1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.
Dismiss Notice
Vote for us!

Remember to vote for ZEJ at our Top RP Sites page! You can vote only once daily, so make sure to do so and help us reach the top!

Tell me what you think of this idea!

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous Conjectures' started by Spaughtyena, Aug 1, 2013.

  1. Okay, I've recently been wanting to write, and I've been listening to music and watching videos that I know get my brain pumping, and just today, I watched a series of videos and stuff about random shit - and then an idea hit me so hard, that I just knew I had to write it down.

    I've already written out some details, but I figured I may as well re-write some things here, and maybe a few other afterthoughts and see about some feedback, because what better place to ask advice than from a forum of writers!!

    Let's get started:

    The general spark of idea came from when I saw a picture of a settlement made of scraps and refuse in a sewer system, and I knew that I had to make a character who lived in such an awful place.

    Secondly, I envisioned the city above being paved with cobbled streets and being dark constantly, the people who lived there stuck up, feeling a sense of superiority over the ones who lived underground, despite their lives being equally as horrible in their own ways.

    This is when I knew I needed an explanation of why the city was dark, and how it also made both parties lives' horrible.

    I decided that I would make this a world where the sun had burnt out, but not exploded or destroy the planet. Well, that prospect of a sunless planet would still die, if not for technology.

    I fashioned a special lamp that everyone in the uppercity uses to light the majority of the city. These lamps, while not nearly as hot as the sun, do the same effect, giving photosynthesis, and supplying people with vitamin D.

    However, as you can well imagine, the people of the lower district have no access to these lamps and are lacking in vitamin D and other nutrients, giving them weak immune systems and brittle bones.

    However, it is not all lost for those who dwell in the undercity. Due to the high demands of nutrients in the world, the government and many scientists created special pills that would help supplement people in their need of vitamins, and this has become a sort of currency in the world.

    Now, lets get on to some undercity stuff and the protagonist~

    The undercity is separated into 3 main parts. The Cracked Central, The Shaded District, and the general area which has not yet been named.

    The Cracked Central is slightly ironic. It is situated right beneath the slums of the uppercity, meaning that the roads and ground of the uppercity slums, are the ceiling of the Cracked Central. The central's namesake comes from large cracks in the ceiling that allow the light from the special lamps from the slums to leak down, and provide what the undercity needs for a prospering center, and marketing district.

    However, the shaded district is exactly what you may think it is. It is an area without any special lamps at all, and where even the poor of the undercity are forced to live. This is also where the protagonist resides.

    So far, I've decided that the protagonist lives in a small, makeshift shack made of an old bus, and some scrap metals with his mother. He is a skilled pickpocket and can handle himself in the occasional scrap, but due to his nutritional deficiencies, he can be overpowered easily.

    I knew I wanted him to go to the surface, and he would have much incentive to do so considering the major benefits it would provide not only for himself, but for his family, but I needed to think of what would start the chain reaction, and spark him thinking about going up there to begin with, considering that I decided that the uppercity considers all lower-folk to be nothing more than thieving vermin that should be shot on sight. (so you can see why they leave each other alone XD)

    However, the spark came quickly - I fashioned a little scene in my head where the protagonist goes out in the morning like he usually does to find work, and steal among other things to get himself and his mother something to eat for the day. However, on this particular day, he finds a small, wooden crate floating in the sewer stream - an sneaks it home earnestly - knowing that the crate no-doubt came from the surface, and must have valuable things inside.

    Inside the crate are a petty amount of vegetables, but mostly are a small bottle of pills. His mother finds out very quickly and essentially orders him to return the box, fearing that whoever lost it would come looking for it, due to the pills being very valuable in these times. However the protagonist reasons that taking a few pills would be doing more good than harm, as well as the vegetables would give them a decent meal, arguing that the majority of the surface dwellers think all the lower-folk as thieves anyways, so they would have all reason to assume that the box had been stolen within minutes anyways.

    In short, the mother gives in, and takes a few of the pills and stores them, as well as using the vegetables to cook the equivalent of the best meal either of them had ever tasted. It is that night that the protagonist realizes that he could make his life, and the lives of the undercity, immensely better by taking his thieving habits from below - and start preying on the rich, rather than stealing from his poor neighbors. 

    After some allotted time, he decides that he'll risk getting caught stealing something in the cracked central again, while he also takes his time in examining the cracks in the ceiling - looking for a way to the surface. While he is doing this, a shady man sees him, and gets a pretty clear idea of what the protagonist is looking to do, and scolds him, warning him of the same things his mother tells him - threats of getting his throat cut from the surface dwellers, as well as becoming a slave.

    This is where my idea sort of... drifts off. I know I want the protagonist to convince the man to help him to the surface, after learning that the man has been their once before. I also know that the man will most likely send him through a tight sewer tunnel, in which the man will cruelly lock the boy in, not allowing him to backtrack to the lower district, effectively forcing him to make his way into the uppercity slums.

    When he gets there, I will have to do some descriptive work, as well as somehow lead into a middle class woman taking the protagonist in for reasons I have yet to think of (either pity, or a selfish goal, like slavery, or something else.) And it will be in this woman's house that he will learn of how the uppercity works, and some... other big plot that isn't there yet XD basically he's going to learn of some horrible government thing and hes going to be inclined to stop it/find out more... and blahblah... yeah - feedback, and suggestions.. I need some, or would very much appreciate some.

    I love you guys...
    EEBIT, READ THIS! - YOU TOO MASQ~ I love you both so much~ X3

    PEE-ESS - I was really tired when I wrote this, forgive any rambling and/or spelling mistakes... ;-;
     

Share This Page