I'm not sure if this is an unreasonable request, but oh well, here we go.
So I'm working on a semi-serious fanfic project. Yeah, yeah, I know I should finish Vigilante's Run, but I've put that unofficially on the back burner for the time being. Yeah, yeah, I should work on my Fan RPG, but what the hell, I just did a bunch of work on it and I'm kind of burnt out on that.
Anyway, it's a reboot / origin story for the Knight Sabers in the style of a Hollywood screenplay, the imaginary anime / live-action / whatever movie this long-dead franchise deserves. We get the Sabers together, they fight Brian J. Mason's Sinister Plot, then Mason gets stabbed in the throat at the end. Simple. Only, not. That's why I'm turning to you all, who are, like, the Great Ancient BGC Nerd Council.
I'm working on it in a proper piece of screenwriting software, but since that uses my real name you'll just have to settle for the Plot layout Google Doc. Anyway, here's some stuff I'm thinking about for it:
ACT 1: Sylia recruits all the Sabers.
- I've already written most of Priss's recruitment and am generally happy with it, and I have a nifty idea for Linna that I stole from that one BGC audio drama - namely, that Linna knows Sylia from after her parents took Sylia and Mackie under their wing after Sylia's dad got ganked. But Linna hasn't seen Sylia since like college, where Linna dropped out to save money and Sylia went to Oxford to begin her Bruce Wayne-ing. So on one hand Linna has a better idea of what sort of questions to ask Sylia ('This is about your dad, isn't it?') but Sylia also knows that Linna's a middle-class ball of insecurity and anxiety, has a better hold on her than she does Priss.
- Then I'm trying to figure out how to get Nene in there - screenplays only have so many pages, usually act 1 is about 30 pages. It's tempting to not even give Nene an individual recruitment scene, or to play it for laughs ('Would you like to be a superhero?' 'Shit yeah.'), but I think it's worth at least thinking about what Sylia gets from Little Miss Cyberpunk and what Nene gets in exchange. I've got in this opening scene that Sylia's not recruiting skilled mercs because she needs people who have a personal stake in fighting GENOM, so the idea of her getting recruited via hacker-puzzle doesn't really work...
- And somewhere in all this I need to establish Mason as a threat. Basically, Priss's bosozoku buddies tried to do something involving stolen tech for him, the deal went bad, and she was the only survivor - that's what establishes her grudge against GENOM, and how Sylia finds her. Plus, Sylia and Mason were childhood friends - at least until his dad killed her dad, and then she got shit uploaded into her brain, and Mason's been sexually frustrated and obsessed with her ever since. (Yeah, I stole that from Bubblegum Disaster. It was a good plot detail. No judging.) So that's good connective tissue, good to make an antagonist like him personal, but he has to be introduced by the end of Act 1, somehow - and introduced specifically as the Bad Guy.
ACT 2: The Sabers get their shit together and start their first job - figuring out what it was Mason got from Priss's bosozoku.
- Yep. Bulk of the plot and I have no idea what I want to do with it. Mason's got a Sinister Plan going on, the Sabers figure it out, hurt him bad. What's that Sinister Plan? Something dark and cyberpunk-y. I was toying with the idea of running a big con job on the world - selling conscious uploading 'backup' technology, then using the half-assed backups as personality implants to make Boomers seem more human - because it's sort of a running theme that people can pick out even highly anthropomorphic Boomers by little unconscious ticks. I like some of the ideas there - transhumanist ambition used for grubby commercial purposes, an ongoing struggle between people's perception of the uncanny and GENOM's desire to mitigate it - but I dunno. And I don't want to bring in the orbital kill satellites quite yet. So - I need another idea that I can still tie to Mason's deal gone bad. Any ideas?
- Act 2 ends with Mason deducing Sylia's identity and sending Battle Boomers after the LADYS633, just like in episode 3. I really like how Dartz told that story in YT2032...
ACT 3: The Final Battle
- To the point that I want to crib the idea of him coming in person to her after wrecking her building and proposing she come work for GENOM. Of course, Sylia politely declines, he leaves, she loses her shit. Good stuff all around.
- By the same token, Mason brings his 12B Boomers and his bodyguard boomers (Razordolls) to the final battle, reveals he knows the Sabers' identities. He doesn't get backup, of course, because Quincy has lost patience with him. So the Sabers kick his ass, preferably somewhere that isn't GENOM Tower but has some symbolic relevance to the plot.
- Mason almost chokes Sylia out, Sylia stabs him in the throat, the Sabers ride off into the sunrise. Priss gets to play Konya Wa Hurricane over the credits.
So - yeah. I just need some help hashing out the plot. Many people on this forum are better at writing than I am. Any ideas? Help would be much appreciated.
So I'm working on a semi-serious fanfic project. Yeah, yeah, I know I should finish Vigilante's Run, but I've put that unofficially on the back burner for the time being. Yeah, yeah, I should work on my Fan RPG, but what the hell, I just did a bunch of work on it and I'm kind of burnt out on that.
Anyway, it's a reboot / origin story for the Knight Sabers in the style of a Hollywood screenplay, the imaginary anime / live-action / whatever movie this long-dead franchise deserves. We get the Sabers together, they fight Brian J. Mason's Sinister Plot, then Mason gets stabbed in the throat at the end. Simple. Only, not. That's why I'm turning to you all, who are, like, the Great Ancient BGC Nerd Council.
I'm working on it in a proper piece of screenwriting software, but since that uses my real name you'll just have to settle for the Plot layout Google Doc. Anyway, here's some stuff I'm thinking about for it:
ACT 1: Sylia recruits all the Sabers.
- I've already written most of Priss's recruitment and am generally happy with it, and I have a nifty idea for Linna that I stole from that one BGC audio drama - namely, that Linna knows Sylia from after her parents took Sylia and Mackie under their wing after Sylia's dad got ganked. But Linna hasn't seen Sylia since like college, where Linna dropped out to save money and Sylia went to Oxford to begin her Bruce Wayne-ing. So on one hand Linna has a better idea of what sort of questions to ask Sylia ('This is about your dad, isn't it?') but Sylia also knows that Linna's a middle-class ball of insecurity and anxiety, has a better hold on her than she does Priss.
- Then I'm trying to figure out how to get Nene in there - screenplays only have so many pages, usually act 1 is about 30 pages. It's tempting to not even give Nene an individual recruitment scene, or to play it for laughs ('Would you like to be a superhero?' 'Shit yeah.'), but I think it's worth at least thinking about what Sylia gets from Little Miss Cyberpunk and what Nene gets in exchange. I've got in this opening scene that Sylia's not recruiting skilled mercs because she needs people who have a personal stake in fighting GENOM, so the idea of her getting recruited via hacker-puzzle doesn't really work...
- And somewhere in all this I need to establish Mason as a threat. Basically, Priss's bosozoku buddies tried to do something involving stolen tech for him, the deal went bad, and she was the only survivor - that's what establishes her grudge against GENOM, and how Sylia finds her. Plus, Sylia and Mason were childhood friends - at least until his dad killed her dad, and then she got shit uploaded into her brain, and Mason's been sexually frustrated and obsessed with her ever since. (Yeah, I stole that from Bubblegum Disaster. It was a good plot detail. No judging.) So that's good connective tissue, good to make an antagonist like him personal, but he has to be introduced by the end of Act 1, somehow - and introduced specifically as the Bad Guy.
ACT 2: The Sabers get their shit together and start their first job - figuring out what it was Mason got from Priss's bosozoku.
- Yep. Bulk of the plot and I have no idea what I want to do with it. Mason's got a Sinister Plan going on, the Sabers figure it out, hurt him bad. What's that Sinister Plan? Something dark and cyberpunk-y. I was toying with the idea of running a big con job on the world - selling conscious uploading 'backup' technology, then using the half-assed backups as personality implants to make Boomers seem more human - because it's sort of a running theme that people can pick out even highly anthropomorphic Boomers by little unconscious ticks. I like some of the ideas there - transhumanist ambition used for grubby commercial purposes, an ongoing struggle between people's perception of the uncanny and GENOM's desire to mitigate it - but I dunno. And I don't want to bring in the orbital kill satellites quite yet. So - I need another idea that I can still tie to Mason's deal gone bad. Any ideas?
- Act 2 ends with Mason deducing Sylia's identity and sending Battle Boomers after the LADYS633, just like in episode 3. I really like how Dartz told that story in YT2032...
ACT 3: The Final Battle
- To the point that I want to crib the idea of him coming in person to her after wrecking her building and proposing she come work for GENOM. Of course, Sylia politely declines, he leaves, she loses her shit. Good stuff all around.
- By the same token, Mason brings his 12B Boomers and his bodyguard boomers (Razordolls) to the final battle, reveals he knows the Sabers' identities. He doesn't get backup, of course, because Quincy has lost patience with him. So the Sabers kick his ass, preferably somewhere that isn't GENOM Tower but has some symbolic relevance to the plot.
- Mason almost chokes Sylia out, Sylia stabs him in the throat, the Sabers ride off into the sunrise. Priss gets to play Konya Wa Hurricane over the credits.
So - yeah. I just need some help hashing out the plot. Many people on this forum are better at writing than I am. Any ideas? Help would be much appreciated.