I’ve gotten some mild interest here and elsewhere about the planned reboot of my Witchfire series. With that in mind, I thought I’d fill newer readers in on what the series is about.
In The Beginning…
I started the original Witchfire series (NSFW link to my new self-hosted blog’s adult section) about three and a half years ago. The idea came about as I was looking for some writing inspiration and made one of my occasional visits to Danger Babe Central. DBC is a superheroine peril website. Much milder than some other sites out there, but the heroines are rarely portrayed as competent, and always end up defeated and in “adult” situations. The site’s owner, “Mr. X”, also hosts a fan fiction page where readers can submit written stories and get them posted.
To be blunt, the fan page content runs the gamut of boys living out some pretty dark and twisted fantasies to a few authors trying to portray the heroines in a more positive light while keeping things sexy. LONG story short, there were just enough stories where the heroines were portrayed as capable and having some depth (both on the main site and fan page) that I thought “I could put a more positive spin of my own on this also”.
And So It Began:
So I set to work on my idea. I wanted a unique premise for my storyline, and I came up with the idea of a redhead Wiccan named Krystal who was a fan of the site, but had an objectified view of the heroines. She had also been otherwise drifting off the path with her Wicca, and as a result, her goddess (Freya from Norse legend) banished her to Danger Babe Central’s story world to teach her humility and compassion for her fellow women.
Krystal finds her magic works in this new comic book reality, and makes quick work of her first villain based on her knowledge of the tropes used at the website. Just as quickly, she found out life is pretty complicated in such a world though, and had trouble from heroines and villains alike as she attempted to uncover whatever big conspiracy was going on, and hopefully earn her way back home.
Crash and Burn:
Lack of planning, along with trying to keep up with another writer whom I was collaborating with, and mostly an epic amount of drama in my personal life led to my being increasingly unhappy with what I’d written, and less able to come up with new content. I finally shelved the whole storyline after 11 chapters. That was roughly two and a half years ago.
Regrouping
The desire to finish what I started was always there. I’ve kicked around various ideas to do just that for a while. It wasn’t until things really started to clear up a over the last 4 or 5 months that I really felt my focus had returned enough to start anew.
Looking over the original story, I took notes of the things that I hated, such as how Krystal was too much of a bitch, and that the grand conspiracy didn’t seem to have the right kind of foreshadowing and clue reveals. That last part made the story line feel inconsistent and awkward. I’d also partially fallen into the trap of making the original heroines less competent than originally intended.
Witchfire Redux:
Reviewing everything, I decided that a fresh start was the best option. Calling the new series “Witchfire Redux” came to me surprisingly fast. Here’s what’s changed:
First, I decided that Krystal needed to be a little wiser and more mature. Instead of an oversexed 21 year old college junior at UC San Diego, she’s now 23 and pursuing the beginnings of her post graduate work at the college. Her field of study is Criminal Profiling and Forensic Psychology, primarily because human behavior in general is fascinating to me. It also allows a bit more of a suspense and detective angle to come into play in the new story.
Krystal is still a redhead, with all the stereotypes that come with that, including a highly passionate nature. She’s no longer a spoiled brat though. She’s still a Wiccan also, which will again be the source of her powers.
The BIG shift ended up being more to do with the original characters from Danger Babe Central. I re-read every story I could find and took note of everything that could help me uniquely define each character; interests, appearance notes, how they fight… you name it. Everything from social life to their kinks ended up on the spreadsheet I mentioned in a previous post here.
I also made note of past locations used in stories, so that I could keep canon somewhat consistent, then I filled in the details for Delta City (where the vast majority of stories are set). Six city zones (NSFW blog link) with key landmarks and points of interest both from the canon stories and others added by me to flesh the city out. A massive project, BUT I’ll have everything available at a glance so I know what could or would happen where.
I did the same with organizations and factions for my story. I even put in some thought as to how the laws in that world (again NSFW blog section link) might vary from ours.
OK, but What About the Actual Plot?
Alright fine… Here’s some plot info. 😀
The story will start out similar to the original. This time though, Krystal will be haunted by very erotic but equally dark dreams. She will get called before Freya again. Freya will explain that there’s something sinister going on in the multiverse and it’s centered in Delta City. Krystal needs to go there and oppose it. Still a fan of Danger Babe Central, Krystal will initially balk, not wanting to end up like the heroines always do. Freya will tell her that she’s pulled the same move that Doctor Strange did before turning over his Infinity Stone to Thanos; after scanning all the possibilities, Krystal is the best option for preventing this darkness from spreading. If she doesn’t, the darkness will continue to haunt her in “The Real World” and eventually find it’s way fully there.
So Krystal reluctantly agrees to play the heroine. When she gets there, things are problematic right from the get go. As the story progresses, she and the other heroines slowly uncover a wide ranging conspiracy between governments and a shady collection of high tech businesses to decipher and control the unique genetic mutation that gives the Danger Babe Central heroines their powers and abilities. The conspiracy’s goal will be to create an army of metahumans that are completely under their control.
There will be a good deal more to it than that, BUT I can’t give away too much. Others might steal it, and there’s less cause to read if you know it all. I promise lots of subplots as well however.
All this coming soon to the other blog.
As a Side Note: The links to the Delta City notes, and the blog page on laws both link to pages that are themselves work safe, BUT they are in the NSFW partition of the “self hosted” blog. Don’t wander off of those two pages and you’re fine. Beyond that, you were warned. 😉
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