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So, I told myself I wouldn't post much in the forums because I wasn't going to be very productive on this site and yet here I am.

Making this thread, making a storygame.

I mean, I guess. I've got a page and a half done so far but the storyline hasn't branched out very much. The basic premise of the game is just, "Arthurian Legend dating sim, except you are Arthur and Arthur is a girl" because I occasionally enjoy doing stupid things and taking them 100% serious. I've already done a decent bit of research on the topic and plan to dig even deeper to make an actually decent storygame.

Given that it's a dating sim, I've decided to pick a few characters to have routes, and so far, it's going to be the following:

1. Merlin
2. Guinevere
3. Lancelot
4. Nyneve, The Lady of the Lake
5. Gawain
6. Bedivere
7. The Green Knight
8. Morrigan Le Fay (Yes, I am aware of what this route's existence implies.)

 I intend for each route to have at least one branching-off point so that it can split into two endings: At least one Good and one Bad. Technically, the "canon" ending to the story will probably be Guinevere's bad ending.

Anyhow, if you're interested, would like to reccomend a route, or otherwise have anything else to say, I guess, have at it? I've looked over some of the other motivation threads and while I would love to spit out a bunch of previews, I don't really have much worth showing off just quite yet. Maybe when I get to something worth sharing, but until then...

And, one last final thing, since technically he's coauthoring it and I've been discussing my ideas with him, I'm just gonna tag @JimmySutton

I think it's a good idea.

Hey, if It gets featured, we'll have 5 stories for the page.

Go for it.

Thank you! And if it is good enough for a feature, I'll probably cry tears of joy, haha.

Personally I think it is gonna get featured. Check out what she has so far. (click the links that goes to her points and check where she created the game.)

Uh... that's kind of rude, man.

What if they don't want anyone to see what they have so far?

Jimmy, noo! I'm still working on it!

Edit: See above!! Aaaagh-- I've only been showing it to my writer friends, Jimmy!

Told you so.

You can turn off sneak peek, you know.

Even with it off, people can still get in if they look at your points.

Are you sure? Oh, I didn't know that.

 

Pretty dickish, if you ask me.

It's not so bad as long as they don't rate the game. I know either Jimmy or Mason is guilty of that. Surprise, surprise.

Even so, that's kind of a nosy thing to do.

Jimmy's co-authoring and they're friends in real life, so I'm sure it was just an accident rather than a genuine dick move.

Of course, if you don't want people to read it quite yet, @LancelotDuLac , you could always just delete the first page links. That should stop anyone reading past the first page.

Part of the problem is I'm showing some of my off-site writer friends, too...

Ah sure, it's not the worst thing in the world if people can see your story before its finished. Very few of them will actually take a look until it's published.

Tip: Don't put your End Game links until it's ready to be published. At the very least, it guarantees no premature ratings. Seriously, those people need flogged with a big, fat Teddy Roosevelt caliber stick.

Well, I'm nowhere near that point anyhow.

But yeah, I wasn't planning on putting in any End Game links until I was done regardless.

Ho ho! I get the joke! T'was a very intense policy indeed!

*Tips top hat*

While I am at it! I'm not mad. Just flustered.

I'm still not content with the second page.

Since this is a thread and all that, I think I should ask a public opinion question of those interested or whatever.

I'm trying to think of a proper birth name for "Arthur." As I'm writing it, Arthur is meant to be a nickname from Merlin.

I'm currently throwing around the names Arturia, and Artoria. I'm a little partial to Artoria, as the Roman name for King Arthur was Artorius. Any other female variants of Arthur work, though.

"The basic premise of the game is just, "Arthurian Legend dating sim, except you are Arthur and Arthur is a girl" because I occasionally enjoy doing stupid things..."

Honestly, I truly hate discouraging writers, but I have to agree. That seems rather stupid.

But good luck, regardless.

The entire point of it is it's a shitpost that I'm actually taking seriously. That, and I'm not trying too hard to sell it on this specific thread. This is just "hey, guess who's doing a thing, regardless of it being cool."

Thanks for the good luck wishes, though.

Please don't use beloved characters in your dating sim.

... Dude, compared to half the shit Japan's put out, it's not a big deal.

Like "My Girlfriend is the President" in which your girlfriend is Ohama, president of the United States of Nippon, and you can date Putin, who is a white-haired loli. It apparently has aliens and a panda girl, too?

Edit: The more I remember that game the more I wonder what kind of drugs they had to be on to have written it seriously, sold it without labeling it comedy, and genuinely to have had the drive to make it. You can have your way with a god-forsaken space ship.

That and there are a lot of historical-based dating sims out there, though most of them are for Japanese legendary characters and historical figures.

Are they really that beloved? Most of the original source material is word of mouth, which isn't usually well-written to begin with. Everything "Beloved" comes from the unique spin put on those characters by different storytellers. I like certain Robin Hoods, but not others. One weebfest dating sim isn't going to ruin the entire thing, unless you're an oversensitive twat looking for reasons to be salty with everyone...

You're... Not one of those, are you, Malkalack?

Even if he is, I'm at least trying to be tasteful with my 'weebfest,' which is better than a lot of weeaboos people with similar interests to myself do.

Though shipping Merlin, of all people, with King Arthur in any form is something that stretches my definition of 'taste' to levels of "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING N****R" in many ways, I completely support your right to do it as long as it's well written. Because I'm good like that. And you should vote for me instead of Steve.

It's totally not because all of my published stories are also taking stupid ideas too seriously.

Have you even seen BBC Merlin? I'm more confused why you're questioning Arthur and Merlin being a couple over Arthur and Morrigan. They're siblings.

Seriously, in the original stories, they're pretty much bros and you know what that means in fanfiction of any kind, don't you? given that a lot of other fiction works will make Merlin a woman to shoehorn a sexual or romantic relationship between the two of them, even in some of the bigger-name stuff, it's really not a big deal.

 

edit: At least i didn't do the shitty thing and make it Arthur a man and everyone else girls for the hell of it.

Don't listen to him, Lance. Stay on Team Steve.

Don't derail my thread with election stuff, please.

And I wasn't planning on changing my vote, especially not after that response.

Just saying, houses of glass and all that... In less certain terms.

Hey, You're just gonna vote for Wik when the actual election comes by, why are you encouraging the extremists!?

Yeah, people fucked their brothers and sisters all the time in the days of old, it wasn't that big a deal, especially not if you got away with it. Merlin, though? In the source material, he's like the 800 year old adoptive dad of Arthur. You don't find that completely fucking horrifying!? It is a big deal, and it's very disgusting in everything it's shoehorned into. I don't approve of a lot of retellings, fanfiction.net or otherwise, sheerly because of that. Besides, there's totally platonic bromance in all kinds of fanfiction, that's the whole thing with BrOTP. It's not in fanfiction of just any kind. Fan fic-ers will pornography anything they put their minds to for the flimsiest of reasons.

edit: You find that shitty because you're a girl, so presumably, unless I'm wrong, none of the gender-flipped characters would appeal to you. Making just King Arthur a girl is rather the same but rarer, and it suits you, so you don't find that shitty. Of course, it's shitty pandering to a much smaller audience if everyone else gets changed into a girl except Arthur, if you wanna make this hypothetical alternate weebjizz appealing and equal, you either switch EVERYONE'S genders or you don't.... Lord Gwennivere sounds like a good name for a band, though, so I reserve the rights to that idea. Or not, really: Just because it wasn't necessarily meant to appeal to you doesn't mean it's a shitty thing to do. There's good weebshit for guys and there's good weebshit for girls. Nothing wrong with a King Arthur Harem where everyone else is girls, because that's what floats the author's boat and they were definitely aiming at a very specific audience.

Hoooh my god, Sent. 

Chill. Chill.

1: He wasn't the adoptive father, though?? Uther Pendragon was. He was more, in the source material, Uther's pal. And then when Arthur became king, Arthur's pal. And I guess I have to state that wow, just like nearly everyone else who writes fiction based off of legends and mythology these days, I'm taking liberties with it. And you seem to have missed the point where I have at least three routes for the female "Arthur" to romance women; don't get me wrong, I would have been 100% fine making all the knights women so a male protagonist could romance them, too. (Actually, that was one of the ideas I was throwing around. See point 3.)

2: ??? There is literally all kinds of fiction from all over the world where they take characters and write them as though they were actually the opposite gender, and only do as such with one character. There are actual serious scholars who debate Sherlock Holmes being a transexual man.

3: I didn't genderbend anyone but Arthur because I found that given a singular, small change, in which it is made a matter of small-scale and almost internal conflict in a setting with literal conflict and war, made for an interesting dynamic in my personal opinion. If I had flipped everyone, then I'd have to also apply changes to the laws of the society and remove the taboo that Arthur being a woman was.
Edit: And in my prior post, I was also meaning that I kept Guinevere and the Lady of the Lake women, along with the knights and Merlin and literally everyone else.

4: If you don't like it, guess what? You are on the internet. You have 100% leeway to ignore literally anything you do not like and no one can stop you. You don't have to play the storygame, you don't have to comment on the thread, and you can even ignore me everywhere else.

4.5: The bit about the vote thing was genuinely tongue-in-cheek, if that's what set you off. Even then, I guess tone doesn't carry well over the internet because you got offended when I was calmly trying to explain my reasoning and now I've had to get all defensive because you went on the metaphorical attack. Again, chill. It's a piece of fiction written by a teenager on the internet.

I don't know why I come off as angry all the time, I don't mean to. Am I a very threatening person? Do I need to start drawing Penguinites with eyeball shine again? They seemed to be more Kawaii back in those days, and I got into less arguments when that was my profile pic... Do I need to stop swearing!? I WILL NEVER STOP SWEARING YOU CAN'T TAKE THAT SHIT AWAY FROM ME!

Virtually everything I've posted in this thread, and on the majority of this site, has been tongue in cheek as well. I've seen your excerpts, and you put a lot of thought into it. I was just trying to provide a more diplomatic view on "Girls for the hell of it", because there's also plenty of "Guys for the hell of it", and it's all okay anyway. And I wanted to say "Lord Gwenivere". I editted in something with more assumptions later just because I felt that would drive the point home better and it's not as funny when you're 100% reasonable. I'll try to sound more chill though, for communication's sake.

1. In the versions of the story I've heard, Uther was his actual dad, and they gave him to a wizard when their kingdom was falling to make sure usurpers wouldn't find him and kill the last of their line. Being able to romance Merlin, with that being the narrative I've lived with most of my life, usually gives me the willies. But as long as you explain where you're coming from in your canon, it should be fine. It's not like I straight up don't read shit for singular reasons.

2. Yeah, there's all kinds of fiction, fan or not, which was my convoluted, Jontron-minded point.

3. ^ See the un-numbered points.

4. WHAT!? YOU DARE TELL ME I SHOULD AVOID EXPERIENCEING CONTENT!? NEVER! I WILL SIT THROUGH ANY UNENJOYABLE SHIT I WANT AND I WILL BE VERY INDIGNANT THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE, AND NOBODY ON THIS EARTH CAN STOP ME!  That's a good point on most of the internet, but the site mechanics do obligate users to read all the content, and provide rewards for doing so. I, personally, am not aiming to get a top rater's trophy, but I do like points, and there are people who really want that trophy. Saying "You don't have to read it" is not a valid point here, because completionists and point-hoarders kinda do have to read it. That's not something you have to worry about though, because, like I said, you're putting thought and effort into this and it'll be interesting to read.

4.5. *neck crack*Everything about the votes is tongue-in-cheek. If anyone takes the election genuinely, OOC-ly serious, I'm worried for 'em.*neck crack* Yes, and as a candidate, I stand fervently for the rights of all people, even and especially teenagers and internets. Which is why you should vote for me. In fact, I'm even better than Wik, but that's a debate for somewhere else.

Obligated and rewarded for are not even remotely the same, but I can see your point I guess. Even if it is 100% one's own choice to be a completionist or point-hoarder.

Anyhow, I'm glad that you have provided feedback and I suppose I will address something I said incorrectly. I incorrectly named Arthur's foster father; rather, my mind pulled the first name out that I could recall. I'm looking over the materials I used for research and I cannot find the actual name of the foster father I meant to refer to. In one particular cluster of versions of the story have Arthur having been taken away from his parents (I believe it was for his own safety...? I'm writing this in class instead of paying attention so I'm not able to shuffle through my tabs too well right now.) by Merlin to a foster father, which was why he was not in direct line for a throne of any kind and had to draw the sword out of the stone.

That's the iteration I'm using, at least.

Well, obligated because that's the sheerest measure of someone's on-site accomplishments that aren't storygames, publishing a storygame or getting on the featured page is itself measured in points and trophies. Your contribution to the site is measured in points and trophies. You are obligated, and you are also provided with rewards, that's kind of why I used both words. Yeah, it's people's choice to be a completionist or point hoarder, but it's also people's choice to be a body builder, or to be a chef, etc. etc. Just because people choose to do something rewarding means that if they run into something about it that they don't like, it's suddenly not worth the reward even though they've put so much work into every other part in order to get this far already?

Aright then.

So, I'm finally putting out a little preview of my writing! Sorry if it seems stiff, I've decided to use 2nd person in this story and I'm most comfortable when writing third person. This is from the 3rd page I've written as part of the Merlin route.

Before we get into the meat of things, I'd like to discuss my interpretation of the character of Merlin from my research. From what I've read, he was originally a Welsh figure; a bard, prophet, and madman named Myrddin Wyllt. He was introduced into Arthurian legend under the name Merlin because Myrddin sounded too much like "merde," which used to be a profanity in English and is one in French even today. I'm not sure what religion he was originally, but there was in fact a note of him being converted to Christianity. He originally was said to have given the infant Arthur to his foster father or something and was the one who placed the sword in the stone. He also originally was portrayed as having a fancy for Nyneve, the Lady of the Lake.

For my interpretation, I decided Myrddin was his true name and he willingly changed his name to Merlin, though he kept the surname of Wyllt. I tried to show that he was a somewhat energetic, eccentric man who despite his erratic train of thought is a trustworthy person. I'm hoping I've written him as sort of an unusual "childhood friend" figure whose closeness causes friction in a way. 'It may be necessary to distance yourself before you can truly get close,' or something like that.

"Merlin," you began, only to be greeted by a surprisingly high-pitched yelp of surprise.

A robed figure jumped up from his chair, turning to point.

"Arthur! How many times have I told you not to come in unannounced? I'm very busy reading these books--" And then he trails off, sighing, shrugging, and shaking his head. You try not to think too hard about how stupendously unobservant he can be.

"... So, what is it you wanted, dear King?" He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back to sit on his desk and knocking over several stacks of books, many of which fell to the already cluttered floor around his desk with a series of thumps. He seems to not notice, or not care.

"I came to ask for some advice," you start up once more, and are promptly interrupted by the wizard flapping his sleeve at you aggressively.

"Well I knew that! There's no other reason you come to see me these days! You're always off dealing with some quarrel between your mates or some issue across the channel in France or something. But no, I digress. Just get to the point."

"Well, you see... I've been troubled lately. And I wasn't sure what it was about at first, either."

You close the door behind you, locking it so no one can barge in on a secret conversation like this. You notice Merlin raises a brow before you let down your hair, golden locks falling into your periphery. After that, a brief look of understanding passes over his face and he just nods sagely like it's the simplest thing.

"This whole posing as a man thing... I think it's starting to wear me down," you explain. "I think I should do something about it. Like, try and make it more convincing, or take my mind off of it, or something."

Merlin sighed, shaking his hand out of his sleeve and pinching the bridge of his nose as he spoke. "Artoria, Artoria, Artoria." He clicked his tongue thrice, using a scolding and disappointed tone that you really didn't appreciate. "If you didn't like the idea, you shouldn't have accepted it. I mean, really. All it would have taken is a political marriage to get to the throne."

"Merlin!" You were not happy. "My goal was not ever to be King! It just happened! I just wanted to do what was right, Merlin." You exhale exasperatedly at him, shaking your head.

"Well, you could take on a political marriage; no one would really assume you to be a woman if you married one." He shrugged. "Or not do that, and as you said, do something else to take your mind off of it. Like go start trouble overseas again or go fight your sister for her being an evil witch."

"Merlin, I can't just attack my half-sister out of the blue and I'm not the one who started the thing in France, either." You groan. The amount of stupidity an immortal wizard could manage when he wanted to was positively infuriating.

I decided to take a brief pause in my visits to the site given that I had so much going on, but I just finished a page that I particularly enjoy. This is actually the majority of the page, but it's if you choose to discuss political marriages with Merlin and thusly begin the Guinevere route.

As a general rule, I'm writing it with the idea that at least to begin with, Arthur is only doing this because she feels she has to. Of course, you're going to, hopefully, eventually come to enjoy her company.

"Well," you murmur, leaning on a bookshelf and cupping your chin in your hand. "I suppose I could marry, but to whom?"

Merlin sighed, going over and sorting through a pile of papers, all of which clearly more recent than the books in his library. The parchment he was rummaging through was not yet yellowed with age. After a moment, he gave a quiet 'A-ha!' and turned, proudly presenting a list of sorts.

"Well, dear Arthur, I'm glad you asked! Of all the kings in the isles we're on good terms with," he said, pointing to a specific name and nearly damaging the paper in the process. "King Leodegrance is the most likely one to let you marry his kin. Mostly because he's the only one with a daughter that hasn't been wed off."

You cast him a look of suspicion. Why did it seem like he had already looked into this? It was sort of strange. Still, he was reputed to be a prophet and he was certainly a madman, so you didn't question his insanity.

"I see. So you're saying I should go to Leodegrance and see about marrying his daughter, who is named...?"

"Guinevere."

"Guinevere, then. And how do you suppose I go about winning Leodegrance's favour so I can marry said daughter?"

"Simple; he's at war with King Rience, who we aren't on good terms with, either; he's refused trade with us."

"Rience? You mean that psychopath?" You blow a puff of air, putting your hair back up into a bun. King Rience was known for killing other kings in the name of conquest and weaving his fallen foes' hair and beards into his robes. "I mean, I suppose it'd be beneficial to get rid of him given he has it out for me, and for political purposes it would make us real friendly with Southern Wales."

"Exactly. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, dear Arthur! I couldn't have ever possibly imagined a better opportunity for your early career as a king. So, go get your sword and shield and knock down that King Rience and get the girl!" Merlin's enthusiasm is a little scary, actually. He pats you on the back and then promptly turns you around, pushing you out of the room and slamming the door behind you. You can even hear a faint clack sound as he locks the door.

I'll be honest, when you first arrived and pitched this storygame idea, I wasn't a fan. I had very low expectations, but I'm happy to say with what few tidbits you've put out is infinitely better than what I had expected. There's obviously an insane amount of research being put in and the grammar and spelling and such is excellent. From what you said, there's going to be a lot of branching and interesting plots, so I genuinely think this will be an amazing storygame. I wouldn't be surprised if it makes it to the front page, assuming it's Love and Dating.

Well, that's the only place I can assume it should be put, given its status as a "Dating Sim" game.

That said, thank you for your feedback, and I will continue putting hard work into it!

... King Arthur as a girl. Well. Not the first time I've seen it, let alone in a story that includes sexual tension between multiple characters, and I happen to really like the show that did it. Of course, it's a secret that she is ... "king" Arthur since history (in this fictional universe) still recorded it as "him" being a guy. (Not sure how, her armor was rather feminine.)

I'm inclined to tell you to blatantly and totally ignore anyone who tells you this is a bad idea. A lot of stories can seem like a bad idea, including a lot of the bizarre and ridiculous stuff we've published here. Instead, focus on execution. I am a firm believer that just about any subject can make a good story, the trick is in how you tell it.

Thank you, Kiel! And I am working on my execution as well. It's the reason I've not just churned out my weeb garbage and left, after all. I'm spending actual time on it and putting effort into research and writing. I even respond to feedback and people's questions about it because I actually care about improving it.

 

But alas, effort is for losers and is not expected.

Then keep at it. Effort, research, responsiveness, and fine-tuning are the main reasons I've managed the ratings I have on my published works. I like what you have so far and ... honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I really end up enjoying this game. (xD I say that as someone who is generally quite opposed to playing dating sims as a female--not that I haven't done it, or had fun, but the fact that I'm optimistic about it atm is a good sign.)

Looks good so far, b0ss.

Keep it up.

Well, this doesn't sound all too bad and while I'm nit all that much into Love & Dating I think that this will be a great storygame to add there... who knows, it might even get featured if you're lucky. I wish you good luck with your storygame, my good writer!

I just realised, I should probably note I'm using the basic editor rather than the advanced editor. I may change over later on but as of right now, all of my writing is taking place in the basic editor.

Advanced editor is best editor, everything you do is automatically saved (assuming you close the box the right way) and you don't have to load up a new tab for each page you're editting. Plus, the page list is easier to get to, so you can edit any one of them.

I've not found any problems with the basic editor so far since I tend to be a very save-conscious individual, anyhow. It's good to know what its advantages are, though, thank you!

Hey, the basic editor is just as good as the advanced. End doesn't use it.

(is using basic editor for current story)

End writes all his stuff outside the editor and then copy-pastes it in as it's finished, though. Otherwise, it's all much more easy and convenient to bust out the Advanced editor, which is a vastly superior tool for people who write stories in the editor.

Besides, you never know when you might want to use scores for something, or map out what pages lead to where a little easier.