Re: Story Related OOC

[Jessamine Blake]

Basically, Laney will coax the whores and the townswomen out of the house after a short hesitation. There will be some overlap in time with the other posts. And most of the things going on in the street could overlap as well. In fact, since it's confusing me pretty badly and I can't be the only one tired of reading the same four or five posts over and over trying to figure out exactly what happens when, here's a rough sketch (tell me if I made any mistakes):

While Mr. Pearse is speaking to Jessamine in the street, Kircher hears a noise and goes to investigate, finding Allie, who is listening to the conversation with her gun drawn. He assumes she is an immediate threat and attempts to disarm her. A scuffle ensues, during which she is disarmed but escapes through the whorehouse window and up onto the roof of the building, and while she is headed toward this destination, Laney fires a shot at Kircher.

Jessamine hears the breaking glass and the gunshot, assumes the worst, and draws her gun on Mr. Pearse, who of course disables her with a disarming shot to the hand. Ouch. Then comes Grady's bit of chivalry, which is halted by a bullet. And Ramey tends to Jessamine's hand as Kircher walks up and announces the cause of the ruckus, more or less. At some point after Allie walks onto this, but either doesn't see Kircher or doesn't notice him, as he is not mentioned in her post.

All of this could barely take more than a few minutes, believe it or not, and while shots are still being fired there is little chance anyone from the whorehouse was going to venture out. But now, I suppose they will. I'll figure out some way to make it coherent with everything else that's been going on.

And then...can we PLEEEEEEASE get out of Santa Anna? Like, summarily, even? There are so many more interesting things over the horizon! Pearse had mentioned that it might be good to put a week's time gap in somewhere, to allow for some character development and other things. This gap could also serve to get us out of Santa Anna faster, unless everyone is dead-set on writing their character's unique perspective on the action of walking out of the town. We've had a lot of action so far, and I would think the actual leaving would be fairly quiet. It might not even be necessary to write it, but that could be where the time gap begins. Any thoughts?

[Allie Johnson]

That all sounds pretty correct. And as far as leaving goes, I'm pretty sure that the posts would go pretty predictably, so other than maybe somebody just really wants to write a long boring post about how they've been walking/riding for days and days... I don't think we need to detail it at all. we could even summarize how our character feels about it in the next post we make. Just as if they were looking back on what went on. The hostages probably have pretty broken spirits by the time they leave and I doubt they would try much mischief. Pearse would control things in his usual efficient way, but on a boring trek, there's not much to control. So I guess Pearse needs to make his the very last post on this particular thread to tie up any loose ends and to send us all packing, and after that we're free for the next part of the story.

[Ethan Ramey]

Your sequence of events seems correct. If you'd like, I can amend my last post to include the women starting to leave the whorehouse - which would also explain why Pearse's men never exactly "descended" onto it.

[Mr. Pearse]

Once I get a final update from the lovely ladies of Santa Anna, I'll bring this thing to a close. My post will happen sooner rather than later, although work is running me a little bit ragged. My objective will be to get us out of the town, and set the scene for the next group of parallel story threads. Ideally, we can also create a gap of several days as:

-Pearse and probably Ramey return to Little Bethlehem, which is at least a day's hard ride away. Considering his men will probably recuperate in Santa Anna before setting off, I'd give it at least two days before he reaches the ruins of Little Hiroshima.

-Jessamine (and maybe someone else...) are escorted to Pearse's ranch. Allie, you'll need to figure out whether you want to go with Jessamine or try something else. There was a pretty compelling reason to take the Madam of Santa Anna back to the ranch (collateral); I'm still not quite sure why Pearse would take Allie.

-The narrative of Santa Anna continues, driven by Jessamine and Ramey's powerful secondaries.

Seth/Claude, it looks like your thread is going well now. Is there a way you can incorporate a couple days' gap, since Pearse will be showing up on your doorstep pretty soon?

And Jessamine, I'm glad you did that setting post. Pearse will likely be staying at the whorehouse, although probably just because it's the closest thing the town has to an inn. I'm debating whether I should do a similar setting post before you reach the ranch.

All for now.

[Allie Johnson]

Just chunk me anywhere. A jail cell would probably be the most fitting, unless you'd rather keep me tagging along with your acquired posse to make sure I don't do something drastic. So far you don't know that I'm nothing but an ill-tempered drifter. I could have any number of intentions in mind. I listened in on the whole conversation with Jessamine, so if I was a disgruntled lady of Santa Anna, I might have a mind to go find a bunch of people just crazy enough to fight you. But you're right about there really being no reason for me to go with Jessamine unless you just don't care and decide to throw me in with her for good measure. Or to keep her company or something.

[Samuel Kircher]

Well folks, I got myself back in the hospital again about a little over a week ago, but I'm still trying to keep up with what's going on. I would volunteer Kircher to escort Jessamine and/or Allie to wherever Pearse desires, in order to let him get to where he needs to go. Let me know what you guys think, as I'm trying to motivate myself to get involved in the story progression again...I just need some help at the moment.

[Jessamine Blake]

I find it unlikely that after Kircher's inability to subdue Allie, Pearse would trust him with escorting both females to his ranch. This is just my opinion, however, and Pearse may have other ideas. However, Kircher, you should know that Jessamine has dire things in mind for all of her escorts, and you wouldn't be an exception to her plans.

[Allie Johnson]

Ha! can't wait to read that post.
I agree with Jessamine. She's a much more formidable opponent, I believe, than Allie is. Especially since she actually has something in her life going for her.

As far as where I go, though, I would prefer to stay with either a group of people or at the very least one more person rather than ending up trying to break out of a npc's jail and track the group because I have nothing better to do or something similar to that.

[Mr. Pearse]

Still trying to figure out the Allie thing, but Seth/Claude, how soon do you think you can wrap things up? Your thread's at a pretty critical moment, but after my final Santa Anna post, I think everyone on the site will be waiting on your exchange to conclude so we can have our little "jump."

[Seth Ruggeri]

I'm going to try to have something up tomorrow night. How exactly are we going to do the whole jump? Once our threads end are we just going to let time lapse about a month and then pick up the story?

[Mr. Pearse]

Nah, jump will probably be 2-3 days. Pearse has to arrive at Little Bethlehem for his next thread to commence, so I'm using that travel time as a base. It's Jessamine's call whether she's at the ranch when the story starts up again, or still in transit. This will give us a chance to actually devote more attention to the strange changes our characters are undergoing. At least in the Santa Anna thread, there's really been too shit going down for most people to adequately reflect on wtf is going on.

[Jessamine Blake]

I think I will probably start up with having arrived at the ranch. If you would be so kind, Mr. Pearse, as to give me some idea of the travel time from Santa Anna to Pearse Ranch, and give me as many details as you can about the layout and appearance of the place, that would be wonderful.

Also, I will be posting a map of my whorehouse along with the description already up so that people can interact with it better, and without having to do too much. I do ask that no one burns it down, though I'm sure there will be rowdy behavior with the madam away.

A apologize for the fact that I have yet to post. As it turns out, sitting in a desk all day waiting for a phone to ring isn't very inspiring. I've had one hell of a time getting any gumption up about anything, but I will do my best to have an acceptable entry up by the end of the work day, say around 5-ish.

[Mr. Pearse]

Ladies and gentlemen, there's been a slight change of plan. I'll be writing my final post now, and including that bit of whorehouse exposition which was all Jessamine was really in a position to write. My plan is to have this written quickly. Although it will be pretty long, I hope everyone reads it, because I hope it will also be very good.

Seth/Claude, how are things on your end? Eleven days and counting, Signore Ruggeri.

I'd also like to note that I somehow missed Claude's last post until recently, but damn if he doesn't do the best "ruined-town" descriptions I've ever seen.

[Seth Ruggeri]

Sorry for the delay. My graphic novel course had a rather extensive take home final that has taken up a decent chunk of my time. I've also been working for the past few days as well so that too has managed to eat up even more of my free time. I have the first part of my next post, which is a dialogue about our favorite Gentlemen of the West, written however, I still need to wrap things up and bring this storyline to a close. My character will be leaving what remains of Little Bethlehem and heading for a new town, which I've tentatively titled "Los Afortunados," in search of a doctor to better examine Moira and Flora's wounds as well as to seek out information about Pearse, Ramey, and a few other things currently racking his brain. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to leave an opening for our potential new cast member to enter the story, provided he updates his character sheet and his writing sample passes our screening process in a timely fashion.

On a side note, it might also be a good idea to start working on a world map of sorts so we can keep track of all the major locations we've made thus far. I'd like to see a nice visual representation of where all the towns and notable spots such as Pearse's ranch are in location to one another.

[Mr. Pearse]

I've sent a rough map to Seth and Jessamine. Feel free to beautify and/or modify at your leisure before posting.

[Mr. Pearse]

Countrymen,

I am sleeping now in order to wake up at 0400 for an Army conference tomorrow. Afterward, I will be getting happy at happy hours, because that's the kind of week I've had. Saturday, however, I am going to lock myself in Starbucks for seven hours and emerge with a post worth posting. That is all.

Pearse

[Allie Johnson]

Seven hours? Goodness gracious! Maybe you should split it up? I hope your week gets better.

[Mr. Pearse]

Almost done, but not quite. I'll finish it up tomorrow. Aren't delays fun?

[Allie Johnson]

Note to self:
leaving one poor individual to tie up the accomplishments and handle the fate of over five characters with dialogue/important parts is slightly cruel.

good that you're nearly done. I can't wait to read it.

[Mr. Pearse]

The dragon is slain.

Read and enjoy. Pending three-day gap, we are now out of Santa Anna. Let's keep the momentum. Ask me if you need any clarifications; there's a lot of content in this post.

[Seth Ruggeri]

Excellent job as always Pearse! Really enjoyed your conversation with Allie as well as the vision of war and the "premonition." I'm looking forward to finally getting to post with you some more in the next big thread. On that note...

I apologize that my post has taken so long to complete. I've spent the better portion of this week working on pre-planning for the school I'll be student-teaching at this semester. The experience as a whole has left me rather drained but has not kept me from writing entirely. I hope to have my finished post up sometime later tonight. The majority of it is written, I just need to add one last section and do some final editing before it's ready. Barring major calamity or death, the current chapter will come to a close tonight and I'll have everything set up for the next part of our story.

Edit: Okay so I lied, my current story won't be completely wrapped up tonight. I decided to split the current post I'm working on for the time being. The first two sections are up and the third and fourth will be up sometime in the next few days. I'm having trouble getting an image I want to use with part three to work correctly so I don't want to post that part until I can solve the issue with the accompanying visual. I'm still trying to make adjustments to the last section of the post which will close out the events of this thread and set up the beginning of the next thread which will feature Pearse, Ramey, Claude, and myself. I'd like to thank all of you for putting up with my delays and shenanigans regularly. You are all very patient and a pleasure to work with.

Anyway, please enjoy parts one and two of "Centro del guidacarta."

[Mr. Pearse]

I logged on the site today to find something marked "Be Advised: Sexual Content," so obviously I read it immediately. Jessamine, that was awesome; the prose was perfect, the tale was engaging, and if you wrote a book like that, you'd hit best seller in no time. And not just because it was about sex.

Otherwise, I guess we can proceed with the next three threads after Ruggeri finishes parts tres and cuatro.

[Allie Johnson]

I logged on the site today to find something marked "Be Advised: Sexual Content," so obviously I read it immediately.

Creep.

Jessamine, it was brilliant. Wonderful writing. Very engaging also.

[Ethan Ramey]

Mr. Ruggeri, if you can read this without it coming across as anything other than good-natured, please do.

I just have to ask: if the post isn't finished, why not wait and post all of it at once instead of posting part now and part later? Not that I have a problem with it, but I'm curious as to your reasoning. I'd rather wait and put up a completed post...

...but then, I'd rather see a 5 hour Harry Potter 7 than two 2.5 hour films, so meh.

[Seth Ruggeri]

Sorry for the delay. I had to make some changes to the original draft and I didn't really have the time to finish things up until today. I'd also like to mention to all of you that at this point, I plan on taking an extended hiatus from posting in the story. Things have become a bit hectic for me lately and I seem to have more difficulty getting a quality post up in a reasonable amount of time. I've anticipated that given the time consuming nature of my semester at college this fall, I'm not going to be able to keep up an effective posting pace without creating a serious lag in whatever part of the story I'm in. I'll still be popping on regularly to see how things are developing and maybe even chat a bit and give feedback when appropriate. I've really enjoyed working with all of you thus far and I hope to be able to do so once again in the near future. Best of luck to the talented team we have here on The Broken Badlands!

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