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shorewall

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Wow, this story became so much more than I could have imagined, while also becoming a weight around my soul.  :D

This story was conceived as as fix-it fic.  See, in the MTG card game, they created a world called Tarkir, that was based off of 5 different asian-themed cultures.  It was what brought me back into the game after a long absence, and that was all based around the Abzan.  They were a clan that focused around family.  MTG has a feature called the color pie, and each color has a philosophy based around it.  The Abzan were White, the color of order, Green, the color of nature, and Black, the color of ambition.  So they stuck up for their own, but screw the rest.  They were also flavored to be based around endurance, building forts and surviving the desert, as well as ancestor worship.

I loved them.  But the story of Tarkir wasn't done yet.  It was always set up that dragons existed in the past of Tarkir, but were wiped out.  The main character of the canon story, a dragon fan who was acting under orders of a ghost dragon, went back in time (yes, this all happened), and saved the ghost dragon's life.  You see, the ghost dragon was responsible for the creation of dragon storms on this plane.  His mere presence created storms of magic where dragons burst forth, fully formed.  His death ended these, which allowed the humans to overcome the dragons in the past.  With his life being saved, the dragon storms continued unabated, and the humans were overwhelmed and enslaved.

Fan reaction was mixed.  The makers of the game expected everyone to be stoked about dragons, which are the most popular creatures in the game.  However, many mourned the loss of the compelling clan cultures that were overtaken by dragons.  Each clan was changed.  Before, each clan had three colors, and were human-centric, with many other fantastical races mixed in.  After, each clan lost a color.  Abzan lost Black, their ambition.  They became happy to serve under the dragons.  This was seen by fans as a loss in complexity.  Also, the time change altered characters that had already been established.  Anafenza used to be the Khan of the Abzan.  In the new timeline, she was not khan, and was actually killed by the dragons for worshiping the ancestors, which was seen as necromancy.

To cap it all, the official word was that the old timeline no longer existed, having been completely overwritten.  That was the last straw.  It was adding insult to injury.  I mourned the loss of the Abzan, the death of Anafenza, but it was the problems of writing time travel that finally got to me.  I tend to subscribe to multiverse theory, if one must write time travel, because it is able to be conceived with the human mind.  Anything else gets too weird for me to follow.  And according to multiverse theory, that old timeline must still exist.

A Tale of Two Tarkirs was born from my desire to join the two timelines.  But it was also created with the idea of being my self-insert character.  :D  That's actually embarrassing to admit, though it's important to understanding why I struggled with the story.  Javed wasn't a character that I could write.  He was a power fantasy.  He was a player character in Skyrim.  Destined to become OP.

When concepting the story, that wasn't a problem.  But as I wrote the story, I couldn't work with him.  The biggest issue is related to MTG gameplay.  You can put any spell in your deck.  But a character in a story needs to have restrictions.  Javed was meant to come to embody the colors of the Abzan, White, Green, and Black.  But even with just one color of Magic under his belt as he left Dromoka territory, he already had enough spells to last him, along with physical prowess.

If I'd known that magic inflation would have been such a problem, I might have held off on having Javed learn magic.  I would have thought about what spells I wanted him to learn.  And I would have needed to think of how to make Javed serve the plot, and not the other way around.  Honestly, I think Javed turned out great as a character.  His only flaw is the plan for his power to expand exponentially.

Part of the problem was translating the MTG magic system to prose.  It doesn't, not cleanly.  I've since started creating a whole new magic system, that is inspired by MTG, but works in prose.  It is actually exhilarating to work on.  But it opens a new can of worms.

Do I want this story to stay fanfic?

How badly do I want my fix-it fic?  I've already solved the problem in my head.  My head canon is that the two timelines get merged, ala Crisis on Infinite Earths.  That is an interesting story, but it butts up against a concern I've gained as I invest more into this story.

This is going beyond anything that MTG intended.  At what point have I put in more than MTG did?  And at what point have I put in enough that I am hurting myself by chaining myself to the fanfic category?  If I re-envision the magic system.  If I take cardboard cutout characters and breath life into them.  If I completely negate the official story and re-envision the world.  At what point do I cross the threshold to where this story is mine?  A new creation?

I don't want to chain myself down to fanfic status, if I am going to put in so much work and essentially create something new.  This story was created as a protest against the official story.  I don't want to give them more glory than they deserve.

On the other hand, this story wouldn't exist without MTG.  It was inspired and started because of that, and if that is taken away, then so is its reason for existing.

I see a few options.

1) I allow the story to rot.  I left off in a decent spot, I felt, where Javed's old life is ended, and the future lies before.  There are worse places to abandon a story.

2) Remake it as an original story.  No, I don't want to do this.  Not this story, anyway.

3) Simplify the original story to avoid build up, and hit the major points.  I think this is the path I'm going to take.  Something I didn't mention is that the original outline played with visiting every single region of Tarkir, as a way to pay tribute to a great setting that I enjoyed.  But it was forced.  So I gave up on that, and plotted a more focused route.  Now I just need to see if I can trim any more.  I'm sure I can. 

I want to finish this story.  I want to tell the story of Javed, as his own character and story.  I want my fix-it fic.  I want to close the book on this chapter.  Now that I've cleansed my palate with another type of story, I'm interested in tackling this again.
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Like a Sister was conceived as I wanted to break into the Ladybug fanfic community.  It is also a return to enjoyable writing for me, after my planned epic, A Tale of Two Tarkirs, became an arduous slog.

I had an idea to make a joke of pseudo-incest between Adrien and Chloe.  Adrien would try to defuse Chloe's attentions by invoking that classic line.  Chloe, after thinking about it, would agree.  But the comedy would arise from the fact that neither Chloe nor Adrien had siblings, and so had no idea what that would entail.  Chloe would keep pushing the envelope, and in some kind of psychological implications, this new paradigm would allow Adrien to kinda be into it.  Bad Adrien!  My idea was that he was a closet weeb, because there is some concerning stuff about siblings in some anime.

I wanted to play on people's reactions to the dynamic.  Nino would be so disappointed.  :D  I even had a joke where Marinette was willing to pretend to be Adrien's sister if that was what worked for him.  Nothing would happen.  Eventually, Adrien tried to do the right thing, and then we would go into the canon climax, where Adrien and Chloe both find out that their feelings are indeed more familial, and they just want each other as "family".  They just had nothing to compare it to.

That joke didn't make it into the final, but I did want to play with that line, contrasting their life and depth of feelings with tawdry sexuality that felt forced.  I wanted it to be uncomfortable.  I wanted it to feel alluring, but still twisted.  The conflict between the head and heart, and the loins.  :D

So that was all already there when I started writing.  But that was the punchline.  I still needed the setup.  Chapter 1 was a new creation, just to get to where the actual story could work.  Once Adrien arrives at the Le Grand, the real story starts.  It even has three acts, which I enjoy.  I'm still working on an epilogue to wrap this up.

I like how I was able to riff on Adrien's popularity with the females, especially adult women.  I was thinking of a skit from SNL, where Tina Fey's character fawned over Justin Bieber.  :D  I loved that it could also set up into Chloe's classist rant in the last chapter.

I really wanted to show that Adrien's awareness of Chloe had changed from the observations of his friends.  Before it was natural, if trending downwards.  It was unobserved.  But as soon as Marinette and co. started talking about it, it dragged these unobserved issues into the light.  And while the rest of the story is Adrien and Chloe struggling to define and be honest about what they want from each other, that is the theme.  Also, Adrien having to think about Chloe in that way.  :D

Something interesting that developed as I wrote, was Chloe's motivation.  Why was she doing this?  I really like how their history developed.  They used to be close, but time changed that, but the relationship was still important.  Chloe has seen some things.  I really want to explore what that could be, that made her the way she is.  

I really wanted to make sure that I kept Chloe mean, at least at first.  She isn't mean to Adrien, but she is inconsiderate of others.  Even though I am trying to bring Chloe around, and coming up with some sad backstory, I didn't want to whitewash her.  She needs to overcome her past, and a lot of my ideas for new stories involve that.

I was pleasantly surprised with the ideas that spawned from this short.  I've wanted to break ground in the Ladybug fandom for a while, and I can't wait to get to Ladybug herself.

I wanted to show that while Adrien and Chloe aren't sexually attracted to each other, they are human, and there is an AU where they might have gone through with it.  (That is another idea!  >: D)

I know that my interpretations of the characters are just that, my interpretations.  I struggled with that, while writing, that my takes were not accurate to the canon characters.  I just have to make peace with that.  That is all fanfic.  It's unavoidable.

The thing that struck me most, in thinking about this story, was my preferred method of writing.  I love stream of consciousness writing.  This story, and all of my stories, originate in an idea, but then are almost fully fleshed out when I just type, and my brain puts each sentence down as it is needed.  It strikes me as subconscious, because I do see the connections and arc eventually, but as I'm writing it, I'm clueless.  And I like it that way.  I like my stories to be a surprise to myself.

One of my concerns, is that the writing process is so personal and enigmatic for me, that I resent restrictions.  They trip me up.  But afterwards, I do see the need to go back and work out the rough edges.  I see my posted stories still as works in progress.  I post them to give myself a deadline, a goal to work towards.  But they can still use a lot of work.  (Whether they will get it is another matter.  :P)

I think another concern is my predisposition to subtlety.  I think I overdo it sometimes.  I know what I mean, but I do want to communicate that to the reader.  However, I don't want to be too plain or obvious.  I like having complexity.  I want people to think about my works, and come to their own conclusions.  I don't want to tell people what to think, at least in the work itself.  So it's a fine line.

I think my best work is done with short stories like this.  One of the pitfalls of A Tale of Two Tarkirs, was that it was huge!  Just outlining my story made it huge!  And the process of writing it made it bigger!  :D  I like small bites like this, because I can see it through, and then it's still open ended.  One Night in Changbai could be revisited.  Like a Sister almost begs for more.  (I think I will revisit AToTT, but I need to think about what I want it to be.  My experience with translating a magic system from a card game into prose has also spurred a side project to naturalize my own system, inspired by MTG.)

Is my future as a serial writer?  Writing small stories like this that are eventually put together?  Comics and TV shows are like that, and it is much more accessible than writing the great American Novel.  :D
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One Night in Changbai started as a short proof of concept for a Maitara relationship.  It quickly grew beyond the initial idea.  I think it was because I needed to give myself a reason for why they would be together.  Even for crack, I need to believe it.

Jin's character originally was an OC.  She was going to be the daughter of Toru and Mari.  But by the time I got to the climax, I realized that my OC was essentially how I imagined Jin to be.  I decided to go back and make the change, especially since I was planning a Mai/Jin fic next.  This way, I killed two birds with one stone.

I wanted the relationships between the three main characters to be open to interpretation.  I wanted their relationships to be a focal point regardless.  I see this story as setting the stage for growth between the three going forward.  I could see a future where any or all of them become romantically inclined.  All it would take is for that attraction to be there.  But with or without it, their relationship has its foundation, and will continue to grow.

I also originally intended this story to be a one off, but I have reconsidered.  There is yet a lot of potential to be mined here, so I leave open the possibility of revisiting this vein.

One Night in Changbai, Chapter 1
One Night in Changbai, Chapter 2
One Night in Changbai, Chapter 3
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Is anyone else terrified of interacting online? When I speak in the real world, I can tailor my message to my audience, without worrying about unintended listeners misconstruing my meaning. Plus, the spoken word has an expiration date. People forget. Online, the things we post are stuck in servers. People can find our old thoughts that may or may not be our current thinking. But the post is a snapshot in time, preserved as it was then. It also communicates no nuance. I can't clarify a past post. It may miscommunicate what I actually meant. But people hold it up as evidence of a person's character.

We have no mercy for the idea that a person can make a mistake. We sit around sharpening our knives and wait for someone to slip up so that we can practice our misanthropy. We can't be racist or sexist or orientationist. But we haven't eliminated discrimination or prejudice. We just have to find new socially approved avenues for our hostility. And right now, the prime-est targets are those who knowingly or unknowingly break our new rules.

If someone breaks the rules, we feel justified in being beastly. Call out culture, public shaming. We emblazon the digital “Scarlet Letter”. We sentence them to the stocks. We call for their job, and we even try to bully them to suicide. We just don't care. The desire to cause pain, to punish and judge has not left humanity. It has just evolved. It is as self-righteous as ever.

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Well, I just finished Episode 5 of Life is Strange.  …

The first part was cool.  I loved focusing on how to survive.  It helped to not focus on the real danger Max was in.  I was so scared, but I had no time to be scared.  

Then I fixed everything, but I was away when Chloe and the town got destroyed, so I had to go back again.  This section was also cool as Max was using quick time jumps to try to fix things.  I had no idea I was going to fall back into Jefferson’s clutches.  After helping David save me, and an amazing heart to heart with him, I needed to meet up with Warren.  I couldn’t tell David that Chloe was dead though.  

I dazed through the town.  I saved a few people, but I was so distracted, so I missed a few.

When I got to the diner, I was able to tell Frank what happened.  He took it well, better than I was expecting.  I hoped that he will turn over a new leaf.  I talked to Joyce, and then I was finally able to tell Warren the truth.  I wish I could have done so earlier.  He really is awesome.  He believed me and helped me to know what to do.  I was so glad I was able to kiss him.  Maybe it was the stress of the situation, or finally being able to see things as they were, or not knowing what would happen, but I wanted to do it.  For me.

Jumping back to the party, I was able to bear my soul to Chloe, about everything.  About her deaths, and get her to stop.  I was so happy.  I was scared as soon as she had gotten into revenge mode, so getting her to snap out of it meant so much.  And she helped me to set everything up so that the only loose end was the storm.

And then I had that nightmare.  I still have no idea what that was, but I liked that about it.  Dreams don’t adhere to a real world logic, but they can convey messages.  

All through my play through, I knew about the final choice.  (I don’t feel bad about being spoiled.  If it weren’t for the reactions and fan work I saw from others, I probably would never have played this game.  I do wonder how I would have reacted blind.)  I came into this knowing that I would have to choose the town over Chloe.  It was the only non-insanely selfish choice.  

But as I prepared to lay Episode 5, I had changed my mind.  I was seriously considering sacrificing the town for my Chloe.  Kate, Victoria, Warren, Joyce, everyone.  I would just shut them from my mind and let them go for my wonderful friend.  But the game had other plans.  As I struggled through the storm in the town, I realized I couldn’t let this happen. The scene in my dream where the town asks to not be killed was superfluous.  

What came next was not.  All of the important scenes of me and Chloe.  It didn’t really make me doubt my decision, but it felt like an appreciation and a goodbye to her.  I listened to the whole scene of Alternate Chloe asking me to help her pass on again.  I wished again that I had kissed her.  And then I finally made it out.

As Chloe and I stood before the storm, I knew what I had to do.  But I had no idea how to do it.  And then Chloe pulled out that picture, and I finally realized how this was going to go down.  I was going to go back before any of this, and choose not to act, thereby unaltering the timeline.  I wouldn’t gain time travel, and the storm wouldn’t come.  Any other changes would need to be because of me.

Chloe, to her credit, made it possible for me to do it.  I knew what I needed to do, but I don’t know if I could’ve…If she had begged me to live, I don’t think I could have done it.  Isn’t that funny?  If she had been selfish, and put herself before the whole town’s lives, I would have saved her.  But because she was the most selfless person I ever knew, I let her die.

Max didn’t want to hear it, but I knew what Chloe needed to tell me in order for this to work.  And she did.  I think it’s my religious background, but I was glad that she offered herself as a sacrifice. I could remember her as a hero.  She literally gave her life for the town.  She could take that burden off of my shoulders.  I may have been the only one who could make the choice, but she made it possible, and I don’t just mean by giving me the picture.

Max was expressing what I felt.  I didn’t want to make this decision.  It felt so unfair.  But what was fair about using time travel to alter history to my choosing?  I didn’t start this to be selfish.  It just happened.  And within that, I tried to help as many people as I could.  Even with my powers, I couldn’t help everyone.  Yes, I saved Kate.  Yes, I maybe redeemed Victoria.  And yes I got Jefferson.  But as I finished each chapter and saw the people I didn’t help, it made me realize how limited my powers really were. 

I didn’t want to use my powers as a cheat code.  But of course I did in the end.  Not for myself, except as far as I couldn’t stand to see people suffer.  I ruined time for my best friend Chloe. It wasn’t my intention, but that killer tornado bearing down on Arcadia Bay was the proof.  I had to accept it, and I did.  Even as it killed me inside.

Chloe told me just what I needed to hear. That this week was the best in her life.  That it really happened, no matter how time would change.  That she would always remember me, and gave me the easiest request, asking me to always remember her.  I would.

So I went back and shot my best friend and let her die. My inaction, with the power to intervene, caused her death.  And I wanted that.  

And then time changed.

One of the most affecting parts of Life is Strange is the changing photographs as the time lines change.  The first time, when I saved William, it blew my mind.  And in the time chase scenes earlier, it helped me know what was going on.  But now, even though all of the changes were positive, I was hollow.  At what cost?  But it wasn’t a cost.  It was a cost unpaid.  I could have saved my best friend Chloe, if I sacrificed the entire town.  A town of people just like me and Chloe.  I couldn’t do that. Not even for my Chloe.

If anything, it was if I had been given a glimpse of an alternate future, where I would get to have some of the best experiences and friends and moments ever, including a once in a lifetime best friend, Chloe.  It was unbidden.  Unasked for.  Why did I have to see this?  Why did I have to see what I could never have?  Warren, Kate, Victoria…and Chloe.

But that brings me to my biggest question.  In this time line, all of that never happened.  I know it happened in some time line.  But not this one.  What does that mean?  Does Max even remember any of it?  Does Max remember Chloe, not as childhood friends, but as she was to me in that crazy week?  

My heart says no.  Spared the pain of thinking of what might have been (especially with nevermore the power to affect it).  Max would be coming back to Arcadia Bay, just as her best friend Chloe got shot.  And Max could come to terms with that, and the fact that there was nothing she could do.

But that seems so disrespectful to Chloe.  Max promised to remember her.  We couldn’t save her, so that was the least we could do.  And now neither of them has any conscious memory of that.  Maybe this is a gift.  Something that should never have happened, now set right.  The events of this whole game were an affront to nature, or maybe it was just cold hard science that forbade a time line with a happy Chloe that didn’t require the willing sacrifice of thousands of innocent people.

The real truth is that Chloe got herself killed.  She didn’t deserve it, but so many people die everyday that don’t deserve it.  It was a tragedy.  Where it goes over the top is the illusion of choice.  Giving me time powers that let me think that I could alter destiny without massive consequences.

But by resetting time, you take away that pain from Max.  Notice that I didn’t include myself.  Am I the real time lord in this scenario, able to remember the alternate time lines even after they’ve been overwritten?  To be able to save-scum even when Max couldn’t use her powers?  (I didn’t, by the way.)

This whole time, I felt like I was along for the ride.  Even though I could influence Max’s decisions, and I identified with her greatly, I could tell that we were different people.  I felt like I was an inner voice, an additional hitch hiker in her mind.  I grew to love her, and Chloe, and Kate, and Warren, and Victoria, and David.  I cared about everyone in that town.  As much as Max, I had to make the decision to save everyone, and to sacrifice Chloe.

And I am left.  I remember everything.  I’m the common denominator.  I can remember what happened with Chloe.  I can remember everything. It all still exists to me.  And I can remember how amazing Max is. She will be wonderful, in any timeline.

This may sound patronizing, but I wonder if Chloe will be happier this way.  She almost has more friends dead than alive.  William and Rachel.  I actually thought this a lot earlier, but I became emotionally compromised.  She finally gets to see her father, and her other best friend again. And Max will see her again one day too.

But what about those alternate time lines?  This is why I hate time travel.  It makes my head hurt.  My favorite theory is the alternate universe theory. That time travel is almost more like hopping dimensions, and we travel to a dimension where a choice was different.  There are infinite universes.  There is one where William didn’t die and Chloe was in a car accident instead.  There is a universe where Chloe was shot down by Nathan.  And there is my little universe, where I fucked around and fell in love.

This doesn’t really help me feel any better, because I still left her behind, even if it means that my Chloe still lives somewhere.  (Although, then did Max keep her memories too?)

Or maybe she was actually changing a single flow of time, the real one.  Either way, I have no idea how it works, but I don’t need to.  

The things that happened were real, just like Chloe said.  They happened, even if I am the only one who can remember them.  To invoke a reference from the game, I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe, people changed forever, an girl named Chloe who was finally getting ready to move on.   All those moments will be lost in time…like tears in rain.

I could have saved her.  I believed it all the way.  I just needed time.  (Heh.  I didn’t intend that one.)  And I could have.  I know it.  So I’m glad Max forgot.  Because to constantly relive that choice, without the power to change it, might really hurt her.

I’m the one who can go back and change it.  I can still see the alternate time line.  :)

In that way, I’m finally brought out of the immersion of Life is Strange.  What an amazing game.  A truly powerful experience.  I love it.  I love Max.  I love Chloe (even if she did frustrate me at times).  I loved everyone, even Nathan. (Not Mr. Jefferson, totes obvi’s.  :P)

What does this mean in the real world?  What do I take away from this, beyond a profoundly moving experience?  For one, I have recommitted to the idea that everyone is human.  LiS was great at showing the humanity of everyone you met.  I couldn’t really hate anyone, because I could understand them.  So often irl, we don’t take the time to see another’s pov.  David, Frank, Victoria, Chloe at times, hell, even Nathan.  They all could have been seen as some fragment of their personality.  But that would have missed the bigger picture.

Another thing I learned is the importance of the little things.  I saved Kate because I learned about her.  I made friends because I took myself out of the equation and tried to do the right thing, and it worked.  Irl, how often do we take the time to make a small gesture, especially when it’s hard or out of our way?  We think big gestures are more important, because they are more visible, but the smaller, quiet acts of kindness often have an outsize effect, and they add up over time.  

If we consistently decide to make the unselfish choice, that matters.  It makes a difference.  It will change the world.

The last thing I learned (that I want to focus on) is to love.  Just let yourself love.  I don’t mean have sex with someone without being sure, or let someone walk all over you.  I didn’t kiss Chloe at the time because it didn’t feel right.  I didn’t go to the Movies with Warren because it didn’t feel right.  But I loved them both.

Open your heart to love.  I don’t mean the one dimensional love peddled by Hollywood and the Music Industry.  I mean love that conquers all, that never faileth.  Love will destroy our enemies by making them into our friends.  Love will win wars.  Love will change the world.  I pray that I can have love for everyone I meet, and treat them like they’re special, because they are.

I loved Chloe.  And because of that, I saved her.  I don’t mean saved from her fate.  I mean I saved her from her personal hell.  Before I went back to let her die, she was saved.  I loved Kate.  And because of that, I was able to save her.  Love is not a feeling.  It is an action.  We love people, we don’t fall in love.  We work at it.

I am grateful for this game.  I am grateful to Dontnod for making this game.  I am grateful for my experience, that it meant so much to me.  I am grateful for Chloe and Max, and I am grateful to be alive and so blessed.  I am a really blessed person.  As Tom Hanks said in Saving Private Ryan, “Earn this.”  Earn this happiness.  Make my life worth it.  If we focus on ourselves, we will always be miserable. If we focus on others, and their happiness, we will truly be happy. 

Goodbye, Chloe.  Goodbye, Max.  Goodbye Arcadia Bay.  Until the next time.

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Featured

A Tale of Two Tarkirs, introspective by shorewall, journal

Like a Sister, retrospective by shorewall, journal

One Night in Changbai, retrospective by shorewall, journal

Fear of Interacting online by shorewall, journal

Episode 5: Life is Strange by shorewall, journal