A little project that I call, "Beyond."

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A little project that I call, "Beyond."

Postby Benjamin » Sun Sep 11, 2016 8:07 am

Since it has been a bit quiet here the past couple of weeks I thought I would mention a project I have worked on for the better part of this year called, Beyond Imagination. As I said on the mini-chat, I'm nearly at the 100k word mark (98,317 to be exact as of this writing) and I am close enough to completing the current draft of the story. However, everything is still in the experimental stage and I have been throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks thus the final product will likely be different from what I have now.

The elevator pitch is relatively simple: "A disaffected and apathetic thirty-something gets pulled back into his childhood fantasy to not only save that world, but the real one as well."

My main motivation behind writing this story is nostalgia, pure nineties nostalgia because my own childhood daydreams of being a superhero in the vein of (Mighty Morphin') Power Rangers and Samurai Pizza Cats, two of my favourite shows when I was ten. The protagonist is a shameless self-insert (who I will refer to as, "the SI") who shares my jaded view of the real world and a pining for his more hopeful and carefree childhood days until his world collides with the fantasy world and involves a bit of age-regression and trauma-included amnesia. Once there, our amnesiac SI learns that he a) has light-based powers which include superspeed/invisibility/intangibility and b) is part of a Super Sentai-inspired team called the "Knights of the Cosmic table," or the Cosmic Knights for short.

As the name suggests, the Cosmic Knights have space motif. There is one knight for each colour of the visible spectrum (plus white and black) and each one represents a constellation visible from Earth as well as represent a specific virtue.

Cosmic Knights, Assemble! | +
(Colour/Constellation/Virtue/Title)
White/Corvus/Friendship/Knight of Undying Loyalty
Red/Leo/Justice/Knight of the Roaring Thunder
Orange/Aries/???/???
Yellow/Pegasus/Love/Knight of the Southern Wind
Green/Cancer/Courage/Knight of the Crashing Waves
Blue/Phoenix/Hope/Knight of the Blazing Light
Indigo/Scorpio/???/???
Violet/Lupus/Knowledge/Knight of the Howling Shadow
Black/Draco/???/???


As you can see from the spoilers, I have not fully fleshed all of the Knights as characters. The reason for that is simple, I wanted to keep the first book in the saga relatively uncrowded by only using six of the nine knights and (re)introduce the last three knights in a later instalment. Heck, I am toying with the idea of adding more knights to the mix if I can find a way. I have this idea for twin knights (likely silver) called the Gemini Knights.

Though the tone started somewhat innocuous when I started writing with the SI readjusting to a fantasy life he left behind, it does get darker. Power Rangers may have started as the original inspiration, but started to resemble some of the more mature Super Sentai. Monsters do get sliced to ribbons and disembowelled while the SI nearly gets electrocuted to death when the big bad of the story reveals herself (since he his the Phoenix Knight, you know that is not going to stick.) To reveal any more would be spoilers at this point.

Would this be something any one here would be interested in?

(I'm thinking of putting in PYGMALION-like killer loli gynoids in the next draft, so maybe Jason? :P)
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Re: A little project that I call, "Beyond." (wap)

Postby Yoshino Shurensuki » Sun Sep 11, 2016 9:09 am

This makes me want to recommend "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children". I think you (and everyone else here, really) would like the story. I'm looking forward to the movie. >>

Not because it's "your idea", but the general concept made me think of it. ^^

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Re: A little project that I call, "Beyond."

Postby Benjamin » Sat Oct 08, 2016 7:46 pm

Just as something as an update, I have finished the climax for Book One and I have (by my estimation) two chapters to tie things up. However, I will have to make some major revisions before I show it to anyone else because some ideas did not crystallize until later. There was just one other thing that that I thought needs saying before I say anything more.

Since this is more or less a self-insert, one of the characters is an analogue of Erik. Erik is one of my beta readers and he was there to offer encouragement and ideas. While I have made the decision to sequester myself from the events that led to his departure, I know that there was a lot of anger and bitterness behind it. I think the question I want to ask is: if you read the revised draft, would his presence take you out of the story?

I know it is possible to have friends that don't like each other, but I'm going to wear my heart on my sleeve and tell you the driving force behind this story. Erik and I had a friend, I don't know if he told you about him when you were still talking, his name was Gary and he passed away ten years ago as of September 27, 2016. Gary was--well--probably the most encouraging friends I ever had. No matter how bad shit got for him (believe me, it got really bad for him) he'd always try to cheer you up with a joke and was always game for goofing off. His health began failing him around 2001 when disease destroyed his kidneys and forced him to go on dialysis for the remainder of his life. That disease also damaged his lungs, which required treatment. He had a shitty job at a Kroger's and since he didn't have insurance, he had to foot the bill.

Gary died before I could meet him. God, I wish that he could have held on for at two more years, but it was meant to be and his death has since left with this emptiness inside. It is a dream that can never ever be realized. Erik told me a couple months that Gary was working on a project of similar scope before he died, and that is what is motivating me to see this to the end. I poured a lot of my heart and soul into this be because if I can publish this, if I can can share this with the world, then I feel that I am honouring his memory. Erik was Gary's friend too, so he had to be a part of it too. If I did not include him, then I would have betrayed both friendships. That is not who I am.

If you guys want me to share if with you all, I just need to know there will be no awkwardness or hard feelings.
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