Let's make a magical girl!

Just a little idea for a project I had, which is... Exactly What It Says on the Tin, really. It really just came to me after seeing the Let's create a shonen thread which, although I liked the idea, is so long that I wouldn't feel right just jumping in after so much prior discussion.

So! I decided to try my own version of said thread using a genre that is very close to my heart, Magical Girl. Basically, it's a collaborative story put together by us tropers as we build up the world, characters and, uh, story from scratch. Where we go with this and what we do with it is up to us.

...Ahah, sorry, I just thought this would be a fun little project, that's all. Would anyone be interested in trying something like this?

STUFF WE HAVE SO FAR!

Heroes:

• Geeky Girl, (The Hero)
  • Name: Marie Tesla
  • Age: Turns 15 in the pilot
  • Colors: Gold and Red
  • Theme: Valkyrie
  • Magic: Lightning, can control/power up machines
  • Weapon: Scepter (like a Lightning Rod), maybe two?
  • Appearance: Meganekko short hair with tiny pigtails, blond?
  • Personality: Otaku, Genre Savvy, The Determinator (is an anime, so it's a given)
  • Hobbies: Drawing, watching anime

• Girly Girl, (The Lancer)
  • Name: Estelle Dalton
  • Age: 13
  • Colors: Silver and Blue
  • Theme: Elegant Gothic Lolita
  • Magic: Steam, also wind?
  • Weapon: Parasol/Air gun
  • Appearance: Long hair, dark hair.
  • Personality: Cynical Deadpan Snarker
  • Hobbies: Fashion, science

• Tomboy
  • Name: Sadie Mendeleev
  • Age: 16
  • Colors: Copper and Green
  • Theme: Pirate
  • Magic: Fire and forging (metal)
  • Weapon: Morph Weapon that turns into tools like a Wrench, Shovel and Hammer.
  • Appearance: Strawberry Blond hair, Bandage Babe, Short Hair With Tail (braid), Eyepatch of Power
  • Personality: Tomboy, and Genki Girl, Boisterous Bruiser, Lad-ette?
  • Hobbies: Kung-fu, drums, mechanics

• Magical Clockwork Princess
  • Summons the girls to the Fairy-tale Kingdom as Chosen One's
  • The spirit of the kingdom's progress, who is getting weaker by the year as the royal family suppresses technology and progress
  • Eccentric and mysterious
  • She's part machine

Villains:

• Prince Charming
  • a Well-Intentioned Extremist Anti-Villain, who thinks he's doing what's best for humanity by returning it to nature/ the Romanticism ideal, an enforced Medieval Stasis
  • Is also He Who Fights Monsters, and uses the steampunk tech he hates to fight the Clockwork Princess and is conflicted because of it but views it as a Necessary Evil.
  • Possibly when he and the protagonist first meet, neither realizes they are on opposite sides and develop a friendship that makes it difficult for them to fight each other seriously.
  • He has white hair
  • His machines are fairytale themed
    • Big Badass Wolf Humongous Mecha ...made of clockwork/Steampunk tech
  • He is set up as the big bad, then it's subverted by the end.
  • Will do a Heel–Face Turn by the end.

• Hansel And Gretel
  • Half-Identical Twins
  • Creepy Twins
  • In their older teens
  • These two are the first bad-guys the girls have to fight after being noticed by the Prince.
  • They think the heroines are badass and want to be magical girls/boys themselves
  • Hansel looks like a girl, Gretel looks like boy
  • They tend to mock everybody, the heroines definitely included
  • Hansel has a decent helping of Ho Yay with Prince Charming.

• Jack the Giant Slayer
  • The first really intimidating enemy the girls have to face, sets the mark for when shit gets real
  • Looks like an innocent farm boy despite being Axe-Crazy
  • Specializes in fighting things several times his size
  • Fights with a scalpel

edited 31st Jul '11 1:03:17 PM by Moerin

I'm in! I have an idea for a magical boy—

/shot by one of the members of the Shonen Project.

...I'll be willing to beta-read, or be a guest writer, but I already have two major projects. Sorry.

edited 17th Jul '11 2:36:45 PM by chihuahua0

I'll do some beta-reading and pop in with suggestions, but I'm fairly busy. I'll watch this thread.

Me Too!. I'm going to watch your progress.

I'd love to be a beta reader as well. Although I'm open to just putting in input as well. I couldn't be a writer for this ATM but I'm great for bouncing ideas off or if you need someone to come up with ideas. :D

edited 17th Jul '11 3:46:37 PM by Vyctorian

I'd be very interested in beta-reading this. Sounds like an interesting idea.

I'll beta-read and help write it :D

Question: What level of adorableness should we use?

As much as we deem necessary! Cuteness tends to come with the genre, after all.

It's nice to see there's some interest in this, ahah. I was a little worried when I wrote the pitch that, uh, people might think it was a silly idea. >.< I should stop being dumb like that.

I'm confused. How would this work?

I think the general idea is that we bounce off ideas for setting, characters and story here until we get a rough grasp of what's going on, and then we write various pieces of fiction to help flesh it all out until it's something far deeper and more substantial than we started with.

(I'll be honest, I've never actually done anything like this before, but I've always wanted to. Any advice on how to work this would be most appreciated.)

edited 17th Jul '11 6:01:12 PM by Moerin

Advice.... Try to let everyone get a say and don't get to far ahead of your fellow writers.

Google Docs is a great resource for collab writing but don't share the link on a page, just send it to all your writers. Google docs even has a built in chat on the docs.

Also a voting process is good for ideas as well.

try to let everyone have a say as well, and don't just dismiss one another, give people time to argue their arguments for where they want to take the story and characters.

Also it pays to have patients with your fellow writers and not be too stubborn about it.

For setting, I suggest something like Princess Tutu that makes fairy tales darker.

It's a crazy and stupid idea for a magical girl, but what about steampunk?

Brilliant.

How would a Steampunk Magical Girl work, exactly?

...because that just sounds Crazy Awesome.

That would be awesome. I'll be off in my corner here, thinking. Be back in a few hours.

...Would a big team of magical girls where each member of the team's personality is based on the Western Zodiac be compatible with the Steampunk setting?

Well she would be like a Plucky Girl who's dad was a machinist and learned from him at first but he's dead and she wants to be one but nobody will take her as an apprentice because she's a girl and it's not ladylike. Then she gets magical technopathic powers and converts ill-treated machines and war machines and whatnot to the side of good because technology is supposed to help people, not hurt. And she would have Gorgeous Period Dress with a gear motif.

At least, that's how I imagine it would work.

That sounds like it could be Aries...

By the way, I've got a really strong image in mind of what Ariel (Aries) would look/be like if you guys want to work with that.

I like having a Plucky Girl, but let's not make her a Cute Clumsy Girl.

If we go with steampunk and the heavy machinery, being a Cute Clumsy Girl is a really good way to lose fingers.

Yup :l

I still think we can put fairy tales in this somehow.

Ello? No feedback on my idea? :< We don't have to use it, but I'd like it if you said what think of it...

Fairy Tales vs Science Hero sounds awesome.

Are all the Zodiac people going to be girls?

EDIT: I FEEL A BRAIN WAVE. I'LL BE BACK.

edited 17th Jul '11 8:44:32 PM by snowfoxofdeath