Hand Puppet Comments

[Urthdigger]

As I said in my RP post, I'll be doing a bit of commentary here, mainly due to a majority of the stuff I put in being inside jokes, or requiring uncommon knowledge to get the joke/reference/whatever. I'd also like to take the time to explain why I made the changes from my original posts. The commentary will be formatted in the same way as the RP (Each double-spaced entry in the commentary corresponds to a double-spaced entry in the RP)

I originally didn't like how Hand Puppet started, as it made it look like Urth actually enjoyed his job, and was beginning to like killing people. Originally, that was the case, and Hand Puppet as the title referred to a manipulation by the higher powers in the guild to get him to assassinate someone who was innocent. It involved the theft of all the toilets in the Retroverse, and on the whole was more light-hearted. I eventually decided that was not in character for Urth AT ALL, so I scrapped it. I do have some humourous RPs planned for later, and will try to lighten up the mood during the RP. The definition of assassins I learned from Ghost in the Shell: SAC, and I thought it was too cool to not put in. Also, in the original it's not revealed that Urth is from another dimension until later in the story, and for some reason I felt like revealing it right away.

A lot of the people mentioned are from my other stories, and aside from Stranger and the Avatar, I don't expect any of them to appear in my other Retro RPs. This whole scene was an experimentation in being a bit more light-hearted, although it's hard to make him so when the only other person there is someone he hates. I really outta get him some more friends for this RP . On the whole, I felt this was a far better way to set up the reasons for why Urth was there, and I will likely have more flashbacks in the future to reveal other things.

Nothing to really say for this paragraph

I kinda like this paragraph. First off, it reveals why Urth tends to go on assassinations, rather than the ruthless slayings the other Hands do. In addition to being in character for him, this also opens up the door for parts of the rp later where he has to infiltrate a place. I'll probably put some in soon as soon as I get good at writing someone moving from place to place. Urth getting in through the chimney was something I found when researching raccoons for various reasons. When raccoon-proofing a house, one thing many people forget is to put a grate or something over the top of your chimney so they can't get in that way. I found it kinda funny, so I put it in.

Most of this is exactly the same as it was originally, but rewritten for changes in writing style. I especially liked the letter. I didn't like the fight scene very much, but I've never been good at writing those. About the keys, I was originally going to have Urth try to swallow them as a way of saying "You ain't getting these back", only to choke on them, but while it looked funny animated in my head, it didn't look half as good on paper. Idea scrapped. In rewriting the story, I've noticed as several parts where Urth washes the blood off after a battle. Besides the reasons given, I suppose it's also because he can't stand to have the evidence of what he's done all over him (I tend to RP by putting myself in my characters' shoes. Sometimes I really have no clue why the characters do what they do). P.S., I really like the phrase "Drunk as a skunk".

In the original, the Sentinel notices that Urth is a member of the Hands and says he has better things to do than deal with the guild's petty squabbling. That was back in the early days of how I RPed the guild, and with the new version it makes no sense. Thus, I changed it to being a dirty cop that doesn't mind that Urth just killed a bandit since it makes his job easier. About the cop, there's a reason it's specifically a vulpin and specifically a sentinel. When I originally wrote this, and even now as I'm rewriting it, I'm a big fan of Schrau's RPs. I wanted to put him in my story somehow, but I hadn't gotten the character very well, he probably had no clue I existed in the game, and for various reasons trying to RP his character would be difficult, and asking for permission and tips on getting the character right would have been awkward. Instead, I made a sentinel like him and never mention his name. Granted, I very likely got the character extremely wrong, so I wouldn't dare say it IS Schrau, but it's an homage to one of my favorite writers in the game.

[Urthdigger]

I've decided to add titles to each of my chapters, each title being the name of a person or place that plays a large role in that chapter.

This part details the general plot of my character. I use him all over the place, and this story is the reason for him being in all those worlds. I actually do have a list of all the other survivors, Karren Stormeye is the survivor of fire, Tannut Hope is the survivor of soul, Anna Crusis is the survivor of body, Stoneclaw is the survivor of destruction, and Sisfritz Farshooter is the survivor of energy (I hope I can use this character, I was a friend of his owner, but it was online and I never talked to him much after the garrison site went down). I don't know when I'll have him find the last survivor, because when he does the stories over, and I've grown a little attached to him

In the original version, his passing out whenever he used a world transport was so I could have dreams of his backstory happen between each segment of the story. I felt that slowed it down a bit, and people really didn't need to know my character's life story in order to know what's going on. Instead, I gave an explanation of his dreams in the previous paragraph, and I felt that explained the situation much better.

This whole segment was added in, and is part of the reason it took me longer than I expected to rewrite this chapter. After seeing Over the Hedge, I wanted to do a heist scene of sorts. Actually, a number of elements from this scene are more or less taken from the beginning scene in the movie, and I may end up changing this scene later since, while I like it, I felt it was a bit too close to what inspired it in the first place, even for me. Urth getting his hand stuck in the vase is another reference to raccoons, how they won't drop something they want, even if their hand gets stuck. My brother is to thank for this scene, as he told me to get his hand stuck, which in turn made me want to do the heist scene even more.

This is more or less a continuatiion of the scene my brother told me. He thought it'd be pretty funny if not only did Urth get his hand stuck, he was completely oblivious to the fact that he had a vase on his hand until he tried to pawn it. The first time I checked the Edon general store owner it was a vipyr, but then I realized vipyrs probably have a racial speech thing that I didn't know, so I went back to listen to him say random stuff. It was a catfolk this time around, and since I knew theirs pretty well I changed him to that. The reason for the lack of gold is that although I wanted to do a heist, by the time I reached this scene I realized I also didn't want to make him absurdly rich. The last part of this scene was something I changed to try and lighten things up a bit, this time around by lifting his spirits so that I could get away with him being nicer later on.

Not much to say about this scene, just Urth finally managing to get the blood off.

I've had this scene more or less written for a LONG time, I just never had a spot to put it in. The general idea I was going for was that the arakun was like a woodland creature, cute but with a great deal of non-cute things hidden. It's pretty much a raccoon, with a desire to kill for money due to the feel of the retroverse.

Most of this post is a direct rip from the original. Since Cretar posted his version of the events, I didn't want to largely change anything. This meant the dialouge remained the same, and the events, at least as far as Cretar knew them, had to remain the same.

[Urthdigger]

This third chapter was one of my favorites when writing the first time around. I always like adding new characters to the story, and while I don't expect to write much more of Powint and the Ancient, I still like them, despite their flat obsession.

I've always had trouble trying to describe how I see the judgement plains. I imagine it looking like a typical plain, with large stalks of plants that closely resemble wheat. I tried to describe this effect I've seen in several places that gives an otherwordly look to a place (it's the same effect used on many of the high level monsters in FFX-2), but I really don't think I got it across well. Other than that, this paragraph is also an excuse to say a bit more about my character's past. I just realized... I've killed him quite a bit

One thing I like to do when writing is use senses other than sight to explain a situation. The arakun form, with it's enhanced smelling and hearing, is a reasonable excuse to do this more often. The scene with the avatar was something I had planned to put in the original, but had to cut out due to not finding a place for it. I wanted to somehow explain how what happened was not his fault, at least to the readers if not to him. Urth being mostly fat is yet another raccoon addition, although while a raccoon is 50% fat according to one site I read, I consider arakun to be 30%, as they need they can lift quite a bit for their weight and need the extra muscle mass (I believe my character is 13kg and can lift 63kg).

I usually don't write in 3rd person due to my writing style, instead opting for a modified 1st person. This is because I write by putting myself into a character's shoes, and so I often wind up just writing what they know, what they see, and what they think. It's a bit new for me to pull myself out and actually describe things like this from a distant perspective. Onto Powint's character herself, she's based on my co-workers, sort of. When I started writing Hand Puppet, I had also recently started a new job, and I always had the feeling that I was a bumbling idiot who was barely tolerated by his superiors. This feeling got transferred over to Powint, and I think it fits rather well into the story. On a side note, ever since I first wrote this chapter, Powint pretty much does nothing but mutter about me and stare at me stoicly when I enter her room...

This scene was originally not very good. I didn't show much fighting, and I think the lesson on "If you're showing off, you're wanting to be seen, and you'll get caught" kinda fit the mood for this chapter. I also thought it'd be nice to actually put in something about the anatomy of the races similar to has been in Kereth and Schrau's RPs. In this case, I reasoned that the light weight of an arakun is a trait to aid in flight, and is done similar to a bird by having hollow bones. I don't really know if that would make it easier to be stunned, but it sounded like a good excuse for why we have that trait at the time. Also, the move Urth does to show off, I tried my hardest to describe it. The closest thing I can think of as an example is the Ukemi move from Viewtiful Joe, but this version is significantly different, adding a 180 degree spin in addition to the half flip to allow for facing an opponent behind you instead of in front of you.

To me, the Hands are all about stealth. Being able to slip a letter into someone's possession without them knowing is something I just think they'd do. On a side note, Urthdigger is a very sound sleeper: They could have knocked him off the cot while trying to give him the letter, and he probably wouldn't notice.

[Urthdigger]

I just blazed through this chapter! I should probably be back from my hiatus and making new content pretty soon at this rate

This scene was yet another attempt at describing in-game mechanics in an RP world. In the original version, Urth had no idea how he managed to sneak past with no cover whatsoever. In the new version I had the idea of him hiding in the shadows of the very foes he was escaping. I liked how that turned out.

Ah, another of the little dream scenes. As I probably stated before, I've decided not to use the dreams to tell his whole life story, instead going after the details. I tried to be as subtle as possible in explaining the part of his past that made him a pacifist.

I probably could have combined this with the next scene...

Just a simple little scene, bla bla bla.

I redid this scene a bit from the original to try and make it a bit more interesting to read, but I did use a lot of the original text. Two important changes were that I explained the reason why Urth hates Fallen so much, and mentioned another aspect of his form that I neglected to mention last time. Once he starts killing, it's easier for his form to convince him to continue.

Whenever I write, I usually wind up with a movie in my head that I try to describe when writing. The church in this scene, all lit up and quiet, looked fantastic in my head, and it's a shame I have the artistic ability of a rock, since I'd really like to draw it.

More dream stuff.

I loved doing the scene of Elena. As my brother put it, I don't so much write as get possessed. I tend to get really into whatever character I'm writing about, and adopt their personalities. I've never gotten high, but I have been accused of being high when I'm tired, so I took that and tossed in some TV stoner for good measure. The end result was I was laughing at everything while I was writing her. I'll probably write some more stuff with her later on.

I was trying to go for grecian paradise, despite the Hand stuff being more middle eastern. I don't have any idea what was being done with the list of supplies, it's a type of joke I've seen used in multiple jokes where they just list what items are involved, but not what's being done. It's frequently used to describe someone doing something impossible, but in this case it's because I'm a prude.

Ah, Karren. There's numerous things about her that I'll go more in detail in later, but for now I'll say that she was an experiment. I've always been real innocent when it comes to writing stuff. People rarely die, there's no romance, that kind of stuff. I get too scared about what the readers will think of me. Since I was already having Urth deal with other issues in this RP, and since most of the people on Retro are new people to me, I felt it was the perfect time to see about writing a character that's a bit of a nympho. I keep feeling that I've gone a bit too far with a scene, only to read it later and realize it's quite tame, thus she hasn't been RPed very well lately. I don't know why I made her a catfolk, I consider myself a furry but only because I like cute furry artwork, I consider the people with the fetish a bit weird. Of course, I had to make it a furry race of some sort, since he's supposed to stay with her and being with furries all his life, they'd be what he considers beatiful. The exact race could have come from a number of things, Dan in the RetroMUD, I was watching Dark Angel at the time (main character of that has feline DNA, and two episodes deal with the issue of going into heat), I didn't want it to be another arakun (He'd want to avoid having a bastard since he's intending on leaving the Retroverse and never coming back), or maybe something else I've forgotten. Oddly enough, a few things about cats and raccoons actually make this fit in a way, although I didn't know that until after I had added Karren in.

[Urthdigger]

Ok, I'm just gonna ditch the whole paragraph for paragraph thing, since it's more trouble than it's worth and I wind up having to come up with stuff to say for stuff that doesn't need it. I suppose one problem I have when writing is that since I know about my character, I don't put much details because it slips my mind to describe things to other people. Granted, I'm not the only person who to do that, but it still bugs me anyway. This chapter probably deals the most with Urth's personality than any other chapter I've written, it shows that he's steadfast to his promises, almost to the exclusion of all else, a little about his old girlfriend, a few things about his family, and that he's afraid of change.
The part with the seal was a bit dissapointing with how it turned out. I really wanted to keep describing it for much longer, since the idea was to make it so it keeps going on and on about the seal to be from Urth's point of view in a way. Of course, it takes much longer to write it than it does to read it, so I always feel like it'd take much longer to read it than it actually does. The writing in the letter, as well as the basic premise, was written by me, but the dialogue by Kereth was all written by him. There's no way I could write his character very well, he has a certain... something that I can't describe. Insanity would probably be closest.
Honestly, I don't know why I make so many appearances in Hand Puppet. I hardly ever make personal appearances in other stories. I suppose because it's so different from most of the stuff I write, I feel like taking a few more liberties. I've found I tend to portray myself a bit like Xellos from Slayers, always popping in and out, sometimes being a good guy, sometimes playing the bad guy, which is very much like how I write his stories. After all, I'm responsible for all the good things and the bad things that happen to him.

[Urthdigger]

I don't know what was going on when I originally wrote this. Several typoes, I completely forgot to write Karren's racial speech in, I neglected to mention why Urth's head hurt like the dickens (If you read the original and can't be bothered to read the rewrite, Karren whacked his head on the door carrying him in).
I wonder if I'm going to do anything about Urth stealing relics of a dark god from this guy. I'd love to have this come back in some later story (yes, I do have an ending for Hand Puppet in sight, it's pretty close in fact) to bite him in the ass.
This little bit with Karren in the mansion was altered to imply a bit more. As I stated earlier, Karren is an experiment in not writing like a prude, but I find myself erring on the side of caution way too much for the experiment to be successful. Speaking of her, she was always meant to be an ex-evil sorceress, I didn't just pull that bit out of the blue. She has many various ways to defend herself, although as will be explained later she's had some unusual training. Officially, her guild is biomancer. I know it seems a bit weird with her causing people's hearts to explode and stuff, but it's manipulation of other people's bodies, so I thought it'd fit. Also, I deny any involvement of Space Balls in the creation of her spells.
After I had involved Kereth in the creation of the curse, he came to me later to use my character in the epilogue of Something Shiny. It was originally going to be a random mustajib who talked to Kereth, but in the end we worked something out. I didn't talk to him beforehand about how Urth interpreted the conversation, although that was what I was going for when I originally helped dialogue it. I've since talked to him, since posting it, he's ok with it. In writing it though, it kinda hit me that the kind of people who would be that devoted to Cyllyl would be the kind of people who'd become completely obsessed with something, so that revelation wasn't even planned until right when I was writing it.

[Kereth]

I must say, when your story first started, i was not particularly impressed. You were new to writing rp posts, and it showed a little. That should never be a discouragement to anyone though, and posts like yours, Cretar's, Glove's etc. really prove that. Your posts went quickly from dry, to tolerable, to outright interesting, with some of the best ones getting placed a little before your palm pilot or whatever broke. I'm glad to see your back at it.

I enjoy the dramatic moments with Karren standing down the guards or Urth waking up from the hash and first hearing her name. I'm even starting to get a very vague idea of what you're talking about with all these extra planar entities and stuff.

Oh, and my next story coming up, "Something Shinier" will require lots of other player input, cameo appearances, and story overlaps, so since you seem to enjoy those so much, I'll keep you in mind ^^ Anyway, I've rambled enough here. Take care!

-Kereth

[Urthdigger]

Thanks for the pep talk. I think I'll start doing a post-for-post updating now, rather than adding one post for each chapter. I'd like to do it the old way, but adding the new additions to the Kereth chapter made it exceed the limit on how long a post can be.

I don't really know why I had Karren be missing, and then be found so quickly. It seems a bit cheap to me, but I really couldn't find a way to have him go back without being worried, since that's just his nature. He couldn't stay oblivious forever, and of course he doesn't know what happened so he can't be calm about it. Oh well. I've been trying to do less and less "modified first-person" and more narration, and part of that change was things like the explanation of the bar stool. There's no reason for it to be there, just an interesting detail, but it breaks up the monotony of "he did this, thought this, said this, did this, did some more of this...". I also wish I could have spent more time working on Karren's backstory, as it doesn't seem as fleshed out as I'd like it to be. Once again, oh well.

I may have disliked those parts, but the first part of Arakun I like. This is where the story actually starts to pick up and get a cohesive plot and direction. It did have a little direction with the curse and all, but now there's the goal of saving the Hands from killing themselves off with their own secrecy, and overall acting as a PR rep for the guild. I've also gotten a bit better at detail, and this part, especially the section near the beginning, seems far more professional than any of the other sections I've written. The actions Urth is taking towards the end, although seeming a bit out of character for him, will be explained soon enough. Next post probably, although I've given a slight hint to it early on.

Anyway, for the RP in general, I still need a fallen and a templar, fallen moreso since I'll be at that scene shortly, although templar is kinda near the end so I'm not too worried about that. I'd also appreciate more comments, since at the moment I really have only my own opinion as to what's good and what's not good in my RP. Is the Avatar a decent character, or just confusing and deus-exish? Should I do more stuff with Karren, or keep this Urth's show? By the way, I'll probably see if I'll can make a "guide to the dimensions" in a library somewhere, since I plan to go a bit more in-depth with the other dimensions in later RPs. For now, the gist is that Urth's home world collapsed and he wound up in the void between dimensions which he uses as a gateway to travel between them looking for the survivors of his world who's memories are the key to rewriting it.

[Kereth]

See? Obvious groping in that one. I knew I was a bad influence on you!

Might as well give my opinions on those questions anyway.
Avatar: yeah, deus-exish.
Karren: more history only if she's going to be a major player and the details of her past will have some influence on her actions as things move ahead.
"guide to the dimensions": Read "help universe" sometime. The concept of other realities and people showing up from them, much less returning to them, is kinda' explicity declared impossible in there, otherwise the gods themselves would have taken off long before. Before you get too much into the concepts of other worlds, you might want to at least look that over and make sure you can get your stories to fit within what it says.

Good character interraction in this post. I think I find your development of Urth/Karren to be a more attention holding development than your main plot, but that may just be because we've been allowed to see it progress more, and it's approaching a more recognizeable climax.

[Urthdigger]

kereth said:

"guide to the dimensions": Read "help universe" sometime. The concept of other realities and people showing up from them, much less returning to them, is kinda' explicity declared impossible in there, otherwise the gods themselves would have taken off long before. Before you get too much into the concepts of other worlds, you might want to at least look that over and make sure you can get your stories to fit within what it says.

At the moment, he's been able to enter, but he's trapped there for the time being, unable to leave. He hates the world and what he's being forced to do, if he could leave at will he would have left a long time ago. It's a problem he'll have to face, he's just a bit more occupied at the moment. I'll have to find some loophole eventually to allow him to leave, though it'll probably be something only Gifted Ones have access to, or some other way to restrict others from taking the same path out. After all, there is this quote:

The worlds have changed much through the eons. A new hope for escape
has dawned on Gods. Just as The Creator, who was less powerful than
they, could had somehow enough power to trap them, perhaps the lesser
mortals could provide an escape route where divine powers could not.
The art of Telemancy arose, giving mages control over the scarred
and warped fabric of the universe. Despite this, individuals and
entire areas still disappear and reappear at random, sometimes
disappearing forever, perhaps sacrificed to the Dark God, perhaps
escaping the universal prison (HELP GUILDS).

I'll think of something that'll all fit in eventually, but that's quite a ways off.

[Kereth]

*gives a thumbs up* Sweet. Just wanted to make sure you were covering your bases. Keep it up.

[Urthdigger]

This was actually done yesterday, I was just hesitant about posting it. Up until this point, I have never actually used the words mating or sex. I say just about everything else to make it so it's obvious what's going on, but I've just been very hesitant about actually using those words. However, the little experiment won't go too well if I always hold onto my old ways, so I just decided to post it anyway and run for now. The note had to be put in though, as it becomes slightly important later. As for the Beware part, I kinda found it funy, and it's also a little serious. As I recall, animals can be more aggressive at that time, so you've got a bunch of hormonally charged, twitchy sentient beings that can blend in and out of the woods at a moment's notice. Probably assaulting passerbys to get shiny gifts too. Not sure if they'd hand them over or not though.

[Kereth]

*gasps* See? Now you've used the 'm' word in a post! For sooth! I am such a bad influence!

Seriously though... Arakun mating season? Scary! I'm almost afraid to read on after that... *shudders* *reads anyway, because he has to know what happens*

Anyway, it's tomorrow already! Send that next post so we can all be terrified by arakun females in heat and watch the men go fighting to the death over them!

How many women is Urth supposed to end up hanging around with by the end of this anyway?

[Urthdigger]

kereth said:

*gasps* See? Now you've used the 'm' word in a post! For sooth! I am such a bad influence!

Seriously though... Arakun mating season? Scary! I'm almost afraid to read on after that... *shudders* *reads anyway, because he has to know what happens*

Anyway, it's tomorrow already! Send that next post so we can all be terrified by arakun females in heat and watch the men go fighting to the death over them!

How many women is Urth supposed to end up hanging around with by the end of this anyway?

Oh you know me, it won't be TOO bad. Anyone who's watched Dark Angel might have a slight idea where I'm going with this, and anyone who hasn't should at least rent the DVDs. Good series. Also, I'll be basing this on what research I've done on raccoons, which actually will make things easier to go clean with than other animals *glares at Karren*. As for how many women Urth will hanging around with, I'll say 1 by the end of Hand Puppet, 2 during the other RPs. How many he'll run into during the meantime however, is up to debate.

Now, to stop browsing forums and get back to writing. I want that post up ASAP too *is hesitant to go back to Retro without it*

[Urthdigger]

Ok, new post up. Really speedily done with this, hope the quality didn't suffer too much. No arakun femme fatales and deathmatches yet though. Next post, I promise.

One thing I've been reflecting on recently, is how I'll seem to stress certain parts of the story and just not focus on the overall plot. Granted Hand Puppet was essentialy a Seinfeldish RP: An RP about nothing. Most stories I do, I have a beginning and an end, I just need a middle. With Hand Puppet, I just wrote as I got the know the retroverse, and thought I'd burn the bridge of having an ending when I got there. I do have an ending in sight now, although I keep cramming more stuff into the remaining space. Was 3 chapters left, now it's 4-ish (mini-chapter added). In a a way, it's refreshing to have an end in sight. I probably won't stop writing, lord knows I need all the practice I can get. I'll likely do 'side-story' RPs in the meantime until I reinc for the next RP I have planned: Fallen from grace.