Open Potentially Interesting Ideas

BookKnight

Well-Known Member
Last edited 09/27/23
Greetings, and welcome to my group of random story ideas! I'll try to keep this as orderly as possible.


The Boring Bits About Me: I really enjoy chatting about pretty much anything lighthearted, but I prefer not to go into any kind of personal details. For time purposes, I'm in the Mountain Time Zone. I am generally online during the weekdays, but not much during the weekends.

Post Length Preference: I think all post lengths have their place from one-liners for a fast-paced conversation to novels for epic scenes, but I prefer if there's a nice variety of lengths. My personal sweet spot is around two-three paragraphs as I do a lot of typing for my job, so I tend to avoid constant full novel-length posts. I won't say no, they are just harder for me.

My Biggest Weakness: When I get really excited about an RP - or really any subject - I tend to make statements instead of suggestions. For example, instead of saying, "I think it would be really cool if you're character were to do X," I say, "You/Your character should totally do X!" I mean it as a suggestion, but I can see how it can come off wrong. Also, I tend to make way too many characters and think that any lagging RP can be improved with another character. Sometimes it works. Other times, I end up with enough characters to man two football teams and a dead RP.

RP Styles: For writing style, I strongly prefer the third person. I'm willing to give just about anything a try. I prefer to stick to more PG-ish levels with lighter plots, but I'm willing to try out the occasional heavier plots. I'm not much into fandoms, but I'm willing to try provided it's nothing cannon and my partner has patience with me. I'm a bit of a sucker for the "fish out of water" cliché and strange friendships, and I really like slice-of-life type RPs where unusual characters are stuck together for random reasons (like a supernatural creature and a human, two humans of the opposite gender when they expected the same gender, two supernatural types that don't get along, villain and hero...). I also really enjoy friendship stories of pretty much any kind. Romance isn't a big draw for me, but it can also be a lot of fun. I like playing around with silly stereotypes and clichés a lot. Many times, I'll create a new character specifically for the RP I'm joining, but I also have a few characters I might use to experiment with new ideas. I most enjoy open-ended RPs that can just go on and on and ramble, but am very much not opposed to an RP with a planned ending.

Desires for a Partner: Patience. I tend to be a little slow and a little dense at times. Communication. Lemme know if you do or don't like something, if you have some ideas, if you need a break, whatever. Someone willing to bat ideas back and forth and try to meet me halfway in the creation of an RP. Everyone has times where creativity dries up, and that's totally fine if sometimes one or the other of us has to do a bit more pulling just as long as you are willing to try. At least one post every couple of weeks. More makes me delighted, but anything less than once every two weeks, and I'll loose the thread of the plot. Obviously, life happens, but whatever kind of consistency in post speed you can give me will make me a very happy camper.

Dos and Don'ts: Please do communicate. Please do not control my characters without permission. Please do not self-insert, at least in an obvious fashion (personal aversion after some bad RP experiences). I don't like zombies. At all. I really like vampires, but I can be annoyingly picky about the type I play.



A bunch of random ideas!
Very few of these are set in stone, so please feel free to offer suggestions and changes or even completely different ideas if you think they are up my alley.

Found Family Troupe:

"Found family" is one of my absolute favorites, everything from "over the course of our grand and noble quest, we gradually came to realize the loving home and family we longed for is in each other," to "I woke up in a dumpster with a group of idiots who forcibly inserted themselves in my life and increased my problems by a thousand percent, and despite my desire to kill them, I would die for any one of them at a moment's notice even though I've only known them a week."

Replacement:

A family member has been replaced by an alien. The alien is actually really, really bad at impersonating the person they replaced no matter how hard they try, but, honestly? You don't mind. You let them believe they are fooling you because the alien is a vast improvement over the original. - I would prefer a multi-person family for this, but we can talk about exactly how big/small we want it if you're interested. I am willing to play either alien or humans or a mix.


Misplaced Lives:

Someone from an ordinary world suddenly find themselves transported into a fantastical world where they have to learn how to live in this new environment. Or, someone from a fantastical world finds themselves sucked into our normal world and stuck. We can either both be a person who's been misplaced, or one could be the misplaced person and the other could be the family/person/whatever who helps them get settled in. Any number of ways this could play out.

All in your head:

A young man is absolutely convinced aliens are in charge and controlling humans. He came to this "revelation" after a head injury he claims reset his brain. Everyone else says it's just the damaged part bringing out the paranoia. He refuses to believe this, as is proven what he writes in his journal: "Life seemed completely normal, but the thing is that I believed they were observing me because I was in a play. We all were. Every alien was assigned a human, when that human was born, the script for the play was imprinted in their brain and so we would live our lives for the entertainment of our designated alien that would watch us in some sort of theater." Is he right? Or is it a story his mind came up to cope with the pain? (I don't actually know these answers, I'd be happy to go either the way of the aliens being real or fake.)


Hive Mind:

For who knows how many generations, humans have lived on a spaceship of aliens many, many times their size. For the most part, the aliens ignore them and sometimes even try to entice a swarm of humans to live on their ships because as far as they are aware, humans are basically... space bees. To the aliens, humans are intelligent, but not self-aware people, only smart beasts/insects. Sometimes a pest, sometimes helpful, always a fact of life. They even have interstellar guidelines instructing how to properly deal with humans. The potential benefits of having a swarm of humans on your ship include: disorganized spaces becoming transformed into fully organized and efficient spaces, items left about being spontaneously turned cuter/cozier/tastier/more efficient, broken items being either fixed or temporarily repaired or entirely repurposed, disturbingly creative and loyal tiny allies against intruders, and happy noises coming from the vents when the humans are content.
The potential detriments of having a swarm aboard, particularly if they are not well managed: unauthorized tunnels popping up everywhere including restricted zones, theft of items deemed cute/cozy/delicious/extremely hazardous by humans, equipment being sabotaged in the most impossible of ways, and strange communications that seem to translate to anything from passionate love sonnets to disturbingly specific threats.
When treated properly and given proper supplies near the area where one wishes the humans to inhabit, the aliens can find the humans to be a very beneficial and even pleasant creature to have on board, and as humans are strongly symbiotic and territorial, they will often fight on the side of their alien counterparts to ensure the safety and security of their habitat. However, that strong symbiosis can also mean that they will form attachments to anything from the AI cleaning robots to carnivorous fungi. It is best give them the supplies to keep them comfortable and encourage mutualism symbiosis and steer them away from commensalism and parasitism. When done correctly, the human swarm may even begin to leave treats or even go out of their way to try to make things more comfortable or efficient for their caretakers. Just remember to never, ever break their trust. Ever.


Vampires at School:

Vampires are rare as they are difficult to "make," but the world has recently decided to accept their existence. Reluctantly in some cases, and enthusiastically in the case of others. Schools especially like to hire vampires as they are very good at making children behave, highly knowledgeable in any area they are interested in, and often willing to work for the little a school can pay as they do not have a large food bill or usually a family to support. In this particular instance, a vampire has been hired as a history teacher (or perhaps a translator of dead languages or similar) as the school is under the mistaken idea that the young vampire is a lot older than they really are. In truth, they are only about 50 years old or so, and now they have to scramble to keep up the pretense of having been personally there during multiple historic events. It's a good thing they have at least one friend who is a few hundred years old, but that one friend couldn't have seen everything. How is this vampire historian going to keep up the ruse?


Family secrets:

An old vampire has been running from a family of monster hunters for several generations now. The family is totally willing to take jobs hunting other monsters, but those are just to fund their one true goal: to kill this elder vampire who killed their great-great-great grandparent. Despite the fact that he could potentially kill them and get them off his back for good, the vampire keeps running. That's because he knows something they don't: he is their great-great-great grandparent, and he made a promise a long time ago not to reveal that fact. However, as each generation of monster hunters gets wiser, stronger, and craftier, it looks like he is going to have to do something drastic before everything gets out of hand.



Space Share (basic):

A pair of roommates, housemates, or flatmates, whatever you like. The twist is one (or possibly both!) isn't as they seem. Perhaps they are a ghost who needs a living person to help pay the bills, or perhaps a strange race like a werewolf looking for a place to hide, or possibly just a woman and a man who didn't expect to be sharing space with the opposite gender. Maybe a new ghost or ghoul needs help making ends meet or needs help with the outdoor stuff, so maybe they try to pass themselves off as an agoraphobic human in need of a hand. Open for this one to be a romance depending on the grouping. If we go the fantasy route of having one (or both) be something supernatural, they will need to hide their true nature from the other for a while. Looking for a lot of awkwardness and comedy in this one.



Space Share Part 2:

Someone (or multiple people) move into a house. Unbeknownst to them, the house is haunted by multiple ghosts. At first, the ghosts try to be the ooky-spooky malevolent ghosts like they are "supposed" to be, but the person(s) who come into the house are such a mess (just out of a breakup, lost their job, new town, whatever the reason) that the ghosts start pitying them and start actually trying to help the person. I'd prefer to play the ghosts, but I'm flexible.



Space Share (kind of) Part 3:

This is a story prompt I read online. This is not mine! Credit goes to Writing.Prompts.Re on Instagram. "A vampire knocks on your door seeking permission to enter in order to kill you as their next meal. As a housebound ghost, however, the prospect of a guest after so many years intrigues you, Smiling darkly, you invite them inside." I'm happy to play either vampire or ghost, and I have no idea where this is going, I just think it sounds fun.


Space Share Part 4:

You share a place with a wizard/witch in a mostly non-magic area populated primarily by non-magical humans. Magic is not exactly illegal, but it is somewhat discouraged. Therefore, it's important that the wizard/witch not rock the boat too badly and get themselves in trouble with the neighbors. The problem is, they don't seem to fully grasp the seriousness of the situation. They are a cooky, absent-minded sort, mostly harmless, but horrible at tidying up after themselves, and they are constantly making a mess. You are the stable one in this situation as weird people show up in the middle of the night, random creatures pop in and out of portals, and magic concoctions occasionally burst into flame or worse. You like this wizard/witch well enough and want to keep them out of trouble, but how are you going to do it when they seem intent on walking straight into it? (I would rather play the wizard, but I'll play either.)


Beauty in the Sewer:

My character lives in the sewers, forgotten by society and mostly happy to have it that way. The twist is that he shapeshifts into a horrible dragon-like monster, and he has absolutely no idea how or why. He cannot remember anything before the sewers, but the whole thing stinks of trouble. Your character finds and befriends them and possibly attempts to help them, and the monster tries to help them. This takes place in a more modern setting, but we can play around with when and where and all that.


Elf Among Us:

I've taken this out and put it back in so many times...
These elves are actually from another planet and are hiding among humans. There are not many of them, only a handful centered in a single city. They have been trying desperately to get back home again after their craft crashed a few years ago, but so far they haven't been able to figure out how, being a bit unclear as to how they ended up on earth in the first place. The Elves in this story are trying to hide, so your character doesn't really notice much difference between them and a regular human at first except for perhaps some odd phrases and the occasional misunderstanding. The Elves are tall, humanoid beings who don't stand out much other than being on the tall and lanky side, and there are only men. I would like to play the elves.

For your character, or characters, I would really like a fairly tough person, maybe someone who hesitates to ask for help, and my main elf character is able to help them and that's how they meet. Something like that. I'm pretty flexible, though, so if you like the idea, feel free to approach me with any type of character you have.


Journey to the Past

This is not a plot so much as a loose idea. Preferably a fantasy setting with a vaguely medieval flair, LotR type, but I'd be happy to mess with that. My character is a washed-up once-was fighter, a soldier of some type who has long since walked away from his former position. More importantly, he is rumored to be able to see the past.
Your character needs the past to be revealed for some reason. Perhaps they are a soldier or a warrior working under the service of a well-to-do person, a lord, or maybe even a king or queen. Their master is being accused of a crime they didn't commit, possibly war crimes or similar, something long ago in the past. They need to get my character to reveal the truth of what happened all those years ago, but my character doesn't want to go. How does your character get my character to go with them? How much convincing, bribery, or force will they need?
I'd like this to be something of a journey, not a one-and-done thing.


Custody Agreement:

Another idea I got off Instagram and altered slightly. (It's been reposted so many times I'm not sure where the credit goes, but it's not to me!)
A woman makes a deal with a demon. She will have its child in exchange for eternal riches. She then goes and makes a deal with a witch to exchange her firstborn for powers. The woman upholds her agreement by giving the witch her baby and runs off, leaving the witch and the demon fighting a very messy custody battle. The child more or less grows up learning magic and visiting the demon world on weekends. The mother may show up randomly like the proverbial "fun uncle" to give the child the latest gadgets and teach them magic tax evasion and other illicit activities.


Romantic Theme:

Country A and Country B have been at war for a long, long time. Country A is smaller and finally decides that the best method is to declare peace and marry off one of the princesses or princes to the king or queen of Country B. I originally pictured this with a princess with Country A and a King from Country B, so that is how I am going to describe it, but the genders can easily be switched around, as can many of the details. So here's how I see it: The Princess is absolutely petrified of going to marry the King as he is rumored to be a monster, that the entire country is filled with monsters. When she gets there, the wedding goes off uneventfully, and she finds that while the king is not exactly warm and fuzzy, he is not a monster, exactly. He shows her no interest at first. She is determined to make the best of things, so she starts trying to be a proper queen. Perhaps even earn the trust and respect of the king.

I picture this as being a fantasy setting with one country being primarily fantastical and the other being primarily human, but as I said, I'm flexible and we can change up most of the details here. I would like to play Country B, the stronger country.




There we are! A grand assortment and I might add others later on. If you see anything you like or think you have an idea I might like, don't hesitate to hit me up! Please send me a PM rather than leave a post here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! Good grief this is long.
 
Last edited:
I'm going to give this a little nudge as it's a new year and I've made some changes. Pretty much everything is still open.
 
I'm going to give this a bit of a nudge as I have made some changes recently and I am still open for partners.
 
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