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Deep Red (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

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Yeah, the writing is really good so far, and as long as Akane figures out more of a sense of purpose/direction reasonably soon, her characterization is following a natural arc. So, I'd say ignore most of the complaints, write what you want, and maybe give the players choices that hint at or nudge them in the direction of things that'll help Akane figure out herself. The only immediate pitfall I can see is if you let Akane continue to meander without clear purpose for too long, but it's very natural from a plot standpoint for her to introspect and/or have experiences that clarify things for her, so that shouldn't be an issue as long as you provide the players with choices that open the door to that. People have a sense of narrative and will pick up on it.
 
@kosm

I honestly think you should set the character some goals directly and allow the player base the choice on how to achieve them, but the realisations about what works or doesn't and what the character wants those should be dealt with purely in character and not come from the playerbase ooc, if you do that you remove a lot of the potential for schizophrenic behaviour due to having random voters.

Edit: Yes it's less freeform and gives the players some what less agency but it's way better for story telling purposes which honestly you're very strong with and I think you'll find it more enjoyable.
 
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I have issues with the current arc. I'm just not interested in it, I don't care about Zhao. I don't care about the earth nation colonies. I don't care about Akane growing her influence. What you have gotten me invested in is Akane and her relationship with her family and Akane's journey torwards inner peace. I enjoy the segments regarding philosophy of the various elements, and how they can better her. I could be an outlier or I could be speaking for a greater whole, but I'll personally like to see her do something such as visiting the spirit realm or searching for the teaching of past great thinkers. That or somehow get me more invested in the fire nation colonies and political intrigue.
 
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Just finished this after a /r/rational recommendation and I'm still in a state of awe. I guess it's because I'm not a big quest reader and I've never come across any other quest as investing as Akane's inner turmoil or as well balanced between the disparate elements of personalities, combat, and political intrigue. Even more amazed that everything's been written live so far.

I'm not up to date on the community's signaling during these quest sessions or what the biggest contributions to your writer's block are, but I just want to say that I have absolute faith in your writing and hope you can find the assurance to write the story in a way that you enjoy.

Re: comments on the last 2 pages of discussion, I know quests naturally give readers agency, but please keep in mind that in any public forum, there's lots of voices pushing for various priorities (including vocal minorities, vitriol, drift) and you can't possibly please everyone. So I'm mostly with @Tulip that you shouldn't concern yourself with some people being dissatisfied, except I'd add that there's some middle ground between what you enjoy and what the crowd enjoys, and luckily that's something you can manipulate in quest choices and your comments (I love the moments where events upset reader expectations).

Anyways, like Ozai, don't stress yourself with this tug-of-war all the time. Unlike Ozai, have some fun with your writing since that usually outputs the best work (and don't kill/ostracize all your readers by turning Akane straight or something just kidding​). P.S. my favorite character is Ozai, I'm bribing you on patreon to keep him awesome!

I really hope to take part in one of the live sessions one day.
 
To be honest i always felt that this quest story is pre set. You seems to have generally an idea where the story going and voter decision seems to don't have much impact.

An as a story well it become increasingly difficult to care about it as i find Akane action to be particulary underwhelming for someone who i expect will eventually become a fire lord better than Ozai,Azula or Zuko
 
You guys are too kind, I really appreciate the encouraging feedback! I think that what I need to do is give the players some clear goal(s) they can work towards and achieve, and try to tie together the disparate threads the quest has going on - the Fire Nation politics, the missions in the Earth Kingdom, the spirituality/bending, the personal doubts/growth, etc. That would be my goal, ideally.

I'm still trying to figure out how to do that - I have one vague idea, but it might be too out of left field. So I might take a little longer to plan. I'm also dealing with some continuing irl stuff that's really interfering with my ability and motivation to write, so my writing in general has sort of taken a hit. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do or when to be honest. Things are still just very uncertain due to irl circumstances, and I don't want to risk starting a live session and then ending up not getting anything done again. I'm really sorry for the delay.
 
i cant finish this story. I really wanted to. its well written and i wanted closure for certain characters in it. but its too real, and the live chat keep making mistakes i saw from miles away. trying to placate a guy who tortures women for fun and who controls half the world. from the very beginning, there were only ever two options. assassinate ozai, or kidnap the kids and run away. i always hated the post show comics. piandao's kid is cool. people got over the rape,burn and otherwise torture thing very quickly. in character they are kids whose dad is manipulating them. out of quest...

one last thing; this thread should have content warnings, not every story depicts ozai's abuse in such a raw fashion.
 
prof_Chemical said:
i cant finish this story. I really wanted to. its well written and i wanted closure for certain characters in it. but its too real, and the live chat keep making mistakes i saw from miles away. trying to placate a guy who tortures women for fun and who controls half the world. from the very beginning, there were only ever two options. assassinate ozai, or kidnap the kids and run away. i always hated the post show comics. piandao's kid is cool. people got over the rape,burn and otherwise torture thing very quickly. in character they are kids whose dad is manipulating them. out of quest...

one last thing; this thread should have content warnings, not every story depicts ozai's abuse in such a raw fashion.
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Eh sorry it wasn't for you, I never involved myself in the live chat and treated it as a story so instead of mistakes it felt more like Akane being a victim of abuse in a more believable way rather than sub-optimal gameplay and I cannot comment on their behaviour regarding getting over Ozai's behaviour..
You may be correct about content warnings.

E: Also prempting complaints:
Necromancy is not against the SV rules, if you have nothing to add let it go back to rest rather than keeping it alive by complaining.
 
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Dark as Silver said:
Eh sorry it wasn't for you, I never involved myself in the live chat and treated it as a story so instead of mistakes it felt more like Akane being a victim of abuse in a more believable way rather than sub-optimal gameplay and I cannot comment on their behaviour regarding getting over Ozai's behaviour..
You may be correct about content warnings.

E: Also prempting complaints:
Necromancy is not against the SV rules, if you have nothing to add let it go back to rest rather than keeping it alive by complaining.
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Many of the players were actually playing with the intended goal of having Akane make realistic decisions based upon her traumas. We weren't really going for what was optimal.
 
i guess i wasnt sold on her descision making process.. felt more questy than traumatized girl, but you do the best you can. every word out of ozai's mouth is poison, but it did kinda feel like qm was using him to tell the voters to stop living in the moment, and to stop trying to have everything. one example being the conflict between conquering the world, or saving your family. by striving for both, both goals are compromised.... or something anyway, im no iroh.

speaking of iroh, kinda rubbed me up the wrong way that he and piandao didnt do something. i can see piandao not knowing quite how dangerous the palace is, but i could also see mitsuko confiding somethings to her dad. if I were piandao, when they were on the boat back, i would of reassured akane that hed do anything for his daughter, including treason, but said in a smarter way, because he is subtler than i am.

never got the zuko hate coming off readers. i get akane and azula resenting him having ursula's affection when they dont, despite them managing to tread water in a deadlier part of the storm that had him drown.

lastly, ive since managed to read the rest. it was just a really intense moment, and after reading a bunch of them in one day, it was too much. the stuff after was easier.

do people know that hua isnt anymore likely to be a spy for the firelord than anyone else who isnt already in akane's inner circle? the only thing we have on her is that /ozai/ said shed be the spy. every word he says is poison. i know she hasnt internalised yet that even his anger at her can be a fabrication made for manipulation. but by now she recognises that he is the enemy and she has no reason to trust what he says. is a potential ally who needs hazing, same as anyone the firelord could of potentially reached.
 
prof_Chemical said:
cool stuff
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For the record, I agree with you; I never reconciled Akane's "My will is my sun" philosophy with her folding under the pressure and burning Zuko, but I hope we can both agree that the story itself is well written.

Speaking of that; what happened to kosm? There never was a formal announcement for the closure of the story- did I miss something?
 
kosm seems to have burned out and just left.

The live chat was the worst thing about this story, especially since quite a few of them saw the idea of imperialism and the "coprosperity sphere" as a how to guide, as well as gleefully plotting to become some sort of ridiculous minmaxed divinity and rule forever after murdering the heroes.

Which is fine if, like, you have self-awareness you're playing an irredeemable supervillain but they...kinda weren't. At all.

That, and they were genuinely just awful at decision making, see also: the entirely of quest events.
 
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I kinda dislike quests in general, though I liked reading through this one mostly because I could ignore the quest aspects of it. Some decisions felt really... off, which I could attribute to spots where quest decisions happened though. The writing itself is brilliant though, I'd much rather read a straight-up story by this author rather than a quest.
 
Rule 3: Be Civil - Do not attack other users
Ugolino said:
kosm seems to have burned out and just left.

The live chat was the worst thing about this story, especially since quite a few of them saw the idea of imperialism and the "coprosperity sphere" as a how to guide, as well as gleefully plotting to become some sort of ridiculous minmaxed divinity and rule forever after murdering the heroes.

Which is fine if, like, you have self-awareness you're playing an irredeemable supervillain but they...kinda weren't. At all.

That, and they were genuinely just awful at decision making, see also: the entirely of quest events.
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As if you weren't the one there starting shit every single time calling half the players fascists and idiots. Thanks for killing the quest.
 
Oh, there was an inner clique driving this story from a separate website? Some things make more sense now.
 
The quest had already burned out for months by then, but I can't help but notice kosm dropped off the face of the internet entirely right as the pandemic was getting started.
 
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