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Deep Red (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

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So much for "My will is my sun." I guess.

Also, while Ozai is not someone you'd listen for good advice and life lessons, Akane's internal dialogue on the first half had me going "you goddam teenager". Even perfect princesses have their rebellious phases too :V
 
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RadiantPhoenix said:
He's not actually right about that last line, but wow, the hard men making hard decisions brigade got played hard.
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Man, just... fuck Ozai. I want to make the overriding motivation of Akane from now on to be "fuck Ozai, whatever the cost".

We can start by leaking his plans to wipe out the merchant families. Quietly, and subtly, of course, but that should be a good start.
 
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I am absolutely shooketh. My own personal opinion is that this chapter's contents are... hmmm... foolish in a way (not trying to be insulting). If you're trying to tell a compelling story then this would not be the best way to go, at this point Akane is very undoubtedly broken and very far from being fixed which would make and decision making and story building very boring and uninteresting the way she is now.

As someone else said though, take your time on your break and come back to look at it with fresh eyes, it can do wonders I tell ya. Keep up the great work and have a nice day!

-Gwyn

P.S. May I suggest taking the votes from people simply as heavy suggestions instead of law? Or maybe continue writing as a non-quest fic? Just suggestions that don't need to be followed, just tryna help!
 
Arcus said:
Man, just... fuck Ozai. I want to make the overriding motivation of Akane from now on to be "fuck Ozai, whatever the cost".

We can start by leaking his plans to wipe out the merchant families. Quietly, and subtly, of course, but that should be a good start.
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It should already have been obvious that Ozai needed to die years ago; now it's just far more personal.
 
Thinking it over, the voters made a mistake in thinking the only two options were to "commit treason" or "obey Ozai".

We could have just refused, flat out, much like we did the first time round. Ozai had no leverage. What's he going to do, execute his daughter for, excuse me, refusing to burn her brother? Even if Ozai is an absolute sovereign, he's going to have problems if people (quite reasonably) think he's completely off his fucking rocker. If he's willing to do that to his closest kin, just who is going to be on the chopping block the next time? But committing treason would have given him an excuse. And obeying him obviously leads us to the situation we are in now.

He was bluffing, and people fell for the bluff.
 
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This is why I could not run a quest myself.

I could not bring myself to punish the players for bad choices.

I can't say I enjoyed reading this, but I respect that you did write it all the more for it.
 
defenestrator said:
So much for "My will is my sun." I guess.
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This was my reaction to that.

What makes it worse is the fact that players were given a chance to actually back out. Like they could have taken a fucking fall to save Zuko. But more than two thirds voted for SCARRING ZUKO BECAUSE OF THEIR FUCKING HATE BONERS!

I am at this point a walking pile of salt. I miss one session and this shit happens.

Urgh.
 
RadiantPhoenix said:
He's not actually right about that last line, but wow, the hard men making hard decisions brigade got played hard.
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Not really. Anyone remember trying to negotiate with Bolton in telltales game of thrones? In the end nothing you say changes his mind and he'll kill the main character because he's a lunatic that isn't interested in negotiating.

There were no good options here, if Azula hadn't defused things earlier then we probably would have died fighting Ozai. If we defied him again see above as Azula isn't here to defuse the situation again. If we went to Iroh then the worst case scenario is that the fire nation is torn in half through civil war and best case both Iroh and Ozai die leaving awkward questions about what the hell happened.

Being reasonable only works if both sides are willing to be reasonable. What precisely are you supposed to say to "Give me everything I'm demanding or I'll kill you here and now?"
 
FatedBread said:
If you mean this:

That particular part had no write-ins allowed. Those were the only 2 default options.
And... it was also a 2-minute vote.
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Fair enough, but we could still have voted for "taking a fall". As long as we didn't commit actual treason, Ozai really... well, yes, he can keep trying to bully Akane or whatever, but he has no fucking pretext to exile or kill her. Yes, absolute authority and all but good luck staying on the throne when everyone thinks you're a fucking lunatic who's willing to execute family for nonsensical reasons and your only living daughter now hates your guts. I mean, christ, we got rid of the only actual leverage he had over Akane, which was the letter.

EDIT: To be fair, it's understandable, people make some pretty bad calls when put under immense amounts of pressure, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

(I only woke up after all the votes were closed. Urgh.)
 
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From a narrative standpoint, this is where things really gets juicy. Akane's being effectively exiled from the Fire Nation ala Zuko but with the addition of Akane losing everything except Mitsuko. This also leads to the ramification of whether Akane's presence has truly changed things. As droll as it sounds, her presence really didn't change anything on the story beats of canon and now? Akane, a princess of the Fire nation, would be going to war personally. That's going to be a hell of a boost for morale. Only downside is Azula being left alone with Ozai as per canon, I don't see that ending well especially since the voters decided to keep their distance while away.

Being sent away actually would contribute a lot to Akane's knowledge, she'd see things for what it is without the propaganda colouring her eyes. It's gonna be an uphill battle but I have hopes she'll come through.

Overall, this has been a solid chapter.

Take a break @kosm , you deserve it!
 
Basically we got played and are now useless.

Well done voters.

Its great from a story telling perspective and the writing is fantastic, but I can't help, but be incredibly angry at the voters for basically condemning everything and everyone for being unable to see past their hate boners and not doing the right thing of defying defying defying.

Now we're going to loose both of them.
 
Doomed Wombat said:
Basically we got played and are now useless.

Well done voters.

Its great from a story telling perspective and the writing is fantastic, but I can't help, but be incredibly angry at the voters for basically condemning everything and everyone for being unable to see past their hate boners and not doing the right thing of defying defying defying.

Now we're going to loose both of them.
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I just hope most voters do acknowledge it.
Even as recent as the previous update many argued that the "deep red flame" was actually an upgrade.
 
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tenchifew said:
I just hope voters do acknowledge it.
Even as recent as the previous update many argued that the "deep red flame" was actually an upgrade.
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I doubt it.

If they acknowledged that they fucked up that would mean...well they did something wrong. And they can't do that the decisions of the quest collective are always perfect :eyeroll:
 
Well, tbh Akane would have been heavily punished no matter the choice. She kind of said "fuck you with a table" to Ozai face.

I assume that "taking the fall" would mean something as bad as weakening of her firebending.
Maybe Ozai would have done something to Mitsuko. She was mentioned in the end. Only Kosm knows, at this point.

Akane got herself in position where she has to lose something. I find it annoying that people complain about lack of "Scot free" button.
 
medved847 said:
Akane got herself in position where she has to lose something. I find it annoying that people complain about lack of "Scot free" button.
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I'm not complaining about no scot free button, I'm complaining at the lack of the Ozai button.

Seriously what were they thinking, the options were between hurt Zuko and obey the orders of a deranged sociopath and disobey him and fight back.

Both of these things loose us stuff, one seems in character and is the better option.

Arcus said:
I can unironically say that Azula is the probably the least terrible person in the quest right now.
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Not for long she won't be once Ozai gets his claws in her 24/7
 
medved847 said:
Well, tbh Akane would have been heavily punished no matter the choice. She kind of said "fuck you with a table" to Ozai face.

I assume that "taking the fall" would mean something as bad as weakening of her firebending.
Maybe Ozai would have done something to Mitsuko. She was mentioned in the end. Only Kosm knows, at this point.

Akane got herself in position where she has to lose something. I find it annoying that people complain about lack of "Scot free" button.
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More than it is weakened now!?
Her fire bending is utterly wrecked due to her Will being in tatters!

"My Will is my sun!" And then folding like a wet paper towel! What a bad joke!
 
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Let's just hope Ozai doesn't have Asuma thrash us in a spar now. Though I actually really enjoy the direction this is going
 
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