Suggestions Thread

[lunasmeow]

It's basically in the title.

Have an idea for a story that you think is a good one, but you know you'll never write? Feel free to post it here and it may inspire someone! Simple enough, yeah?

Just remember, you only INSPIRED the story, you're not the author or commissioning it, so it'll go the way the author writes it, not the way YOU might want it to.

Authors, if you do get inspired by a story idea and decide to write something, link it to the thread here please!

I'll start:

So, there have been a ton of Mind Control University stories. But this is an idea that hit me recently. Someone who does not start out wanting to mind control everyone. I've seen something like this, but it's usually someone who only "accidentally" does it, a "fake" innocence. No... I'm thinking corruption. A slow descent into depravity. (Corruption is one of my fetishes lol.)

So here we have a young college student. Someone going into the medical field to help people. They plan to work on things like depression, anxiety, and so on yeah?

Well, they're not one of those who avoids medication as a tool, no, they believe in using medication with therapy and such. Well, how does Mesmerra see medication that forcibly stops the brain from keeping you in a depressed or anxious state?

Sure, we look at it and say "the brain is malfunctioning, we're just restoring normal function because this person isn't just temporarily depressed, something is physically wrong with their brain, chemicals causing depression/anxiety/etc are being released all the time instead of just when they should be. We're helping, not controlling...

But Mesmerra? She only sees that it is a forced change from the natural (albeit flawed) state to a state you are choosing. You are, artificially, forcing the other person's mind to alter itself to what you believe to be a "better" composition/state/whatever term you want to call it. That is, definitionally, mind control. Ethical mind control to be sure... but it still is mind control, even if we don't typically think of it that way, and thus, it is in Mesmerra's wheelhouse. Perhaps this student is one of those youth geniuses who discovers, even as just a high-school student, some crazy new technique or something that alters the way these things are done world-wide. In some way, they have now fundamentally altered how "mind control" (as Mesmerra sees it, "medicine" and/or "therapy" as we would see it) is done on their home world.

So, this person upon time to go to college, gets an invite to Mesmerra's school. The invite makes it sound innocent. A school focused on studying the mind, cutting edge technology, completely willing test subjects for testing revolutionary techniques, both medical and therapeutic... The character is honestly innocent in the sense of not wanting to control others. At least... that's how it starts.

But then they join the school, and only once they arrive do they realize the truth of the situation. Okay, they decide, fine. This horror exists. But hey, I can learn and use this stuff for good. I don't have to be evil like the rest of these people! And so they do! They are the literal "good guy with a gun" - at least at first they are.

But you see, Mesmerra's school isn't a "neutral" place where they could be that and stay that. No. Mesmerra's school, as we all know, is a PVP zone. They will have to defend themselves eventually, and that will mean needing to collect people even just so they're not outnumbered. And that's how it starts. First they're learning so they can use the tech/magic/etc for good - then they have to defend themselves, so they decide to only catch the "worst" people and master them, make them good people, then eventually...

Power corrupts.

(I don't believe that actually, I think rather that power reveals but it works here.)

For even more depth and details on the premise, see this link where I talk about it with Gemini.

 

[Hierarch]

If I'm being honest, I'd want to see more non-human stories.

I'm not talking Elves or humans with rubber foreheads. I'm talking proper non-human(oids), like Dragons (in Wyvern configuration, just to explore how they'd adapt to such an unfamiliar and indelicate bodyshape), or maybe a snake-like alien with no arms or legs.

I'd love to see how their culture and society would develop. How the human mind would adapt to these changes. Stuff like that.

 

[Duesal Bladesinger]

I'd love to see more jumpchain stories. I just wish I knew the settings well enough to write this kind of thing to my satisfaction.

Elder Scrolls, Witcher, etc.

 

[lunasmeow]

To be clear, this isn't just a "I'd like more of X" it's an INSPIRATION thread. Fleshed out (or at least a basis of) an idea. Something that can actually inspire someone to write. There needs to be something of a premise.

Pretty sure there's already threads where people can just post "I'd like more stories in X world" that people have made to feel out what might get some attention and thus be worth writing. This is more, "hey did you ever consider if..." If there's no premise, it's not for this thread. I do appreciate the participation, but it's just the wrong category.

See what I had in the first post? How it was more than just "Mind Control University was cool, let's do more of that" but instead a fully fleshed out "Hey, what about this kind of take on the old idea" type scenario?

It's the difference between saying, "Lets do another story in the World of Warcraft setting" and saying "Hey, each of the Old Ones represented a type of "sin" what about one for Lust? What happens when an Old One for that sin wakes up? It could even, in theory, unify the alliance and horde groups because they wouldn't care about that anymore.

That's a super basic premise, but it's something. The key is having an idea, not just a setting.

 

[Soupervan]

I've kinda always wanted one of those multiverse traveler stories to have their second or so world be Overlord- the anime, or rather the world the game YGGDRASIL was made in. I don't know enough about Overlord to write it myself and seems a pain to research it or make it all up and hope that no one complains.

My idea is that the main character first goes to some world like a zombie apocalypse for gold/valuables, then goes to the YGGDRASIL world while the game's in production and bribe the hell out of the devs for a custom class that absolutely kicks ass, with no level cap. That and customizing the tomb of Nazarick, plopping in scifi elements like matter replicators, making the whole thing a spaceship and such, then the guy levels up, hoards stuff and conquers Nazarick, creates waifus and all that fun stuff, then stays in the tomb to turn it all real when the servers shut down. That way the multiverse traveler can easily become a god level being with an awesome home with pretty much everything a guy could want right from the start without needing some system with missions or some ardiuous journey with tons of worlds to get there.
The problem is as I said I don't know enough about the series and really we don't get to learn a ton about the game before the transmigration happens so whoever did it would have to look all that crap on the wiki and/or make up a great deal and hope the fandom doesn't get upset with their creative liberties.
The other problem is I have no clue how to make the follow up interesting beyond sending the Tomb-ship to some very troubled universes like 40k which I'd love but I know even less about Warhammer than I do about Overlord.

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Another idea I have, one that I actually tried writing once or twice- and probably will again- is again a multiverse traveler or merely someone that gets the thing in a dangerous world like Worm is 'Indian in the Cupboard', so many ways to game that for power, my go to is to have the MC buy a 3d printer or a toy factory to absolutely cheat first creating a toy device that can shrink and grow anything but if that's too easy a win for you then you can make it so only other people's toys count.