Just pretend there's a super clever title here

Cactus Jack

As a young man I sailed on the sea
Original poster
LURKER MEMBER
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Posting Speed
  1. One post per week
  2. Slow As Molasses
Writing Levels
  1. Douche
Preferred Character Gender
  1. No Preferences
Howdy y’all. Erstwhile RPer here, looking to get back in the game after a hiatus spent working on solo writing. I’ll be throwing in some premises and ideas here for your perusal, but if you’ve got a hankering for something else and you think I might dig it, by all means, hit me. There’s not much I’m not willing to try, and most of it is listed in my profile under the ‘genres you don’t like’ bit, so as long as you don’t hit me up with ‘Hey, let’s do an anime-style werewolf high school RP’, I’ll keep an open mind.

Some info on me and what I’m looking for, nicely minced into bite-sized bulletpoints for convenience…

-I don’t limit my writing to any specific genders or sexualities. I go with whatever seems to fit the RP premise, and whatever seems fun and interesting to write.

-I have no length requirements, since good writing sometimes demands concision—and good writing is pretty much all I ask for. I have a writing sample on my profile that you can check out to make sure I’m up to snuff as well. I won't take offense if you feel our writing styles don't align.

-If you’re after a rapid-fire RP with new posts every day, this ain’t where you’ll find it. Once a week or so is a solid pace for me, and sometimes it’ll run a little longer if my already busy life decides—as it does from time to time—to get even more hectic. Don’t worry, I won’t just stop posting and leave you hanging. If I lose interest in an RP or don’t have the time for it anymore, I’ll be upfront.

-If you like to strike up personal conversations about things unrelated to the RP, I’m cool with that. If you prefer to keep things private and just focus on the RP, I’m cool with that too. Pretty laissez-faire about that kind of thing.

-Romance is cool and I enjoy writing it, but it’s not the end-all-be-all and I don’t consider it mandatory in an RP. I don't RP sex, so if that's an integral part of an RP for you, it ain't meant to be, man.

That’s probably about it in terms of preferences. Now for some premises—I'll start with more general premises and then include one or two more specific plots underneath, but if you're not feeling the more specific ones, by all means, hit me up and we can brainstorm something based on the more general ones.

1. Space is the final frontier—and also the loneliest one. I’ve always felt like science fiction’s got a lot of potential for stories that are more in the slice-of-life vein, that aren’t about action and adventure and saving the universe. I’d like to use a science fiction setting far in the distant future, where humanity has spread throughout the cosmos and trillions upon trillions of people are spread out across the stars, to explore something a little quieter and more intimate. Maybe something focusing on two strangers who by happenstance find themselves intertwined in this big, lonesome universe, and how they affect and change one another, how they find their place in the world and in one another’s lives.

a. A merchant/smuggler/general wanderer's ship experiences a critical failure, forcing them to crash-land on a remote, sparsely-populated farming planet. As luck would have it, they wind up crashing their ship right into the garden/farm of a woman who herself immigrated to that lonesome little planet years previously. None too pleased at having her garden/farm turned into a crater but well aware that there isn't a spaceport or a ship repair shop for thousands of miles around, she gives the wayward off-worlder a place to stay while they work on their battered ship and help her rebuild her garden/farm. But she has a history of her own-- after all, nobody comes to a planet like this, desolate and far from the great cosmopolises of the galaxy, unless they've got something to hide.

b. Or, if we want to go with a different kind of 'lonely galaxy' vibe, we could do a story set in one of those great cosmopolises, a place where, between the tens of millions of people going about their lives, it's easy to fall through the cracks. Don't really have a premise in mind for this, but we could brainstorm something.

2. But hey, speaking of saving the universe, you know how so many science fiction and fantasy stories are about a central hero character, possibly foretold by prophecy and destiny, fighting to save the world? Those stories rarely seem to dig into what it feels like to be that hero when you’re not committing acts of badassery—the struggle to define who you are beneath the myths and the legends, to come to terms with the enormity of your responsibility, to keep from unraveling under the stress of it all. I’d like just that: an RP focusing on a character carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, and on the character who helps them carry that weight—maybe a lover, maybe a close friend, maybe a sibling. Could be fantasy, could be sci-fi—lots of options here.

a. When humanity, still in the infancy of its expansion into the stars, encountered the Lighthouses, it was a bombshell, a revelation-- the first sign that maybe, just maybe, we weren't alone in this great big universe. Our leaders and thinkers speculated that they were beacons set by unseen spacefarers, welcoming other civilizations to join them in the cosmos. They weren't. They were a warning-- and humanity's failure to heed that warning unleashed a terrible threat that had devoured entire species and cleansed entire planets. As humanity fights for its very survival, one human emerges as a hero, a legend, an object of veneration-- maybe they're some kind of prophesied hero, maybe a chance encounter imbues them with some special quality that makes them singular in the battle against extinction, maybe they're just a born leader. It's not a super unique plot, but the whole 'saving humanity and fighting the bad guys' angle isn't supposed to be the focus: the focus is on the relationship (platonic, romantic, whatever it may be) between the hero and a member of their team, somebody who understands them, with whom they can be vulnerable because they know that person will hold them together when they feel like falling apart.

3. Like I said, romance is fine and all, but I feel like there are other kinds of relationships that are just as interesting to explore in an RP. Lately I’ve had a hankering to write a story that focuses in part on the relationship between two siblings and how it changes and develops over the course of the story. Maybe they can’t stand each other but circumstances conspire to bring them together one way or another. Maybe they get along but they’ve got some unresolved issues simmering under the surface. Maybe they’ve just never really known one another, maybe things have kept them distant and virtually strangers to one another, and the events of the RP change that. This premise can work in a whole bunch of contexts—sci-fi, fantasy, adventure, slice-of-life, modern drama—so we’d have to do some brainstorming to come up with a plot to build around this premise. If you’ve got one that might work, let me know!

a. They've always had one another's backs. When they were kids, they stood up for one another in the schoolyard. When they were teenagers, they kept one another's secrets, no matter how scandalous. And when the war took their parents and drove them as refugees to live with a distant relative in America, they helped one another through those difficult early years living in a new country where they knew nobody and hardly spoke the language. But that was years ago. Now, they're well into adulthood, and they've got lives of their own. One has managed to assimilate perfectly and build a thriving career based on their passions (maybe a musician, or an artist), unsullied by the traumas of youth. But the other can't help being haunted even now by the things they saw-- by the war, by the loss of their parents, by memories of a home and a country where they felt they belonged. I was initially going to write this as a little novella of sorts before deciding I didn't have the time, so I have plenty of ideas for it, but I'm definitely eager to work with somebody else on it!

4. I’ve never really done historical fiction, but I’m interested in writing a story that explores the clandestine relationship between two women in the early 20th century. I think the secrecy and stigma surrounding such a relationship—how those things affect the relationship and the people in it, what brings them together, how they deal with the pressure of keeping things under wraps—would be really interesting to delve into, and would give the story a dimension it wouldn’t otherwise have if it were set in more modern times. Where it takes place is up in the air.

I’m going to leave it at that for now. If any of these premises interests you, shoot me a PM! If none of these premises interests you, shoot me a PM anyway, we can talk about lasagna or something.
 
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