#there are stories with only three acts. they are *extremely* rare. experimental. niche.

[blindrapture]

june 25th.

so the Tally Mark logs are done, and the narrative resumes. we're now in the next story arc, we're entering the Exodus arc. this will bring us all the way up to Act 2, the part what I'm all excited for. but there will be moments even in this arc that I'm excited for too!

do I feel like rambling right now. not really. it's been a toasty warm series of days and I hate it. I could say something about the slender man again, getting into the actual, like, devices and influences. or I could say something about how, like, Rapture may have started out as a story with an "unrealistic" protagonist who seems to make choices that heighten the excitement of the narrative (go walking out into the rabbit holes!), only to then rather swiftly "devolve" into repetitive urges-based "spend days milling about one general area." that is a contrast I am aware of, and I just want to point out that it isn't inconsistent, it is characterisation. Jordan acts as the context drives him. but frankly, my readers probably already figured that out and did not observe this as something needing an explanation. we're now in a pretty square "mill about a general area" territory. arguably the second major iteration of this theme. just. pointing that out.

I could also say something about how, like. this arc still adheres to the "roman a clef" nature of Act 1. the goal is to get the hell out of England. the summer of 2011 did have that same goal for me in real life. I didn't get out until around August in real life and pulled it back to June for Rapture for some reason, but I did write this arc towards the end of July, so it was still appropriate. like the fiction, I fled England without my family, at age sixteen. I still have a tendency to view this action as "running away." I ran away from home. the original act 2 was written in my new location. and it didn't.. work out. actually rather traumatically did not work out. and so the original act 2 got dark, because I was not in the right position to write it. I elected to dump the "roman a clef" consideration for future acts, diverging fictional Jordan's arc from my own. and the core of what I did in rewriting act 2 this year was commit to that more, remove the roman a clef from act 2 as well. though there's still elements in there, they are handled much more fictionally now and are no longer jarring in unintended ways.

because, like. while rapture dropped the "roman a clef," it still engaged with the self-insert as a fictional thing. act 1 is honestly fine in this regard. act 1 is many many things, all of which are rooted in a transition. metatextually, it's the transition from a Jordan rooted in real life into a Jordan engaged in the fictional world around him. so it makes sense for its original plot to remain and just receive some polishing, fine-tuning, cleanup. which it did.

I will do another ramble about this sometime early in act 2.

the great internet personality Film Crit Hulk once said, as a piece of critical writing advice, "DON'T WORK OUT YOUR OWN PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS ON THE AUDIENCE'S FIFTEEN BUCKS." I can't actually definitely say I disagree with his point, but it is safe to say I undercut it in the spirit of nuance. and anyway I thought it would be funny to leave this post on that quote.

see you tomorrow.