A tale with many parts [P]

Ah, morning! Glorious, glorious morning, where the sun is shining, birds are tweeting...

And Keina's windows are shut with tape around the seams to help block sound while the curtains are drawn.

Oh and the curtains are also taped to the wall.

THIS is pure darkness. Complete, total, beautiful, darkness.

This is how a ninja should live after getting home from an extended mission with minimal sleep.

Live in complete darkness with no clocks and avoid all sound.

Then sleep for what is an impossible to determine amount of time, avoiding all disturbance.

Simply magnificent.

This, however, was after Keina had done those sleep event, and she had not yet undone the taping. By the way, her door was also taped, to prevent any light at all from getting in.

She was thorough, if nothing else.

Keina felt content. She had had her sleep, and was now ready to tackle the world.

She just did not want to yet.

Instead, it was decided that she would try to write something. But what? She had many ideas floating around in her head. Most of them were complete crap, and she knew that. Maybe someone amazing could take the idea to some amazing conclusion, but Keina had no misconceptions about her skill to believe she could take some of these ideas to amazing places. Still, she began thinking over them, wondering which she should tackle.

A world where every door is a portal! Well, that's the thing. Every door IS a portal. To the next room. But in this world, sometimes the portals "break" and go somewhere else. That was certainly a fun one to ponder about.

[275 words - Daily post claim for August 1st, event makes this worth 300 words]

Maybe the story about a vampire and werewolf hunter. Who... is simultaneously both a vampire and a werewolf. Because, you know. It takes one to know one, and you must know your enemy before you can beat your enemy.

...Yeah, that was one of the bad ones.

Keina had considered writing a story about how the world used to have three moons, but an ancient battle between gods destroyed two of them. The aftermath of the battle Left rubble raining down to the planet below, and this rubble was consumed by the people. Infused with the godly energies, this was the origins of chakra.

One of her more favorable ideas was about a random traveling poor man. He went town to town, with only two goals. Goal one: survive. Goal two: leave the town better than he found it. Well, after years of traveling around, talking to people and helping them out of dire straits, he ends up in the worst situation of his life: the town he visited was going to be destroyed by a massive storm. So the man makes a decision: "I can't stay. I have a storm to kill." This one was a fun story. Plenty of chances to just write something nice and wholesome. And then... Keina was not sure how she would end it yet. There were many ways it could be ended, and none of them fit exactly with how Keina felt it should end.

The story of a terrifying, dystopic future where everyone gets through the day by taking an "autopilot" drug, something that makes them do "the things they would normally do" but with no memory.

[275 words - Daily post claim for August 2nd, event makes this worth 300 words]

Seriously, can you imagine? You take a pill, black out for ten hours, and when you come back to, you are driving home from work. What happened in those ten hours? What if you did not have "things you would normally do" before taking it? What sort of society develops where this is the norm? Keina could only imagine it was some dystopia. So that just begs the question: what happens when you skip taking it one day? Is there horrible withdrawal? Could you die from not taking the autopilot pill? Or will you be fine, and free to explore your day? But... would you know where you work? Would you understand what your job is? What if autopilot you had different responsibilities than last time you were on the job? It was a story rife with possibility.

And that was scary. Keina was fairly certain she could not do the story justice. She really wanted to try but... every time she thought up a possible storyline for it, she found plot holes and inconsistencies. It was such an interesting topic, but it was too... abstract. Too unrealistic. Too many things to account for if she wanted to write it in her normal style. See, Keina likes writing hard worlds. Things that a person can understand and figure out. Sometimes, these are only revealed through hints. For example, she wrote a story about a group of sailors. When they spotted a ship flying a jolly roger, they opened communication and eventually pulled up next to the other ship and...

There was no attack. They hung out with the pirates, traded some goods back and forth.

[275 words, August 7th]

She had spent so long describing the crew. They were jolly and organized. Raucous and smart. They talked about how they were currently delivering some goods, and about how they once had to fight off some pirates that tried to board them.

And then there's just this surprise scene at the end where they themselves are actually pirates. It was a story about subverting expectations, forcing people to look past their first glance. The reader would have come to... love is too strong a word. It was a rather short story. But they likely would have liked the characters, at least. There were two characters, Charles Margerer and Joseph Johannes. Crazy names, Keina knew, but she was trying to build specific expectations and names people would think as belonging to someone important, someone lordly? That was perfect for the literary ruse Keina had been trying to lead the reader down.

And then the crew embraces the pirates! Shaking hands, nods of acknowledgement, and the captains even hug! Then the captains start talking, and the reader is wondering... maybe the pirates are undercover!

The pirate captain asks how the last job went. "Oh, it went well. Lord Truffle Pants never expected it. We are on the way to port to sell his concubines now. All foreign girls. And he had so much gold on him!"

He took a drag from his cigar.

"He won't be missing it now. The boat was caught in a storm! The women, so angry at their former master, threw from from the life saving chunks of wood they clung to. Sad that only half survived." He smiled a truly vile smile.

[275 words, August 8th]

See, the story was an inversion. You were supposed to grow to like this gentleman sailor. Descriptions of the ship were supposed to create a sense of, perhaps, a royal navy ship. Interactions among the crew members were supposed to be indicative of a "cultured", or perhaps simply "disciplined" group. The reader was SUPPOSED to think that these were stand up men (and women!) aboard the ship. That these were perhaps a business ship at the beginning, then perhaps thinking it was part of a navy ship when the battlements and canon supplies were discussed. The reader was supposed to expect a battle when a ship flying a jolly roger was spotted, especially when the captain called out the name of the pirate ship and cried out "To positions! Let's give them a proper greeting!"

It was purposely written to not mention intonation and pacing. To let the reader draw their own, likely wrong conclusions.

And then to let the confusion grow as the reader realized they were not engaging in battle. When they realized that the ships were pulling directly next to each other. When the realized the "boarding" was to greet each other.

And the final bombshell from the captains talking.

That was one of Keina's favorite stories.

But it was not a good story, not really. It was so forced, so many things that SHOULD have happened had to be glossed over or ignored, because acknowledging them would have made the twist too obvious. It is unfortunate that this is almost always the outcomes with this type of story.

Keina dreamed of one day making an expectation inversion story she truly liked.

[275, Aug 19th]

Today was not that day, however. Keina had been so prepared to sit down and type all day. Get that story out of her mind, the one she had thought up while out on mission.

But the kinks were not working out. Plot holes too big to fill.

After several hours of sitting there, Keina had a very loose outline and... that was it. She sighed, closed the laptop, and went off to get some food.

(exit)

275 words per post for 5 posts, during August for double works, 2750 words from the August posts.

76 words this post.

2826 words in this topic.

Trained: https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t44322-eight-inner-gates-skill (2000/2000)
826 words into https://www.narutoroleplaygame.com/t44323-eight-inner-gates-jutsu-v7 gate 1

Approved for Keina's exit claims!