Quoted By:
> It's post mortin' time!
This thread has been very insightful to me, perhaps more so than the others so far. I almost killed it right out of the gate by demanding an unreasonable level of dedication to people who likely haven't seen the quest before, but thankfully people were willing to give it a go once I adjusted.
I remember the first threads coming to me fairly naturally - there's some railroading around important beats, but every update felt like a straightforward continuation of the last one. Just about everything the PC experiences from the beginning of the quest is narrated and acted out - the first 3 threads all take place in a span of 40 hours. In contrast, this single thread covered 3 days. And while I don't think those early parts were dragging at all, I quickly realized this style of storytelling wouldn't cut it for the next chapter. So I experimented with time skips, flashbacks and implied dialogue to improve the pacing - sometimes it felt off, but I think it was better than the alternative.
This time I was far more careful about structuring the story as well. There's an inherent mismatch in the current environment and the abilities of Sergey, let alone his pactmate's entire existence. The two aren't made to be infiltrators, so I want to get the story in a place where we can't express a major part of not only the identity of our PC, but the world as a whole. His role as a servant also greatly limits his agency - I've spent a lot of time thinking about a good excuse why a hillbilly errand boy would be allowed to decide who to team up with and which mission they should go on.
I think it would give both me and the readers the most freedom if Sergey is in a position where he can freely use Enkidu to help others, but I have to create a believable path to explain why he would be allowed to, given the rules of the land I've presented. I've made my bed, now I have to lie in it.
On this topic, it's almost silly how many roadblocks I've given myself that are keeping me from telling a straightforward story, all in the name of worldbuilding. It made sense to me that Arcadian officials only accept Sidhe, and Sergey can't speak it. It made sense that an Arcadian serf has zero social mobility and would be stuck for the rest of their life. It makes sense that a device that translated every language you saw or heard wouldn't help you actually speak it. There's all these elements that I felt added to the illusion of Arcadia, but ultimately made every other encounter a nightmare that required preparation to become plausible. I've been working on removing most of them (the PC learning Sidhe being the most obvious example), but even then it feels a bit heavy-handed.
