#and while they can be antagonistic they've never lied if they can help it

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

never gonna stop thinking about the fact that desire is the only one of dream's siblings who has never ignored him when he's asked for help

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello! This is my first time asking but I could I have some advice on how to write a story that starts in the climax of the plot already? The context is my MC woke up and they are not able to remember anything, but suddenly, he just woke up in the wards of his family (a very strong political figure in their world might I add) whom he told what his life was but the narratives they are telling does not match even in the slightest of the flashback that's plaguing him as the time stretches. And they were in the middle of the war, too. I'm having a hard time to achieve that mind-blowing... thrill I suppose? They also got a love interest that is unmistakably not the one his family claimed ‘their-spouse’ to be.

Starting with Inciting Incident

Remember: your story's climax is the moment your character faces off against the antagonist once and for all. While some stories do start at the climax, and then flashback to the beginning of the story to build back up to it, it doesn't mean you start at the climax and move forward from there.

I think there can be a lot of confusion with the concept of "In Media Res" which a lot of people confuse as meaning starting in the literal middle of the story, or at the inciting incident or climax. Instead, "in media res" simply means starting in the middle of the action. That action can be the inciting incident, the climax, or the literal middle, but again, it doesn't mean the story moves forward from there.

If you're starting your story at the point where your character wakes up without their memories, this isn't the climax but rather the inciting incident. This is the moment when their life and world are turned upside down. Starting at this moment in a story about memory loss is a great way to go, because your reader knows as little about the character and their world as the character does. It puts the reader in your character's shoes right from the start, and they'll be learning everything right alongside your character.

So, that's really the key is to make sure you're filling in the gaps left by not having an exposition. You'll need to make sure to fairly quickly illustrate this character's natural personality, the world they've woken up into, and what their life was apparently like before they lost their memories. If they're being lied to, you may want to build in some clues that hint at what their actual life was like--such as feeling a place is familiar to them even if they're told "no, you would never have been to such a place."

As far as creating that thrill in that opening moment, it's really going to come down to emotional and sensory description. In lieu of recognizing who they are, where they are, and what happened to them, they're going to focus on their immediate surroundings. What can they see, hear, smell, taste, feel? What does that sensory input tell them about who they are and where they are? How does that sensory input--and what they can learn from it--make them feel? What emotions are they feeling as they process this unfamiliar environment and realize they have no idea who they are, where they are, or what happened to them?

I hope that helps!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[raayllum]

Moving forward, what do you think is going to be Claudia's motivating Drive?

Viren, at least, was always able to tell himself that he was working for the sake of the Greater Good, but that's not something Claudia has ever cared all that much about-- her first, last, and only real concern has always been her Family. With that pillar removed (not that I think Viren is about to disappear completely, but he's definitely not going to be directly involved with her in quite the same way), what does she have left to fight for?

I mean, obviously Revenge can be a powerful driving motivator-- the whole series kicked off with revenge-induced assassinations, so we know that's not exactly nothing, and I can definitely see it being something pushing Claudia further down her current path.

But (IMHO) the story has also been moving somewhat further away from Cycles of Revenge, and I just can't see that being a strong enough motivator for Claudia when counterbalanced against everything our Heroes are fighting for. (Especially with Soren still holding out hope for her and being a weak chink in her armor.)

What's the piece I'm missing?

In a lot of ways, perpetuating the Cycle has always, indeed, been about seeking Revenge for the loss of loved ones.

Rayla: When I first came here, I was on a quest for revenge. But the minute I saw that egg, everything changed. Now, this is a journey of redemption. / I became so obsessed with revenge that I risked losing the best thing I ever had: you. Ezran: I'm sorry about what happened to your father, and what happened to mine. But we don't have to avenge them. We don't have to strike back. We can't choose peace. Callum: Then it's a cycle. You hurt me, someone will get revenge against the elves. It won't end.

This is also one of the key things that, at first, set Soren and Claudia apart from the bulk of the main cast. At first, Harrow and Viren weren't seeking revenge (the Magma Titan) but then they both succumbed to it (killing Thunder) and it continued to snowball from there. In spite of losing their families, Callum, Rayla, and Ezran chose to shed the cycles of revenge their parents (Harrow and Runaan) had partaken in to try and break it instead.

Conversely, Soren and particularly Claudia have been largely removed from the Cycle of Revenge... until 3x09 and firmly in 5x09. Soren and Claudia lost a family member, but their mother is alive and chose to leave. While they've experienced forms of loss, they've never had to literally grieve a death. Although Soren has complicated feelings about his dad, he's ultimately more relieved than anything else regarding his dad's death ("Dad is dead, Claudia. You don't have to do what he wants anymore"—4x07) and angry/despairing when it's reversed (yelling no in show / Soren snarled. “Why couldn’t you just stay dead?”—TDP Reflections: Strangers).

Aaravos dangled Viren over Claudia's nose like a carrot dangling from a stick, and she followed. He didn't offer her revenge, but a way to save her father. But the same trick won't work twice on her. Claudia isn't going to try to bring Viren back again — it'd be a repeat and wouldn't progress her character any further — but she also can't walk away from Aaravos, because she's our sole primary antagonist outside the mirror and still might have a role in freeing him. And if she walks away from Aaravos, she's also going to be walking out of the plot, and we can't have that. Thus, I think power — and subsequent revenge — is about the only thing Aaravos would have left to offer her.

It gives her an incentive to 1) go after the prison and/or 2) generally do Aaravos' bidding, and if she couldn't defeat the trio without his help the first time, allying herself with him is the biggest way she can level up as a threat in terms of just like, power scaling.

There are also still a few bits of information that Aaravos knows but Claudia doesn't (that Rayla was responsible for Viren's death, and that Viren lied in 3x03; although for the latter, that's more something she couldn't or wasn't willing to accept) that could spur her further into well, going wonderfully apeshit.

Revenge is more of a fine motivator for her in 4x09 (tricking Rayla, although Terry gets her to turn around) and in S5 with the dragon (smirking and smiling about having the upper hand, making it scared of her) and in her altercations with the trio.

So yeah, my vote is on revenge — for better or definitely worse!

Obligatory fanon s6 fic plug in because of Claudia's revenge arc getting underway

[sketching-shark]

decides to give names to the bone spirits because I have almost nothing content of these two

Their fanon names are Gǔtou and Gǔ

this little friend here Báigǔ

what do you think

Can you think of other types of names?

If you had to give them a personality what would it be?

Do you think Lady Bone Demon could have been affectionate towards them, you know, to give her other nuances of personality by showing that she really is affectionate towards her own people?

Oh that's actually a pretty neat idea to have an entire yaoguai species made of bone people! And thanks for letting me know of some of the fandom lore @maidenofthecloud :D. That said, I'm very ignorant about how precisely naming conventions work for Chinese names, so I'd likely make some major goofs if I tried to come up with something fitting for the bone spirits (X_X).

In terms of personality, given how angry and hollow they look I could imagine them and Monkie Kid's Lady Bone Demon actually fitting quite well as being something like pretas, or hungry ghosts. Pretas are present in a number of Eastern religions, Buddhism included, and while as always keeping in mind that I'm not an expert on this topic, from what I understand the basic idea behind them is that they are the remnants of dead humans who as a result of their bad deeds are now tormented by insatiable hunger, desire or thirst. They do seem to often act as malevolent entities--they possess people and bring bad luck--but there is something very sad about them too because even though they've already died they're doomed to endlessly suffer the torments of desire without even the potential recourse of reincarnation.

As such, I think it could act as a potentially interesting layer to Lady Bone Demon's whole "save the world by killing literally everything & starting over" plan if she was driven to such a twisted form of compassion by seeing, interacting with, and even experiencing herself the kind of unrelenting torment that pretas go through, especially after seeing the deities live it up even though a number of them are responsible for some pretty heinous things that they more or less never have to answer for (though gods from Li Nezha to the Jade Emperor himself all have their own painful pasts). Like if she had viscerally realized just how much unending suffering is in existence, and how even adulated religions seemed incapable of addressing it, you could more easily understand why she decided to just throw the whole reality away. If they had kept Sun Wukong's og backstory it could have made her whole deal an interesting comparison/contrast to the Monkey King himself too, as in the classic he commits all kinds of violence to help his beloved monkey family; she'd just be doing something similar for her beloved pretas, but on a universal scale. Hell, throw in a scene too where the Lady Bone Demon tries to convince SWK of the virtue of her omnicidal plan because of the way even his own lifetimes worth of efforts resulted in nothing but suffering for himself and everyone he ever loved too! It would be a perfect opportunity to FINALLY get some insight as to why that monkey exiled himself for centuries in the first place if nothing else. Not to mention antagonists who are convinced of the righteousness of their actions no matter what are wonderfully scary, and showing how the Lady Bone Demon arrived at her ideas in the first place could really up the sympathy/creep factor!

That said, I know that setting up and exploring that sort of dark situation would likely result in a MUCH higher rating, and probably isn't the kind of thing that could be addressed in a careful and nuanced manner in a silly lego show lol. It is still fun to think about!

[itsclydebitches]

I don't know if you agree or not, but I wanted to share my thoughts. I think that the Curious Cat should have been treated better by the narrative than a two-bit villain. They were cursed and abandoned by their creators, and I think that they should at least have been able to find the answers they were seeking.

I do agree, anon. I've got nothing against two-bit villains, but it felt like a wasted opportunity to introduce this complex character and then simply kill them off. Especially since this isn't a case of the villain being generically, objectively evil.

First, the Curious Cat's motivation is something the heroes should arguably sympathize with: Oh, you hate the Gods for abandoning you? We hate them for cursing our headmaster, destroying the first version of humanity, and abandoning us too under the endless threat of annihilation! The Gods should have become the villains behind Salem post-vision, or at least morally gray antagonists to keep an eye on, yet the characters haven't even acknowledged the horrors the Gods have enacted, even when faced with a character straight-up going, "Here are the reasons I have for hating these guys."

Second, the Cat didn't do that much? At least within the grand scheme of shit that happens in RWBY. They lied and withheld information with the intent of manipulating others to do what they wanted? Yeah, they can join the club. They attacked the group? Used their powers in a horrifying way against others? That's just Emerald's story and the group was happy to welcome her into the fold. They force residents of the Ever After into a horrifying Ascension ritual that strips them of their memory and personalities? Yeeeeaah that's only a bad thing from my perspective; the show presents that as an absolute joy. The Cat doesn't even end up possessing one of the heroes, but another villain instead: Neo. They're not even spouting the usual, 'I'm going to enter your world and destroy it!' like Salem, they literally just want information. I'm not saying the Cat is good, I'm saying when pit against what other villains have done in this show they're pretty damn tame. It's another case of [insert "You can excuse ____???" meme here].

Third, they've now joined the ranks of RWBY treating mental illness as something to punish, not treat. Ironwood suffers from PTSD and is immediately considered too far gone to reason with. Ozpin collapsed in the snow under the weight of his impossible task and the group treated him with disgust and fury. Ruby undergoes a depression arc where she reaches the point of magical suicide and the group shares a happy-go-lucky hug because this tree is going to insta-"fix" her, relieving them of the responsibility of actually helping her. Now here comes the Cat, someone who suffered a "broken heart" with the implication that not getting this fixed drove them insane... and the solution to this is to simply kill them off, literally ripping them limb from limb. It's not that you can never have an "insane" villain, or that every villain with allusions to mental illness must be redeemed, the problem is that RWBY consistently dismisses and kills these characters off while simultaneously arguing, "Yes, sure, Neo can happily go into the tree after spending the majority of the story hunting the heroes and successfully getting Ruby to kill herself. She deserves this!"

...Why? I'm not asking with the implication that she doesn't deserve it (I'm a Ted Lasso fan: forgiveness for all if you're willing to do the hard work of self-improvement), I'm asking why RWBY thinks Neo is a candidate when the Curious Cat is not. Frankly (and this is by no means a new argument) it's a pretty gendered division. Ozpin is awful for his secrets, Ruby is not. Ironwood is awful in part for being military personnel, but Winter is not. Watts and Hazel are killed off, Emeralds gets a fast-pass redemption. Jaune's horror at the death of his village is dismissed as make-believe, his care for them reframed as a moral failing, and finally it's good, actually, that they died so why should you be sad? The focus definitely should have been on Ruby over Jaune, but at least Ruby's grief is justified by the narrative; she's not presented as crazy, deluded, or a secret problem for her suffering. Then the Curious Cat (canonically nonbinary but voiced by a male VA) is torn to shreds while Neo—objectively the WORST of the two, easily, like that's by no means even a debate—is set up for a presumed happy ending. There's no issue with any one of these examples with just a little tweaking, the problem lies in the trend. Ever since Volume 6 RWBY has really struggled to present mental health issues, particularly mental health issues in men, as something that's worth the time and effort to treat. Ruby got a dose of that with the 'Here, go in a tree and your depression with disappear,' but that just shows that this difficulty is a separate issue from RWBY's 'Cute women in the show get a pass no matter how horrific their actions are'—it's just that those two issues tend to overlap a great deal.

So yeah, I think the Cat deserved better. Ironwood's PTSD deserved better. Ozpin's breakdown deserved better. Oscar's crumbling sense of self deserved better (friendly reminder that this was literally "solved" off-screen with a cliffhanger). Qrow's alcoholism deserved better. Adam's heel-turn into abusive ex deserved better. Emerald and Neo deserved better than to simply be forgiven because they're fan favorites. Yang deserved a PTSD arc that didn't drop her trauma and start ignoring her anger issues (even though she got off "good" by having an arc at all). Penny deserved better than to be "fixed" by becoming human and then killed off. Again. Ruby definitely deserved better as our main character who finally, finally got to shine a bit since the early Volumes. RWBY is a show that never should have tried to grapple with topics this complex and the more it tries to dig in its heels with suicide allegories and insane cats with broken hearts, the more it exacerbates problems that, frankly, most fans would have been very willing to shrug off if they'd just dropped them half a decade ago.

[steamberrystudio]

18/04/2022 Devlog

And time for another devlog!

Summary:

Finished all playtesting

Revamped some CGs to improve (??) them

Final testing

Worked on Quill's route

Did sprite stuff for Quill's route

Added an eye colour

The Ramble:

Hi everyone! So just to update everyone, the base game (first six LIs) is finally complete in terms of content.  Right now it is going through its final testing phase to try to catch all the things like broken glossary links or flowchart problems...

After this it is...early release then full release. I'm hoping to be able to release the game in early May. That's where it stands right now and there's not a whole lot to say about it because we are just testing and clicking everything and trying to make sure nothing is left that will make the game break.

Beyond that I have been working on Quill's route a lot. It's around 50,000 words right now. Not quite half complete.

In addition to writing, I've been working on his side character sprites as well. My hand has been doing okay - better than it was for a really long time. It still hurts - particularly during some activities - but just imagine that the base level of pain has dropped from about a 5-7 doing everyday tasks to more like a 1-3.

It's a significant improvement.

I was able to go through and do some tweaking of CGs. It's something I've been refusing to do while I had 50 other things on my "to do list" - but once I was done with everything else, I found myself cracking open some of the CGs to see if I could improve them. Ultimately, I will never be happy with all the CGs. But I tried to pick the ones that bothered me the most to see if I could fix them - even if it meant having to crop, re-size, then resave 30 individual files for each one.

Still not happy with all the CGs. But I'm happier. So that's an improvement I suppose.

OH. I also added an eye colour! Morgan now has eight possible eye colours, including black. (That was an adventure. LoL)

Quill's route appears so far like it's going to have about 3 major supporting characters and then 2-4 "Bob" characters. That's not too many sprites. I have 2 of the major supporting characters done and just need to do the 3rd person (the antagonist).

Below you can see Quill in an alternate outfit.

There is also Locke - a character I drew a while ago but never finished. So he's finished now. Locke was originally meant to be more of an antagonistic figure in the route. He was never THE antagonist but he was definitely a bit of a jerk. The route shifted a little in terms of plot and he became a more likeable character who is one of Quill's good friends. He is the second "cyber augment" ("cyborg") the player meets in the game. 

Though technology on Arcalis means that it's possible to have totally concealed cybernetics, I decided there's ultimately a range of cybernetic limbs that range from very noticeable to very realistic. And it just depends on personal choice and finances what each person has. Many people in Nysa - where Quill and Locke live - have noticeable cybernetics and don't really feel a need to make them blend in.

Anyway, there is also Vale, who is another friend of Quill's. They're also Locke's personal assistant and they are human. Nysa has a large population of unregistered Espers as well as the Biosynths. Vale is a pretty adept Bishop and helps Morgan learn to utilise her abilities a bit. They are also just a calming voice of reason all around. They've been a fun character to create and to write. I'm looking forward to their development later in the route.

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

Locke, Vale, Quill

Upcoming Weeks:

As mentioned we are just trying to finish up the testing - mostly of the glossary and flowcharts but also just double checking CGs to make sure Morgan's bits are all layering properly.

After that is done it will be time to release the game and really move on to working on the additional routes and story expansion.

So yeah, that's where we are. 

I know the testing phase is taking a really long time but GS has a lot of working parts - Morgan's customisation, the flowcharts, the glossary (which involves both hyperlinks from the game as well as hyperlinks between the individual articles). So there's a lot of different things to test in addition to the normal stuff.

Anyway, that's all for now. I will keep you all posted as we wrap things up with the base game!