#rwbyr meta stuff mine

[invested-in-your-future]

In your rewrite, is Raven the type of person who has the "suffering makes you stronger" mindset and would enable her daughter get traumatized as a punishment for turning down her warning (during the fall of beacon), so she would learn from it?

I'd say Raven is very willing to have people go through specific experiences, but there are limits to what she'd allow people she cares about to go through.

I do not think Raven wanted Yang to get traumatized. It's why I had inserted Yang and Raven's V2 end scene into having happened just before Yang found Blake and Adam during the Fall. If anything, Raven could have taken Yang away right then—had Yang not chosen to chase after Blake instead.

But! At the same time, for Raven, Yang's survival of that experience is what matters—she sees potential in Yang, but she also thinks of Yang's mindset till now as weak/disgusting, and whether Yang can bounce back defines her worth as a person for Raven.

There are multiple angles on why Raven decided to contact her, but Raven is clearly willing to provide Yang with what she thinks are the means to improve—Raven has waited a while to see whether the alternative (staying home) is helpful or not.

However, a lot of that help also seems two-sided. Raven, to me, feels like a multitasker, juggling multiple agendas at once. So while she has provided tools for Yang to rebuild herself after a tragedy, there's also an aspect to that help that benefits her.

At the same time, I think Raven can empathize with where Yang is in her life right now—not knowing who to trust, not knowing what to do with her life, or which path to take as she feels like everything has been pointless and led her nowhere. Raven has been there, done that—and if her daughter can stand back up, then she's worthy of her attention.

That said, Raven does seem willing to push Yang through dangerous experiences, as indicated by what we know of portal side effects in the rewrite—meaning she is willing to test Yang in ways that could have been extremely harmful to her and would make her allies like Clair frown.

[invested-in-your-future]

Often I hear critique of stories in fiction where people get caught pants down by something awful happening to them.

It's not been at least five times in last few years that I got an ask claiming the Fall of Beacon itself as bad writing and that the good guys in the show were intentionally too dumb for it to happen.

You have a clandestine group of wise schemers running a Kingdom and dedicated to protecting peace. They know something is coming. They know more than the audience, actually. Now what they know exactly might change as the show eventually would retcon itself but at this point it's safe to assume they are aware of danger.

It's clearly an abnormal situation possibly threatening a century of peace and prosperity.

"How couldn't they see this coming? How could they do nothing?!"

And the same then extends to concepts like discrimination within setting where monsters are attracted to negativity. And to classism, the obvious rhetoric of some characters, whether within show or fanfiction.

Surely people would prevent it? Why don't they?

For starters Cassandra complex is the most basic storytelling technique—majority ignoring the warning signs till it's too late is the basis for most inciting incidents in fiction.

You want friction in the story, you want conflict, from the very first scene. If a scene has none then you remove that scene.

So how do you deliver conflict before conflict happens?

A Cassandra character stereotype is a common tool—a person or few might see what's coming but others will ignore them. It's an easy way to create tension by having them try to argue or try to change things or maybe just having to watch the inevitable.

A storm is coming and the character feels it in their bones, get for everyone else it's Tuesday.

The said character doesn't need to be the hero—sometimes they are sometimes they aren't because the protagonist caught off guard is also a great story beat. Within the V3, both Ironwood and Qrow take turns playing this role, questioning the decisions made—raising the alarm about the oncoming storm. Ozpin and Glynda, meanwhile, would take the opposite role—stressing the importance of the status quo.

Then something happens, suddenly, turning the heroes' lives upside down, pulling the rug from beneath their feet. Now it can be small and personal or massive and destructive but the end result is the protagonist setting off on a journey, be it literal or within their mind.

Then it's not unusual to repeat the trope again and again on a larger or smaller scale. Getting caught off guard is a brilliant storytelling device to generate tension after all.

And it's especially useful within the stories about humanity's folly. Disaster movies run on the idea of those in charge ignoring scientists ringing the bells on climate change or engineers holding up warning signs about budget cuts. Political thrillers and war movies run on the idea of people getting caught off guard by a conspiracy or an invasion because "it couldn't happen here". Even RPG games just loooooove wrecking that one town/kingdom you start in out of nowhere.

Betrayal, war, disaster, tragedy—all those are synonymous in execution. The status quo is shattered, everything changes and the characters are left questioning themselves.

It's very easy to criticize such plot beats—why would otherwise smart and cunning characters or perceptive heroes miss the warning signs? Why would they ignore them if they hadn't?! Why would they undersell the threat? Why would they let obvious bad guys worm their way into position or power or give them access to their vulnerabilities?

Because it's not just a story beat. It's not just convenient for storytelling.

It's human psychology.

I think most people underestimate in how willing an average person is to close their eyes and pretend that something wouldn't happen—even when it's literally already happening.

The "Surely it can't happen here/to me" is also known as "Normalcy bias"—a type of cognitive bias.

As human beings, we tend to underplay threats to the status quo—it's rooted in the way our minds respond and parse what happens around us. Denial is our first line of mental defense, whether it is disasters or grief. Denial protects us from difficult to parse emotions, from perceiving danger that would cause us distress. It exists to give us "time" to find a way to cope—to move forward.

It can't be said enough times that Man's capability to underplay, ignore, or rationalize crossing the Rubicon is infinite.

It doesn't matter if the Rubicon is a literal place and enemy armies are marching in or it's a moral even horizon and the character/nation are the ones marching past the point of no return.

Both in fiction and reality you'd hear people say the same thing:

"There's no way they would do this! It would destroy everything and would benefit nobody!"

Companies wouldn't work to prevent those wanting to stop climate change if they knew the truth. The Mayor wouldn't cut funding to the dam repairs because he obviously would be aware of the coming flood season. Midlandia would never invade The Further Kingdoms, and it's all just bluster and posturing.

People would rationalize, would deny.

And then they would write it off as a joke or irrelevant and move on with their lives. Normal, usual, maybe sometimes a bit bohemian, everyday.

What people fail to understand is that the Rubicon, the moral event horizon? It's subjective; it depends on one's sense of status quo, one's comprehension of normalcy.

What could happen might seem unthinkable to the people—something that would be stopped, noticed, and prevented.

Dam repairs would be funded.

Slide into authoritarianism would get protested and prevented.

Desire to invade would be squashed by the possible consequences.

Impending threats would be noticed and stopped at any cost due to self-preservation.

To the people, both within the setting and the audience, the obvious threats, within and without, are preventable because of how unprecedented and dangerous they are—because of how harmful to the status quo they'd seem. There's no need to worry—and those that do? Well, they might be overreacting.

Yet what people like that don't get is that for those decision makers it might be just another Tuesday.

The threat is still far away, the danger is still preventable, one of many.

Surely it couldn't happen here.

[invested-in-your-future]

How different would Yang's post v3 arc have been, if she hadn't lost her arm?

I have been thinking about this for quite a while.

Actually—ever since V3 ended.

Now the show doesn't really do anything with it overall (in fact, both in merch and overall the show really loves trying to hide it), but if we are to speak of it within the frame of how it could/should have been handled?

Writing a story is always about tying the physical setting to the inner struggle. The external is shaped and informed by the internal. Rain pours when characters are sad, a storm looms on the horizon when the future is uncertain, and morning comes when adversity is conquered. Sometimes even the color itself might drain from the world. Within the narrative, perception is reality—and each POV character lives within their own, ascribing emotion to their perception.

My overall thoughts are that the loss she suffered physically is an external representation of the internal defeat she had sustained in the form of both her failure to protect and the failure of her approach (rush into the battle head-first)—not to mention in the form of everyone abandoning her (or at least how she would see it).

The concept of phantom pain, for example, relates to "something that's not here, hurting"—the sensation of what's missing, with our brains refusing to accept that.

What's not there, metaphorically? Blake, who left without saying a word. Yang's ability to keep hiding behind the facade of this cheeky brawler smile. Yang's inner world and her future—replaced by the emptiness inside.

So overall, without losing her arm, there would obviously be fewer obstacles to overcome that a writer could use, but the overall arc would still be the same.

The loss she suffered, however, is a good way to convey the change that tragedy brings and to add a struggle to overcome for the character to show her growth. (Which is why the show deciding to just skip that "because it would be boring" is so mind-boggling).

Not to mention it makes the possible future confrontation very personal.

Healing—moving forward—doesn't mean the same as "fixing it and going back to what was before".

Things would never go back to how they were, no matter what.

But it doesn't mean that "different" would be "worse" or somehow "incomplete".

The end of V3 tore through the world, through the confines of the characters' childhood—and merely rebuilding it to stay exactly the same would be so boring and uninspiring.

[invested-in-your-future]

Some people would ask, "Why bother writing this rewrite—by now the show has been bad for longer than it has been good. It's been years since V3 ended."

And that's true; yes, the show I fell in love with had been eroded over time—chipped away piece by piece and replaced by a caricature of Brother Gods and talking animals and ableism and no followup for anything that end of V3 had set up.

But that doesn't change the place the first three volumes hold in my heart.

I still remember the exact moment the Red trailer dropped—I actually saw it for the first time here, on Tumblr, through gifs someone had posted. I clicked the link below those gifs, and that was the first time I "watched" RWBY.

I remember the disappointment when Volume 1 started, and it was kind of janky and less serious, and this Jaune guy would be absolutely annoying, but the setting, the lead cast, the music, the mysteries, the fighting—all of those things gripped me and hadn't let go.

I could ignore the jank and this writer's pet character hogging the spotlight as long as the rest remained good—or, hell, got even better.

And it did—V2 was a marked improvement.

I wanted to see what Ruby's theme song lyrics meant to her characterization. I wanted to see the answer to why the moon was broken and to all the mysterious hints in the lyrics and everywhere that things weren't as they seemed.

I wanted to see Weiss face her privilege and her family, see her grow, and see more of Atlas and Mistral and the reasons why White Fang would have been a thing—the discrimination that Weiss had participated in with her obliviousness and privilege.

I wanted to see Blake's past and what made her the person she were today.

I wanted to see Yang open up more and see the depths behind her obvious facade, especially after she had opened up a bit to Blake in V3.

And then V3 hit, and I was in disbelief—seeing characters die, seeing the status quo destroyed, and bad guys actually winning was a RARITY back then.

I remember watching the final stretch of V3 shaking each week. I remember the moments when I would have thought, "No way they would do this," and yet the show would do it and more.

After the V3 finale, I was at a loss—what now?

I wanted to know more; I wanted to see Summer's backstory; I wanted to see what drove Cinder to be who she was; I wanted to find out what Ozpin was and what those moves he made in that fight were; I wanted to see if Emerald would get a redemption arc or anything and why she was with Cinder in the first place.

And what's more, the world after what happened seemed to open up.

There was so much potential! So many possibilities! How would the world handle the worldwide communications being gone, and what happened? How would things change? Was this finally the time all the lyrics hinting at war and the world order crumbling came true?!

Like, it's impossible to overstate this—even now talking about this, I feel the excitement building as memories flash in front of my eyes.

It doesn't matter that everything after V3 had been an absolute disappointment. It doesn't matter that characters never evolved or grew and that the entire setting got thrown away for the sake of some very low-grade fantasy elements borrowed from other shows.

It doesn't matter that most of the answers in the show had been extremely anti-climactic and disappointing (like the moon reveal, if you can even call it that) and that the show never explored anything it could have.

It doesn't matter that the show treated its protagonists like trash, never giving them the focus or attention they deserved—in the end even spitting in the face of psychology and mental wellness altogether with V9.

The-red-trailer-through-V1-through-V3 memories are still very dear to me. It was a one-of-a-kind experience that still shaped what I like about fiction and my hobbies.

I can't let go of what the show could have been.

For years I couldn't.

I kept going back to the first three volumes, to what was, to what could have been, thinking through everything there—and each time the same kind of excitement would still be there.

So, writing that "what could have been" seemed like a logical solution for me.

It's the only way I can parse what I feel about the show—in a way dealing with grief over what it could have been.

It might sound overtly dramatic for sure, but what can I do. I really liked this show.

[invested-in-your-future]

One of many things I have been figuring out is how different Kingdoms might handle their legends about monsters, since Grimm would be intrinsically linked to concepts like folklore and fairytales of this land, having been there for as long as humanity remembers.

Would creatures of Grimm replace the traditional monsters in the stories? Would there be cryptid creatures of Grimm whose existence hasn't been confirmed but lone Huntsmen would swear they exist?

One thing I've decided is that this version of Remnant would contain many sightings and stories of Grimm that could be considered apocryphal—types of creatures never scientifically confirmed to even exist. Over the years, Huntsmen and civilians alike would have shared rumors, written entire books, etc, about the experiences that nobody can confirm having happened.

The important aspect, however, is how contradictory and ambiguous legends and rumors can be.

For example, one such piece of literature is "Die Wilde Jagd" (The Wild Hunt)—an autobiographical book by one of Vale's Huntsmen centuries ago, where he chronicles his journeys chasing after a folk legend, gathering tales, as well as chronicling encounters that he claims have happened. As the book is old old, it's impossible to confirm or deny the authenticity of what the author wrote about—he could have actually faced those creatures, he could have embellished confrontations with "usual" Grimm, or he could have thought all of the stories up while drunk in some wayside tavern.

Let's say characters come upon something they do not understand—more literature-focused ones would know the stories they would have read or at least heard about, but how do they know any of that information is "useful" or fit? They can only guess.

One of my pet peeves with the show will always be how MilesWBY era handled one of its better ideas, The Apathy—it's just too neat of a conclusion that takes away any mystique of this creepy and unique and weird type of creature of Grimm—they are built up as a threat, and then Ruby plot-eyes them, and it's all solved without any doubt. Meanwhile, for me, that threat was always something that felt like it shouldn't have neatly "concluded"—a threat where the characters should have been left guessing if they had defeated the Apathy or if these things are still out there and that maybe there's no real way to "defeat" them, that some things in this world just are and should be avoided at all costs. And then the show doubled down on that by having Ruby randomly be able to defeat one of the Goliaths.

Neatly defeating strongest creatures of Grimm as a threat doesn't work. Some of the STRONGEST moments of the early RWBY that are stuck in my mind are when Ruby first sees the Goliaths and then in V3 when that thing bursts out of the mountain. The show pulls back a curtain and shows just how much unknown there is in the world and how out of their depth humanity might be.

It's important to leave ambiguity AND uncertainty in the concept behind The Creatures of Grimm. It's supposed to be an endless, eternal, ever-changing, ever-evolving threat that has always been there and will likely always be there.

And tying that into the bigger theme of how ambiguous, twisted, and incomplete myths and legends of the world are just makes sense. Even in the show, it would have made more sense to do that if Salem's very existence was supposed to be this big secret that would have thrown the population into chaos when revealed.

[invested-in-your-future]

Okay but. The grimm arent climate change. Or a plague. Theyre a very real tangible threat which we have no true analogue for on this earth.

Climate change is a tangible threat.

Pandemics are a tangible threat.

They aren't until they directly affect someone, though.

And even then people rationalize or outright excuse what they experienced.

"Oh, this isn't the actual Climate Change—we haven't yet crossed the Rubicon; clearly, people are causing all those fires, or it's one big conspiracy!"

Humans are rarely rational beings. Most love to live in their boxes, writing off what doesn't fit inside via the simplest solutions available.

Even Huntsmen are no different—even in the show, it doesn't even cross Ruby's mind that she CAN'T fight something like The Goliaths or that there are Grimm that she would likely be unable to do anything about.

Because even to Huntsmen, clearing the Grimm is their everyday job—they are there to protect people and clear out the monsters.

Most people living deep within the cities, going about their day, likely don't think much about the threats lurking in the shadows.

They can't do anything about them. It's an endless thing that has been there since the dawn of humanity and will be there forever.

"Beacon could never Fall."

"There's no way this peace would end somehow."

"Surely nothing bad will happen; this is the safest place in the world now."

Even the show toys with it—Ozpin and co's behavior through the first three Volumes are an example of gauging the Rubicon. They know there's something amiss; they know there's a force working against them, but obviously, there's still time to stop it; they are still not beyond the point of no return—right up until a giant dragon is flying over the city and eldritch mammoths rumble through its streets.

The ones who know how bad it could be, all while screaming and begging to take action, in their hearts doubt blossoms—surely they can turn this around, surely there's a way to stop it, surely people are better than this.

People can get used to the status quo, grow complacent, and start to view it as part of their everyday life.

Which makes it inconvenient as a scapegoat for their problems. They can't touch or "solve" the issue after all.

"Is it the pandemic crashing the economy and the bird flu to blame for the egg prices? No, obviously it's the people that look different from us. They must be the ones to blame, and if we just solve this issue and regain our past glory, the prices will go down."

This is the world we live in—the one where hatred is "dangerous" but surely "it would never happen here", where climate change is "worrying", but "surely we aren't there yet and we can turn it around"; where pandemics are considered horrifying, but "surely this can't be real yeah?"

Would an average person worry about the Grimm beneath the Kingdoms' walls?

Or would they rather listen to the voices whispering to them that maybe, just maybe, every issue in their lives is the fault of these "others" living right next to them—of how it "used to be way better back then in the old days"?

Sure, some would see reason, the big picture, the threat looming ahead, but what about those who don't—those who would rather listen to pied pipers grasping for power, those who would rather reinforce class divide and discrimination?

Discriminating against the other is no more "unusual" than the belief that the rich and wealthy are "powerful" or the ones leading giant corporations are "smart"—it's part of the same cycle.

If Schnees can sit on the pedestal, swimming in wealth and power and prestige, then the opposite is true—the people that they'd tower over, the ones they would have to exploit to have attained all that, would have to stay all the way back down there, far away, the insects they are.

And the "others"—the ones who just a century ago had no rights at all to the point of a Rebellion? What a convenient target they would make, so the ones beneath the boots don't struggle, don't look up and, instead, have someone to detest.

That's how you get hate movements, that's how you get radicalization, and that's how you get discrimination being perpetuated instead of dying out.

Because it's convenient.

Because it's a means to attain power.

Because it's normal.

Because unlike the threats somewhere "beyond the walls", it is here and now.

An easier, more simple answer

[invested-in-your-future]

It's fair to question the decision to write more racism into a setting where people are trained to fight monsters. How would all those people not stand up against discrimination when the negative emotions attract monsters?

See, I was preparing to write a very long and detailed write-up explaining how human psychology works and why most people wouldn't explicitly notice. Thankfully, there was a video out today that did that job for me, laying down the logic behind how things like that progress in society and the psychology involved in it.

Despite what fiction often tells us, nothing ever happens instantly.

Stories prime us to await that defining moment when there's a shift in the soundtrack and the Empire's troops appear from beyond the hill, the framing screaming that it's time to stand up and fight for ourselves.

That's not how it works, that's not how any of this works.

Discrimination, by its nature, real-world or fictional, goes against common sense—it preys upon insecurities and the hurt and the fears most unfounded.

It's not constructive. It's not reasonable.

It's destructive—even self-destructive, really.

And just like it's impossible to get rid of it in an instant, bigotry also advances gradually—step by step, hoping people wouldn't notice.

Until one day it feels like nothing has changed, and this small decision being made just now is no big deal.

After all, it's normal.

Real-world or fictional—rights are something that gets earned, grasping at every straw.

And they get taken away the same way—bit by bit until the last of them is gone.

Our world has thousands of well-educated scientists who have been ringing the bells about possible pandemics and climate change, yet people don't care. Because the world would heat up slowly, get worse slowly, and degrade slowly—like boiling the frog alive.

Our world has thousands of well-educated people who have spent their entire lives protesting against authoritarianism and loss of rights and thousands of communities who have been campaigning against the oppression they faced. And very few would pay attention.

Because hatred, the easy answer, sometimes is oh so sweet that facing existential threats just doesn't seem as important.

Especially since those voices—louder than others—would scream that everything can be solved with a bit of hatred against the Others.

It's not unlikely Remnant would be the same way, discrimination offering a quick solution to the masses, urging them to turn against those deemed as Others, bit by bit—ceding power to those that would use hatred to amass it.

The threat of annihilation is all the more tasty of a subject for propaganda to turn into hatred, after all.

[invested-in-your-future]

I have got a few asks regarding the Crown and whether I would use them in the rewrite. I answered a few before, but since I don't want to keep doing that, I thought I would put out an answer that I can sort of link to any time it comes up.

Short answer: I am not going to use the Crown. I don't like the concept; I don't like what I've seen of the novel it comes from, and it clashes with the set-up for Vacuo I am using.

Long answer: I am not going to use the Crown, specifically.

It doesn't mean that the concept of something similar won't be there in the story where it makes sense.

Since I'm not doing anything like the brother gods nonsense, what fills that space is the dynamics between the Kingdoms and the clashing viewpoints of various characters and groups. There won't be a clean break point to place characters into groups of "The Good Guys" and "The Salem Team," because Salem's motivations differ too.

One of the bigger inspirations for the rewrite for me has been the Divide song, which I always felt perfectly lays out Salem's motivations and MO, which the show never quite made use of.

So one of the questions I asked myself when starting putting together world-building for this years ago was—how would Fall of Beacon affect the Kingdoms, and how would various forces standing together fracture, now that the unifying force that kept the world order together (Ozpin) is out of the picture and what happened at Vale serves as an inciting incident for so many things?

Figuring out the conflicts that could flare up because of what happened was the first step to take.

Long story short: it doesn't make sense to use the Crown when there's already factions and interests that feel akin to that.

There's already some of the setup for that with Mistral's writing focus in the Rewrite being the lingering contempt for post-Great-War times and nostalgia for the monarchy.

But even beyond Mistral, the way I see Fall of Beacon is as sort of a green light for all powers that be to move towards their goals—the kind of mentality where various people in power might go, "Maybe the old order doesn't work?" and begin to act.

And in turn that works as a vehicle to tell the story about humanity's nature and how it ties to the debate that's going on between Ozpin and Salem.

[invested-in-your-future]

To elaborate on my answer to that ask.

A good example with limiting what lore pieces can do versus relying on gods is how I am approaching Atlas.

In the show Atlas flies because Relic, which Ozpin gave because, uhh, hope? Relic can do this because, uhh, magic. And thus with McGuffin Hunt Atlas can't fly no more because the Kingdom starts and stops with it's importance for the McGuffin Hunt.

Now let's remove magic and gods subplot from this in the rewrite. Where does it leave me?

Atlas no longer can just up and fly, especially with WoR established Dust limitations. The Arena is the limit of technology all Kingdoms together can achieve.

So how is Atlas different from Mantle then? I thus need to think more about the dynamics between the two places and how Atlas would become what the Kingdom is—how would a part of the destroyed aggressor Kingdom become this prosperous hi-tech place?

Suddenly I need to think about the feasibility of inter-Kingdom relations, about more complex motivations behind Ozpin possibly having a hand in this than mere hope.

Which Kingdoms would want tomhelp rebuild? What and why could Ozpin provide and how would that affect the entire Kingdom? How would this process impact Atlas society and their outlook towards others?

Thus now Ozpin's generosity has a reason, Ozpin providing the means despite the risks has a reason—Atlas existing has a reason.

Since I can't just Magic everything I now need to think where Atlas would begin after the war and how. What would make it superior and more habitable than Mantle?

Mantle being closer to the sea makes sense due to how natural landmarks play into protection and due to the fact that people would have gotten there from somewhere else to colonize the uninhabitable land. Suddenly I can draw connections to other Kingdoms and history.

From there there's a need to establish how different Atlas would be—why it would be somewhere else and how it would benefit it.

A Kingdom needs established means to exist—resources, landmarks, technology.

Suddenly I have a chance to establish how SDC rose to power, why they have so much control over the Kingdom and so on. What would be the history of the family before Jacques that Weiss idolizes so much? Is she right in doing so?

By this point, by just removing god subplot and relics, I now am forced to think up at least a century of history if not more—and to provide to myself countless building blocks I can use within writing.

And since I can't just throw the Kingdom into the mix for the relic McGuffin stuff I now have to think of a way the Kingdom fits into the overall plot and how that ties into where V3 ended. What are the interested parties there and their motives? How can that tie into the overall story? What would be the conflict and how would the story build towards that?

By just removing brother gods stuff, I now have a bigger playground I am actually excited about.

And the Kingdom is no longer merely setting for the Plot Relic that doesn't matter beyond it.

[invested-in-your-future]

One of the hardest parts is figuring out how to make locations in each Kingdom differ from each other.

With Mistral, I decided to define each place via specific ideas.

The City of Argus is synonymous with change - construction sites and abandoned run-down districts, streets crowded with people, mismatched architecture, and dozens of little shops, bars, businesses, and warehouses.

The City of Nemea has a strict district structure, with everything leading to its center. Gates, gates, gates. There's still an intentional similarity to Argus, though, as Nemea holds plenty of influence in its creation.

Rain permeates the City of Youdu - pouring upon layers filled with buildings down to the intricate sewer system that goes deeper into the Old City.

Kulhara is lots of dirt. Everyone knows everybody to the point that it's more like a really oversized village.

Everything in-between the notable locations is either swamps, forests, a few shacks of terrified people, or outright ruins of abandoned cities/villages that were never rebuilt.

Vale is mainly City of Vale and then everything beyond it.

The City of Vale is a mess - with the thing atop the tower being visible from almost any point of the city. It's also divided but in a different way than Nemea - each remaining district has its own community and power structure and rules.

The mainland locations beyond are damp, shrouded by fog and a sense of stillness (so basically Maine).

Patch is basically rural countryside intermixed with forests.

Then, from that, places in Atlas and Vacuo (and Menagerie) also have to feel different enough.

And there are other locations - mentioned and unmentioned -that I will eventually get into.