- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In the docs' case, it's to have everything in one place instead of having to scroll through a bunch of threadmarks and other posts
SV Original Magical Girl Crossover
- Thread starter ArlequineLunaire
- Start date
- Storybuilding Worldbuilding
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Personally, I find the thread more or less unfollowable at present. There's dozens of moving parts to a project of this size with this many cooks and a single discussion chain where things routinely get lost is just very hard to follow or reference even with threadmarks, at least for me.
We could split that into a bunch of PMs, but keeping track of those on SV is finnicky and, like, it also makes it hard to poke at other ongoing discussions if you haven't been super involved about a particular thing. Being able to easily divide, e.g., lore or systems discussion of the VR from character dynamics from team break out or break in just strikes me as extremely useful.
At minimum, docs add a single, easily updated, location where people can add and respond to comments that are topically separated instead of all mixed together.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We've already had a Discord for a little while actually, it just been hasn't been made public. We were waiting until the fic itself launched to do so
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Iris-Iven-Ibis
Interested-Idiot-Immortal
- Location
- You know
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SpoopyGhost
Undead Demi Kuudere Tsundere
- Location
- Your Haunted Attic
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That does make sense. I still have misgivings about splitting up the discussion into parallel tracks making for too many threads to try to keep track of, but I suppose it may be easier to organize in its own way. It is worth trying, at least.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As there was some confusion on this, to clarify, Gloriana and Risa are separate people, Gloriana is just using Risa's in-game avatar and pretending to be her to placate Nanase. You could call Gloriana a dark parallel to Ayaka in that way, as while Ayaka grows out of wanting to reabsorb Nanase, Gloriana never does so with Risa (which she'd presumably do out of having become the mask, or desperately wanting to keep Nanase on board).
The Ayaka vs Gloriana parallel would get stronger if we retool Mathurine into being Gloriana's siphoned-off negativity, since that'd make her a double like Nanase created to avoid the less fun and glamorous side of her fantasy life. This all leads to the growing horror of Nanase hanging out with the very thing she feared all along
The Ayaka vs Gloriana parallel would get stronger if we retool Mathurine into being Gloriana's siphoned-off negativity, since that'd make her a double like Nanase created to avoid the less fun and glamorous side of her fantasy life. This all leads to the growing horror of Nanase hanging out with the very thing she feared all along
Fillia Intro Draft
Iris-Iven-Ibis
Interested-Idiot-Immortal
- Location
- You know
This doesn't work because Mathurine is Huli influence as a character
That's why she's all seeing whatever the company is
When a private company is that powerful especially in the Modern Age privacy becomes fiction almost in every way
This is why she should serve as Gloriana eyes and ears throughout the Kingdom with advertisements for Huli products all around
Huli is unescapable when it a corporation gets anywhere near as big as it you don't even know this when you see it think of how many times you've seen something runs Google today
Gloriana shouldn't really like her but she's utterly necessary for her
One way and another she and her corporate overlords probably control Gloria's life switch
Mathurine it's probably the one who did that plot important thing to Risa
Her behavior should be the representation of how the company of a whole is of their almost Godlike strength more like the DM of the game to their blindness to anything but short-term profits or "plots" in the case of Mathurine
Please Gloria can still seal her negative emotions into one of the many bodies of Mathurine
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh, think I saw that in the thread. For some reason, Gloriana wanting to absorb Risa feels off as a plot point to include.
SillyLittleCoffe
Magical Girl Enthusiast
What if Gloriana wants to become Risa instead?
Thy-Robocop
Fairy Chess Player
- Location
- Southampton
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That was the idea I was working with in my head and from what I remember in previous discussions. Gloriana's goal at the start is to be Nanase's best friend, and to keep her distracted from the real world by offering her (as the Director AI of the game) various missions to do.
Her desire to "become" Risa stems from the fact that Gloriana only knows about what Risa does in-game, and so can only really copy what Risa showed in-game. Nanase has bonded with Risa outside the game, and she is aware that Risa's life is somewhat similar to hers, even though she puts on a front better. So my feeling is that by the point the story starts, Nanase is feeling that there is something off with Gloriana, that she is not really Risa as she originally thought. And I guess Gloriana feels this about it too, which is what prompts her to send Mathurine out in the real world to try and find the real Risa, and bring her in the game, or at the very least bring her "soul" in, as Risa's body is slowly becoming corrupted.
I think her idea is to learn more about the real Risa so that she can roleplay her better. But when she learns that the real Risa is dying, she comes up with the idea to "absorb" her as the only way to save Risa and keep Nanase happy. That in doing so she becomes Risa herself is more of a case of killing two birds with one stone.
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On the Mathurine discussion, I do agree that with the later discussion her role has fallen to the wayside a bit. That being said, I do like a few of the ideas proposed below will keep her relevant for the story.
I'm not entirely sure if I'm imagining the same kinda thing as everyone else but here's the vibe I'm getting.
To summarize Mathurine and her role from previous discussions and with some of my ideas added to the mix:
- Mathurine was a break-out character from a show that Huli produced ages ago who became an unofficial mascot to the company.
- THe CEO who bought the Somnia Virtua lyre had a marionette/animatronic made of her in the real world to have her play the Lyre.
- By playing the Lyre in the building where the developerts were making La Val Sans Retour, she infused the virtual world with magic from the Lyre
- Her prominence in the developers mind made them add Mathurine in the game as the intro NPC and guide for new characters into the world. Perhaps she plays a role in the player's UI for when they go into options/quest logs/character loadout screens, offering sarcastic advice and hints to the players (perhaps she even shows up on death screens to taunt the players?)
- Given the above role, the idea that there exist multiple copies of Mathurine, each travelling with the players and advising them througout the game makes sense. It would also justify her being Gloriana's eyes and ears throughout the game, the main way that Gloriana knows what is going on.
- The multiple copies would only exist in the Virtual World. I would say that only one real copy exists in the real world, but that said real copy can use the magic of the Lyre and La Val Sans Retour to travel to different dimensions to recruit the right players for the role.
- I'd say her closest equivalent would be Sans from Undertale? An NPC who interacts friendly with the player, but who becomes a surprise final boss under certain conditions? Like Sans, I would imagine she'd be quite fragile, but she'd have Sans/Neopolitan levels of dogding incoming attacks, probably hard-wired in the code by Huli to avoid players killing such an important NPC.
- As Gloriana develops into her own person and casts off her negativity, she could increasingly take on the negativity in herself and act as a Jester should, as per @SpoopyGhost 's suggestion.
- In taking on the negativity, she also takes on the parts of the Director AI that serve to "unbalance" the world, causing events that happen to trigger new missions and new stories. I guess that this is the directive she follows when recruiting members of the Break-in team, as a way to "unbalance" the equation of the game, after recruiting the key players in Break-out to "balance" Gloriana and Nanase's immediate requirements.
- As such, other than accompanying players to fulfil her role as part of their UI, she would only intervene in the game to make "coincidences" happen and drive plot points together, secretly tipping the players to go in a direction that makes things more unbalanced and more fun in the story, but never intervening herself.
- The only point where I would think she would intervene in person, would be to attack whoever has the ghost of Risa in game and kidnap Risa, in order for Gloriana to fulfil her ritual to absorb Risa within her. However given the roles that others are filling in, perhaps all that she needs to do is to attract members of Team Nanase to where Team Ayaka are holding Risa, and then let those members do all the dirty work, though maybe attanking with her bouncy orbs in a sort of kabuki theatre "the stagehand was secretly a ninja in disguise the whole time!" kind of way.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You might like to post this on the story drafts section of our Google Docs page.
The draft did make me wonder that if Fillia's just gonna keep all her memories anyway, then she's a bit misplaced being in Breakout team. We did talk about her being quick to regain her memories, but this is a little too quick.
Given the story hasn't started yet, this is something that could still be rewritten. And a link back to Huli is something that could still be achieved if Huli staff get trapped in VR as NPCs or monsters.
Again, Huli isn't supposed to be Google or Facebook levels of big, they're like Square-Enix at the absolute most.
I think the main question we need to answer is 'If Mathurine wasn't in the story, what would it lose?'
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Easily fixed~ Was a draft for feedback anyway.
Thank you thank you~ Shall tweak it a little. But time to drop into the drafts section
Crimson Flight
华裔机甲迷
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Honestly Huli in general feel kinda tangential to the core stuff. Even if the whole VR stuff is theirs I dunno how much they tie in to the rest of the cast hanging about; they're basically just around to explain why there's a VRMMO and why there's an all-powerful AI, but after that the heavy lifting is all Ayaka/Nanase/Gloriana (which is pretty solid, imo). You could totally just not have them present besides as a name, not even Mathurine really.
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- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
(Currently away so I'm posting here instead of on Discord)
Yeah, I've mostly seen Huli as more a plot device than anything else, to explain who got pre-Nanase Val sans Retour started. Mathurine's the only thing that's added any spice to them (wanna be clear that I still like Mathurine as a character, even if I've questioned her necessity), other than that they're mostly your basic corporation so far.
Though I do remember Iris suggesting Ayaka's dad could be a Huli scientist, former or current, and I also said their staff could've become trapped as dragons within VR.
Of course, given we don't wanna be adding too many more OCs, keeping Huli basic is probably the right move. We are aiming at just 50k words after all.
I do like the concept of Val sans Retour's original devs being in conflict with Huli execs, whether the devs didn't want bring in Nanase but staff forced them to, or instead the devs brought in Nanase to counter something else the execs had planned. Again, if we even have time for such a subplot
Yeah, I've mostly seen Huli as more a plot device than anything else, to explain who got pre-Nanase Val sans Retour started. Mathurine's the only thing that's added any spice to them (wanna be clear that I still like Mathurine as a character, even if I've questioned her necessity), other than that they're mostly your basic corporation so far.
Though I do remember Iris suggesting Ayaka's dad could be a Huli scientist, former or current, and I also said their staff could've become trapped as dragons within VR.
Of course, given we don't wanna be adding too many more OCs, keeping Huli basic is probably the right move. We are aiming at just 50k words after all.
I do like the concept of Val sans Retour's original devs being in conflict with Huli execs, whether the devs didn't want bring in Nanase but staff forced them to, or instead the devs brought in Nanase to counter something else the execs had planned. Again, if we even have time for such a subplot
Thy-Robocop
Fairy Chess Player
- Location
- Southampton
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I can see your point there. While I think we've developed enough of Mathurine as a more interesting aspect of Huli and La Val Sans Retour that I wouldn't want to definitely remove her from the story, I would say that at this stage she doesn't really fit in the core of Ayaka, Nanase, and Gloriana's storyline, so she can probably step out of the spotlight. Unless we want to go with the idea/theme of "creations evolving beyond the creator's intent" that forms the core of Ayaka and Nanase's story? There is a similar theme going on with Gloriana being a "creation" of Nanase. Well, technically the Director AI is Huli's creation, but Nanase effectively "created" her Gloriana persona, and the combined creation of Huli and Nanase then evolves to become her own person unbound by her Director AI role. Gloriana in turn then divests her Director AI aspects to other people, thereby "creating" new entities. One of which might be Mathurine, as the embodyment of her negativity and the chaotic element of the Director AI, who thanks to the power of the Lyre held by her animatronic counterpart in the real world soon becomes more than just a Jester...
In any case, Mathurine's evolution would be something to cover in later stories. For this story, I think she's best to fulfil a side character role. Something similar to my suggestion above that she is the "stagehand" of la Val Sans Retour, who very occasionally strikes out in a "the-stagehand-is-secretly-a-ninja!" role. Perhaps the closest comparison would be Edel from Princess Tutu, which was one of my original inspirations for her idea, but with a sort of secret, undelying deadlyness that only comes out for emergency/drastic reasons, like Sans in Undertale, which we may or may not trigger in this story.
Hmm... I do think we need to do some more work on establishing Filia's goals within the story first story. The reason I've asked everyone to write up the story goals of the characters is to make it easier for myself and others to work out how to hook our characters to the story plot, and at the moment I feel that the lack of story-specific Mid-term and Short term goals leaves Filia unmoored, apart from the story itself, with no connection to it. Kind of like a mentor without a mentee, or a villainess without the hero she is facing.
Besides, the best way to achieve a Long Term goal is to break it down into smaller, more achievable steps.
So, based on what I've read so far, I'm taking that @ArlequineLunaire's suggestion that Filia's true role is the Wise Mentor in this setting does sum up the core of your character, as someone who is playing the villain in order to help train and improve the Magical Girls she is facing?
Also, if I remember correctly, you are only proposing that Filia join in the crossover story. So she'd have none of her usual MaGi around to be the villain to, and without the MaGi around to fulfil her character goals, I don't see why Filia would stick around in la Val Sans Retour, or even why Gloriana would invite someone who is not interested in staying in the world*. So I would say, in order for Filia to stick around, she would need to have someone in the game that she is personally invested in training up as a MaGi Hero to counter the role she assigns herself as Villainess. Who would this person be, and how does it tie in to the main story?
As a suggestion, I would propse that Filia could be called in by Gloriana to mentor Nanase, and perhaps Gloriana herself (I was thinking that perhaps Risa and Nanase were still relatively low level characters in the game when Nanase moved permanently into the game. As an aspect of the Director AI, Gloriana would probably be more skilled than the Risa avatar on which she is based, so in order to not arise Nanase's suspicion of being overleveled, and bring her up to her level, she could pretend she'd be training with Filia all this time, and now that she Got Good, it is time for Nanase to do the training?). This would then give some motivation for Filia to actively participate in the main story. What do you think?
*I would say that while the memory wipe is one of the tools that Gloriana uses to keep the people she recruits into La Val Sans Retour, I would say that what does the heavy lifting in keeping the Break-out team in the game is that Gloriana is offering them something that they want to do, that aligns with their goals and that compels them to stay. Perhaps Gloriana is on some level aware that she is in a game, and that the players are avatars who have the real world to return to, but knows that even if those players retain their original memories and decide to leave, they will always return to the game because there is something interesting that compels them to. So perhaps the mindwipe is not something that is fully in Gloriana's control? Perhaps that is Huli's/Mathurine's doing, or even just a side effect of constant exposure to the Lyre, once the character has been hooked in to the story? Perhaps Break-out team were initially aware they were in a game, but by fulfilling the role and their goals in the game they became more addicted to it, and slowly started to lose their memories of being in a game by the time our story starts? Of course, if they are escaping from a tragic reality, they might also voluntarily submit themselves to mindwipe as part of the invitation into the game.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thinking on it, I do like the idea of Mathurine being a seeming background or function-based character whose importance isn't made clear till later. It lets her not take up too much of the story that could be going to Ayaka, Nanase, and the crossover characters, while setting her up enough in case we later think of a bigger story purpose she can serve. I can add that approach to the Crossover Cast Doc (Edit: And done).
On another topic, I was watching a Pinocchio video essay (about 45 mins long) which, despite none of us mentioning the story thus far, did make me realise this story does have some Pinocchio undertones. The obvious ones are Nanase being an artificial construct, and Val sans Retour being like Pleasure Island in that it's a world made for entertainment that takes away your original self.
Pinocchio's 'wanting to be a real boy' would translate to Nanase's 'wanting to remain distinct from Ayaka'. Several adaptations like A.I. and Del Toro's also have Geppetto wanting to destroy Pinocchio, which fits with Ayaka trying to reabsorb Nanase.
Guess this makes Gloriana some sort of Blue Fairy-Lampwick hybrid, and Mathurine the Coachman of all people
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SillyLittleCoffe
Magical Girl Enthusiast
Just a quick heads up, but Something Wicked is about to finally enter combat for the first time. The results will likely play into how Zaiyu functions in this crossover since it's my first time writing him actually fighting. If anyone wants to influence how that plays out, now is the time to vote.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sorry for being very delayed, but I ought to ask which show would this be? Crimson has pointed out that Huli is Chinese for Fox, which fits in that sly way but to me brought a certain Murdoch company to mind, on top of Hulu of course
Thy-Robocop
Fairy Chess Player
- Location
- Southampton
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So we have a draft outline for the story, some original characters, and a list of characters for different stories to include in the crossover, each with their own list of character goals. Let's work on putting all these elements together, shall we?
So how do we bring all the crossover characters together and have them all meet up? Well, the outline of the story I wrote earlier in the thread centers the story around our two main original characters, Ayaka and Nanase, with potentially a third plot thread centering around Gloriana. So the first thing to do is to flesh out the character goals (and other aspects of the characters as required) for our original characters, work out how they plan to approach those goals, and then find out how we tie in the crossover characters to the story.
Now, I've started taling about two new teams here, Team Ayaka and Team Nanase. Going into the story, I was originally assuming that Team Break-in = Team Ayaka, and Team Break-out = Team Nanase, by which I mean, members of Break-In team stick with Ayaka's storyline, and similarly the Break-out team sticks with Nanase. But it occured to me that it might be better if we mix and match members of Team Break-in and Team Break-out into Team Ayaka and Team Nanase, respectively, according to what suits the character's goals best. Think of it this way: Team Break-in and Break-Out indicates the character's "origin" in the VR world, while Team Ayaka and Team Nanase indicate the faction they are working for in the story.
I would say that some of the suggestions outlined in this thread and in the chat would natually lend towards the latter option. E.g. Zaiyu being technically on Team break-in but trying to infiltrate his way to Nanase would probably lend him to be more on Team Nanase, while another suggestion in the Discord chat of Hayate in Team Break-out chasing down Ayaka in the opening scenes of the story could potentially lead to Hayate joining team Ayaka and other members of Team Break-in on Ayaka's side. Putting members of Team Break-in and Break-Out on the same story would also be more conductive to generating conflict between our crossover characters in order to drive the story forward. But what do you all think of this suggestion?
Finally, there's the more practical aspects of the story:
So how do we bring all the crossover characters together and have them all meet up? Well, the outline of the story I wrote earlier in the thread centers the story around our two main original characters, Ayaka and Nanase, with potentially a third plot thread centering around Gloriana. So the first thing to do is to flesh out the character goals (and other aspects of the characters as required) for our original characters, work out how they plan to approach those goals, and then find out how we tie in the crossover characters to the story.
- Team Ayaka: Of the two main OCs, Ayaka has probably the most clear and straightforward mid-term goal, which is finding and absorbing Nanase. So she is likely to be the more proactive character of the pair, and her actions will be dragging the members of Team Ayaka along for the ride. But we do need to flesh how she approaches her plan to capture Nanase:
- First off, what is her motivation for reabsorbing Nanase? The original idea for Ayaka was that she was a combat magical girl, and that during a monster attack some people got put in hospital showing signs of being corrupted into monsters, and she needs the power she put in Nanase back to purify her. However later suggestions paint Ayaka as a more non-combat "idol" type magical girl, who might not be directly involved with monsters. If we stick with this idea, what is her motivation to reabsorb Nanase? If it is a more selfish motivation, how does she convince other members of Team Ayaka to join her on her quest?
- Following up from that, how does Ayaka approach recruiting the members of her team? We mentioned magical adverts to start with, and then getting Mathurine's help with the lyre to recruit other members. Does she meet the others in person before they jump into the VR world? Or does she jump immediately into the VR world, and meet members of Team Break-in later?
- On that note, how do the members of Team Break-in/Team Ayaka meet up in the VR world? Do they all end up together, or does Gloriana/Mathurine separate them on entry, and they have to find each other again? Or a mix of the two?
- Once in the VR world, what is her initial plan to find Nanase, and how does it evolve into capturing her? @ArlequineLunaire has suggested starting off the story with a tournament, where Ayaka appears as a Masked Knight figure, and then reveals herself. What is her reasoning behind going for this bold and high-visibility plan? Do the other members of her team agree to this, or do they have their reservations? What would Ayaka ask the other members to do?
- Team Nanase: We haven't really defined Nanase's goals inside the story, so a lot more work will be required to figure out Team Nanase's plotline.
- Is Nanase going to be acting proactively or reactively in her own plotline? Is she going to be the core of her storyline, or would she be a sort of Damsel in Distress figure that the crossover characters are trying to save, but she doesn't interact directly with the team much?
- If she is going to be driving the Team Nanase plot forward, then we need to increase chances of her character interacting with the crossover characters. The fact that she gets kidnapped in Plot Point 1 would hinder this somewhat, so perhaps we could have other characters in Team Nanase being kidnapped as well? Would Kyoko (the kidnapper) be able to pull this off, or would she require assistance? Perhaps other members of Team Break-out/Break-in/Team Nanase are in on the plot?
- If Nanase is going to be more reactive than proactive, then what drives the members of Team Nanase forward? I did suggest a while back that the real Risa's echo/astral projection may appear to Kikuko (given the ghostly nature of both characters), so perhaps we could have Risa, through Kikuko and other characters who see ghost, drive the Team Nanase group foward in a quest to save her friend from harm?
- If we do have a more proactive plotline for Nanase to follow, then should we even be including Rika's astral projection as a character in the story? Would it add to or detract from Nanase's storyline, or add unnecessary complication?
- If Ayaka is a non-combat "idol" MG, do monsters exist in her world? If not, then in the absensce of a monster attack putting Risa in the hospital, what does she do to drive Nanase away into the embrace of the VR world? Would the new situation Risa's in allow her to astral project herself?
- Our draft climax involves Gloriana absorbing Risa's spirit in order to better become Nanase's friend. If Risa's ghost is no longer present as an active character in the story, then how does the climax change?
- Team Gloriana: This would be the plotline outlining the villains actions in the story, which should mostly be happening in the background. Though perhaps we can turn this into a third plot strand for the story? I recall there are some crossover characters who have more "villainous" goals that they are working towards that could affect the VR world. If we follow them as viewpoint characters, perhaps we can explore more about what Gloriana is doing.
- What is Gloriana doing throughout the storyline anyway? When Nanase gets kidnapped, does she lead the search in finding her "friend", or does her role as the Director AI prevent her from following her friend? Or perhaps she always knows she is safe thanks to Mathurine's clones following both teams, and so she feels that she doesn't need to intervene herself?
- What is her ultimate goal with regards to the climax of the story? We already talked a bit about the possible plotline involving Risa, but if we do remove Risa as an active character in the story, then what would her new goal be? One suggestion would be that as soon as she finds out Nanase is a construct and Ayaka is the real deal, she could kidnap Ayaka in the finale to do a Reverse Uno of what Ayaka tried to do and have Nanase absorb Ayaka instead? If she does, would Nanase accept this, or would she resist?
Now, I've started taling about two new teams here, Team Ayaka and Team Nanase. Going into the story, I was originally assuming that Team Break-in = Team Ayaka, and Team Break-out = Team Nanase, by which I mean, members of Break-In team stick with Ayaka's storyline, and similarly the Break-out team sticks with Nanase. But it occured to me that it might be better if we mix and match members of Team Break-in and Team Break-out into Team Ayaka and Team Nanase, respectively, according to what suits the character's goals best. Think of it this way: Team Break-in and Break-Out indicates the character's "origin" in the VR world, while Team Ayaka and Team Nanase indicate the faction they are working for in the story.
I would say that some of the suggestions outlined in this thread and in the chat would natually lend towards the latter option. E.g. Zaiyu being technically on Team break-in but trying to infiltrate his way to Nanase would probably lend him to be more on Team Nanase, while another suggestion in the Discord chat of Hayate in Team Break-out chasing down Ayaka in the opening scenes of the story could potentially lead to Hayate joining team Ayaka and other members of Team Break-in on Ayaka's side. Putting members of Team Break-in and Break-Out on the same story would also be more conductive to generating conflict between our crossover characters in order to drive the story forward. But what do you all think of this suggestion?
Finally, there's the more practical aspects of the story:
- If we assume each plot point in the outline draft is a chapter, and add an interlude chapter between plot points (with the exception of the climax, which would take up the final two chapters), then we would get a total of 13 chapters, which if we assume each chapter is an average of 4.5k words, would bring us to just below 60k, which would make our story novel length. With 8 writers lined up, it does mean that 5 writers may be pulling double duty to complete the story. Even so, does this structure sound like a suitable starting point?
- The above also assumes that we are sticking to one writer per chapter, but depending on how the story develops and the multiple viewpoints that come together, perhaps each chapter should be made of shorter sections written by different writers from different viewpoint characters? I guess we do need to write up a more fleshed out outline before we consider this option, but I just thought I'd raise it now to forewarn you in case we do head in that direction.
- The above chapter structure is just for the main story. There are plenty of options to add on a Prologue, Epilogue, Stinger, Side Stories and Omake, but I would say that would be above and beyond what we expect each writer to commit to the story.
- Finally, for the writes invovled in this first story, may I ask if you are more of a "plotter" or "pantser" kind of writer? And what detials would you need in order to start writing your chapter?
CV12Hornet
Riter.
- Location
- Tacoma, Washington
Silicon Valley.
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- My idea was that Ayaka initially sees Nanase as an extension of her rather than her own person, given she usually leaves Nanase to go off and do MG stuff. So she wants Nanase back for the same reason someone would want a limb or even piece of their soul back if it was taken from them. That they took a part of herself would be how she'd try to get her Team on-board, that and the MGs not liking the VR world stealing a whole bunch of people already.
- My preference would be she meets the other team members before jumping into the VR world, but a scene like that could risk ending up too crowded from a narrative perspective (assuming the meeting's shown in flashbacks anyway). If we go with the latter option for practicality, I'd at least help a couple of team members show up in front of her first thing.
- I'd have them staying together on entry, but then splitting apart to cover more ground, with Gloriana and/or Mathurine targeting them when they aren't one big group.
- Ayaka's reason for going with this would be partly her not being used to making big plans like this, and partly her just wanting to get this over. What team members would think would vary, e.g., Koyomi would be highly skeptical while Miyako could be all for it. With Ayaka trying to act like a leader while not yet having the experience, her orders would probably be a basic 'cover me' or 'mop up if something goes wrong'.
- If it turns out Nanase arranged her own early 'kidnapping' by Kyoko, that would be one way of making her more proactive. You could say Nanase's character isn't really one that lends itself to being proactive, but I imagine Ayaka's presence would spur her to action.
- Since Kyoko would probably take her back to the Magic Academy, Nanase could interact with any characters there while she's pseudo-kidnapped. In general, Nanase wanting to explore this world, and keep avoiding Ayaka, would be another way of giving her opportunities to interact with characters.
- If Nanase is more reactive, then along with Risa Amanda is another clear candidate for driving the Nanase storyline forward, probably more later on since she's a more endgame-type character.
- If Nanase's more proactive, then I'd keep Risa's ghost/astral projection but have her appearances be more fleeting and mysterious. I'd say monsters don't normally exist in Ayaka's world, at least not to her knowledge, but a few could've been summoned by Huli upon their initial fiddling around with Somnia Virtua, hence Risa getting injured.
- I see Gloriana already knowing what happened to Nanase (especially if we go with Nanase arranging her kidnapping), but still leading a search for her to make it look like she's going something. When Nanase arranges her own kidnapping, I can see Gloriana trying to frame Midori as the kidnapper, so that Ayaka goes after her rather than Kyoko. After that, Gloriana would then get involved in keeping Nanase away from the Wasteland that's been popping up, along with preparing for the final ritual.
- I like Gloriana taking desperate measures to really become Risa if Nanase works out she isn't her. Nanase at first thinking Gloriana really is Risa I feel gives Gloriana's character more weight. But I also like the idea of her trying to make Nanase absorb Ayaka instead, given its full circle nature. Though no reason the ritual couldn't involve both. For the latter idea, I picture Nanase being tempted, but getting talked against it.
My idea was more that Hayate would keep chasing Ayaka Zenigata-style, rather than joining up with her anytime soon. But the point about the teams getting more fluid over time stands.
If having more than one writer per chapter is an issue, then side stories and omakes could make up for that. If we don't have more than one author per chapter, that could leave other authors freer to write side stories. Helps if said side stories are by the three remaining writers.
I've usually heard the structured/looser dichotomy expressed as Architect vs Gardener myself, though I prefer the phrase 'classical vs 'jazz' myself. Plotter vs pantser just sounds kinda crude. But as for the question of how much I plan out my stories beforehand, I do try to have an outline written up for each chapter beforehand and broader outlines for future chapters pre-written, but not too much of an outline to where things get too inflexible. Most of my recent works being Quests affects this, since authors can't pre-plan too much there
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Crimson Flight
华裔机甲迷
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Once I know the vague arc of what character bits people wanna see and where the overall plot's going, I'd probably start immediately hashing out some rough plans and see if there's anything the other writers want me to hammer out or fix up before just going to town.
Hayate probably won't hit Zenigata levels of obsession lol, but yeah I getcha -- Hayate'd probably end up popping up every so often and probably going back to base to try and drag anybody with actual superpowers to do a solid with the whole pursuit, so you can have a revolving door of Break-Out magical weirdos to bounce off the Break-In team.
Do think this will also naturally lead to people getting spread out and ending up in their own squads outside the initial starting point, which would make for fun character interactions.
Thy-Robocop
Fairy Chess Player
- Location
- Southampton
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That all makes sense, but this raises the follow-up question: if using Nanase hasn't caused any significant negative effects (that she noticed) so far, what makes her realize that she needs Nanase back?
I'm guessing your idea that "Nanase is a piece of her soul" is more figurative than literal, but what if we took it literally instead, and have Nanase be a piece of Ayaka's soul/emotion, or something along those lines?
If we go with the idea that Ayaka is a magical warrior, then that could conveniently explain why she lacks the power to purify those who are corrupted by the monster attack.
But we can also make it work with the non-combat "idol" approach as well. We could say that Ayaka gives Nanase a spark of one of her emotions (restraint? Compassion? something else that maker her more suitable at accepting her role to take over Ayaka's role in the mundane world). At first she finds that the lack of that emotion allows her to succeed more as a magical idol, which might encourage her to abuse her powers more, and spend longer and longer times away from Nanase herself. She would present a friendly face to her adoring fans, but in private her haughtyness is ramped up to 11, going full on Queen Bee, and taking it out on her supportive staff. But she doesn't care if she harms the staff that help her, as long as she believes in her powers, and that her fans adore her, nothing is wrong in the world!
That is, until a disgruntled fan calls her out for the lack of (insert missing emotion here). She dismisses it at first, but then she starts hearing other fans making the same comment, and even her assistance whisper the same behind her back. But that can't be right, how can they say she is lacking emotion X when she has done stuff in the past that shows that emotion? If she's done it before, then surely she can show that emption again, right? Right?
But then she finds that she can't do that, or at the very least she can't express that emotion honestly without her haughtyness ruining it for her. So then she investigates things further, trying to find out what could have caused such a change in her, until her closest magical confidant (see below) prompts her with the idea that she doesn't have that emotion because she gave it away... to her construct Nanase. And perhaps if she were to fully reabsorb Nanase (dismantling her until there is nothing left of the construct), then she might regain the piece of her missing soul, and be whole again.
Or at least, that is what Ayaka is made to think. Whether it is true or not would be up to us to decide collectively.
I alos had a bit of an idea for a plot twist: Perhaps the disgruntled fan that calls Ayaka out in the first place is none other than Risa. And Risa is calling her out because Ayaka is not her friend Nanase, not because of any magical ability that can sense the piece of Ayaka's missing soul. I guess this would work regardless of whether we make it true or not that Ayaka transferred a spark of her emotion/soul into Nanase, or leave it ambiguous.
What do you think?
I like the idea of Gloriana misdirecting Team Ayaka, that works well as the pinch point for the team's storyline
I guess I still have to learn about all the characters in the crossover, because I originally thought Midori was Miyako. My line of thinking would be that Gloriana could be getting Team Ayaka to go and capture Miyako in order to a) get Ayaka away from Nanase, and b) capture the person she needs to complete the ritual later in the story.
But now that I've re-read who Midori is, and what her goals are, I can see that makes sense as well. I look forward to reading more about Midori, and see how she would fit in the story.
One follow-up question: would Midori be collaborating with Kyoko to allow Kyoko to pull off the kidnapping, or has she been framed? Was she present at the point when Nanase gets kidnapped to do some mischif? Has she carried out some mischif in the past that warrants Gloriana to send someone to defeat her, hence her quest to Team Ayaka?
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I also had a few more ideas about Ayaka as a non-combat idol magical girl, and a bit on her backstory before she enters the VR world.
I was thinking on how her suggested powers to create magical steampunk constructs would work for an idol magical girl type, and then I remembered about Saheeli Rai, the Planeswaker from the plane of Kaladesh from the Magic: the Gathering multiverse. To quote from the wiki article, Saheeli is "is a brilliant inventor who specializes in creating lifelike animated constructs as beautiful as they are deadly." She also participates in underground "inventing" tournaments, where inventors create new inventions on the spot to battle it out between each other. Perhaps that is what Ayaka could do as a magical girl idol, which could give her some knowledge of combat? Or we could just stick to the "quick invention" challenges, perhaps themed like Pokemon Contests?
(There are some other interesting parallels between Ayaka and Saheeli that are worth noting:
- Saheeli is a Planeswaker, a traveller between planes. With this story, Ayaka is going to be taking the first steps into the our crossover magical girl multiverse
- Saheeli's home plane of Kaladesh is basically the MTG steampunk plane, except with more filigree than gears and bolts, and with a more Indian theme rather than Victorian
- Saheeli is a lesbian, and we suggested that Nanase, and therefore Ayaka, could be queer).
If we go down that route, perhaps we can have the reason that Nanase finds out about La Val Sans Retour and wins the prise is because Ayaka tasks her to deliver something to the Huli HQ, or Nanase is curious about all the flyers and letters that Ayaka receives from the agency, but due to a misunderstanding, Nanase gets put in the prize event for the VR world and wins, leading her to meeting Risa, etc.
As for the mysterious magical mentor that advises Ayaka of the fact that she is missing part of her soul... well, if the agency is Huli related, there may be someone on the staff who knows about magic and can advise Ayaka further. But here is a more intriguing option: what if the mentor was Mathurine?
Now, this would be Huli!Mathurine, i.e. the animatronic in the entrace hole that holds the real Somnia Virtua lyre, not her VR world counterpart. I would say that this version of Mathurine is more restricted (in that she can't leave the perimeter of the stage she is on), more robotic, and perhaps more friendly and welcoming than the variant in the VR world, who is able to move freely and is more malicious due to her Jester role and soaking up Gloriana's negative side.
Still, Huli!Mathurine does have some limited artificial intelligence boosted by the Lyre. She uses that in order to attract people into joining the VR world, as per her programming, but because of the Somnia Virtua lyre, some of her approaches are outright manipulative, even if she doesn't recognise them as such.
Anyway, I had this idea that perhaps Ayaka would "befriend" the Mathurine animatronic and confide in her, perhaps due to her affinity with constructs? Mathurine could then befriend Nanase when she gets recruited into the VR world, and offer a similar comforting role. Mathurine does eventually figure out that Nanase is a creation of Ayaka, just as she realized that Nanase has a great potential to become the VR world's conductor. Due to what she learns from Ayaka's confession, when Nanase goes to Mathurine to seek her comfort after the incident with Risa, Mathurine may trick Nanase into staying and hiding, just as Ayaka comes in seeking comfort as well. It is then that Mathurine suggests her idea that Akaya lost a part of her soul, and that she needs to absorb Nanase, unknowingly confessing Nanase's true nature to Nanase herself. When Nanase then asks Mathurine where she could hide, Mathurine then guides her to la Val sans Retour, kickstarting our plot...
I also have an idea for the story Stinger: While Gloriana's ritual fails in the climax, some part of it still succeeds by hitting Mathurine, prompting the VR version of Mathurine to fuse with the animatronic counterpart in the real world. Free at last from her ties to the Virtual world, and with the boost of magic from the ritual and from the Lyre, Mathurine cuts the strings tying her to the stage, and steps off the platform...