#how much plotting went into this story

[seyaryminamoto]

An ask about how you plotted Gladiator raised a good question. How do you keep track of it all? If you write notes, how do you organize them? How many Word files do you have? Or do you use another software?

Well... I can certainly say I've never needed as much backup material to keep up with a story as I have with this one, for obvious reasons X'D

Okay, I had a simple bullet-points list at first, probably started it around the time I was writing either arc 2 or finishing arc 1? At that point, keeping track of what I wanted to happen next wasn't so hard. But I turned this into what you could call a wishlist, haha, of ideas that I wanted to implement in the future, so I dumped those ideas there. Little by little I started articulating, organizing them, and that's kind of how Part 1's structure came to be. Whatever new idea I'd get, I'd add it to the bullet points list. Once I crafted the bulk of the story's outline for the first time, it was initially written there. As of this day... that particular document, which I don't rely on as much anymore, amounts to 3K words, 8 pages worth of very rough, very basic plotting.

But then more complicated arcs started happening. Stuff I REALLY needed to work out in proper detail because I wasn't sure I would be able to just remember whatever I wanted to do. Sometimes inspiration strikes like lighting: hits once and then it's gone and you're just left ambling about, half-blind, unsure of what the hell is going on :'D so I started writing similar bullet points lists that were more detailed structure for the more difficult arcs to plot. Pairs Tournament arc, I think, was the first one to receive this treatment. Fire Lord for a Week arc in Part 2 also had to be handled this way, same as the final arc of Part 2, and the Race, particularly since that one required extra choreographing on my part to get it right. In Part 3, I did this with the Taking Omashu arc as well. There are a few more bullet-point lists about some really important things that will matter in the future... but I can't talk about those yet :'D

Now then, past this: I have the a huge Excel document where I tried to keep track of the disaster ranking of the Superior Gladiator League. As much as Part 3 has been so difficult... not having to update the ranking is so goddamn nice about it :') This document had the ranking itself, the names + locations of all Superior League Arenas, the brackets for every Pairs Tournament we saw, it's also where I kept track of the Race's points... and there's also a very poorly crafted timeline in this document where I tried (and kind of failed) to figure out how many years had passed in the story and how old each character would be :'D as you might be able to tell, this particular document is... a mess. Big mess. I do not recommend looking at it. The timeline in particular is just completely irrelevant tbh...

Because I made a NEW timeline doc that keeps track of... everything. Kind of. Mostly? :'D

The new timeline doc was necessary and I honestly should have had it around from the start, but I spent AGES putting that one off because I have no sense :'D I think I started it in Part 2, REALLY late, as in, when Wan Shi Tong was writing down what Azula would say about her family. Then, Part 3 made this doc a much bigger necessity because I REALLY needed to keep track of... the obvious :') as in, Azula's pregnancy. Real pregnancies are tracked on a weekly basis. Hence... I had to start planning, plotting and strategizing my story by keeping in mind where, exactly, we would be in terms of Azula's pregnancy, CONSTANTLY. That sure switched up things for me :'D forced me to be a lot more organized than I usually want to be because wild freedom is kinda nice sometimes... but I couldn't keep doing that anymore. So! This timeline doc starts with the birth of Fire Lord Hizuo in the year -49, and it goes all the way to the events of year... 121! :'D I broke down the story events of each year in this doc, so if you want a bit of a rundown of what we've seen so far...

Year 104: Chapters 1 and 2

Year 106: Chapter 3 to approximately chapter 46

Year 107: Chapter 47 to chapter 114 (yeeeeah a lot of things happened that year :'D

Year 108: Chapter 115 to chapter 164

Year 109: Chapter 165 to chapter 200 (note that there was a preeetty big time skip of around 6 months between Hahn's Gambit arc and The Mad Alchemist arc).

Year 110: Chapter 201 to chapter 328 (okay now THIS was an eventful year, holy shit :'D and naturally it's the one I'm posting right now...)

Year 111: Chapter 329 to... ??? Still not done with the events of that year :'D so I dunno how many chapters it's going to be!

Things really changed since I started keeping track of events by month, even by weeks. I've tried to keep doing that since, even beyond writing Azula's pregnancy. It's a little annoying to be so thorough and to panic over miscalculating dates and such, but at the same time I think I feel more secure in my own crazy story this way.

Ah, and there we go. That's Gladiator's plotting documents, every single one of...

...

...

...

Yeah okay, that's not true.

Look. Sometimes you REALLY need to be thorough. Some things require WAY too much finesse. Sometimes you're telling two stories simultaneously. Sometimes you're telling THREE. Sometimes it's even MORE than that because you have flashbacks and multiple POVs of events in a battlefield. Sometimes you have to write huge battles between armies and you need to keep track of wtf you're doing. Sometimes you have to articulate events to make sure they match each other timeline-wise!

... At those times, you make a big document with a huge table, split in three columns.

Column 1 is the arc's name. Column 2 is Sokka's side of the story. Column 3 is Azula's side of the story.

... And sometimes that document ends up becoming as long as 122 pages.

Yeah, uh, the document carrying the highly sensitive plans, detailing every single arc of Part 3 and how they work, how they connect, how long they'll be, what will happen in each of them (as well as which elements happened in which chapter, some of which ends up getting switched up, back and forth, depending on whether my writing lined up with the reality of my plotting or not...) is genuinely, uh... 122 pages long. 45K words. By my standards, that's about the length of 3 Gladiator chapters :'D

I had to be really thorough in that document. I was lost in regards of how I'd handle Part 3 for some time. Even if I had some ideas for it already, Sokka's side of the story used to be muuuuch clearer than Azula's. Once Rei showed up, plotting for Azula's side became soooo much easier to do... but the point is, Part 3 has been the most challenging aspect of plotting this story by far. I'm flexible enough with my plans, some things don't work or would work better at other times, and I simply adapt to it. But this document was 100% necessary to make sure I wouldn't get lost in the chaos of Part 3... so there it is :'D

Additional to this: I keep a version of Bill Mudron's ATLA map on direct access for easy reference whenever I want to make sure I'm not committing geographical crimes by making characters travel too fast, or to places that aren't even close to each other :'D it has been a huge element in my plotting and ensured I don't ATLA finale ANYTHING in the story since its earliest days. I also had to acquire a strange little resource, an educational app about space that features a projection/simulation of timezones! And that's how I've been keeping track of whether it's daytime or nighttime in Sokka or Azula's story, particularly useful whenever they connect to each other spiritually since it's very often nighttime for one and daytime for the other and these events should be happening simultaneously :'D

Oof, well. That's all I can think of atm to answer this question. There are always a lot of references you need as a writer, lots of places to keep track of your research, of your worldbuilding... it's chaotic but once you find a method to your madness, it can be fun, even! :D it still blows me away a little that my big full plotting document is 122 pages long, but it's been an undeniably useful asset all across these years.

So, in total, counting only my documents... I have about 10 different Word documents, 1 Excel spreadsheet with multiple sheets, probably around 8 different ones, 1 map, 1 cosmos education app. Making it around 13 resources to keep track of what I'm doing in this huge chaotic story :'D

... 11, come to think of it. I have one hilarious document that's basically me arguing with myself over some big plot changes I did to Part 3 as a whole when I started writing the first spiritual connection and it became EXTREMELY obvious that Azula wasn't letting Sokka go without telling him she was pregnant :'D yep, that wasn't part of the OG plan because I, as usual, underestimated my girl. By the time I got there she was like "I'm going to do it and you can't stop me with your PLOT" and I had to go back to the drawing board for a LOT of rearranging the plot, to figure out how it would work, what to do with it... document is literally called "BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE.doc" simply because I was terrified that change would alter the plotted story way more than I could handle. After my bickering with myself in that doc, it all started making a little more sense :'D

Alright, I think that's that XD

[trappednyourheart]

The wrong DNA test

( what if, Sheila wasn't really Jason's mother? The system is already corrupted, then what about the test?).

A huge brawl containing every rogue had started at the time of Halloween, causing the people from downtown to fled there home's as joker had clownized the whole neighborhood with his goon's.

Every bats had taken to groups to take out the three parts of Gotham's as the rogue's had started to make alliances, some had lasted quite long while had conflicts, and causing a big damage to Arkham asylum,

It didn't take long before they captured all of them, none of the bats questions as they observed Jason glowing green eyes starting to flick, they thought it was the pit again, growing wary of the cooperation, but Crime alley was involved and that mean business to Red hood's turf.

Catherine todd love her son as her own even if not biological, Jason knew that. But her thing with drugs couldn't make her stop.

Sometimes after that, they could hear Jason humming a tune,a nice melody from Damian's statement saying that Jason muttered to him “ lullaby” as Jason continued to read his book, maybe it could be from Catherine,

they knew how Jason's past with Catherine todd, his mom even if not related, Catherine loves her son like her own kid but her doing drugs and... overdosing couldn't be stop.

Maybe Jason just remembered his mother maybe reminiscing atleast something familiar...even if it was a bad time.

Jason had constantly have been hearing a woman's? Man's? Voice, singing him a lullaby...it soothing, like as if he known and loved this melody...and that's where the dreams kept coming, there was a person, giving him kisses, Talkin to him stories, singing him lullabies and soothing him, he could dream that he was actually a baby, a baby from a normal couple, well don't count the luxurious baby room.

Jason had took out a conspiracies why he was getting this dreams, ( he swears he's not becoming Tim) and voices, maybe like a misshapen memories from the pits of victims? No it's to peaceful for that, maybe magic? He already contacted Constantine but surely hang up after knowing who it was-

Just how is he getting this dreams? Unless it wasn't.... So he proved again his point, he started a DNA test, again but none had records...of Sheila being his biological mother...that was weird, last time he had a test was from the time as robin..and before his-

So he went to that hospital who had said where Sheila had given birth to him, and most of shock is that no one knows a mother giving birth named Sheila haywood but had a document of a baby, of one Jason jay nightingale, the most believing part was that it's the same day he was born in.

His mother, Daniel F. Nightingale was said to be trans as the doctor who help his mother safely delivered him, And saying that his mother loved him,

one Sheila Haywood had the constant trick to get him and taken him as his own, because his mother's family was a wealthy one they practically sold him to her.

Jason had thought that maybe his mother's family never wanted him to have a son with a man from Gotham's crime alley.

Meanwhile Danny had just been YEETED to the DC universe before the start of Batman's justice thing and had been adopted by a very wealthy fruit loops couple as there kid, so he stayed as the couples daughter even pretending, because he owed ghost writer a favor for the last time, and as DC universe exist so it's story, and one thing for sure the child he had to give birth in this universe has a very complicated fate,

he did the one night stand from his supposed friend Willis Todd? He had to befriend him as Dalia F. nightingale the supposed Wealthy daughter who fell in love with a peasant trope, and gotten pregnant making it a scandal, and reaching to his ‘parents’ circle and getting that drama.

But he never thought he would care for his child, his little jay, his ghost side would purr in delight when they held Jason, he was a very hard sucker especially from his pacifier or his breast, it's so weird being in a women body,

but the way his ‘parents’ sold his son to the women who was supposed to get his son killed and being revived by cheap parody ass of ectoplasm.

He went feral, he had an argument to his ‘parents’ but all fell deaf ears, he couldn't find his son in one of the hotels nearby where that BXtch was.

And that time was where his part of the script was fulfilled, ghost writer already took him, both sides of his, were angry.

He. will. get. his. baby. back.

[fmaandbgud]

😧i don't remember this in the anime 😨

[puhpandas]

I miss u fnaf fandom I miss people having new interesting stuff to talk about like we did with SB and ruin and a large alive fanart and fanfic community and not ok this game had no comprehensible plot and this games plot was already revealed 2 years ago and its still like 6 months or more until it comes out

[unblissfulawareness]

Missy probably did write about Charlotte. But as she pointed out, she has a million other stories and of them, we saw five.

[freakinator]

i wwonder if ls has always resulted in arguments about metastory or if it started in s4

[amplexadversary]

stop being so goddamn cute /s

[adriartts]

been busy Not Drawing but allow me to rough design the Sirens' Song finally

[mightydyke]

Not knowing who the writer is in the Weird West Cabaret is so good because at first you're like "Wow this character is a really shallow and outdated racist stereotype, the writer is probably old and out-of-touch at best and straight-up racist as the worst" and then you're like "hmm this gay character could be read as problematic and predatory... but it's also possible that his story is a criticism of gay people having to repress their sexuality, and the character is so fun and camp, and whilst this might be for cheap homophobic comic relief, it could also have been written as a celebration of gay sexuality! I wonder how writer intended it..." and then you're like "OH so these people are literally trapped in this play and the writer is forcing them to act this out and wiping their memories?! That's so fucked up who would do something like that?"

And then you find out that the writers are a white gay man from the equivalent of 18th century England, and what was once a group of death-worshipping cultists who are now a mega corporation who travelled to a dimension where they weren't welcome in what can pretty easily be read as a colonisation metaphor.

And all of these people are slowly losing their humanity due to being trapped in robotic bodies.

And then you're like "Oh okay. That makes sense."

[akimojo]

people love to use ffxiii’s messy development as a reason to completely shit on the game but honestly the fact they managed to sneak in so many little details in the gameplay in a way that reflects the characters and story despite all the miscommunication between the dev sections is just impressive to me

[takenene]

watching arcane and like. maybe i remember season 1 as better than it really was, but i'm pretty sure it didn't feel like watching an animatic or a music video instead of a show most of the time 👀

[luvuomi]

only true amélie fans will remember her scrapped concept of being a member of the house of the hearth

[passthroughtime]

btw, more on the sawa-sensei argument

because i can't let this shit go myself as well, as it seems

while kuwana calls yagami out for it as well (look, my game is self-aware!), after kusumoto's betrayal, yagami doesn't use sawa only as an example of collateral damage always existing in concealing the truth. we have two scenes between him and kusumoto showing us that it's not restricted to the only example yagami has (as is the talk usually). that's just the most tangible one, obviously because sawa is dead, and that's a fact that neither kuwana nor kusumoto can escape.

hey, guys, we forgot about akaike! but yagami didn't. (also, a funny side note while talking about the forgotten victims: akutsu is another example of public security getting rid of people who know too much. their brand of justice doesn't escape even the ones who are technically on their side/have been useful to them.)

the ending happens solely because yagami goes to save kuwana from RK/PS btw. he doesn't really know about his plan until he meets him at the warehouse, his only motivation is the knowledge that if he doesn't go and do something, PS will get rid of kuwana.

there's a reason, of course, why kuwana hasn't communicated that to yagami and his friends.

and they talk about it one more time after... idk, half an hour of gameplay? an hour?

idk the reason for the repetition here really. maybe, to make it more obvious that yagami doesn't really think about what kuwana is trying to do while on his way to the warehouse? that he and the gang just go there because kuwana is in a grave danger, and not one of them questions why kuwana suddenly reveals kawai's body location (and his own whereabouts as well) in a way he does? or it's just an awkward way the writers came up with for starting the conversation they have with soma? in any way, here we have it, i guess.

and here yagami talks explicitly that they came here to *save* kuwana. (just because my words may be easy to discredit because of my *coughs* pretty obvious biases.)

so, in short: sawa, akaike: remembering about the people who were sacrificied in pursue of the plans greater than a common person (=getting justice for the victims) kuwana, yagami, yagami's friends: denying that from happening again (=saving other people's lives before it's too late)

that is if you're tired of hearing only sawa being included in yagami's justice. but yeah, to summarise, it's about people, not ideology or "the big picture" for yagami. that's why his argument isn't so on par with the big questions kuwana brings to the table.

he's simplifying the discussion... or, makes it feel more real. whichever way you want to look at it.

[bending-sickle]

one chapter in the can \o/ only...so many more to go oh god send help

[ducktollers]

chat im really starting to fear that spiderman 4 wont have peter be nearly as sad as i need him to be. nothing at all has happened to indicate that but i just got a bad feeling. im almost completely expecting disappointment atp im just like mj fr

[waitineedaname]

I think the thing that gets me about the LQG-LMY age gap is the implication that SVSSS martial sects serve to sever your ties from your family. This is admittedly skewed by our protagonist being SQQ, but at no point do we hear about any of the Qing Jing disciples getting visits from family members. SQH's family doesn't even get a mention. And so LQG is making a conscious decision to go back to meet this baby (a girl, even, in what isn't ancient China levels of misogyny but is still PIDW) and spend enough time with her that she chooses to follow him up this mountain away from everything she knows. I don't think it was For him but it was something that registered as desirable to her because he was there and able to tell her about it, you know? No wonder PIDW LMY is so ready to avenge him, when he clearly was the one to choose her first

actually, we do hear about the Qing Jing disciples getting visits from family members! Ming Fan mentions his family visiting during the fake jade fight, which is why he had his own little jade trinket to show off to Ning Yingying -- because his family brought it. I think he's the only one to mention getting visits from family though, so maybe that's just a Ming Fan thing lol

even still, it definitely seems like a big deal that Liu Qingge would have any relationship at all with his baby sister! I mean, he was head disciple if not peak lord when she was born, he was probably busy. he could've very easily responded to the news that his parents were having another kid by just being like cool 👍 and then moving on, but he apparently didn't since they have some semblance of a relationship! I mean, they're described as not super close but still having a good relationship, and she still ended up in the same cultivation sect at him, and still apparently teamed up with Bingge to avenge him in PIDW, so they definitely care for each other despite the age difference!