For some reason, I thought up a really neat story idea last night. Well, it's less of an idea and more a few characters and partial plot. The shame is I'll probably never be able to use it, since I originally envisioned it as an original senshi idea and I've got my plate full with Celestial Souls as it is (though I suppose I could easily switch it around to a plain "magical girl" story, much like
erin_hime has done with Earthia, but I don't think I could regularly update three sites with three stories).
Anyway, that's unimportant. I'm not sure if the idea came in a dream, or I took an idea from my dream and created the story around it while I was trying to get to sleep again, but the idea is here. And here it is.
The basic idea, as I said before, was originally another fan senshi story. Unlike the usual fan senshi stories I write, I have no idea what happened in the "past life"; only that there was one and that the soldiers are to resolve the unknown problem it caused. I think there might have been a traditional "find Princess What's-her-Face and Magical Crystal of Super-Powerful Awesomeness" plot in there, but it was never really accomplished (that is, the didn't find either of those two things).
Due to the lack of a backstory, there isn't much here. I wasn't really focused on a backstory anyway, I was focused on the characters. And so, let's start with the villians.
The villians were supposed to be one giant family, led by the mother, who in my mind looked like Queen Beryl but would be much older. They were around when the Nonexistant Backstory took place, and whatever the hell happened caused them to be sent somewhere and get pissed off or something like that.
Like I said, there's the Queen-Mother at the top. No husband is ever really mentioned.
Next in line is her oldest son, who does not have a name. In my mind he looked to be rather old (we're talking in his sixties here) so whatever Eternal Youth potion Mom drank, she certainly didn't share with him. He was a teenager/young adult during the Nonexistant Backstory, but through some sort of time-freeze or whatever, he was preserved pretty well until fairly recently, which is why he aged.
Son is the primary fighter of the family; he is the one that goes out and confronts the Magical Girl Heroines. I think he wore a cape because capes are cool. >.> I don't know what he (or any of the villians) were after, but that doesn't matter.
There are others as well, but these are the primary two; others (siblings, cousins, aunts, etc.) occasionally help out and stuff but for the most part reside in the background (much like the typical Monsters of the Day...they only come out when needed).
And villians have to be up against somebody, so...
The heros were very small in number -- three. Two senshi and one Tuxedo Mask-like character (though without the tuxedo). I can't remember much about them, except during the Nonexistant Backstory, the guy character was supposed to be engaged or something to one of the senshi (who is not the leader). I think this was also the princess, but I might've simply added that on later. So anyway, he's basically expecting to marry this girl when they get older.
The other senshi leads the three of them. In my mind she looked a little like
Sailor Sirius; I think her primary uniform colour was a navy blue and she was a black woman. Not that it matters, but that was how I pictured her.
The senshi was the one I was planning around, so I think in the dream that inspired it, I was seeing through this person's viewpoint.
To establish everything throughout the rest of this, I will call the navy-blue leader senshi Leader, the guy Tux, and the other senshi Pretty White Girl. >.>
All right, with the characters out of the way, here's the real meat of the idea.
Leader, Tux, and Pretty White Girl (PWG for short) are a team fighting against Queen-Mother and Son for some unknown reason. It start out normally enough, I will stop your evil doings, I will get revenge on you pesky soldiers, etc. After a while, Son decides he is lonely. Having been single for well over a thousand years (though a chunk of it doesn't count because he was frozen), this is somewhat understandble.
Son starts going after PWG after a while, though not overtly (since Leader is practically her shadow). After a while though, he kidnaps her and uses his EV0L BRAINWASHING POWERZ ZOMG to turn her, well, ev0l. In addition, he takes away her usual transformation item, whatever that is, and gives her a ring, which she uses to transform into EV0L Sailor Pretty White Girl. Yes, a ring. I think you can see what that means.
Now, after a while Tux and Leader find out that PWG, though evil, is now engaged to Son (mostly because the next day Son gloats). This pisses Tux off, mostly because SHE'S HIS THAT'S WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. However, as far as I know, their tactic of getting PWG back before the wedding is whine and demand. But no amount of whining and demanding is going to stop Son from marrying his child-bride (all right, she's eighteen, but there's still a frickin' large age gap).
I don't know where PWG's parents fit into all this, since I'm sure they would be disturbed to realise their daughter is engaged to a sixty-something man. But nothing really happens. PWG starts staying at the villians' base, being attended to by various female relatives and servants.
Eventually, to Leader and Tux's horror, the wedding goes through. Worse yet, it goes through without a hitch (they couldn't exactly break into the base because they don't know where it is). The legality may be a little dubious, but for all intents and purposes, PWG is now married to Son and she likes it. The villians, of course, are pleased as punch because dude, Son totally needed a woman and now he's got a wonderful wife and they may live the rest of their lives in wedded bliss yay!
(This is, of course, ignoring the fact that PWG used to fight against them at one point. It doesn't matter).
This is where it gets interesting. For this point one, Son and PWG form a team of villians. Although they retain their original names, obviously, they are also known as The Bride (or simply "Bride") and The Groom. Three guesses as to who's which, and the first two don't count. The Bride wears a white Victorian wedding dress (I don't care how impractical or restricting they look; they're pretty), and The Groom wears a tuxedo. Now, I think they revert between these disguises and their normal identity, much how Leader and Tux transform into Sailor Leader and Soldier Tux.
The Bride, as far as I know, has a primary attack of through sharp roses, a la Tuxedo Kamen. Because you know, a wedding bouquet has roses and...yeah, it sounded good at the time. I'm not sure if The Groom gets new attacks in addition to his old ones, and if he does, I have no clue what they would be. Throwing The Bride's garter? Carrying The Bride over a threshold and then tossing her at the senshi? Attacking them with his shoes?
Now, PWG/The Bride really has no intention of leaving her husband, thank you very much. Attemps to get PWG back to the Good Side fail. They suspect that PWG is being brainwashed on a daily basis simply to ensure constant loyalty. I think this is what I had originally planned; that during their "engagement" she would have been subject to daily brainwashings to prevent her from running away, but after the wedding I'm not sure what's going on. I think PWG is staying with Son of her own free will at that point.
Anyway, being constantly attacked by your former teammate and her creepy old man husband would probably be stressful for a lot of people. However, Tux and Leader must continue their mission without. Whatever their mission is, they fail it. They don't find a jewel or a princess. Nothing, nada, nil. I think this is so because PWG is the princess but simply hasn't realised it (or the power has gone from her or something, I don't know).
Nevertheless, the villians are getting more ambitious and it is up to the two of them to stop them. Two people against an entire family is bad odds. However, they find the base, they go in, and they stumble acoss Son (as The Groom) first. A fight ensues, you know the drill, but just as Leader is about to kill him (hoping PWG's brainwashing will wear off), PWG (as The Bride) jumps into the path and is hit directly in the stomach! Shock! Awe! Horror!
Much to The Groom's horror, The Bride dies in his arms (how cliche, I know). Leader is upset that she accidentally killed PWG, but tries to shift the blame to The Groom, saying he "made" PWG die or somesuch nonsense. The Groom, after momentarily being overwhelmed by grief, gets massively angry and tries to kill Leader and Tux as revenge for offing his wife. But I think you know the drill -- he winds up dead instead, while Our Heroes wadner off to find Queen-Mother.
In between that and Our Heroes actually confronting Queen-Mother, the bodies are discovered by another family member and broguth to Q-M's attention. She too is upset at her son and daughter-in-law being dead, and instructs the bodies to be placed at the back of the room so they can try and guilt trip the Heroes.
The Heroes eventually confront Queen-Mother, though without a Magical Crystal of Super-Powerful Awesomeness it seems kind of odd that they could get that far. Despite that, Queen-Mother tries to guilt trip Our Heroes, but they continue to shift the blame to them for PWG's death, ignoring the fact that Son is also dead.
I'm not sure what happens to Tux -- maybe he's killed -- but Leader and Queen-Mother go to fight outside or something. Cue the final fight from the end of the first season of BSSM. I don't know how Leader could win without some sort of magic crystal on her side -- maybe Queen-Mother is just weak -- but whatever happens, Leader wins, destroying the base and most of the family. She does not seem upset at this, perhaps she doesn't know.
Like in BSSM, Tux and Leader come back to life, though this time with memories of each other. They are upset to realise that PWG is still dead (since they thought she would be brought back like they were)...or is she? (Dun dun duuuuun!)
It turns out that PWG did come back to life, though she's still buried under a bunch of rubble. Son also came back too, if not simply because he was married to PWG. Queen-Mother is dead.
Son, naturally, is pissed. He's lost his mother, his home, his family, and his wife at one point. Clearly, Our Heroes are going to Pay with a capital P. PWG is just happy to be alive and be with him.
Whether or not he and the survivors reconstruct the base or they simply settle in a new one doesn't matter. Now Son and PWG are heading the whole oragnization, though their numbers have dramatically dropped. They wonder what they can do to increase their numbers.
The majority of this plot is rather hazy, to be honest. I know a Chibi-Usa like character comes in from the future, though she shifts between visiting PWG and Our Heroes. Also, by this point Son and PWG have dropped The Bride/Groom titles, since they've sort of passed the newlywed phase. I don't think Son ever refers to himself as a king, even though he technically should be.
Later on PWG bears Son a...son, which I'm calling Michael for the time being. Chibi-Usa Clone (CC) mentions knowing a Michael; he's her half-brother. I think she takes Son and his family to the future, which isn't really that great. They're living in a Crystal Tokyo-like world, where PWG is married to Tux after Son's (second) death. CC is the child of Tux and PWG. Tux is a massive jerkface to Michael, who is a teen/young adult by this point; Tux is jealous of the fact that he wasn't the first one to have her and so treats Teen-Michael like crap. Adult-PWG is angry at him for being an asshole to her son, and so on. Life basically isn't that great for Adult-PWG; her husband is an overly-proud jerk and she's having difficulties managing the country. CC doesn't really care about the situation, being too young to fully understand, but simply pleads with PWG that she wants to exist. This leads PWG and Son to fret that Son might be murdered (again) in order for PWG to marry Tux.
Like I said before, this outline is more hazy than the previous one (though that was pretty hazy too); there's more of a focus on PWG and Son rather than Our Heroes. In fact, I'm not even sure what role Our Heroes play, or even if they fight against Son again.
I came up with an ending, though. It happens a little later on, when Michael is around five or so, maybe a little younger. Something happens and PWG is crying over it because she thinks Our Heroes have killed Son (again). Then Son comes up to her (she's sitting in a park, under a tree).
Now, the original idea was that Son was already dead by that point and his ghost/spirit/whatever was visiting PWG. He has with him a starseed, saying that apparently it had been his mother's or something and passed on to him (rather like how Tuxedo Mask had a starseed) when he was born. And now that he's dead, he's going to give it to PWG, and therefore will alter history by having CC not be Tux's daughter. Then I realised that that doesn't really work out, seeing as a ghost cannot impregnate a living woman, starseed or no.
I thought the idea was nice, though, that he comes along with a starseed he just happens to have, and PWG becomes pregnant with CC, using the starseed Son has passed on to her, but then that would mean he was still alive, kind of negating the effect I wanted. Unless the starseed is some strange form of artificial insemination...but...er...o_O
The ending was actually supposed to take place at the end of a third series (due to a few years having passed)...but for the life of me I cannot remember what I wanted to happen. I can barely remember what I weanted to happen in the sequel.
And the whole starseed deal would have meant that Queen-Mother was a sailor senshi of some kind. I think, while trying to figure out a backstory, that I tried to plan that Queen-Mother was actually a competant ruler (like Queen Serenity) and Our Heroes were actually part of some terrorist group, but then I realised that completely contradicted my earlier idea. Because Queen-Mother and Son couldn't be related to the princess, and why would a peasant rebel be engaged to the princess of the country? So yeah, that's why the Nonexistant Backstory should remain nonexistant, because I have no clue what's going on there. It is a mystery.
I think what I like best about this whole idea is that PWG is not brought back to The Side of Good (cue angelic noises). But at the same time she's not some little puppet; she's perfectly aware of her own actions and is doing them of her own free will. I also like the idea of focusing heavily on the villians; although I already do something like that with Celestial Souls. I don't know, I just like the idea and felt compelled to waste two hours or so writing it down when I had other things I could be doing.
Anyway, that's the idea. If I remember whatever I had planned, I might come back and edit it, or simply write a new post. Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen.
Like I said, I really like the idea (I might even draw The Bride/Groom for kicks) and I suppose if I take out the sailor senshi possibility (and everything with it; starseeds, crystal future, etc. which meant the sequel would have to be reworked) I could use it as simply a "magical girl" story. But like I said before, I don't think I could maintain three seperate story sites without neglecting one. It would require me to write every day, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I'm not sure if I would be up to it.
Anyway, that's it. My long post is done now; congrats to you if you got all the way to the end. ;)