The Embers Crackle (RWBY/CK2-AfterTheEnd)

[Raiu]

^_^
<_<
>_>
0_0

Oi, my plan is fucking stupid! Make your own you pathetic sheeple!!

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Oh no it isn't, in fact it's actually quite good. The only reason why I like contrarians is because naysayers and competition usually make people more invested in something, or even change plans based on their arguments. If the rules of the site allowed for it, I'd be making a dummy account to serve as a jester (whose job was to always question authority) with the goal of improving plans. Of course, I'd pretty much be playing a character at that point (glorious method acting), and that would be unfairly manipulative. Can't really have that since I now have a plan in place.

 

[veekie]

^_^
<_<
>_>
0_0

Oi, my plan is fucking stupid! Make your own you pathetic sheeple!!

Click to shrink...

Not much point. The default option is stupid, theres no other reasonable option anyway

 

[Raiu]

Well, the morning has gotten a bit stale, so I'll now be counting votes. Technically, at the moment of writing this, we have no valid votes as Cmd. Frost has only suggested a plan, while every other vote just leads to him. If anyone wants to bring in a dark horse plan, now would be the time.

Meanwhile, you know it was a fun night if you spent more of it defining unique locations, expanding the lore of the quest and generally replacing out of date sections of my notes than sleeping. Ah, the joys of summer break.

 

[Raiu]

And in deafening silence, the quest has spoken. Bor has Four Tasks to be completed, over the course of which his family will be kept safe as hostages. Should he complete the Tasks, he and his kin shall be sent to the Tarenti, another tribe which seems ready to fight, though does not have a terribly good track record of staying independent.

What a greedy little write-in, but I rather like it. Two distinct tasks which he can act on, one distinct task which only decrements whenever you wish, and one indistinct task but constant task. So, it keeps you in control while also presenting clear benefits to the tribe. This section will be easy enough to plan and write, so there is absolutely no problem there. So, enjoy the end of this event which has rather spiraled out of control, which I will also be providing with an omake about everyone's favorite adulterer, Ikarus.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Having only just read this quest - I'd probably have voted for the write-in too, it's a pretty great write-in.

 

[Raiu]

Having only just read this quest - I'd probably have voted for the write-in too, it's a pretty great write-in.

Click to shrink...

As contrarian as it sounds, it's actually one of the best write-ins I've seen yet. In all honesty, I just needed a bit of quest discussion to keep the writing engine going.

And welcome to the quest, I hope you enjoy your stay in Atlas, the land where it's only warm for one month out of the year and cold the remaining eleven.

 

[Bulwark]

Just read the quest myself. Probably would have joined my vote for the write-in.

Honestly not sure how I feel about this quest. I like the mechanics and style though it does seem like we are on extreme difficulty (perhaps a good change from the norm). But the real issue is that I don't particularly like the tribe, in fact I'd say I'm coming to really dislike them. And the only singular character I like is the mc and even that is lukewarm as we haven't seen much personal interaction. A lot of this seems to stem from the fact that the mc has no friends... which is strange seeing as apparently she was popular enough for the tribe to choose her as champion over the elders favourite. For her to have no allies to aid in administering the tribe seems ridiculous.

 

[Raiu]

Honestly not sure how I feel about this quest. I like the mechanics and style though it does seem like we are on extreme difficulty (perhaps a good change from the norm). But the real issue is that I don't particularly like the tribe, in fact I'd say I'm coming to really dislike them. And the only singular character I like is the mc and even that is lukewarm as we haven't seen much personal interaction. A lot of this seems to stem from the fact that the mc has no friends... which is strange seeing as apparently she was popular enough for the tribe to choose her as champion over the elders favourite. For her to have no allies to aid in administering the tribe seems ridiculous.

Click to shrink...

A good deal of the ridiculousness stems from me not really knowing exactly where I was going with this quest at the beginning, and not having corrected the misstep later on. I can shakily justify this at the moment as the first few months of someone taking charge, where people are getting used to the new order. (In truth, I really should have started the first turn with the election of Colubra, and holy shit I could literally add it in to the first post since there's a transition which would have worked perfectly I'm an idiot. Well, onto the top of the work pile it goes!) However, now that the first season has passed and she's proven herself against a Rival, she'll soon gain some major allies. I'll have to go back and mitigate the horrid "auteur" mindset that I was applying to the tribe thus far.

As to the tribe themselves... Yeah, this stems from my interpretation of the tribe creation. They're asshole religious nuts who have built their faith around a fear of the other, which was reinforced by hostile tribes. I half joked they are fantasy ISIL, and it has some truth to it. On the same note, however, they're already starting to change, so there is hope there. Working to change things is one of the goals thus far (which I likely haven't conveyed correctly yet).

As to the characters, oof. This one I'll admit is an actual problem, and I can see where I went wrong there. Partially it stems from my focusing too much on what's happening to the tribe as a whole rather than the people in the tribe, and partially my treating of the current MC like I did in TTR (where things happen to the MC rather than the MC making things happen) which really is not the way I needed this to go. Well, part of the reason why I post here is the opportunity to fix things, and small bits of patchwork would help, but this is mostly a change in direction going forward. The MC's now established, and the work can really begin.

Thanks for the brutal honesty there Bulwark. I've been needing this for quite a while, and it's given me a roadmap of changes to improve the quality. (As well as an excuse to go back and rewrite my work.)

 

[Raiu]

My insanity has fully taken root, and I'm going to pause updates for a bit in order to rewrite what I have to bring them up to a higher standard. A lot of this quest has been half-assed, so it's time to surgically apply a new ass.

Don't worry, I won't be changing the quest too much. Other than adding in more characterization, clearing up old parts of the setting which I have since changed, shifting away from the "Things happen to Colubra" storytelling method, and showing rather than telling, the quest will be unchanged. Thus far I've been building a world, but I haven't been giving reasons why any of you should care.

Thus, the Great Rewrite which I can't enact on The Torches Rise begins now! The goal is to give you guys more and higher quality writing, and I'll be damned if I don't deliver.

To keep track of everything, I've included this checklist for myself, and I'll be doing my damnedest to get through this as quickly as possible.

[XX]1-1 Finished 5/17/19, adding 4,109 words.
[X]1-2 Finished 5/26/19, rewritten to around 2.2k words.
[X]1-3 Finished 5/27/19, Rewritten to <1k words, however more characterization added. Better than that bland report style.
[X]1-4 Finished 5/29/19, but it was really just a few minute's work. This cleans up the timeline a little.
[]1-5
[]1-6

I'll continue the quest once I've rewritten the first turn and perhaps done some cosmetic work on the rest of the quest.

 

[Raiu]

And the first draft of the 1-1 rewrite is ready to be reviewed at 3,761 words. I... May have gone a bit overboard there. That being said, I'm calling for proofreaders, and the more the merrier. I've already contacted two who I think would be interested, but if you want to take a look at the direction I'm planning on taking this, just speak up. For now, I'm going to sleep well tonight, now that this part is done.

Edit: And just quietly roll out the first rewrite. The rest will come soon.

 

[Raiu]

Well, with the quiet rollout of 1-1, and the rewrite using the momentum to work on the others, I'd like to hear a little bit from you guys. Has 1-1 been improved, making you care for the characters and the tribe more, or have I wasted my time and should have just gone on with the story? Did I overdo or underdo anyone? Is there anything more you want to see now that I'm going back to try and make a better story? I'd like to hear you guys, especially during the rest of the rewrite, which will be done much faster now that I have something to work off of character-wise. I can't read minds, and as Bulwark has shown us, I take criticism both seriously and well.


Now for some unfortunate news. I'm shelving The Torches Rise for the foreseeable future, which is a rather difficult decision to make. TTR was my first dedicated work, and it was a lot of fun writing one story for so long. Unfortunately that has changed. It hasn't been a matter of readership or user engagement, but the fact that when I think of writing an update for TTR, I get a sense of dread. Sitting down to write TTR means taking on so much baggage, so many stray plot points which never went anywhere, so much crap which eventually became insurmountable. I've been wanting to conduct a rewrite of TTR for a long time, but there is simply so much of it that I would need to shift this from a hobby to a full time job to fix. And, at this point, I'm unsure if it will really be worth it. In short, writing for The Torches Rise has stopped being fun.

So, The Torches Rise is shelved on a cliff hanger. I may return to it at a later date, though I find that prospect rather unlikely. If anyone wishes to take it over, I give my full consent.

And with this, now I can focus my energies on The Embers Crackle, and the quests I make in the future.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

Well, with the quiet rollout of 1-1, and the rewrite using the momentum to work on the others, I'd like to hear a little bit from you guys. Has 1-1 been improved, making you care for the characters and the tribe more, or have I wasted my time and should have just gone on with the story? Did I overdo or underdo anyone? Is there anything more you want to see now that I'm going back to try and make a better story? I'd like to hear you guys, especially during the rest of the rewrite, which will be done much faster now that I have something to work off of character-wise. I can't read minds, and as Bulwark has shown us, I take criticism both seriously and well.


Now for some unfortunate news. I'm shelving The Torches Rise for the foreseeable future, which is a rather difficult decision to make. TTR was my first dedicated work, and it was a lot of fun writing one story for so long. Unfortunately that has changed. It hasn't been a matter of readership or user engagement, but the fact that when I think of writing an update for TTR, I get a sense of dread. Sitting down to write TTR means taking on so much baggage, so many stray plot points which never went anywhere, so much crap which eventually became insurmountable. I've been wanting to conduct a rewrite of TTR for a long time, but there is simply so much of it that I would need to shift this from a hobby to a full time job to fix. And, at this point, I'm unsure if it will really be worth it. In short, writing for The Torches Rise has stopped being fun.

So, The Torches Rise is shelved on a cliff hanger. I may return to it at a later date, though I find that prospect rather unlikely. If anyone wishes to take it over, I give my full consent.

And with this, now I can focus my energies on The Embers Crackle, and the quests I make in the future.

Click to shrink...

Well, it's certainly better written, and it makes for a better story. It's a bit odd to so thoroughly upend the characters in a quest though - I imagine we'd have tried harder to get along with Diamant if this was the 1-1 we'd been voting on. Nothing really objectionable though.

 

[Raiu]

Well, it's certainly better written, and it makes for a better story. It's a bit odd to so thoroughly upend the characters in a quest though - I imagine we'd have tried harder to get along with Diamant if this was the 1-1 we'd been voting on. Nothing really objectionable though.

Click to shrink...

That is one of the problems I had to consider for this rewrite, and ultimately the only answers I can really give are apologies. While it's certainly odd, I'm trying to keep it so us going in the directions we have been make sense. In this regard, I've accepted that I'm likely going to make people angry and that I'm likely breaking an unspoken rule of quests, but I'd rather not stress over if people find my work to be good as often as I was before starting the rewrite. If my changes has kept it to be worth reading, I'm unsure. I can't read minds no matter how much I want to.

For Diamant herself, I think the turn 1 event rewrite will keep our choices logical. Honestly, the first turn or two were the ones which needed the rewrite the most, in lessening degrees as it went on, so the changes are more or less over. A change in motivation here, a fixing of lore which doesn't fit now, etc. Nothing major like 1-1.

 

[Raiu]

1-2 and 1-3 have been updated, or rather completely rewritten. If you're starting to think "Raiu, what are you doing?! If we had known all this, we would have voted completely differently!" well that's because the event is going to give a better view of what's going on in the tribe which only Ikarus, the sneakiest git in the tribe, could find out. Look forward to that one, as I'm on an insane writing pace.