Story Related OOC

My turn to have been irresponsible! Samuel, Ethan, Jessamine, I'm sorry to have held you all up - professors love piling on the papers/midterms the week before Spring Break, and I've not been able to finish my post. Still, shit's done today, and I'll plan on putting in the length necessary to get us to Jessamine's thread (where more people can participate!).

Claude/Seth can keep on going regardless, and I'll look forward to reading this, since it could really go anywhere right now.

If this site's going to go any distance, it can't continue at a frenetic, super-enthusiastic pace (i.e. Ethan and I posting back and forth every other day and leaving people out). Of course, it can't also continue at its current pace (two posts in a week). We need to find a happy medium, and I hope we succeed.

TRIPLE POST!!!

So my conclusion to the Little Bethlehem thread is done. Next up, either Ethan or Jessamine should post in Hospitality and Hostility. Ethan or Samuel, you should feel free to describe more of the journey to Santa Anna - just check with me if you want to use a lot of Pearse dialogue.

I've no definite idea how Pearse first approaches the Santa Anna situation once he arrives, so that's up to someone else to flesh out. However, I was thinking it will certainly involve the four hostages...maybe hold them at gunpoint in the town square, and wait for the citizens of Santa Anna to come to him?

Sorry, I had a crazy weekend where nothing went quite as expected, and I didn't have time to even pull up the site, much less write anything. I'm working on some stuff now and I'll try to get something up within the next few days.

I apologize again for the long delay, but Jessamine should soon have something to work with.

Both posts are now up; I tied up Ethan's part in BTiLB and gave Jessamine something (albeit something small) to work with in H&H. I took a few (also small) liberties with Pearse's Indian. Let me know if there's anything I need to change.

Meanwhile, let's get this baby going again!

Posted. It may be a bit bland, but I'm just getting into the story, as I've been hanging onto the edge of posting for the past few weeks. I keep getting sick and having mountains of makeup work to do.

All right, I guess I'm long overdue for a post. I'll try and get one up Wednesday evening.

Claude and Seth shouldn't forget that they can continue in the Little Bethlehem thread. I think the rest of us are now officially in H&H.

We hadn't forgotten, really... We'd discussed that we'd start a new thread set in Little Bethlehem so that we could easily integrate a few ideas and also let the Reverend join in easily once Seth screened him.

I apologize for the delays on my end. I've started deBenneville's screening and with any luck, we can get that finished up soon so we can bring him into the new thread that Claude started. I'll try to have my next story post up by sometime tomorrow night.

Hey you guys.

Sorry for being MIA this week. I feel pretty bad since I was all "I'm waiting for you guys" and now you're waiting for me. I have been working on the logo and some background options, though, so I'm not completely faithless.

The thing is, Mr. Ramey and I have both been quite sick for the last week. In fact, we've been alternating between curling up on the couch and moaning and doing non-strenuous activities like staring at a television screen. So we haven't been in much shape to write anything coherent.

We're feeling better though, and Ethan's already posted recently, so now I suppose I'll have to get on the ball and do so as well. You can expect my post before Monday.

Awesome post, Jessamine. In addition to term papers and the like, I've spent the last week embroiled in a heated re-election campaign (if you're facebook friends with me, take a look at our logo!). While it's barrels of fun, it's also put a real damper on my free time and sanity. That said, I'll try to have my damndest to have another major post up by late Wednesday night/early morning Thursday.

In the meantime, Ethan or Allie can def post again, although I'd like to reserve the first moment of "contact" between the two factions for my megapost.

And of course, I'm really starting to wonder what Mr. Ruggeri's been up to...in the twenty-two days since we last heard anything out of him.

I'll slip a post in there. If not today, then tomorrow. No worries. (:

As per the typical pattern we've established, a post is forthcoming but not yet complete. We've submitted ourselves to a higher standard here, and creating length - coupled with quality - takes time. By tomorrow, my friends.

Of course, I see posts from neither Allie nor Mr. Ruggeri yet, so at least I'm in good company.

Alright everyone, the post is up and while anyone can post again, the ball is most directly in Jessamine's court. Jessamine, if you can get a post up fast, I'll try to match that speed so we can have some fun with the Pearse/Jessamine dynamic.

Furthermore, I'd like to observe that it has now been 28 days since Mr. Ruggeri posted on the story thread. That's a long time to leave Claude hanging!

I apologize for the delay. My post is up now, so Claude can finally dust off his keyboard and we can strike up a riveting story of our own.

I'll be posting tonight as well. Sorry for the delay, but my professors are playing reverse-Jenga with my life right now.

Friends and countrymen, good Romans all:

Per tradition, I'm being run ragged this week and cannot post until Friday (14-page term paper, endless reading, semi-formal, and sleep). I want this post to be good, and I plan on collaborating with Jessamine to get a lot of dialogue in there.

That said, other people can post. Allie and Ethan could both add to the narrative right now, as could Samuel. Claude could really add to the narrative, as I want to see where this crazy cult thing is going.

So someone else, pick up my slack! Rest assured, I'll post as soon as I can. I'm beginning to feel a little bit like Pearse is his own force of nature, and he'd be very displeased if I didn't write him regularly.

It seems like posting now would disrupt the narrative, so I'm holding off on Ethan's until things cool down. What I'm really interested in seeing is a new post from Claude, and from you, as well.

I'm writing up a post right now. But I'm going on a band trip to Chicago from 11 pm on the 7th until some time on Sunday. So unless there is a post up by that time tomorrow, there won't be one until Sunday.

Also. I am going to be editing my first post to include Allie's exposure to the light, since I can't find a way to fit it in right now.

For the sake of keeping this from getting convoluted, we should probably make new OOC discussion threads for the respective narrative ones.

I agree, but not knowing where to stick this post, I'll still write in this thread for the time being.

Seth, I like the idea of your post, but I have concerns about a couple of things. First off, the Pearse telegram thing is a strange narrative leap. Claude's post introduced a recluse group of cultists that were prepared to reemerge to welcome the supposed End of Days. With your addition, however, this cult has suddenly grown omniscient and all-powerful. They've gone from a bunch of crazies hiding out in a cellar to a gaggle of Nazi-esque sophisticates spouting epic monologues about impending world domination. What's more, they managed to intercept a rider heading from Ramey's place to the nearest telegraph office (i.e. NOWHERE NEAR Little Bethlehem). How did the cult get agents to start roaming the plains immediately after the blast, and how did these agents stalk a lone rider starting fifty or sixty miles away and not even heading in their direction?

There's also the fact that an intercepted telegram messes with the Santa Anna reinforcements, for no good reason.

Finally, by buffing up this cult to the degree that you have, you threaten to introduce a "common villain" quality to a story that doesn't need one. One of ToP's biggest failings (and biggest implausibilities) was the notion that this smorgasbord of characters all magically came together against a greater evil. Much of our character writing was spent justifying the context under which a murderous android and empathetic, traumatized girl would ever find themselves fighting alongside each other.

So far, we've done a beautiful job avoiding this trap on BB. The narrative is entirely character-driven, and characters do not all instinctively feel like working together. Pearse is a villain to some people while simultaneously being a hero to others. The thing which unifies all these characters - the destruction of Little Bethlehem - is a compelling mystery, not a looming evil. A common enemy may be necessary in 90-minute films or 9th-grade RPGs, but at this stage it can only cheapen the admirably complex world we've been crafting.

I'm open to other peoples' thoughts, but I'd like you to change your post. This isn't a matter of unilaterally declaring where the story should go (so far, none of us have done that). Instead, this is a matter of determining where the story should not go.

And if this post has been harsh/overly long, that's because I'm caffeine-riddled and have been researching Pyrrhus of Epirus for the last ten hours. And I'm not done yet.

I apologize for the confusion. Allow me to clarify a few of your concerns.

The cult that Claude introduced is still very much “a bunch of crazies hiding out in a cellar.” The people of the congregation are all fairly normal civilians, albeit possibly a little crazy, that seek religious guidance via the cult started by Jeremiah’s father. In essence, I view them as a bunch of sheep who are willing to do the bidding of the high priest in the name of “the almighty one.” As far as Jeremiah and Schuyler are concerned, while I wouldn’t compare the two of them to Nazis, it’s not a stretch to say that they have loftier goals. I also wouldn’t say that the cult is by any means omniscient either. Considering that most of the cultists are townsfolk, the likelihood that some of them would have been part of the raiding party that Pearse led to Ethan Ramey’s homestead isn’t too far fetched. For that matter, you’ve played up Pearse as a very prominent and well known character, so who’s to say that his actions might not have garnered the attention of some of the cult’s leaders? One of the higher ups in the cult might have taken an interest in Pearse and his affairs and to that end, when word began to spread of Pearse taking a raiding party to the home of a reclusive doctor, its also not hard to imagine that an individual like Jeremiah’s father or Schuyler might want to have a few people follow the Gentleman of the West on his bizarre little expedition.

In regards to the telegram, I only stated that it was intercepted not completely stopped. As I’ve already made mention of, certain members of the raiding party were in attendance solely to keep an eye on the actions of Liam Pearse. Assuming that at least one of them was doing their job, they would have noticed him sending a courier off to deliver a telegram. Knowing that said telegram might have some vital information, a few of them would have made an attempt to discover the content of the message. Upon noticing mention of a cannon, the cultists would have sent word back to their leader but still allow the original telegram to be delivered, however not necessarily by the original courier. Pearse will still receive his reinforcements in Santa Anna, however now that the knowledge regarding the recently unearthed weapon has come to light, he has some competition in acquiring them.

I also want to point out that while I have created an antagonistic element, I have not done so with grandeur dreams of all of his uniting as a band of heroes to stop some looming, nefarious evil. I don’t expect a rag tag bunch of heroes to face off in an epic showdown with the forces of evil like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon or Shonen Anime. As you’ve pointed out, that would be rather trite and cliché. What I’ve attempted to create is something to put a chink in the what has been up until this point impervious bastion that is Liam Pearse. I must admit this is a bit selfish on my part, but I want to see how Pearse, an individual who has thus far maintained a rather constant sense of control over his surroundings, handles this kind of unexpected interference with his plans. As per human nature, when vast power is discovered, or in this case witnessed first hand, it’s natural to want to obtain said power. As you’ve already made clear, Pearse himself has a considerable amount of interest in this newfound power and I expect that in the future he plans to use it to his advantage.

Now I will admit that I plan to use Schuyler as a recurring antagonist but solely for Seth. There are certain aspects of the not-so-good doctor’s line of work that will eventually relate to Seth’s reasons for coming to the New Mexico territory. Rather than writing him as a devout fanatic, I made Schuyler an imposing, smooth talking figure because that’s the kind of persona I want his character to have. He’s not so much an individual who is interested in any higher power on some greater plain of existence like the rest of the cult, but rather a sharp tongued and quick witted conniving manipulator with a slightly sadistic personality. Much in the same way that Ethan is a character with a fascination for clockwork structures, Schuyler is a character who has a fascination with the human body and its untapped potential, hence the last line in he delivers in the post. In hindsight, I can see how I might have played him up as something of a period parallel to Joseph Goebbels or Josef Mengele, however his profession is less prejudicially skewed and has more of a twisted alchemist or Frankenstein like allure. I also apologize to Claude if I’ve taken Jeremiah in a direction he didn’t foresee or like.

Once again, I apologize for the confusion my last post caused. I hope that I’ve made my train of thought at least a little more lucid with this explanation. I’ll make any necessary changes but first I’d like some feedback from others, particularly Pearse and Claude, regarding how they would like me to alter the post.

With the length of these posts, I wasn't sure that I was in OOC at first.

Firstly, I can understand Mr. Pearse's concerns. Though we have had a few explosive (sometimes literally) events already, the story has still managed to rest on intrigue rather than action, and characters rather than opposing forces. The absence of grand, organized antagonists has indeed been a welcome one. I personally find a standoff between Pearse and Jessamine much more interesting than "us" versus "them." And while the introduction of this cult might very well be intended to develop the character of Seth, people's tendencies to jump on the Big Bad bandwagon concern me. It would be very easy to run with this cult and create that opposing force, and lose the interest that we've created in being our own enemies.

Although let me be clear: I'm not totally against the idea. However, the introduction of such a thing this early, before characters have really started to develop and dynamics have been explored, could entirely shift the focus and feel of the narrative.

This, then, is the real problem I have: this cult has been introduced far too early. I was a bit thrown when Claude suddenly shifted the new thread away from what was happening in Little B to some random characters outside of what was already established with the story, and I can't say I'm pleased with where it's gone. Why is that?

Because so much is already happening. As a reader, I'm trying to juggle between the destruction of Little B, the standoff at Santa Anna, and all of the characters in between. There's also the cannon to consider, as well as these newfound powers. So I'm asking questions: who will win the Santa Anna standoff? Exactly what "is" this cannon? Why is Pearse so interested in it? What's Ethan's story, and is he worth all of this trouble? Why is everyone seeing squiggly lines? Why was Seth looking for Ethan, and will he find him? Who's alive in Little B?

And, finally, what's going to happen to Little Bethlehem now?

This is already a lot to swallow, and it's only a step from convoluted. So while my interest is tied up in all of this, I find myself anxiously waiting to see what's happening in Little B. The only people that can tell me are Claude and Seth... and they're suddenly both writing about some cult off in the middle of nowhere. See the problem?

Is the cult interesting? It could be, definitely. But right now? Not really. It's more infuriating than anything, because it's just too much too soon when so much is already happening.

The point I'm trying to make (and I hope I haven't been overly harsh in making it), is that I think it would be best to focus on what's already been introduced and where things are headed now. After the situations in Santa Anna and Little B have been resolved (and a few answers provided along the way, I imagine), it'll really open up and our characters can branch out. Who's going to go where and with whom, when all is said and done? Unlike ToP, I find it doubtful that we'll all stick together. Some of us might, but many will go their separate ways, at least for a short time. This seems like a better time to introduce more conflict, as well as antagonists such as this cult. It would also allow time for our characters to develop a bit more, so that people might not feel the need to run with the idea of an omniscient antagonistic force, and instead be content with the fact that, in the end, we're probably fighting ourselves.

My resolution would be this, and, mind you, it is only a suggestion: move the information provided on the cult so far to a new introductory thread, and leave it be until the story opens up and we can process it. Meanwhile, focus on what's happening in Little B, because it is, at least for now, far more interesting.

Hope I didn't step on any toes with all of this. Feel free to agree or not; I have no authority here, so I'm solely offering up a friendly opinion. And, once again, please don't think that I'm not interested. I want to find out more about this cult, but I want to do so when there's not so much else going on.

There. My two cents.

Claude and I have talked it over, and we've decided to take what we've written for the cult thus far and separate it from our current thread and put it in the introduction section as per Ethan's suggestion. I'll make the appropriate edits to the posts to make it so they no longer contain the direct actions towards our characters.

My friends, I regret to inform you that you will not learn of the next chapter in the Pearse/Blake saga tonight, although that was the original intent. I was delayed by a ridiculous amount of student government drama. There is no way to explain it simply (and quite frankly it's not all that exciting anyway), but basically I have the opportunity to come out of political retirement and play a critical role in a succession crisis that's eating up the front page of the school newspaper and boring everybody else.

That said, expect a beautiful addition to our story by the end of Monday.