Idea-Pile Interest Poll

The Idea Pile has been living up to its name, and the pile has gotten pretty high by this point. While I would like to write them all out, I do need to focus my efforts on the ones that are the strongest candidates to fill a slot in my rotation when one opens up. I've been working on the Going Native Rewrite in my own time, and it's almost gotten to a point where I feel comfortable setting it down for a bit and focusing my efforts elsewhere. I'd like your feedback on which story it should be.

To be clear -- this is not the poll that decides the next story. This is just a poll to gauge the interest in which stories I should be building a backlog for.

As a refresher, I'll be including a quick synopsis of each story since it's been a while for some of them, with a link in the title in case you'd like to read the first chapter.

Turning the Kaleidoscope (Multicross: Dune): A multicross story that takes just about every setting you can think of and places them all inside of a single galaxy as individual planets, forcing them to struggle against one another and vie for supremacy. 

The story starts in Dune, which would last an estimated 10 chapters, and it would serve as the bedrock of the empire that springs up from the ashes of the Padishah Empire. Planets will be conquered and uplifted, each joining the Landsraad, while what made each setting unique is steadily incorporated into the empire. All the while, it's an arms race with the various threats that were dropped into their shared galaxy, be they the Covenant from Halo, the Sith Empire from Star Wars, the Saiyans from Dragon Ball Z, or the Ōtsutsuki from Naruto.

Terms of length? With this kind of story, it can go as long as I want it to, but in terms of settings that I know I would like to visit -- TtK could be between 50-80 chapters.

Conquest (DBZ/Multicross: AOT): Conquest has the same basic premise as Turning the Kaleidoscope -- countless settings are placed in a single galaxy, and they're forced to share space. Only it takes one thousand years after the Displacement, meaning that the various settings have had significantly more time to interact. It follows Galick, a Low-Class Saiyan warrior sent to reforge the Saiyan empire in the hidden away corners of the galaxy.

This story is a power fantasy played straight. It's something of a waifu collecter story, so plenty of lewds with Galick aura farming every step of the way on various settings that are woefully underequipped to deal with him. The first jump covered Attack on Titan, following it would be a brief stay in Demon Slayer, and then RWBY. With each setting conquered, Galick will be incorporating what made them unique and powerful within himself.

Length would be roughly the same as TtK, so between 50-80 chapters.

Risk It All (Rewrite) (Young Justice/Xianxia): This is a rewrite of a commissioned story that ended up falling to the wayside for various reasons. Rather than Ren getting shot in the head and awakening a gambling gamer system, he is the result of a two-thousand-year cultivator eugenics program that went very wrong. Or right, depending on how you look at it. A normal carefree life is brought to an abrupt end when his family's Sect suddenly attacks Ren and his family, and his father is taken hostage.

The Xianxia elements will largely be contained around Ren, serving as a backdrop to some arcs, as I want the story to be DC with Xianxia elements rather than a Xianxia story in DC. The initial arcs would revolve around Ren rescuing his father and learning how to make use of his unique body.

In terms of length, I think this story would probably be on the shorter side of things. It mostly depends on how many side quests I feel like doing. So, I would say in the ballpark of 40-60 chapters to cover what I would want to cover with this story.

Sweet Dreams (Oblivion/Fusion): The Godhead turned in its sleep, and the dream trembled. The seams of reality stretched until a thread popped. And everything that shouldn't be came pouring in like a flood.

Set in Elder Scrolls Oblivion just before the Oblivion Crisis, reality got shuffled around with various medieval settings getting poured into Nirn. The story follows Nito, the Lord of Death, and Geralt of Rivia, Master Witcher and sorceress seducer extraordinaire on their adventures in a new world that contains possibilities that were impossible in their old one. Nito is on a quest to create a living body that can withstand the weight of his Lord Soul of Death while Geralt searches for his daughter, Ciri.

This story actually inspired both Kaleidoscope and Conquest. I'm pulling from a couple of settings: Witcher, Dragon Age, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, etc. Some settings will just have a character pulled -- Like Mao Mao from Apothecary Diaries, because her talent for alchemy would mesh well with the setting. Others, like Elden Ring, will be featured more prominently with a host of the Demi-Gods dropped into Nirn. Then, in other settings like Monster Hunter, I'd pull the monsters from the games. Basically, I'm picking and choosing what I think would mesh best with Elder Scrolls without it losing it's identity. The fusion side of things is meant to enhance the Oblivion side rather than overpower it.

And to see how certain elements interact, such as Nito the Lord of Death, Mannimarco the King of Worms, and Maliketh the Black Blade all sharing a single plane of existence.

Much like Conquest and TtK, this is the sort of story that could go on for as long as I like. There's a lot to cover as well -- Nirn is a fascinating place in itself, but the real draw for me is exploring how the settings interact with each other. But, if I had to put a number to it, I'd say around 80 chapters.

Duality (Jujutsu Kaisen/DC Comics): Yuji and Sukuna are transported to the formation of the Teen Titans, and it's a huge problem for both of them. Yuji is completely cut off from anyone who is willing to explain to him the nature of Cursed Energy, while Sukuna is in a setting that vastly outreached him at his peak when he only has a mere three fingers' worth of strength. The result is that the pair find themselves in an uneasy alliance, forced to work together even as they work against each other.

DC Comics is a setting that would reward both of their characters in different ways. It's a setting that would reward and enable Yuji's selfless act of saving others because he can save them. There are plenty of like-minded people like with the Justice League, Teen Titans, etc, that he can rely on. On the flip side, it's a setting that would reward and enable Sukuna's selfish evil nature. When it comes to power, Sukuna has a 530,000 IQ and he has a lot of options to regain his strength and take himself to new heights. There are plenty of like-minded villains who would be willing to work with Sukuna, even as he sets the whole world on fire for his amusement.

The big draw, for me, is putting Yuji and Sukuna into circumstances where they kinda have to work together, but they still hate each other's guts and are plotting against one another even as they share a body. There are a lot of opportunities to explore that in DC.

Terms of length -- since the main conflict is going to be between Sukuna and Yuji, I wouldn't want to drag that out too much. I do want it to be long enough for the two to explore what DC has to offer them both. So, I'd call it something like 40-50 chapters total. Enough for some solid arcs.

Path of Creation (Naruto): An SI is reborn into Naruto as a Sukuna Ryomen expy. Initally thought to be a cripple due to his lacking of a chakra system, he strikes a fast friendship with Rock Lee and they make it everyones problem. An incident reveals that Sukuna is in possession of something called Artist Release, which allows him to paint with his chakra to create jutsu. Which he then uses to commit copious amounts of intellectual theft by stealing techniques from every setting he can think of.

With this story, I planned to explore some of the parts of Naruto that felt neglected -- such as the relationship between the ninja village and the daimyo, clan politics, and exploring the ripples that came with an early character death, who will not be named here. And, to be upfront, I don't intend to do anything with the Ōtsutsuki.

The length of this story would be around 80 chapters to cover everything that I would want it to.

Consume and Level Up (Danmachi/That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) (Slime SI): Waking up in the Dungeon as a slime was hardly the ideal start in a world whose economy was built upon killing monsters, but it undeniably came with some perks. A nearly impervious body, the ability to take the shape of anything he ate. It was just bad luck that the first person he ate turned out to be a massive asshole and our hero ended up inheriting all of his drama along with his face and name.

This story would likely be in the ballpark of 40-60 chapters and a good long stay in Danmachi. The MC would be more of a steamroll than I usually write because of the nature of slime powers, so I'll probably lean into that a fair bit. I don't have any solid plans for the OEBD, so I'd focus on Orario and the familias within it.

Hi, I'm Gary (Fallout 3 SI): Vault 108 was an experimental vault -- one determined to claim immortality with the power of cloning, with the caveat being they had to inhabit the body of some guy called Gary. Only for his head to already be occupied by himself and every clone that they made. Upon his escape, the Garys are unleashed into the wasteland where they will forge it into their image and the world will never forget the name Gary.

This would be an adventure of Gary type story where Gary 1 is chillaxing in the Vault, doing settlement building, while Gary 13 is in the Pitt leading a slave rebellion, as Gary 33 is getting abducted by aliens. All of it would probably culminate in Gary dominating the American Wasteland. I can't see it being a particularly long story, somewhere in the ballpark of maybe 20-30 chapters at the most.

Written Works (DC Comics): William Wake is a starving artist barely keeping his head above water between his day job as a delivery boy and an amateur smut writer. An unforeseen expense finally pushes him under, and he takes a commission that he never would have otherwise, only to discover that the words he typed on the page are beginning to manifest in reality.

Alan Wake particularly inspires this story -- there is no Dark Place, or anything of that nature, but the core power remains the same. Will becomes a low-tier reality warper who crafts narratives to catch the bad guys, all the while resisting the temptation that his power has over people who start to feel like characters to him. In terms of length, I could see this being around a 60-chapter story, or there abouts.

All the World's Evil (Fate Zero): In the aftermath of the Third Holy Grail War, Angra Mainyu was left on the Holy Grail like an evil lemon wedge, tainting the Grail itself. When the Fourth Grail War begins, he stirs. Summoned as Caster, the Source of All the World's Evil finds himself in an uneasy alliance with Saber, King Arthur herself, as they both fight for the Grail and the wish that it offers.

This is an older story that I put about four chapters into before setting it down. I've always liked the premise, though -- All the World's Evil slowly becoming more human with exposure due to being exposed to some of the best of humanity. Meanwhile, you have Artoria realizing that AM isn't the monster that he portrays himself as, and underneath all the scorn and cynicism, he's got a heart of gold.

This wouldn't be a long story. I'd put it at around 30 chapters at the high end. Enough to flesh out some of the fellow Heroic Spirits fighting in the Grail War, have some highlights, but the core of the story would be the romance between Angry Mango and Artoria.