Cold And Cruel / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Cold And Cruel.

Well. I guess I should make an author post?

DigitalPrincess234 16 Feb 2023 17:15

"Please, can you give living another chance? Can you allow yourself another chance?”

Huge thanks to my friend AmbroseArietes for fighting my anxiety about this with me. (My hands are shaking even now…)

I didn't expect this to be so long. I told myself I'd play it safe, but… well, I think this was a risk after all. Even if it's not up to standards (it should be, I got crit) I'm happy with it. I've never written something so longform without splitting it into chapters.

II don't have a lot to say about this. I based it on The Snow Queen. It kind of went of the rails of that? So… oops.

Thanks for reading!

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By ourselves, we’re no one. It’s when other people look at us and see someone— that’s the moment we each start to exist.

Last edited on 16 Feb 2023 17:20 by DigitalPrincess234 Show more

SCREAMS

AmbroseArietes 16 Feb 2023 17:20

SCREAMING CONTINUES

I watched the birth of River as a character. Seeing her here now makes me overjoyed. I love River so much you have no idea-

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Ambrose Arietes

Re: SCREAMS

DigitalPrincess234 16 Feb 2023 23:06

I wanna use your comment to talk about Beta River actually move outta the way /lh /j

+ River infodump  here

River’s relationship with Amie was actually something that came about with this story. I wanted to use her for a tale, since I felt weird being here and only doing stuff with Aaron (though, uh, we crafted it together and it was kind of the only narrative I’d ever thought of making for the WL,) so I didn’t have anything that I could just kinda hit really quickly to get my foot in the door.

And I wanted a good first story that I wrote by myself. A good chunk of my time learning to write was basically training to write for the SCP/WL verse.

River as an OC was made for RP, so her backstory back then was basically just “she ran into a hand member while out one day, and he accidentally did anomalous stuff in front of her. She thought it was cool and wanted to see more so he showed her the wanderer’s library, to which River responded by simply hitting the bricks on normalcy.”

It was, well, really simple and dumb, because she was for RP, the big adventures and character motives would come in the actual roleplay. Outside of roleplay? Dumbest backstory I’ve ever written it’s literally “just some guy” but she’s a lesbian and thinks peeping the horrors is a fun weekend activity. (If River lives you know her and Amie are gonna kiss, right? Right? I love the childhood friends trope it hurts my soul.)

Anyway, I realized there could be a great, strong emotionally charged character motive in “normal girl in the library” so I came up with the idea of her getting a bond with someone who was in that world, and essentially chasing after them. Then I reread some classic lit because I felt like my idea was… far too anime for the vibe that the WL was after, and… well, ya know the rest?

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By ourselves, we’re no one. It’s when other people look at us and see someone— that’s the moment we each start to exist.

Steady your hands

Piano_WL 16 Feb 2023 18:12

It's good. It's damn good.

I haven't interacted with the work that you say it's inspired by, but you say it went off the rails and I say it did so in a great and creative direction. Wherever the original rails were heading, sometimes the best creativity comes when we let our brains leave them.

The only constructive idea I can offer would be one of formatting; you might consider putting the 'dialogue' of your robotic countdown voice in a different font or have some other formatting quirk that distinguishes it visually from "real" dialogue. We've got a lovely teletype format that folks often use for similar purposes.
In the future, you might also be willing to use a couple simple page break lines…

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to perhaps ease some of your stress about not breaking a longer piece into chapters. It helps for visual flow as well.

Re: Steady your hands

DigitalPrincess234 16 Feb 2023 18:38

Thank you for the tip. I would usually write this in chapters, but with this I was planning to make it a short story to just get my foot in the door. Unfortunately my characters got away from me a bit, and it ended up really long…

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By ourselves, we’re no one. It’s when other people look at us and see someone— that’s the moment we each start to exist.

NotAnOligarch 16 Feb 2023 19:11

This is the shit. Perfection!
Long-form stuff doesn't get enough love anymore on the Library. But damn, this is good.
Well done! +1

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Fires rage just below the surface of the ice.

DigitalPrincess234 16 Feb 2023 19:36

You gave me a heart attack, I accidentally read that first sentence as “this is shit” LMAOOO. Thank you for your kind words!

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By ourselves, we’re no one. It’s when other people look at us and see someone— that’s the moment we each start to exist.

MsDirection 12 Apr 2023 18:27

Underrated. It's a long story but you manage to pack it to the brim with great moments. +1

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- MissDirection (She/Her)