The Inner Sanctum

Aight so I got inspiration. It's a helluva drug. Blank template for the challenge directly below, but I'm gonna run through the ships though. If I don't note the fandom it's RWBY. From left to right: Top row - Zidane x Garnet (Final Fantasy IX), Black Sun, White Rose, Snowbirds, Bumblebee. Second Row - BaeRyS (Hololive), Nuts & Dolts, ChellOS (Portal), SpecialShipping (Pokemon Adventures), Lancaster Third Row - White Knight, Pyrrha x Whitley (it's so rare it doesn't have a real name, I call it Magnets are Cool Too or MAC2), Arkos, Raphumi (The Rising of The Shield Hero), Gauntlets & Greaves. Bottom Row - Renora, Crosshares, TanKano (Demon Slayer), Baked Alaska, ChosenShipping (Pokemon Adventures)

Here's the gist:

We're still on Remnant, because I ain't about that "balance real world politics and fictional characters" life, that's one of my hard no's when it comes to fanfic.

Grimm are out; if they exist it'll be on the fringes, as some sort of exotic wildlife, but more likely their presence will be as a common fantasy creature. Something you see in video games.

Aura and Semblances are out; too much baggage. Aura creates a power dynamic I am not ready or willing to write with. Someone with Aura vs without is like putting Mike Tyson against little Timmy the Schoolyard Bully. There's just an order of magnitude difference in power and that can't be ignored or handwaved. On the bright side, all the characterization benefits of Aura and Semblance can be expressed in other ways, especially since most characters will have permanent dwelling places.

Dust stays, as does Dust-based technology. Dust is cool and actually provides some interesting and useful limitations. Eg. Dust not working in space means Remnant doesn't have a space program nearly as advanced as ours, and that means I can make the moon be made out of whatever I want.

Weapons are an interesting subject. They aren't gone, but they definitely aren't as common. A few characters have them, but they'll be more akin to real world weapons than RWBY hunter weapons. Weapons also aren't the focus (at least for the plotlines I've come up with thus far), so I'll be monitoring their use pretty heavily. If a weapon shows up, it'll be because I think it's the best solution to the story problem, or because the character thinks it's the best solution to the problem they're facing.

Faunus: They're still here, keeping characters more or less the same, but I might play a little fast and loose with the rules (Blake with a tail is cool imo). Faunus-Human relations won't be a big theme or anything like that.

OCs: There will be a few almost certainly, but it'll be on an as-needed basis. The focus is on the cast of RWBY, so if a character from RWBY would fit the bill I'll probably just insert them as "Cashier #3" or "Pretty Barista".

Guests: As in from Non-RWBY properties Willing to have them, might actually toss a poll up on this subject. Got a couple ideas for Hololive guests, and a few other one offs. Chances are that these will be minor characters, appearing for a chapter or so.

I'm considering keeping Aura and Semblances to some degree, but making them rare. Also considering just getting rid of them entirely. Not sure which path to go with, but I don't expect Aura to have much of an effect on the story.

Likewise I'm thinking weapons will be a lot less common, and a good bit more mundane generally speaking. Jaune will still have Crocea Mors as a family heirloom for example, but he'll have even less training than he had in Canon.

Neo is a speedrunner. Her reactions to achievements are... Remarkably bombastic for a streamer without a mic.

I've got a bunch of weird ass ships in mind, some of which... Don't actually have names to my knowledge. Like seriously, has anyone done Pyrrha x Whitley? Because I'm planning to.

Gauntlets and Greaves, because I read "Tell Your Lemons to Fuck Off" on Ao3 and it was fucking awesome.

Lancaster, but it's initially platonic with them married purely for the tax benefits. This situation does not last.

I've had a weird amount of ideas for Hololive crossovers that make sense.

I've got two main projects, one sci-fi and the other fantasy, I have other projects as well, but none developed enough that I'm willing to share.

No art yet for either of these btw, I can't draw the broad side of a barn, let alone a spaceship or a mounted warrior.

Project 1: Mechamlet

Very much a working title, the original pitch was "Hamlet, in Space, with Giant Robots." It very much is still that to some degree, though elements of Macbeth and a few other works have contributed to turning the plot into its own unique beast. It's now got two protagonists, a reasonably sized (read: not ludicrous) cast of side characters, and a more or less defined trajectory that should fit nicely as a quadrilogy.

Here's the current pitch:

Cynwrig "Rig" Cosmas is the second prince of a noble house that once held the crown of the galactic empire. Theophania "Tio" Verdandi is the last princess of a lost kingdom. Both are on the run from Imperial authorities, though for very different reasons. Lacking a kingdom, Tio lives as a Smuggler, while Rig... Rig may have just accidentally killed his own brother.

These two fugitive nobles will meet when Tio's guardian takes the runaway prince under his wing and brings him aboard the smuggling vessel Phlegethon. Hijinks ensue and heads clash as both royals are eager to keep their lineages secret, but are unwilling to act as anything but the other's superior. Meanwhile, enemies old and new threaten the outlaw crew's livelihood, and the jump drive has been acting a little too jumpy as of late.

Drama, action, excitement, and perhaps even romance unfold across the pages of [ack! Title!]. Will Rig and Tio come to understand each other? Will the Imperial Revenue Service catch on to the blatant tax evasion? Will the author think of a better question to put here? Will something explode?

Needs work, and more importantly needs to be actually written, but it's something I'm passionate about so I trust it will come together in time.

Aesthetically I've been looking at a lot of 80s and 90s stuff, particularly synthwave and Eurobeat. Anime is my main source for the Giant Robots. Vision of Escaflowne has some beautiful Mecha designs, as does Code Geass. I want to avoid the supermassive robot scale I think. It's cool, but I've never really felt comfortable with Gundam or Pacific Rim, and I'm definitely not writing Gurren Lagaan.

Project 2: Bullhelm

This title feels final imo. Though I might change it to "Bullhelm the Barbarian" or "Bullhelm the Brave" or something along those lines.

Bullhelm is the name of the protagonist of my resurrection of the Pulp Fantasy genre, an archaic artform that carried fantasy and even sci-fi in the era of magazine serials. Related most closely to the "Sword and Sorcery" genre of today, but perhaps better compared to Japanese series like "Vampire Hunter D", or the Redwall series, where each story can stand by itself, but together they form a detailed and vibrant illustration of a vast far away world.

Bullhelm will feature, alongside various, often changing companions, in a series of adventures set all across my fantasy world that I've put together. He'll smite evil, win great treasures, take a wound or two along the way, and learn much about whatever land he happens to be passing through.

Like, Ash and Brock and Misty flying through space on a beat up freighter. Make Pikachu a space-rat or something.

In order of priority/how ready I am to work on them:

The Redwall Retrospective

Basically I'm rereading the series at roughly 1 book a week, and vlogging it on my mostly-dormant YouTube channel. I'll do a Jenny Nicholson style multi-hour video at the end. Currently working on Mariel of Redwall. Will get a link up to the logs for the first three books.

Red Fraction

My take on the "Pyrrha Lives" (Stomp Stomp) style of fix-it-fic. Got some fun ideas for it. Basically got Pyrrha's consciousness split into pieces across several characters, with the ultimate goal being recombining them all. See the opening for Black Lagoon if you want a sneak peek at chapter titles.

RWBY Modern AU (No solid name as of yet)

Man I love AUs, AUs are cool. And I've got some fun ideas for this one. Ruby and Jaune married for tax reasons? Got it. Coco Adel, the wholesome Yuri manga addict? Check. Gauntlets and Greaves? Hell yes, I read some baller GnG fics last year and I've been hooked ever since. There's other stuff too, but I've had trouble figuring out a main plotline, which is why I have...

Old Masters

This is a side story (or perhaps pre-sequel?) for my Modern AU, and one that has a defined plot line. The last generation's megahit pop duo was "Young Masters", made up of Ozma "Ozzy" Calavera and (The Pseudonymous) "Salem". The two had a fairly consistent will-they, won't-they subplot in their music and stage performances, until it came out pretty publicly that "they did", and the act (and relationship) broke up in a rather messy fashion.

Now some (insert number) years later, Salem has a grown up daughter, Oz is still trying to get his solo career off the ground, and neither of them are really happy. They meet by chance, and eventually (though with much pain) reconcile. Don't know all the details yet, but leaning towards a secret romance between Oscar (Ozma's Nephew) and Salem's daughter (either Emerald or Ciel, undecided) being part of it.

To aru Isekai no Tabibito (A certain otherworldly traveller)

It struck me one day that Semblances are rather close to ESPer abilities when it gets down to it. Thus, a RWBY x Toaruverse crossover feels pretty natural, at least to me. My thought: RWBY (and probably JNPR) find themselves dropped into Academy City with minimal equipment and have to figure out their way around.

The Bard for Advanced Systems

Don't know how big Advanced (as in 1st edition) Dungeons and Dragons is on Tumblr, but I take a great deal of issue with 1e's handling of the Bard. I can expand on why in another post if anybody's interested. TBFAS would be an essay and class write up of my idealized Bard Class, probably looking most similar to the 1e Monk in design style. I've got some ideas, I just need to set them in motion.

RWBY x Pokemon Special

More "nifty idea" than anything else. Pokemon Adventures was my first Manga, and I'd like to cross it over with RWBY at some point, probably by dropping RWBY characters in as trainers/Dex Holders. Could even do a full swap, but I'm less sure on that point.

As you may have gathered from the above, I have a penchant for RWBY fanfiction. This is because it is a world I have grown comfortable in, and the fandom I first explored fanfiction within. I haven't actually seen Volume 8, and am not planning to watch volume 9, and really I think things have been going downhill somewhat since... Well actually the show was always a bit of a mess if I'm being honest.

That all said, the world is great, and the characters, as interpreted by FNDM, are also pretty great, and rife with opportunities for cool storytelling.

What's that? Surely I'm forgetting something? Are half a dozen projects I want to work on not enough?