Greetings! I am about to start posting chapters from a simlit story I have been working on for quite some time. This will be my thread for announcements about new chapters, which will be posted ...
Thank you so much for your support and enthusiasm! :smiley:
@HermioneSims
You're right. The early chapters are mostly just setting stuff up. The pace of this story is slow but detailed, because that's just the way I like to write. I'm glad people have enjoyed it so far.
In fact, the way I think of the story is in sets of chapters (about 5 to 7 chapters each) that go together as an "Episode". But the episodes are too long to post all in one post, so I release the chapters one by one instead. But I might alter my index page to reflect the episode groupings. I think it might make my pacing intent more obvious.
Episode One (chapters 1 through 6) is focused on getting to know Ion and Reuben, with a hint of some other stuff via Mystery Girl's appearance.
Episode Two (chapters 7 through 13) broadens the character set, lets us get to know the neighbors, and shows Ion and Reuben's interactions with other local people.
Episode Three (chapters 14 through 19) is... "Friday". The reverberations of which will be felt for some time.
And so on. Things pretty consistently group by some type of theme into these 5 to 7 chapter blocks. Some big plot arcs go on for longer though.
I also had meant to respond to your comment on Annie and Reuben's argument with a little more focus on them, but somehow Tre hijacked my train of thought. He really does take over conversations, doesn't he? :lol: Anyway, if you are interested in a slightly deeper set of thoughts on what is going on with Annie and Reuben see the spoiler. It's not really something I was intending to "reveal", so I don't consider it much of a spoiler, it's just part of how I think about those two as characters.
There is an enormous generational gap between Reuben and pretty much any of the other main characters, but I think it's especially noticable between Reuben and Annie. Anne is one of the younger characters, a college grad student who I'd place in her late twenties (Ion is actually younger, but Tristan and Tre are older). She's lived almost her entire life with the internet being a normal everyday thing. She's smart, well educated, concerned about how society regards science, and she's keenly aware of how quickly rumors can get passed around in such a tighly connected world.
Reuben, on the other hand, is over 400 years old (I think I've only mentioned it as "centuries", but 400-ish is my intent). When he was born, mass-printed newspapers hadn't even really gotten started. He's lived through a massive amount of social, political, and technological change. For him the rise of the internet and things like social media are just a tiny blip on his overall lived experience. It's possible that he still hasn't completely grasped what a change it has made to the way information spreads in the world.
And of course, he was also in a horrible mood and had a headache. So there's that too. :lol:
@haneul
I love your "uncanny valley" description of Tre! :joy: It's true. There really is something a little off about his constant smiles and friendliness. Over on the blog comments for chapter 15, @MonaSolstraale speculated that he might be a robot (because of the in-story "restoring cheerful attitude" progress bar joke). Sadly this is not the case, but it sure would explain a lot. :lol:
Tre is kind of an oddball. He is extremely extroverted, to the point where he almost can't handle being alone at all. He needs people around him, and when there are people, he needs to be interacting with them. But at the same time, he's actually not that good at detecting people's emotional state. In Chapter 15, it's shown he really does care how his friends and boyfriend feel, and once it's made clear he'll try to take care of them, but he not good at all with identifying emotions on the fly. I think we often expect really outgoing people to also be really skilled at dealing with people, but I've known a few who were not, and Tre is sort of inspired by some of them.
To the much more introverted other main characters, he's very overwhelming. The only one who probably stands a chance of really keeping up with his level of social energy is Ion. And Ion is still dealing with the transition from a world where communication is augmented by telepathy, and hasn't quite gotten used to how to talk with humans yet.
The movie party falling apart is actually pretty much Tre's fault, since he can't read the room and he just won't stop talking. Considering that he was the person who was most excited about getting everyone together for the evening in the first place, he really shoots himself in the foot.
Since you like behind the scenes thoughts, I'll leave you with a few notes about the character-building (and writer mistakes) that went into creating Tre and Tristan.
It might help to know Tristan and Tre's in-game traits (which I really do use in shaping their characters):
Tre: Outgoing, Cheerful, Clumsy
Tristan: Romantic, Jealous, Family Oriented
With Tre, I use "clumsy" both for physical clumsiness and social clumsiness. And with Tristan... well, those traits mean that whenever Tre isn't around for a while Tristan takes a triple moodlet hit. Two "sad" moodlets for the romantic and family oriented traits, and one "tense" moodlet for the jealous trait.
I didn't originally intend Tre to come across as quite so manipulative. It was always there (he is a salesman and he thinks haggling is a fun game) but it was supposed to be more subtle. However, in the earlier draft of this story, Tristan's main character flaw (jealousy) was a lot more emphasized in the early chapters. One of my test readers had a reaction to Tristan that was so negative (much more than I wanted) that I decided to make some adjustments. The adjustments were a little hastily done though, because the point at which she mentioned her thoughts was after I had already decided to start posting. Toning Tristan's flaws down a bit caused Tre's flaws to stand out more, which was mostly an unintended side-effect.
But that's fine. I actually like that you call him out on the stuff he does. The fact that he makes a pain of himself trying to be super friendly, is genuinely part of what I intended for him all along.
Thanks for reading and for your comments. I always enjoy seeing what you're thinking. You look deep into the characters and analyze their behaviors, and I think that is really cool.
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