And I wrote a story! Feels good.
Feels weird shaking the rust off, doesn’t it?
It does! I’ve written some stuff – I mean, hell, I wrote a lot of Avalon posts – but it was definitely a mental exercise to get back into writing again. Also, to get back to the Esper Union and remember the themes.
And the things that, looking at it almost 20 years later, I’d do differently. (The Esperians accepted Nikeah saying they were in charge awfully quickly… though NAMAC did a lot to work an explanation in on the backend.)
Well, you first big arc WAS the Esper Wars. Remember you made Civ II mods for the Esper Wars and the Leviathan War? That was fucking awesome. I’ve sometimes thought about doing Civ V mods or at least custom civs for Kupopolis.
I do sometimes think about some things I’d do differently, but some things are remarkably durable. (This whole thing where Celiose built a giant army and not only beat the Dark Gods, but decided the Web had no need of the Light Gods, holds up really well considering I did it when I was like…sixteen?)
Also: I really loved the NAMAC backstory. I loved how the Iron Writer post felt like an American Civil War battle, but in Kupopolis.
I do! I’ve thought of trying to dabble in FreeCiv and make them again; it’s Civ II style. That, or make a White Cell conflict one. The problem is, as ever, the art (for I have no skills) and the time (for I’m not 17 anymore).
And I hear you – a lot of the changes I’d make are minor. A few less names on a page, some deeper characterization, better written women if I could go back and do it over.
And yeah! I’ve always wanted to revisit the early Great War – do more about NAMAC. I was reading the Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellan, which is more Napoleonic/Revolutionary style fiction, but still. It made me think of Kupop. Also, it’d be fun to do a young Mic Hosluft and Hannibal in the Luftwaffe, flying WW2-style planes. Hell, I may do some flashbacks for the lead-up to Hannibal’s defection to White Cell.
I had similiar feelings about wanting to revisit the Great War – here was a central part of Kupopolis history, with several important characters’ pasts rooted it in, and yet hardly any writer had participated in it. (And although I did participate in it, I certainly would like another crack at it!) And, though Proper is a glorious mosaic of different styles, there’s something neat to the mental exercise of “how Kupopolis might work in this analagous time period.” (As Neo was Kupopolis with the sci-fi elements ramped up, or the Great War would’ve been Kupopolis World War II-style.)
Though, I completely agree on more female characters. I introduced a significant number of female characters, and I tended to give them a strong opening, but struggle to follow through with them. Speaking for myself, I had lots of fun coming up with character concepts and world-building, but towards the end of my active time writing in Kupopolis I began to struggle with plotting – I had become a little too comfortable with “fictitious nonfiction”, if that makes any sense. (It makes me so sad to read all my Legends stuff, as I had this large world pretty well thought-out, but I really hadn’t thought of many stories to tell in it.)
…of course, as you have pointed out, posts are happening in Kupopolis. I probably can’t output 100k words in a month like when I was in college, but there are other things I should be able to do better.
I hear that. I think I’d love to visit it in the future – and Legends, really – but I think it’s something to wait until we’ve got a bit more of the story rolling (at least, doing it in an in-depth, “make another IS” way). It’d be incredibly fun, though, and I feel like it could be an origin story.
Hopefully, we could get Aurora onboard for revisiting the Great War. It’d feel strange to revisit that without her.
And yeah, I hear you – I think we’re in a position to do better there, both with more women characters and less “fictitious nonfiction.” (Of course, I do like me some of that.)
I did a thing!
I wanted to write something about the man in the dark suit for a while, and had this mental image of another Celpo agent being referred to as “the man in the pale suit,” and pictured there being a meeting of similar agents of different suit-colors, but didn’t have any real specifics about what the meeting would be about.
Then last night as I was trying to fall asleep, I found myself thinking about a pseudo-origin story about the man in the dark suit. I wrote a thing for something else-- a brief character bio, more than anything-- which used the repeating line “Once there was a child/boy/man.” I made a note to myself about it, so I could think more on it later, when I wasn’t trying to sleep.
As I wrote “Shadows and Splinters,” (a name I’m not sold on, but I didn’t have any title in mind for this little thing) I decided instead to make it into a story set during the White Cell Saga, showing a brief flash of internal struggles within the Celpo. The man in the dark suit being loyal to the Celpo as it is, and his opposite number (the man in the pale suit) being a defector to White Cell. And naturally, it ended up turning a bit violent.
So it goes.
Huzzah! We’re back baby…join the DELUGE!
Woohoo!! Reading material time!