Guenevere (WIP)

[jeantown]

holy expletive!! I had a nonstop day at work and now I come home to find that the Guenevere thread had a nonstop day as well. Thanks, everyone! It makes me so happy when people are talking about the game. As i was thinking about all these comments, I even had a little breakthrough on how to make part 2 scene 5 more interesting.

So I’ll try to reply to everything I can, but apologies if I miss anything…

@GloriaRose Yeah, it’s not that I have any problems with werewolves or vampires per se, but they’ve acquired such a huge mass of cultural connotations at this point that dealing with them is more of a project than I’m willing to take on. There’s plenty of other supernatural stuff in Arthurian legend that I can draw on.

Lancelot reacting to Guen being involved with Mordred… well, it would depend on his relationship with Guen. If he’s romantically involved with her, of course he’ll feel angry and betrayed, and a betrayed-feeling Lancelot could be a problem. If he’s not involved with Guen that way, he’ll probably be the least judgmental and/or shocked of the main characters, but I’m sure he’d feel sorry for both Arthur and Morgana, and somewhat defensive of them.

@stsword and GloriaRose yeeeeeess… I really do need to include some more dialogue options for just outright insulting Arthur. Must think about this…

@olo17jr You’re right; this version of Arthur won’t try anything like that. It might be an interesting option to allow Guen to initiate the May Day killings, though… not sure if I can work that in, since Mordred’s actual birth will happen between books, but it’s something to mull over… Morgana definitely will not trick Arthur into conceiving Mordred; it will be a complete accident and they’ll both be traumatized by it – but yes, Arthur and Morgana will be Mordred’s parents.

@Dolphinzgirl and GloriaRose and @MarvelousMatty Yeah, I’d say Arthur finding out about an affair with Mordred would be much worse than one with Lancelot, for a bunch of reasons. In fact, depending on how Guen handles things, she may be able to break the news of a Lance affair gently enough that Arthur doesn’t completely freak out, but there’s no way he wouldn’t freak out about Mordred. Guen and Mordred won’t be able to have any children within the story told here, but if they’re together at the end of it, you can imagine whatever you like happening after that.

@poison_mara Well, keep in mind the final book is tentatively titled “The Death of Arthur.”

@janine Oh, thank you for making an account just for this! I really appreciate it, and your comments. I’ve been doing some more thinking about Elaine just in the last few days, and I hope you’ll like how she turns out. Morgana and Morgause have sort of been fused for this version, but there may be a little reference to Anna, and, well, Nimue just might be out there somewhere… Anyway, I’m grateful for your points about playing a celibate Guen – I really really should add a more asexual option in that conversation with Morgana! Do you have any suggestions? In any case, I do have an option in part 2 where Guen can tell Morgana she doesn’t want sex. As for Arthur, he’s so clueless/dense that he’ll never completely be able to understand why Guen wouldn’t want to have sex with him, but he’ll also never force the issue, beyond talking about needing an heir. There was some good conversation about that a few pages back in this thread. But as the game progresses, I would very much like feedback on making the ace or aro paths feel consistent and authentic, so please please do tell me what you think! Meligaunt is large and fierce, but basically human-looking. I very loosely fused the Meligaunt story with the giant of Mont-St.-Michel and then stuck him on Michaelsmount in Cornwall instead (though I might still change that), because reckless mashup fusion seems to be how I roll… also giving names like “Meligaunt” whatever spelling seems appropriate/distinctive, because there was no standardized spelling in the Middle Ages anyway.

@Aiedra Thanks and I’m glad you liked it!

whew!

[olo17jr]

Yeah I had actually thought the same thing about a Guen initiated Mayday Massacre if the player is doing a more “did what they had to” Guen due to either annoyance at Arthur’s idealism or as a way to allow him to keep his idealism, but still keep him alive by making the tough choices for him.

[Dolphinzgirl]

@jeantown That makes sense. I can see where finding out your wife is screwing your incest baby is probably a lot more traumatic then finding out your wife and best friend fell in love.

[Scrivener]

@Dolphinzgirl “Your wife is screwing your incest baby…” wow just wow. Only on this thread would that sentence not raise any eyebrows and instead gain head nods. I laughed in my seat for a minute right there

[MarvelousMatty]

@Scrivener @Dolphinzgirl lmao same haha =))

[suburbanbeatnik]

@Dolphinzgirl @Scrivener LOL, that is the best description. “Your wife is screwing your incest baby”! It’s so wonderfully twisted and Game of Thrones-y, isn’t it?

[Scrivener]

Considering I went on a Game of Thrones binge with two seasons in two days then yes yes it is @suburbanbeatnik all I can say is Walder Frey you can run North of the Wall or to Old Valyria but that won’t save you from my wrath.

[Ponku]

I shiver at the thought of how Morgana and Arthur will feel after concieving Mordred. It’s hard to imagine how much traumatized they would be, considering what kind of ppl they are here. And it must be very hard to write how it happen, how they decide to deal with that, how Morgana’s husband reacts and how Guen learns about it.
It probably will be quite diffficult for my Guen to support Morgana and my Arthur and help them deal with that and at the same time cope with that herself. There are so many variables! But i believe Jean can write it to be believable

[poison_mara]

@Ponku I don’t know how Mordred will happen plot wise. But I could imagine my Guen poisoning the beverages of both with a lust potion. WHY? She could have a premonition of the hot king Mordred could be. Or just for fun.

My Guen will be bored and angry with hippie and his stupid realm. Where people let other kingdoms take terrain in peace name. With no progress and with stupid government. Marry with more annoying egocentric king ever. And being harassed by court gigolo. And Morgana is in another country half of the time… Heck, probably my Guen did it!!

[Ponku]

@poison_mara Well in my playthrough Guen and her beloved husband will rule the realm with justice and care about it’s citizens. Like “to lead people by the example”. So i doubt she would want to add lust poison to their drinks
But for the posion queen playthrough premonition about Mordred seems plausible, but i doubt that this is what @Jeantown planned for us.

It’s great that @Jeantown allows the player to play the main hero in so many different ways and to see how it influence other characters. Some of the outcomes of players action may be so different, that it will be a huge project to include them all but i believe she will manage to write the story the way that pleases readers

[jeantown]

@olo17rj Indeed… even if I can’t find a way to work in the baby-killings, I hope I can find some similarly cutthroat thing for a pragmatic or evil Guen to do because Arthur won’t.

@Dolphinzgirl and @Scrivener “Your wife is screwing your incest baby…” ::nods head:: (and thinks "How did Arthurian legend even come up with this stuff I mean really???)

@Ponku It’s going to be really hard to write. Arthur and Morgana will both be traumatized and I’m genuinely worried about triggering readers who may have had negative sexual experiences. (I’m going to try hard to avoid that as much as I can; for example, there won’t be any specific description of exactly what happened, just the reason why/how it happened.) But in a story that’s all about character relationships, I don’t want to shy away from including one of the weirdest relationship entanglements in medieval literature. The focus won’t be on the bad thing that happened so much as how the characters respond to it and help each other through being traumatized (or don’t help each other, as the case may be). Fingers crossed that I can pull it off in a way that’s meaningful.

And overall, I’m becoming more and more aware of how much all of the variables of Guen’s personality and choices will make the game exponentially more complicated to write as it progresses. The final book will probably take forever to write because there will be so much to account for. But I’m up for the challenge – I really really want to prove that it can be done, however long it takes.

[jeantown]

Hey everybody, @suburbanbeatnik’s concept sketches for Guenevere spot illustrations are now
posted on tumblr! Take a look and let me know if you have any thoughts!

[poison_mara]

KITTY KITTY CUTE KITTY :x Really amazing

[jeantown]

I know; isn’t he adorable?!

[jeantown]

…and in further updates, @janine, I just added one more line to the game, so when Morgana asks Guen the “naked with” question, Guen can say, “Maybe not the naked part, but definitely in the sense of being more than just friends.” Thanks for catching me on that, and please please let me know if you spot anywhere else that Guen seems unnecessarily forced to say something sexual-sounding.

[Scrivener]

Question for milady, is there any difference between the fae pet or is it just choose a kitten or puppy and both have the same job/skills?

[jeantown]

@Scrivener At the moment it’s just an aesthetic choice and the pet does the same things. Once the dog grows up, his natural (non shadow-beast) form is obviously larger than the cat’s, so they may not always be able to do exactly the same things, but so far, in terms of plot, they’re the same.

[GloriaRose]

Jean i love the sketches i mean the kitty :x

[GloriaRose]

And yay for good looking incestual fiction characters GO Mondred!!!

[Ramidel]

It’s a PUPPY! PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY! …and there’s a kitty too.