itself isn't the most spacious you've seen - more like a set of four desks built into the hull, with enough room to walk between them - and really, the only reason anyone not on duty at one of those stations winds up in there is the external hatch that leads to the balcony wrapping around the front of the landship. Best view on the planet, right there.

A door at the back of the cockpit leads to the main sanctuary for crew. Well-worn diner-style booths line one wall and sleeping alcoves/bunks line the other. The back and some of the middle is taken up by a kitchenette that provides just a bit of a taste of home. The front and middle is taken by an entertainment system that's seen contiguous use since the start of the mission.

A door at the back of that cabin leads to a hanging balcony inside the docking bay/engine room. There's twelve suits in there, and not a week goes by where some sort of malfunction or disability doesn't rock the work crew. Number 3's been having issues with the actuators in its left arm for a month, and Number 8 was leaking power through a faulty coupling until early that week. The engine is a delightfully, near-silent hum that only occasionally trades places with a band of baboons playing 50 steel drums...

Finally, at the very rear of the vehicle, and separated by a coupling that drags the facility along at a healthy 20 mph, is a massive foundry and storage system. Hunks of ore go in, 4"x4"x8' billets come out. You're currently only at a third of total capacity, but you'll hopefully be at capacity in time to return yourself, rather than have an automated system do so, or - worse - another crew relieve you. It'd be a shame to put in all the work you've already done, only to have someone else enjoy the downtime at the end of the shift...

#writing #worldbuilding #landships #sci-fi #blue-collar futurism #icebreaker-core

[weirdratwrites]

[weirdratwrites]

[weirdratwrites]

Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:

In general, I think "Is X out-of-character?" is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.

A better question, I believe, is "What would it take for Character to do X?" What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT'S where a potentially interesting story lies.

In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from "What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?" As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you've got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.

[weirdratwrites]

Need more dinosaurs in media.

In fact, if your fantasy setting doesn't include velociraptors as common livestock and triceratops as living excavation equipment, I'd go so far as to call you a coward. If some rich old dude hasn't pulled a Jurassic Park in your sci-fi universe, you're a loser. Your slice-of-life, largely non-serialized kid show should have a t-rex (lookin at you gumball, king of kings), dweeb.

Gimme big lizards!

#dinosaur #worldbuilding #fantasy #the amazing world of gumball

[weirdratwrites]

Character Ideas: Guy names Randy Ballsach (ball-sosh) whose only purpose is to get pissed when people pronounce it balls-ache.

#character idea

[weirdratwrites]

"Gimme that fuckin' microphone! We live? Yeah? Good!

Alright chucklefucks, I've lived 23 years in this shithole of a city! 23 anassuming years as some shmuck! Not a single second of inclination to be some freak in a cape and cowl...

And I work three back-breaking 16-hour shifts a week to get four days off! This is the second day in a row you unruly motherfuckers have decided to interrupt my errands!

So, listen up! I'm going to the shady-side Wahlburge tomorrow at around noon. If any of you degenerate fucks so much as thinks about getting between me an' my Wahlburger, I'm crippling a bitch! Get me?

And any shady government agencies or amoral corporations thinkibg about setting up shop here? Go to Pittsburgh. Cuz I swear to all that is holy, if you assholes drop a rogue's gallery on my lap like the bat or flash or fucking big blue got? I'll hunt you and your families down in your homes!

And don't give me some stupid fucking name, either! I'll get back to you after I workshop something!"

#dc universe #dcu #dc oc #creative writing #snippet

[weirdratwrites]

Thinking about my OCs I wrote a few years ago for an original-flavor Capes and Cowls setting.

Steel City was a more industrialized, somewhat generic version of Pittsburgh. Like the infrastructure of a steel mill had escaped containment and turned a large chunk of the city into industrial playground equipment. There were still Projects-style neighborhoods and skyscraper commercial districts and even a more affluent neighborhood centered around the local equivalent to Troy Hill, but most of the action was focused on the industrialized sections.

This was the home of the local equivalent of Batman - The Hound. Except I'd envisioned him as being more... magically inclined(?)... as a way to bridge the gap between his usual street-level escapades and the End of The World tom-fuckery of the Justice League equivalent - A way to explain his boxing with Atlas, Chieftess, and The Subterranean (local equivalents to Superman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman).

Then, a few years into The Hound's storyline, I imagined a gang of teenage villains. The Ravager would be the start, a werewolf equivalent to The Cheetah. And she'd recruit classmates of hers in high school - a stretchy jester themed sociopath called Punchline and an amoral inventor called Forge. Ravager would be the one to push the group further into violence, slowly losing herself to The Beast.

Finally, the idea came for a sort of Nara expy called Penumbra. He was a few years younger than the rest. Say... a 7th or 8th grader compared to their 10th or 11th. The younger brother to a sort of Robin equivalent, who was unknowingly friends with The Crew's civilian identiies. He'd get his powers, probably magical, and start doing delinquent shit. Namely: graffiti. This would get the attention of The Hound and The Crew after footage of him stopping a security guard with his shadow would surface.

(As an aside, I imagined his shadow as being more substantial. Like, the whole "interlacing shadows for paralysis and possession" thing would be true, but he could also use it like a tentacle and cover his body in it like a suit, with a generic hoodie-sweats combo overtop.)

I imagined The Crew using their age to manipulate Penumbra, with Ravager slowly grooming him until he's 16, where she leaves him with their child. Like, "cool, rebellious teenagers influencing a pre-teen/tween". Then, by the time he's realized how deep he's in, he thinks he's too far down the rabbit hole to get out without either a prison sentence or a dangerous fight against people who largely know his capabilities.

Of course, he takes having a kid more seriously than Ravager does and beggars out after one last job, with the crew... radicalizing(?) after his departure and eventually splitting up to be their own Rogues. Penumbra being how they manage to avoid too much bloodshed for years - and never taking a life himself - by paralyzing everyone in a bank or at a museum.

The main section of the story would focus on Ravager and Penumbra's teenage daughter, recruited by the current Hound (Penumbra's sister), and Penumbra trying to stay out of the Cape scene while also teaching his daughter the tricks he picked up as a villain, and has since developed in case Ravager comes by to stir shit.

Real "my dad can't be a villain! He's too boring!" vibes.

#tw: grooming #creative writing #capes and cowls #capepunk #sidekick protagonist #villain origin story #villain protagonist #OC focus #OC

[weirdratwrites]

Trapped in a limbo where an old idea and a new one are struggling for dominance...

Should my RWBY OC be a wire-wielding spider faunus that needs to milk his venom every morning to avoid sinus headaches? Whose story is fundamentally about self-acceptance and deprogramming from self-hating ideologies?

Or should he be a Not!Mage orphan of a Sypha/Trevor/Alucard-expy throuple? Who uses Dust to pull off Sypha-like Not!Magic, carries the Mourning Star and Crissaegrim as back-ups, and is the epitome of "ooo, he looks so polite! Shame about the potty mouth..."

Like, the obvious answer is both. But I'm working on an AU where the coasts - and a couple dozen miles inland - of the... I keep calling them Grimmlands(?)... the continent Salem's fortress is at... has settlements dotting them.

All of those settlements are named after horror locations, and there's a much more active conflict in the shadows between Salem- and Grimm-worshipping cultists battle an old order of allies of Ozpin.

The settlements more readily controlled by either are named based on traditionally good/evil locations - i.e., Salem controls Innsmouth, and Ozpin controls Arkham - while those much more in flux are based on locations from slasher fics - like Haddonfield, Springwood, and Derry.

Maybe not Derry, actually...

#writing #rwby #rwby oc #rwby faunus #netflix castlevania #sypha/trevor/alucard #sypha/trevor/alucard throuple

[weirdratwrites]

Thinkin' about RWBY OC's.

To begin, I feel like the continent that the Grimm Lands are on is lacking settlement. Ain't no way there wouldn't at least be a few ports on the coast, both so Salem can access the outside world, so criminals can have an extra place to hide, and so there's be somewhere for cargo ships to layover.

Name all them bitches after horror movie locations. I'm talkin' Arkham, Haddonfield, and Innsmouth. Have 'em range from a couple of shacks around a lighthouse to full on Yarnham.

Put cults to Salem in a couple of the bigger, more well-defended ones.

The Grimmlands are so dangerous, and the reputation of the average citizen so low, that everything not grown or manufactured locally costs an arm and a leg. Everything's super simple and rugged as a result.

No gunlances or pneumatic sniper-daggers here. Just really good, single purpose weapons - maybe a special feature. Really competent rifles and pistols and gravity hammers.

All the vehicles are basically roll-cages with off-road tires and dust-powered engines. Maybe put a manually-aimed and fired gun turret in the bed. Like an extra low-budget technical.

"Cool" and original outfits are rare. There's, like, six clothing companies on the entire continent, and their styles haven't updated in decades. Good work clothes, though.

Oh! And there's a Romani-inspired subculture warring in the dark between people working to supply Salem for a handsome reward and old allies of Ozma. Qrow and Raven are very familiar with them from back in the day.

Then, take a kid working with the militia of one of those "couple of shacks and a lighthouse" settlements, and drop him in Beacon. Jaune falls into the Ever After on the way to Vale, and Weiss ends up on NPR (PRWN?). Total culture shock.

#oc #rwby #rwby oc #horror-inspired #cthulhu mythos

[weirdratwrites]

There’s something to be said about secret cabals of scientists doing morally bankrupt experiments - nominally, for the sake of a better society. Some really cool visuals to be had there, especially if the experiments are put to work within the compound itself. Inspired by this Tweet here.

Like, imagine a hundred children are kidnapped because they show psionic capabilities. 10% are outright dead. 30% are now vegetables. 20% are paralyzed from the neck down. 20% can, like, guess what card you’re holding and throw around rubber balls and shit. 15% are basically super spies because of how much more advanced from the previous tier they are. And the final 5% are basically Lucy from, like, halfway through that movie where she can shrug off bullets, make shit float, change her hair color and facial features, and interface with tech - but isn’t so powerful she’s a living god.

And those five children are, like, floating around acting as receptionists. Or maybe they’re adults now and called by their number or designations.

Shits’ cool to think about, if more than a little fucked up.

#writing #writing prompt #worldbuilding #psioinics #unethical experiments

[weirdratwrites]

As it turned out, having a resting bitch face and learning how to drain the energy out of a room after being emotionally abused your entire childhood were the two key factors in being an effective interspecies bouncer.

There's just something about moving around with a certain amount of barely-disguised aggression and stonewalling the clientele that gets on your nerves that makes the generally skittish residents of the wider galaxy chill the fuck out.

#worldbuilding #writing prompt #scifi #hfy

[weirdratwrites]

Korean Rock Cont.

As a disclaimer, I don't know Korean. I don't know much about Korea. I'm not some Koreaboo who's thirsting for KDA or BTS. My highest level of interaction with Korean is workes like Train to Busan 1(/2), #Alive, and All of Us Are Dead... And judicious googling.

Name:

Far as I can tell, name meanings don't much matter in Black Lagoon. Okajima Rokuro doesn't refer to some hidden depths. It's just a reasonably common name that isn't, like, the Japanese equivalent of Tom, Dick, or Harry.

That said, Okajima can be read as Island Mountain. I'm going with Choi (which apparently means something about owning land near mountains), but I could also go with Jeup, which is apparently a name in NK referring to Koreans that marry Japanese (and could be used to explain away Rock knowing Japanese and knowing a decent amount about the Yakuza).

Rather than trying to learn what each of the Hanja characters means and trying to find a really meaningful name that works to mean Green Son, like Rokuro does, I'm going to be lazy and use a popular name from the 70's, and give Rock two brothers to use the Generational Name aspect of Korean conventions. Specifically, Rock's name is now Sung-Hoon, his older brother is Sang-Hoon, and he has a younger brother named Ji-Hoon.

And, since his name's not Rokuro, so Revy can't shorten it to Rock, and I'm not one to keep details the same between AUs when it doesn't make sense, his new nickname's Koi. Because he bites his tongue when introducing himself, and this way people can make jokes about shooting fish in a barrel and I can allude to the Dragon to Koi pipeline in mythology.

Family & History:

Choi Sung-Hoon is born in August 1970 in Busan. His grandfather tells him war stories, and his uncle and grandfather tell him exaggerated stories about being police officers.

His older brother goes to join the police like his uncle and grandfather. Koi follows his father into business. His younger brother stays with the military after his required service is up.

He grows up idolizing the "action-packed" lives his extended family leads, but he's not quite willing to put himself into that kind of situation without it being out of his control. Because of this, he winds up feeling jealous of his brothers and develops adrenaline-junky habits.

The most exciting time of his life - before joining Lagoon Company - is serving as a border guard during his required service. He even got to be involved in a lowkey border dispute - arguably an international incident that threatened to restart conflicts - during a defection. During this, he sees that he wings one of the enemy, and presumes it leads to the other man's death. He's correct.

It's one of the moments he relies on to keep sane during the drudgery of office work. It's one of his proudest memories.

Then, in 1995, while working for either Hanjin, HMM, or - for some reason - still Asahi, the events of Black Lagoon begin.

Guns and Excitement:

Koi's a bit of a daydreamer when he doesn't have something to focus on. He's also a big fan of Westerns, Noire, and Buddy Cop films. He craves but is terrified of the excitement in his daily life. One of the reasons he takes on some of the more... hasty or idiotic actions in his life is to lowkey chase the thrills he sees Revy regularly take part in.

One of the most apparent representations of this particular interest is his mild obsession with the primary firearm of the Korean police force at the time, the S&W Model 19. He even buys one in an omake-style "after credits scene" for the arc Calm Down, Two Men, where Revy walks in on him posing with it.

Revy showing him the finer points of gunslinging is a consistent aspect of background action. It's a source of noodle incidents and a diegetic explanation for why Rock is able to shoot semi-decently when it finally comes up, and why he's able to keep his cool more and more as the series progresses.

Like Fish Shooting Out of a Barrel:

As to when Rock is shown actively participating in the action... I'm reticent to provide a fine point on this. I think there are a number of good moments that could be used for the overall timeline we're presented with.

Personally, though, I might go with the Dance of Death Arc, to give weight to the people around Koi's feelings that he's being corrupted by his stay in Roanapur. Or maybe Fujiyama Gangsta Paradise, if Koi's still contracted for that job.

It could work for Wire Red Wild Card, too. Have him give the finishing blow to one of the brothers.

whatever the case, I think it's important to show his competence with firearms in this AU. Even if it's only him being shown to be doing maintenance on the various, more generic weapons available to Lagoon company. Even if it's as a final act for the series...

#black lagoon #au #rokuro okajima #rebecca lee #black lagoon rock #black lagoon revy #korean #korean names