Dear Insane Children,
We just finished watching Star Trek: Discovery Parts 1&2. And as someone who grew up watching the original (Shatner/Nimoy) series on TV (re-runs! I am not THAT old!), I found it to be a lot of fun in terms of the references made to events, places, and people contained in the original timeline. From the thematic echos of the TV series musical themes to the sound effects from the communicators and transporters… all familiar and comforting.
Having watched so many episodes of so many TV series for so long it’s not difficult to become jaded to the tropes. I start yelling them out at the screen 15 minutes into a new series – “he’s the hidden bad guy!” “she’s not his real daughter!” “this is all just a dream/flashback!” etc.
Discovery unexpectedly delivered lots of classic tropes on fresh platters thanks to some alternate universe magic. I won’t get into details here for fear of spoiling the fun for those who’ve not seen the series… but for writers and those interested in writing the series is worth a watch for the story twists woven across the series and characters.
I bring this up because we’re grappling with a couple of our own “trope-ical diseases” (har) as a function of Asylum being a prequel to a sequel set in a time-warpy universe of imagination. We’ve got to run just to stand still around here!
Here’s the message from Omri which came with the Throne Room image I’ve pasted above. You’ll see what I mean…
You said there will be 2 fights with the queen of hearts, the first version of the room can be with Alice losing and this version can be when alice eventually wins!
The monster should be Anger. That’s what’s consumed The Queen (and Alice’s mind where the Queen is represented). We need to integrate blindness and seeing red… as in “blind rage” and “seeing red with anger” as these things actually happen when you’re crazy angry.
We’ll have two boss fights. First one, Alice gets her butt kicked and her Rabbit taken. She losses because she’s angry. Luke Skywalker could have taught her this lesson.
Second time around, she can win. And perhaps because she does something which causes the Queen to go blind with rage and anger. “
the actual monster isn’t designed yet, we will get to it eventually.
my only concern is that in AMA you do just that, you fight the queen, twice.
so perhaps in the first boss fight you actually shouldn’t fight the queen but fight her “Knave of hearts” and then be Presented to the queen as she captured Bunny.
the second time you go there you fight the large Monster which, again, shouldn’t look like the one in AMA.
Yes, we do fight the Queen twice! And there’s a reason (trope) for that. It’s meant to indicate progress the character has made towards growth and in overcoming obstacles. Without the two-part (or three-part) encounter, we can’t see Daniel-son (Karate Kid) get his butt kicked; montage his way to wax-on-wax-off ninja skills; fight the bad guy again; and ultimately win.
If we did go with the Knave of Hearts battle as Omri suggests… we’d still need to include Alice fighting the Queen and losing … and then fighting the Queen and winning. Fighting the Knave to get to the Queen does not a fight with the Queen make.
As for what that fight looks like – whether or not it replicates the Queen fight we see in AMA – I’m open to suggestions. But I really love tentacles. And it’s going to have to be a really good suggestion to get me to give up my tentacles!
What If?
What if Asylum does contain a couple of story elements similar to the elements found in AMA? Is it possible we might damage the quality of the story more by trying to avoid inclusion of those themes than if we kept them and improved on them? “The Last Jedi” comes to mind for some reason…
I’m all for the “use it if it works and improve on it where we can” direction of writing. Having the Queen of Hearts battle Alice using crazy giant tentacles – even if it’s similar to what we saw in AMA – doesn’t bother me. Imagine how amazing the tentacles will be with today’s technology!
Let me know your thoughts on all of this in the comments below.
Speak of The Devil
Darth Bumby.
He’s baaaack…
Next Week – Back to Normal
We will resume normal livestream stuff next week. And hopefully everything else “normal” again as well. More on that later this week.
Font Lord Says
A reminder that next month’s art print will be…
This will be available to choose if you’re doing 3/$35 or you do $75 for this month (which is confusingly paid on October 5th).
He goes on to say…
Backerkit emails should come soon (we’re waiting on Backerit) – this is for both the Cheshire Kitten stuff and 3x$35 stuff.
And, YES, you can NOW change your Tier. If you were at $50 for the Cheshire Kitten and you’ve been successfully charged then you can now safely adjust your Tier.
We do hope that you’ll stick around – keeping in mind two things:
That month of $50 counts towards the 3/$35 Tier, so two more months at $35 and you can select an autographed art print.
If you decide to drop down a lower Tier, remember that $5 and above gets you access to our Discord Server so you can chat with our Insane Children and join our Crowd Design Sessions.
Lucky Says
He’s a good boy. Thankful for the time we’re able to spend with him during these first days in the world.
Much love to you all!
From Shanghai with The Needs of The One,
-American