beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

Another reason I don't write much: these daydreams are Very Specific.

Like, this one started as doing protective magic tattoos on an appreciative Ianto Jones
but now it developed a plot wherein we are on Golarion and we get accused of worshipping an evil god of pain
and therefor he has to strip and show his tattoos in a crowded temple court
and go through trials
to determine if all that is evidence of worshipping The Midnight Lord, or Calistria, or Shelyn.
... pain or sex or beauty&love, basically, but with elaborate backstory and lore etc.

And I think at some point that daydream has an audience of one
because the fantasy world theology and deep lore from like three foot of setting books
is integral to the outcome.

... Ianto with tattoos is going to be slightly more popular, but mostly when paired with Jack, who is the most difficult one to get to Planet Where True Resurrection Is A Thing.



I also want to write Lisa as a Paladin who everyone thinks used to be a graveknight because when she tried to explain her experiences it sounded a lot like undeath to them.

And Ianto should date a nonbinary tiefling. As part of his ongoing What Would Jack Harkness Do lifestyle. ... ( Read more... )

I like dropping Torchwood into Pathfinder because a lot of the creepier things they do ie anything with retcon is no longer relevant, or effective. There's too many antidotes and a closer to level playing field. So they might read this as the kind of chaos that happens if they dont defend those conceptual borders as hard as they defended the rift. Or they might have to change their minds a bit. Or, obviously, with a team around, both.

... hmmm, also, have had an idea bout current location of Torchwood Four. That would be all OCs though.

Anyone from our time would have to take one of the variants from the Technology Guide, because all the other rules assume you grow up with magic, not tech. Another way to put Torchwood at sea.

Unless they drop in near Numeria, where their superior technological knowledge would threaten the Technic League, but the League's magic would keep them dangerous.

And the Worldwound is up around there, so there's a hole between dimensions handy to fall out of.

Most things that fall out of it are demons from the Abyss though. If post House of the Dead Ianto comes in through that door, he is going to have some Questions.

Dating a tiefling might be part of answering those questions. Every Tiefling has had to deal with the whole So You Might Be A Bit Of A Demon, Now What? Embracing difference is always a good answer to Now What.



My plot bunnies are always too far from source to make good AUs but too close to make sense without canon. Extensive tie in canon at that.

Ah well.

Have been thinking about Owen's story if he got True Resurrected in Pathfinder's setting Golarion.

As a former undead he would get some very judgemental people as soon as they knew. Wouldnt matter he hadnt done it on purpose, too many people are in too much danger from undead.
( Read more... )



Bouncing plot bunnies around is fun because you pull up themes and hold compare contrasts up to each other, but the chances of me putting words in a row properly are... slim.


And since this is the hardest setup to make Jack/Ianto, despite me thinking about Jack/Ianto pretty much all the time, it's probably not the most fun place to start.

ah well. onwards...

Today's plot bunny is an xover between Torchwood and Pathfinder
because there is absolutely nothing to stop me saying the Rift sends people from Cardiff to Golarion
so obviously Ianto could end up there.

... Golarion doesn't work like the basic laws of physics or magic in TW, but that means that bringing any character back to life is just a question of money.

A stupendous amount of money, given they'd need True Resurrection, due to leaving their bodies on another planet and in one case in a nuclear meltdown.

But that just means Ianto, who gets there first, would have to work as an Adventurer, that being the only way to get Stupendous levels of wealth.

And it would take a while to achieve.

So Ianto, older, brings back Owen, after Toshiko and Lisa, and gets to introduce him to Golarion and all the things he's been getting up to there.

Which clearly includes being a Venture Captain of the Pathfinders, because when you find yourself on another planet you want to figure out how to get back, and Pathfinders are the ones who find all the weird.



The only problem with this bunny is Jack is literally the only person in creation who could never be retrieved this way.

It would take a Miracle to get him there...





If I could steer my attention life would be ever so very different.



There's nothing to stop this bunny, and I do like setting Ianto up with Lisa the knight in shining armor, Torchwood acquisitions team.

... there's nothing to stop them calling their venture company Torchwood. Torchwood Absalom?


But it needs a plot. A proper, use both canons to illuminate each other, show us who these characters are, and deal with actual Bad Things, plot.

I could pick an adventure path but they arent going to be optimised for this.



I shall go distract me in a slightly different way...

I have decided the way I want Ianto brought back
is Jack (looking like JB does now, therefor everso Older) arrives with Ianto (looking like GDL, so he has also been Doing Things for years)
and Gwen (aged linear here) is all !!!
"How???"
"He cheats. He always cheats." Ianto grins.



Nothing else needed, very efficient, get on with reintroducing the characters.

Maybe setting up a new Torchwood London with a welshman in charge, maybe sending Jack into the field, maybe Gwen gets London and Ianto takes Cardiff for a while.

Don't know, don't care.


Can also get Owen back (time travel plus radiation absorption) and Toshiko (cryo preservation plus future nanogenes) and just... stop killing everyone, that was no fun.



But I think it'll be fine as an explanation to say
he cheats.

So this morning's dream had Eliot Spencer get Winter Soldiered
(or actually probably more the Pathfinder thing I read last night that happens to Gray Maidens that try and just ignore the whole magic mind control era of their life, they develop a vigilante alternate personality, which...)
( Read more... )

So it's plot, especially for E rated, but... nope.

It's just not interesting to have externally imposed imperatives like that unless they map back to how actual people work somehow.

People get choices.

That's the whole point.

I dreamt there was a Torchwood LARP starting from the back of a pub.
( Read more... )


Alternately
they could just be people running a LARP or a scary theme night haunted house
and they find using the Torchwood name
(which is supposed to be so secret it is legend)
gets them rather more than they can handle.

Probably both, really, a bunch of actors who didnt know and one person setting up the clues who did.



Neat setup.

I have finished reading the Shattered Star adventure path and it had a lot of good bits but the final fight felt a bit nothingy.

I think it's cause the Big Bad is, like, just some guy?
You have the whole of part 6 building up to fight him, and you've heard about him all along, but I didn't get that satisfying payoff feeling just cause you finally get to hit him.

So, so far my favourite adventure paths have in common that by the time you get to the end
you really really hate That Guy
and hitting him will feel really cathartic.

It's bonus points if they represent a particular sin or kind of evil, cause you can really focus on one particular set of issues.

I can see how I could focus Shattered Star - ( Read more... ) - but it doesn't feel focused on first read through.

And so much of it was about one runelord because of that one twist ( Read more... ) that a satisfying ending would to me need to focus on that one somehow as well, but only if twist happened to players, which it might not.

It's really difficult to get that kind of build up going when your players might just... wander off somehow.



Also, whenever the bad guy motivation is given as 'went mad', whether by outside influence or not, it makes it not cool to hit them. Like, there are healing spells? Even for minds? And by the end of the adventure you can probably do Wish. How about you Wish them well? Not mad any more? Then the final fight is, like, significantly less fighty?

I know it's probably the wrong genre or system for going in thinking I Can Fix Them
but despite there being so many more rules for fighting than for talking
it seems like talking could resolve a lot of things, given a chance.

And if not talking, probably magic.

Mind controlling the big bad is seldom an option though.




The other thing I noticed is there's always a point in part 6/6 where you hit a timer, because otherwise everyone will go home and restock and have another go later. So you will reach a point where delay will make things hugely worse, like end of the world stuff.
But it isn't always well signposted.

And other parts of the adventure have a different rhythm, so going home is permitted or even encouraged.

Building up to the world ender is supposed to feel special though, this is where you prove it's all for more than the glory, where you really make a difference.

So it makes sense to put them on the clock for the big bad, but I think the clock needs to be more visible sometimes.



I liked this adventure path pretty well but the bit I want to focus on for story is a bit that might just not happen to your particular group, so I might need another look to see what it thinks it's about and focus there.

Took me a long while to read though.

Focus. I need more of it.

I have this very long running epic plot bunny Of Doom
where I get to play with every canon I was particularly into that week, all at once, and all in a row, since I think it to get to sleep and try and keep every plot thread running as consequences
as you do.

It's never going to be the kind of fiction you write down. ( Read more... )

So. Anyway.

I keep spending significant amounts of time figuring out how to send one character interacting with the maximum amount of fandoms, consecutively or concurrently, and it's fun

but it's not really publishable, or even story shaped

because that character is me
and the only goal is
what if everyone was secretly going to be okay.


Also by the time I've mixed literally everything together it is all nudged so far from baseline I might as well make up something new
even ignoring the fact that characters who have been in my head played with like this for this many years are pretty new anyway.

And the more shows you xover the fewer people are interested in all of them.

... does it follow there'd be more again if you label it Original?
... probably eventually.






*pokes stories again*
*rotates them in mind like rubiks cubes*
*story tetris*

I do not know why I ended up sleeping until 3pm today. I started trying to sleep at midnight, only checked the internet once around 0230, and only had to get up once to check my house hadn't been broken into. Also my alarm went off at 1101. Staying asleep until 3pm seems excessive.

But I had an excellent plot bunny dream.

The Doctor was in prison. Which is not usually a problem for long. And it was the sort of prison where you can wander around and get meals and meet people and all sorts, so there seemed to be opportunity all over.

But it was like that time the audios kept 8 in prison by making him believe the consequences of leaving were too terrible.

If the Doctor escaped, every other prisoner would die.

All of them.

If anyone escaped really, which was why the prison authorities didnt mind all the mixing.

Everyone knew the cost of escape, so no one let anyone try it.


But it was a 'humane' prison, so any intentional deaths also counted as an escape
since they wouldnt be serving the rest of their sentence.
... that kept the violence... lower.


So the Doctor got there and realised:
No one can escape
unless Everyone does.

( Read more... )

I say I'll try and talk more and then I go silent for a week.

... I realised how many tabs I have open and un replied to and how far back they go and it started to feel overwhelming. Most of what I'd say is just, like, hope you are well, hope you have nice days, that sounds like a nice day. I feel like I need to restart having actual conversations, but those need content.

So.

Havent been doing much lately, but, did a little this week.

I like my watch that tells me to do Move and Stand and Exercise. I am still trying to get it to agree with me on what counts as Exercise, it doesnt count all the minutes. On Saturday it did a challenge to walk a mile so I just walked up and down outside my building until it decided that was far enough.

... I feel kind of like in Legends of Tomorrow when the Fates were telling everyone what to do via technology. Like sure it's great it can be set to remind me things, but, letting it tell me to jump up and move around also feels like step one to dystopian remote control, sometimes.

... but my back feels better when I do the Stand goals, so.



I watched the first three episodes of Agents of SHIELD season one, because mum's house has access to a channel where I can actually watch the latest seasons, which do not appear to be on DVD, but it has been long enough since I last watched that I thought I'd better start at the beginning again.

And then I watched Captain Marvel, because Higher Further Faster. Also, is fun watching them youth people and the 90s jokes are Relatable.



I am really slowing down watching Leverage, because I am on season 5 and soon I will have run out of things I can watch for the first time (in the UK as far as I know)
BUT whenever I sit down to watch Just One Episode, it turns into two or more, because they are so good.


I just now watched The Rundown Job and I want to draw little hearts around it and frame it and keep every single part of it
and also make Eliot go to the hospital omg that... that is not how you self care, Spencer, just... too much ow.

Also when Parker got hurt they all told her to stay still get better so it is his turn now.



I keep imagining crossovers around the edges. Like Redstone books apparently now is a lot of Minecraft results on Google but reminded me of Highlander. Leverage have a very transferable skillset, as long as its all modern enough for Hardison to do his thing. And if it isnt he would make a very excellent wizard.



The more episodes of Leverage I watch the less fun interesting it is for me to compare Eliot and Lindsey, because they each have their own everything. But also I keep getting Feelings about Angel again.

Possibly involving jailbreaks from hell.




I bought a whole stack more Pathfinder books and am having fun with the Lore. Golarion and environs are just adventure generators and then some. It's grand.

There was one section about evil deities that mentioned one Horseman disappeared and his successor is super worried he'll come back
and that crossed in my head with a very different Horseman who left his brothers behind and went off to do different
so now there's a story in my head about a god who got bored and decided not to be evil any more
which is probably not where Pathfinder was going with it, but, is still fun.


Imagine finding someone running a bar in frozen nowhere
and you know there's something up with him, but you think he's probably a retired adventurer or something, like, someone not to mess with, but in scale with your surroundings, right?
But then, you ask for help, and you get sliiiiiiightly more than you bargained for
as a demigod finds a reason to take up power again.

That would go all the way to war in the neutral evil version of hell.

Which always appeals, because neutral evil steals, so there's a whole lot as needs rescue down there.

I'm thinking, God of a Thousand Regrets?




Hmmm, just double checked the lore book and I'd got it in my head it was Famine that disappeared, and had a whole story spun up that kind of fit that, but nope, it was Pestilence. Gee I wonder why I didnt want to think on that one.



I still like the idea of a neutral evil dude wandering off into neutral because there's books and beer there.


Shall ponder.




Also today I printed a few character sheets and printed out the GURPS Spell charts I use the most. Yes I have them on the computer screen too, but. Printer.

I may have used almost all the ink already. If so I am not impressed with how long it lasts, in pages.

Photocopying from books didnt work so well, as per usual goes blurry in the middle where it wont go flat, but I did copy the three pages I needed for character creation from two books that can go back on a shelf now.

Modern technology is cool.



So I guess that is a few things I've done. It just doesnt seem like much when most of the markers of time passing each week have been on hold since march 2020. But we keep on.

🖖
🌞

Had a thought while I read about a book of essays on AI:

The Prime Directive says that no civilisation is to be contacted until they have achieved warp drive. But that's an arbitrary and almost irrelevant line in the sand. Warp drive isnt when they can handle contacting the neighbours, it is when the neighbours might bump into them anywhere, and cant ignore or isolate them any more.

The Turing Test is about judging AI by if it can pass as human when it has a conversation with one. (Which is daft, how many humans fail the Turing Test? Need a different line.) But today it occurs to me that is like warp drive. It says nothing about their moral or emotional capabilities, or what kind of community member they could be, and very little about 'intelligence'.

But it is the point where, barring keeping them physically isolated from comms, you cannot successfully ignore or isolate the newbies any more. (Without shutting the door on a ton of humans too.)

Today has been singularly unproductive.
( Read more... )



The problem with daydreaming about the same fandoms for extended time is eventually you either stall or have to take off for parts unknown. I know by now how I would fix the canon if I was there (and remotely likely to survive trying) and it is a bit wheel spinny to keep thinking about it.

But canon isnt going to fix itself.



I need to think of something original ish where I can take the story wherever I want it to go.




I was thinking though that in the DC TV Earth Prime right now there probably isnt a Stargate network BUT in umiverse they have all the parts they need to not only make one but make it have always been there. ( Read more... )


Procedurally generated infinite levels and/or planets is not currently sounding appealing. No narrative through line. Very little implied for character development.



Also most of the people who would want a planet for their own probably shouldnt get one.

... or I'm having a pessimist day.




So. Thoughts are just wheel spinning really.



I'll try for something more interesting later.

Today's dream featured the usual being lost, unable to get back to my room, while lifts malfunction and open to yet more danger, but this time set on Babylon 5 or near equivalent. With Leonard Snart and Mick Rory turning up. And android Indiana Jones.
( Read more... )


Now I'm awake I'm most interested in being ambassador to B5 from Sanctuary, the network and the homeworld.

Especially since Professor X would be the most powerful free telepath in existence.



I havent watched B5 for aaaages. Can't even remember what the color coding for levels was for. The dream was pretty sure Blue was command and Green was residential, but I do not think they had gold vegas. Shall go look.