Project L7S2

Inspiration

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:30:46 GMT

And I don't know who this empty shell is, or why it's feeling murderously violent.

Cuckoo, the comic written by a woman who has suffered with disassociative identity disorder. Inspriational, yes. Interesting, definately.

Fun Facts About Ebenth!

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:50:16 GMT

The Planet

1.The planet rotates around a red dwarf. This makes the planet darker, but it makes the planet hotter too.
2. The axis are tilted so that the poles are not on the north and south, but on the east and west!
3. It's a hundred degree's hotter in the desert at any given time.
4. There is less gravity on Ebenth than on Earth, allowing for larger life forms.
5. The only "water" available is rather foamy, grey, and has metals in it. It is drinkable, but not very tasty. Life has adapted to this liquid, but it was revolutionary when filtering systems were invented. It's tough on hair too, and only the rich can afford to filter enough of it to bathe in.
6. Ebenth has eight seasons in a year. It goes through all seasons twice before making a full rotation around the sun.
7. Ebenth is covered in a giant corpse, you should already know this. However, this corpse does several strange things to the planet. It gives the sky a sickly, purple cast, and you can see it in the skyline.

Culture

1. The people on Ebenth are largely a survivalist based culture. You do what you can to survive, even if you have to screw over the other person to do it.
2. Ebenth has a very loose government. Each city has it's own system to take care of the sewer systems, layout, and protection. This system is easy to corrupt, and while one city may be a utopia, right next door there could be a dystopia. There is also the military, a national guard that takes care of various defense issues around the planet.
3. Then there is the mafia, a gang rather than a family. It has a stranglehold on several cities. It's what nearly killed Rayden.
4. Windham too also plays a big role in Ebenth's culture. It's one of the oldest institutions on the planet. There is a reason it can keep doing what it's doing. It funds several wings of the military, and if the mafia does what they say they won't kill their agents, and the mafia gets protection and cash.
5. There are several outlying tribal races that are not human. Rayden descended from one of these tribes. For the most part several of these tribes are trying to adapt, while others are trying to hide from society altogether- which isn't hard on such a huge planet.

Chapter 4 outline

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:00:34 GMT

It's time to tackle Rayden's worm problem. In order to do that they need to travel to the big city.

Rayden and Gwen get ready and go.

On the way there they face a challenge.

Notice how I keep it vague.

I'm not entirely sure if they should face Aatxe like they did before. Rayden should transform, and fight something though.

Then they are back on their way.

The Bird Doctor

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:10:16 GMT

Rayden's doctor from chapter 2. The good doctor has no name yet. He looks this way not because he was particularly bad, but because he has a penchant for stealing bodies for his studies. He's in his thirties and has been in his practice for about a decade. He is not a bad doctor, although there are certainly better ones.

Though the better ones are more likely to turn you away when they sniff suspicious activity. This doctor can't help it when he smells opportunity. Your corpse could be on his table someday.

Chapter 3 Outline

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 06:15:52 GMT

Oh, Lark is pissed now. He followed her all this way to find that she just turned around to take a vacation. Who cares that she's never taken a vacation! This is not Larkly. Lark gets threatening.

He snaps at her and he snaps at Rayden. He knows that he'll get into trouble if he hurts her, but not if he hurts Rayden. He begins to threaten her "charity case" with a gunshot to the head. Rayden reacts in kind. He manages to piss off Lark so much with his insults that Lark's aim gets shaky with rage. Every time he tries to shoot Rayden, he misses.

(I'm unsure whether or not if I should split this up into two chapters depending on how the script goes, I'll keep it as one for now.)

After the fight Gwen takes Rayden to her home on her ATV. Rayden passes out on the way there. When they get to the house Gwen sets Rayden up in one of the guest rooms.

Rayden and Gwen get to know each other from this point forward. Rayden is convinced that Gwen is going to kill him, and with good reason. Gwen's capacity for empathy is very limited, and the more that Rayden retains information, the more irritated she gets. Eventually she threatens him with his own stitching kit.

They begin to talk, seriously now, and Rayden learns that Gwen isn't trying to kill him. She's just very weird.

Overview: Chapter 2

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:28:32 GMT

Gwen insists on taking Rayden to a doctor. A military doctor would be unwise, but she knows of plenty of back alley surgeons.

The surgeon himself is a grizzled old bird. He's surprised to see something as odd as Rayden, and asks for a large sum. Gwen pays it. The office is dingy and dirty, all the tools are sterilized in old bottles of alcohol. The doctor begins his work.

Rayden isn't happy to be there, but withstands the treatment. The doctor notices several odd things about Rayden, and isn't afraid to ask questions. Rayden doesn't respond in kind, but some of his healing abilities become quite apparent during this phase of the story.

Meanwhile at Windham, Lark is being questioned about the location of his partner. She hasn't shown up for work yet. He has a fairly good idea of where she might have gone, but it isn't until they force him to go look for her that he begins to care. Now he's pissed, she's wasting his time.

The doctor can't do anything about the worms. He stitches Rayden up as best he can and gives Gwen a kit with everything needed to take care of his wounds. He gives them what information he can about the worms, and sends them on their way.

Outside Lark is waiting. He's not happy.

He tells Gwen that she needs to come back to work and that she's wasting his time. She shrugs him off. It doesn't matter, because she's going to go on vacation tomorrow anyway.

Overview: Prologue and Chapter 1

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 06:13:15 GMT

How I go about these overviews is going to be a lot different than I tackled them last time, they are going to be much, much shorter. A very rough idea of what should happen within each chapter of the story, with a few side notes of how the characters should be feeling and what they should be doing, nothing more. So, no more long entries with pieces of script. The script comes later!

The opening of the story is very simple. It begins with Gwen and Lark coming to work. Gwen drives, Lark walks. Reason: This gives the reader a good look at the country side and the city scape at once. There is little to no dialog. Rayden is not seen at this point.

When they arrive at Windham the characters meet. There should be an obvious disparity between Lark and Gwen. While there is no open hostility between the two characters, there is obviously some tension.

They are given their assignment and sent on their way.

Lark and Gwen are in the wilderness. Now there is more dialog. Lark doesn't like Gwen, and frequently makes it clear with a variety of insults. Gwen doesn't respond, but she has developed a habit of white knuckling it whenever she's around him. I want to hint at this issue, but since it's so early in the story I'll just touch upon it.

They find their marks in the middle of the forest. They are quite dead, they also find Rayden, who isn't. Lark, happy that his job is done as far as he's concerned, heads out. Gwen stays behind. Her motivations for doing so won't become clear until later. Lark isn't sure why she's staying behind, but he doesn't care.

Gwen takes care of Rayden as best as she can. He's out, and won't be awake until the next day. When he does awaken he's groggy and unresponsive. He's ill and refuses to eat. Gwen views him as a sick animal that needs to be taken care of, and not without reason, Rayden is acting particularly feral.

Then the worms begin to emerge. They eat through Rayden's stitches. In his delirious state they speak to him. He has no idea what the hell they are trying to say, he just feels sick. It's a nightmare. They pull out his stitches and leave his flesh in tatters. Gwen looks on, surprised that this bloody heap is still alive. She just cleans him up and wraps him up, unsure that she should stitch him up again.

Rayden doesn't like this reaction. Through the gore she hasn't screamed, or panicked, or done anything a normal person would do. Indeed, Gwen views Rayden as an animal, and her ability to empathize with animals is even worse than her ability to empathize with people. This is a dangerous woman.

She is trying though. After a time she attempts to get him to speak to her. He does talk, but he refuses to give her his name. He knows she's dangerous, but he wants to pull her strings, test her limits, and see how much he can really get away with. For how long? We'll see.

Huge Sketch Post

Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:11:53 GMT

Hold on tight because this is going to be a big one!

The planet of Ebenth doesn't really have grass, most of it is covered in vines. It's a dark place, a lot of the prey animals have large eyes. Their mouthes are designed to scoop up and pull at the vines that stick to the ground.

The predators are also designed for the vine-heavy environment. Their claws slide under the vines then use them to swing along the ground. Sort of like "Tarzan", but without any jungle.

Of course there are many more animals than just these two, but that's enough for now.

We realized that Rayden's old outfit didn't make any sense for an outdoor setting. Here is a new one. He stuffs various objects into the cloak, most likely wallets and cigarettes, and the feathers protect them from water and other muck that he happens to get into.

Rayden is a shape-shifter, and because of this he needs to get in and out of clothing quickly and easily. He's not completely naked because he needs his clothes to carry things, and some extra protection is always nice. However, this is only the clothing he wears when he's in the midst of the wilderness. When he's in the city and interacting with humans, he puts on more sensible attire.

Oh, and here are some of his parasites. They are saying hello!

Since Lark's traits have been adjusted, it makes sense that his looks be adjusted too. Not too much however. I feel that it's important that he look more sinister.

Lark's hair has been spiked, it's a "yuppie" thing. It's suspected that the rich on Ebenth like to imitate the wild, without actually being wild. Spiked hair is one way of doing this. That and it helps make his horns look even sharper.

I think that before Lark didn't come off as particularly devilish, but now he looks like he could be the right hand man of Satan himself. Yeesh.

The new Gwen is still very nebulous in my mind. While I now have a good idea of her character I'm still having trouble drawing her. It's mostly a skill issue. I feel that she looks too boyish right now.

This IS NOT Gwen, it's a practice sketch of a photo I found on google. I feel that it does help to use photo's as reference when you find yourself in a bind. This did help a lot, and hopefully the next run of sketches will be more successful. I need to make a healthy woman, than ruin her with sleep deprivation. Poor Gwen!

New Gwen

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:51:34 GMT

As the world around Gwen becomes more clear, Gwen herself becomes clear. The problem with her character before was that we were trying to draw parallels with her and our world. That can't work, a person like Gwen would never exist in our society. She is a bad product of a society that is extremely violent, savage, and apathetic.

Her character has always been difficult, we're still getting rid of some traits and adding new ones, but it has gotten a lot easier. It's hard making a strong female character that has low self esteem, part of this is because I have this idea etched in my mind of what a "strong female lead" should be. But one has to remember that a good female character doesn't mean "I'm proactive, go shopping, and put peaches exactly in the center of tables like ladies do!", a good character is someone you can relate to as a person, even if they don't exist. Gwen is never going to be a mascot for a womans lib movement, but she's just Gwen, she doesn't have to be.

Childhood

Gwenadith Meridian was born into a small family in a small town, not unlike the hundreds of others dotting Ebenth. She had her parents and one brother, her other relatives likely living in nearby towns. Her parents had both done some military duty but had since retired to raise a family. Her brother was a few years older than her and wasn't too excited with his baby sister. Gwen was a good baby, and fairly smart.

Her childhood seemed to continue normally until she was about seven years old. A cousin came over. She broke his legs.

When asked why she did this she didn't really have an answer. They weren't fighting, he hadn't done anything. She just took a running leap and pushed him down a rocky incline and SNAP, his legs broke. Her cousin nearly died. Kids often have moments where they do stupid things without explanation, but she should have known better. She didn't even show remorse. She was punished, but all that did was make her angry. She just couldn't make the connection that hurting others was bad.

Like an experiment she went out and tried to figure out why hurting other things was bad. She ripped off the heads of bugs. Hm, nothing. She killed pets. Well, the neighbors were pissed, but still, killing the pets did nothing but make her dirty. She killed another kid. The town was in an uproar. Her parents were furious and scared, they tried to explain to her what she did, her brother didn't want anything to do with her, and the town was nearly after her head. They moved away and Gwen's experiment was a failure.

Sure, she knew why hurting yourself was bad. It hurt! And being nice to others was good, because it made you feel good, and it made them feel good too, which made you feel even better. Whatever connection in her mind that "OTHERS CAN FEEL PAIN TOO, GWEN!!" wasn't there. Because when she hurt, she felt nothing, or she felt good. Power is pleasure, and there is no greater show of power than taking a life.

Even though they moved to a new town it wasn't long before people became aware of Gwen's reputation. Children would no longer play with her out of fear, and even if kids didn't know her past their parents did. Gwen became an outcast, and was socially stunted because of this. Her parents would love her no matter what, but her brother was fed up with her.

There is no help for insanity on Ebenth, you are either crazy or you're not, and if you are you are something to be feared. Gwen was feared, and she continued to be feared throughout her childhood and into her adolescence. She learned some empathy for others, but not for good reasons. She still derived some sick pleasure from killing, but she held off in order to survive. She learned to feel guilt and to disassociate from murder for survivals sake.

Adolescence

With puberty comes everything we expect. More hair, zits, sex drive. On Ebenth there is something else though. The celestial corpse known as the "dead god" no longer regards the humans that live there as innocents and begins to punish them for their sins. In this case the punishments manifest as physical deformities. Claws, fangs, and a variety of other oddities. In fact it's so normal that people don't even regard it as a punishment. Gwen did not appear to receive anything, which is very odd, and very bad. If your sin is so great that it can't appear on the body, then something is terribly wrong with you. Something did appear on her, but it could be hidden. It was horrible though, and not something that could be revealed to her peers.

Gwen had taken up many hobbies, she had plenty of time to do so since she wasn't very socially minded. Many of her hobbies, like sewing, fletching, and leather craft, proved to be very helpful later in her life. She would pick up more as she grew older.

Socially, she just didn't get along with her peers at all. She was often defensive and aloof. Sometimes she would even be aggressive. Although she managed to quell her more destructive habits (most of the time) she was still treated like an outcast and the low self esteem brought on by puberty was driven even lower. She was as social as she needed to be, nothing more and nothing less. The only people she could be considered "friendly" with were her parents and the occasional relative. She and her brother just didn't get along, and it was a relief when he was sent to military school. Not for anything in particular, military school is something most well off children on Ebenth attend.

A few years later Gwen was shipped off to the same school that her brother attended. It was a relief to her parents, they needed a break from her odd behavior and her reputation. Military school was a bit of a shock for Gwen, she wasn't used to being ordered around this much. She learned to adapt however. It wasn't all bad, before when she was out with her peers this much she would get picked on for being "crazy", no one knew her here, and everyone was so busy that they didn't care much either.

Military school was good for Gwen, it forced her to gain some social ability. She became very skilled with a variety of weapons and got good marks in academics. She was alright in team scenarios, as long as she wasn't the leader. However, not all good things last forever. Another "accident" occurred. The wrong people noticed. To her surprise she didn't get caught, the bodies were swept up, people were paid off, and she wasn't kicked out of school. It was like it never happened at all.

She graduated hoping to go into the military, but Windham found her first. They had a better offer.

Windham it was then.

Adulthood

If she had been remotely aware of the oroburos of self destruction that Windham had trapped her in she would have never taken them up on their offer. Windham is the only company that has a branch dedicated to the study of psychology. It is likely that all of their assassins are mentally ill one way or another, you have to be if you are killing people day after day when their only crime is "debt". Windham had been watching Gwen since she had entered military school. They knew her history, and they knew what made her tick.

At this point in her life Gwen knew that killing people wasn't okay. So whenever she had to kill someone she had to be in the right state of mind to do so, she had to disassociate. When Gwen murders it's like she is watching herself through a television screen. She'll tell you that she doesn't feel too much one way or the other, although she might get some joy out of the situation depending on who she kills.

Getting her to disassociate is another feat entirely. She has to be angry, frustrated, or stressed. If she's feeling too happy, empathetic, or aware she won't do it. That's the job of her supervisor. He comes in to crush her self esteem, make her angry, and take advantage of her insecurities. Gwen in turn, lashes out at others so she can gain some sense of control and power, but she disassociates so she doesn't have to deal with the weight of the horror of her actions. She doesn't want to admit to herself that this feels good.

Later they team her up with Lark. One, because they can't have a supervisor around Gwen all the time, and Lark is abusive to everyone. He'll be on top of her constantly without really thinking about it. Two, because Gwen will keep Lark in check. She'll keep him from killing people that don't need to be killed. Lark hates the idea of having a partner, but in his own way he can relate to Gwen. They are both at Windham for the same reason, they kill because they like power. He sees himself in that, and he likes that. So he manages to tolerate Gwen as long as she doesn't get in his way too much. That's about as positive as their relationship gets though.

Side Notes

In this scenario I don't think Gwen would be as old as we originally planned her. I would think that she would be twenty three or twenty four, not twenty eight. Why? Considering the way she's being abused, she wouldn't live that long. Something would kill her, or she would kill herself. No question.

The water on Ebenth is particularly rough on hair, so long hair is out of the question. New Gwen has very short hair. She's rather tomboyish overall. Considering her occupation, location, and history I don't imagine that she wears feminine clothes that often.

Why would she help Rayden in the first place? Right now Gwen comes off as someone who just wants to be left alone and doesn't really want to help anyone. Why would she take a dying guy into her home and put herself into a very awkward situation? Well, right now she's in a very destructive point in her life, if she continues like this without changing she will die. She does hate Windham, and she hates Lark. Just because she disassociates when she hurts people doesn't mean she understands why it's truly bad to hurt others yet. Helping Rayden is her first step toward getting out of this vicious circle. She sees this guy dying on the ground, says to herself "Well, this thing is hurt, maybe I should try helping it instead of killing it for once."

And a small step turns into a huge change.

Oil and Water

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:29:50 GMT

I know that this journal doesn't have too many viewers, but what viewers there are may be wondering why it hasn't been updated recently.

Well, there has been a problem. The problem started a few months ago with Gwen.

We just couldn't write her. Now me, I'm not a writer, so it should be expected that I have some difficulty, but the co-author was having trouble too. Gwen had all the parts there, but nothing was happening. We couldn't agree on her voice. We could talk about any of the other characters with excitement, but when it came to her the conversation would come to a head, and sometimes we would even get pissed at each other. "NO, GWEN WOULD NOT DO THAT, SHUT UP. I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU."

I realized that this was a huge problem. This was a main character. We couldn't just destroy her, not only does her role gain importance throughout the story, but as a character she balances everyone else. Getting rid of her would leave a huge hole, she had to stay.

We also realized that if she was pissing us off this much, imagine how much she would be pissing off a reader if we didn't fix this. We had to find a way to instill the same sense of excitement within her that all the other characters had.

So we grabbed her and started examining her from the bottom up. Okay Gwen, lets look at the sum of your parts. Well, we didn't find anything too inherently wrong with her. The only thing that was really, truly difficult about her was that she wasn't a cliche. See, the other characters can be knocked back to a simple idea, an element. For example, at his core Lark is a narcissist. We can all relate to that because we have all been selfish in our lives. When Rayden is knocked back, he's a dork. Sure, he's a tough guy. He smokes and drinks, but when you get past all that he's not very good with girls, likes heavy metal, and prefers to read. Rayden is a dork, but he's good at hiding it.

When you knock Gwen down to a base, you don't really have anything. She's like a person in that respect. People aren't one thing. The problem is that she's a stranger, I couldn't relate to her at all, and neither could the co-author. But there was something else about her too, something we couldn't put our finger on.

We've been doing a lot of joking around over the last few months, stuff that hasn't related to the plot. Stuff like Lark dealing with office girls, or thirty pages of Rayden binging. We would try and get Gwen involved, but she just wouldn't let us. At first we thought there was something wrong with her, and then we realized there was something wrong with us! We were so busy working on this ridiculous shit that we lost track of what was really important. The plot was being tossed aside for situation comedy. It got so bad that both of us were starting to lose interest in the story, and the L7S2 that we had excitement for was dying because we had set it aside for something inane and stupid. The biggest reason we were frustrated with Gwen was because she wasn't being wacky like the other characters, she was the only character firmly set within the original L7S2 and a constant reminder of the goals we set out with, even if we lost sight of them.

Last night we talked it over and decided to completely scrap what we had. The plot is good, how we went about it- BAD. The journal has been wiped so I can start with a clean slate. It's for the best, believe me.

Last night we talked for several hours about what we were going to change within the story. The plot is going to be the same. I intend to adjust the pacing a lot because I'm not too happy with how some things play out.

First, on a world scale the land of Ebenth has been redesigned. It's a lot more alien. Expect to see a lot more concept designs of what the landscape looks like. After our discussion I have a much clearer picture of the world the characters inhabit. It is certainly not "MAGIC EARTH" in any sense.

The flora and fauna has also been scrapped and redesigned. Before we would allow there to be dogs or boars or whatever, none of those creatures live on this planet. There are still humans, but only because I still think that L7S2 should be a fantasy story at its core, Expect to see some concept art of some of the flora and fauna.

We haven't messed with the culture of the planet too much, but only because we had a good idea of what it was initially. We just chose to ignore it once things got ridiculous. People are survivalists for the most part, and just about everything is practical. How the world looks, and how people view the world will help me immensely when I get around to designing things like buildings and what the characters wear.

The plot itself isn't going to change, but how we go about telling the story is. Scenes like Lark going to the PANCAKE HOUSE just aren't going to happen. It was funny, but after a while it came to be something that we expected. In fact, once the plot and the drama occurred we were irritated at the drama for happening. "Goddammit, this isn't fun, why are we doing drama when we could do another pratfall." Again, if we as authors are irritated, then god knows that the readers are going to be too. It just wasn't cohesive.

There is still going to be humor within L7S2, but it's going to be dark humor. We're pulling things way back. Right now we're laughing like it's Futurama, when we need to be chuckling nervously like it's American Psycho.

And that leads me into the next change. Lark. Right now he's just too outrageous. He's not a character at this point, he's a parody. Which would be fine for comedy, but he wouldn't fit in any dramatic setting at all. People are too forgiving of Lark and his antics. Lark is a sociopath, he should be despised. But he's so "wacky" right now that he can get away with anything and it's still funny! That won't be okay anymore. Lark too is getting pulled back. Many of his behaviors will still be the same. He's still a narcissist, he still doesn't like to be touched, and he still kills people. Once you take that humorous edge off of it though, it's not funny, it's horrifying. That's where the dark comedy comes into play. We still want people to laugh at Lark, but this time when you laugh, you laugh because you are doing everything in your power to keep from feeling uncomfortable.

Rayden is an interesting case. While he has participated in many "antics" he has a well rounded character when he's not being funny. His looks are going to be changed a little (darker skin, more gaunt, more feral looking), but for the most part he's doing alright. Also, he still has problems with technology, but not to the point where everything he touches that has gears in it explodes.

I have several changes in mind for Gwen, but I have yet to discuss them with the co-author. If these changes go through then her looks will change drastically. It will be pretty interesting to see how this pans out for her.

So, that's the state of L7S2 right now. Am I mad about scrapping it and starting a bunch of things over? Hardly. We were getting stuck in a rut and it was infuriating me. I promised myself from the start to do the best I could with this project, even if I had to run it over like I just did here. Sometimes you have to look at a piece of work from a new perspective, that's how we get better. In the long run I know that this is the best possible choice for this story. It's still a goddamn RETCON though and I'm still reeling!