cks you designed to be ~exotic~ or whatever, and those rabid jerks at Disney can only grit their teeth now!
So, I just had this dream... · 9:48am May 8th, 2016
And I can't help but feel like it's my muse being a bit sick of a certain pegasus wizard enough to kick me in the jaw while I was sleeping.
Wrote this out in about half an hour while it was still crystal in my mind, so I apologize for any less then stellar naming schemes, grammar or spelling.
And I Feel Fine.
It starts in a school.
First-contact… because alien cubist squid things found us just too late to save all of us.
Red angry glowing meteors hits Africa, Central-America and Oceania. Spreading outward in even angrier red clouds, making temperatures spike to 50 C globally as the world is temporarily covered in dust.
Our protagonist knows, because he and a few other grown-ups are watching a newscast. Graphics put together by but a few that didn’t reach the bunkers in time, and read aloud by a man that clearly thinks his words will be the last bits of human civilization as it was. Wide-eyed, pale, but refusing to panic on shear force of will.
A short, painfully so, interview with some sort of squid-starfish alien with a human-ish features. Smooth but eye-less torsos, leading into floating tentacles that almost looks like living neon. The alien, in a painfully human voice filled with emotion, begs forgiveness for being too late while berating her ‘mate’ for not being there with her in that ‘oh god, I wish he was here’ sort of way.
(He looked like the newsman in Bloodlines. She is disintegrated on camera. The broadcast dying with her as the humans can’t work whatever tech she used to punch through the massive storms.)
The Protagonist is deeply touched by the man’s and even alien’s example. Tenderly but calmly saying goodbye to the only teacher from his own schooling (female) that still worked at the school, before fleeing home.
By the time he’s made the short fifteen-ish minute run, he is covered in specks of that glowing dust. The sky boiling and rumbling. Looking like a wound that something just split open.
He gets home. The only sign of his family a hasty note that says that they are sorry, and waited as long as they dared.
The Protagonist, grabbing food and water as quickly as possible, barely making it to the basement before this massive energy-wave hits.
He changes. Not painfully, but in a disturbing way that feels as if it should have been agonizing.
When he crawls out of the basement, not seeing the point if he’s mind is so fried that he’s hallucinating, a sight out of his most secret dreams meet him in the mirror.
He, is now a she. A twelve-feet, vaguely anthropomorphic dragoness with curling horns, scales the white-ish blue of the finest glacial ice, slitted sapphire eyes a man could drown in, and an hourglass figure the wings and tail somehow only accent and that Marilyn Monroe would kill her own lover for.
She does not know it yet, but she is now Exemplar. One of three new ‘tribes’ that survived on Earth when the Unobtanium rocks fell. Twisted into the physical perfection of what he secretly desired most without any filters or socially acceptable lies in the way.
She survives, finding a few others like her, and some that are not. One in ten didn’t make it, overdosed on Unobtanium and reduced to nothing but powder just like the squids.
The ‘Squids’ return. In awe and fear. No recorded species has ever survived an impact from so much pure unobtanium before.
Can the changed humanity survive and reach some sort of the equilibrium it had before the change? Or will they tear themselves apart far before scavengers can even descend from the sky to reap this ‘dead’ world?
Scene:
Two English soldiers, a private and a sargent.
The soldier hands the very young looking man an grenade. In British good-humored way: “How about this then?”
The sergeant takes the grenade, and casually rolls it into the next room over. Killing a dozen creatures twisted by the change.
“Sounds about right, I recon.”
That last scene might have been just me dreaming and dream-logic, but I felt proud that the humor was so dryly British in that 'gallows' sort of way, and that it was instantly recognizable without anybody having to say words like 'jolly good,' 'chap,' or 'spot o' tea.' If you know what I mean.
Again, I apologize for the boring names, but I'm the sort of author that have a full document of 'Bob #1' talking with 'Tim #3' about the dread threat posed by 'Evulz Man' to test if a story sounds 'viable' before I start writing in earnest, and this is so steaming fresh right from my keyboard it frankly feels like the letters should steam a bit.
'If Left Behind, Advent Rising X-Men, Fallout and Friendship Is Magic had an adorably freaky mutant baby.' I can't help but feel like I've heard far worse elevator pitches.
Still... who even knows if I'll feel like this in a week, but right now I can't help but feel like this idea has that same spark of vitality that Dark Horse had when it hit me like a bolt out of the blue. That little extra that made me think: 'I have to write this.'
Again, far rawer and unfinished then I usually post these sort of story ideas, but about that dream just spoke to me enough that I felt like posting this right away. Don't even have the two 'tribes' (or 'races' I guess, if I wanted to be utterly unsubtle and on-the-nose 
) but something about that 'physical powerhouses - mental powers - gift of unnatural movement trifecta with the rare all-of-the-above-you-lucky-bastard exception plus muggles' just seemed like it was very important to the formula.
Still, thoughts? Feels like I've got the seed of something interesting if non-pony here, but I'd like feedback.
For the record before it's asked, 'Exemplar' is a bit tongue-in-cheek since many wasn't nearly as lucky as Protagonist to end up somewhat aesthetically pleasing.
A third leg or flesh blimps not being quite as fun when they have to obey gravity and won't go away without surgery. Stuff like that.
It's... interesting but I don't really have anything constructive to add.
3930947
Fair enough.
I'll stand by that I think there's a seed of something interesting here, but right now it's a bit too bare-bones to get excited for.
*Cough.* 12 hours or so later, I realize I might have jumped the gun a bit.
Yeah, I'm not sure it is worth getting excited about. The whole thing smacks of the wish fulfillment fantasy of this guy (or I guess gal now, despite the beard.)
Material with such blatant protagonist transformative wish fulfillment at the core tends to be really creepy and unpleasant to read at best, (just take a look at the Twilight series if you need a truly infamous example.) This is the main problem with the original Five Score universe, and a big thing Dark Horse does right.
If you just drop a change the protagonist apparently already wanted on his lap without them having to earn it... well it would be sort of like a random omnipotent being popping in to the home of some random shlub and saying 'hahahahaha I have now granted you all the powers of Wolverine and Magneto.' Unless the rest of the story is Macbeth, it isn't going to come back from that fundamental failing of the premise. (I know making weird/bad ideas work is kind of your thing, and I've even seen the Edward and Bella romance done reasonably well in fanfiction, but I think this idea is too bad even for you.)
Still I can think of a way to make the setting work, where the vast majority of humanity have become beautiful 'exemplars' in shapes influenced by their subconscious... Have the main character become a giant spider monster, so horrifying to look on that he has to go into hiding in the sewers. He teams up with other... Let's call them 'uglies,' since I can't come up with anything better, as the Exemplars start to systematically purge them from their new 'perfect' world. But even the Uglies find him absurdly horrifying, not to mention the arachnaphobes... But he got some of the most impressive physical powers of any of them, (since you don't want to shit on your protagonist too hard.)
Religion rears its ugly head and starts to declare that as God's chosen they were clearly granted beautiful forms of their own choosing, and clearly the uglies are being punished for some sin or other, (despite the fact that there are plenty of rapists and murderers who became Exemplars and truly wonderful people who became Uglies.) The movement gains steam since the Exemplars greatly outnumber the Uglies, and it lets them feel superior to someone, and gives them hope that if they can only kill all the Uglies, that will somehow fix the catastrophic damage done to the planet by the impacts.
The new religion also causes them to reject the benevolent starfish aliens trying to evac humans from the dying world and transplant species and seeds to a terraformed world, (despite the danger to themselves since being near an unobtainium tainted human is fatal to life everywhere else in the universe.) After all, they can fix the world by killing all the Uglies...
On top of that our protagonist seems to be about to lay eggs, despite being very firm on still thinking of himself as male even if he is a female spider monster demon thing with no discernably human characteristics, and even the other uglies are really quite concerned about what might hatch.
You could also throw in a romantic plot if you wanted to go in that direction where he has feelings for another Ugly (maybe a drider type?) from afar, and starts painstakingly writing letters without letting her know who he is.
Overall I think that might allow the setting to work.
On the other note, if you are feeling a bit burned out on Dark Horse, we won't hold you to your promise to only work on that until it is done. It may be your best story, but we also enjoy your other work. Writing Fanfiction is supposed to be fun after all, or at least satisfying when a chapter is done and you are basking in accolades. Maybe a chap of SA will get your juices flowing again?
3931569
Ah, but here's the thing.
If you 'roll' Exemplar you don't turn into what you want.
You turn into what your hind-brain has decided would be 'the hottest thing evar.' With all the restraint and self-censoring that part of you is known for.
Dude into busty blondes? Probably never wanted to be one.
Dude into rugged mountain-men? Probably a bit better off, but still one heck of a thing to suddenly see in the mirror instead of your own face.
And well, dude with a few wires crossed and really, really into, say, fire...
Or wasps. Or tentacles. Or, as you mentioned, eggs. Any of the more twisted sides of human imagination most people would never even admit to even knowing about in public, suddenly by force stamped on your face no matter how benign or crazy that 'kink' was while it was just a fantasy.
I really think it would make for some excellent horror material, both personal and external. So in a way it's wish-fulfillment, I guess, but in a monkey-paw sort of way.