Psynesis VS Wasteland

Psynesis's Wasteland, in it's current form, will not be continuing. I feel like that realization took a lot longer than it should've. But, I spent >400 hours on this, so what gives? After all, this was supposed to be "the story." You know, the one big story every writer holds to their highest standard, their future "magnum opus."

I first became aware of an overall problem in the series once I was about to start properly editing the series because I'm not burnt out anymore, also because I finally got some actually good feedback for once. I would apologize to the commenters who criticized my work, but I'm 100% sure they aren't reading this.

It's worth noting that the "overall problem" isn't because I just got bored of the story, or I got all depressed because I couldn't portray my "perfect story" properly because I'm "such a bad writer."

I'm just going to spoil the hell out of the story now since I'm not going to use these parts. So here's the character arc for The Liberators of Society. The Liberators of Society (which I'm just going to call the LoS now) destroyed society as a whole because they grew up in an awful society that subjected them to intense oppression. From their limited perspective, they believed that oppression was a natural biproduct of society, and that the only way to remove it, was to remove society. Hopefully my speech that I wrote in 1-11-2 was good enough to convince you that idea had merit in their eyes.

Of course, by destroying society, the LoS just put the world into a survival of the fittest state. They justify this to themselves by saying that it's the natural way the world works, and that it's not their fault that it's this way. Also, because they're incredibly powerful Psynesis users, they can't really comprehend the idea of dying to a random bear attack or other natural occurrences. But eventually, they do realize that every single person who died of starvation, disease, or otherwise died in usually incredibly improbable ways in the previous society is a death they only have themselves to blame for.

These two paragraphs are probably the best part of my entire story. I'm incredibly proud of what I have here. But, looking back at the rest of the story, I realize how little I actually cared about the rest of the story. I realized this when I created a character completely unrelated to Psynesis's Wasteland, and how much fucking fun I had creating her. Basically, I spent so much time working on this story in a way that I felt was nessisary in the moment, rather than actually asking if this was something that I really liked.

There are other themes I wanted to tell with Psynesis's Wasteland, but since those are salvageable for my next story, I'm going to keep those a secret in case I expand on them later.

The title of this post actually sums up the other problem quite nicely. "Psynesis V.S. Wasteland." Basically, there's a conflict between the shonen inspired action series I want to write "Psynesis" and the theme heavy story I feel a little obligated to write about a lawless wasteland, and building back up to society.

So, the basic theme of the "Wasteland" story is that a completely "equal world" doesn't exist. Or, put simply, "Life is unfair." Even societies that try and force equality is governed by a force. But all that means is that force, or the people running it, is the most powerful thing in that society.

So, if you want to create a story about recreating society, then it would make sense if the story's actual plot progression would be about creating a town from nothing, and then eventually building more and more power and people until eventually you have a real society. Problem is, you'd be spending a lot of time on... actually building the town, and later society. There's not really a whole lot of room for 1V1 battles, much less time to explain the power system. Which is a problem when that's the story you really want to write.

I could fit in fights by using them as an excuse to recruit warriors, or by using it as a way to drive conflict between neighboring factions, but those will only work so long. By doing those, I'm going to either quickly inflate the character roster or faction size. Which doesn't seem like a problem until you realize that once the main faction size gets too big, you can't use either of those excuses anymore. Conflicts between factions will quickly turn from group battles to straight up wars. After a certain point, stopping the plot to focus on ONE new recruit doesn't make sense anymore. Even if it was worth it or otherwise made sense, I'd quickly inflate the main cast with too many characters, which I really don't want.

Maybe there's a way to get around this theming problem, but even if there was, I have really lost passion for the many of individual assets as a whole that I'd probably just rewrite the whole thing.

So, what happens now?

Well, there are aspects that I do like. Most notably is the power system. It takes a heavy inspiration from Hunter X Hunter, but I'm still completely in love with it. I can promise you that my next original work WILL feature Psynesis, and the story will be properly built around it.

But I'm not going to go onto my next original work immediately. Probably going to write some fanfiction or something. You know, something to get me back into the habit of writing and improving.

Dirpending Arc Thoughts

Dirpending is just “Dire Pending” with the first “e” taken out. Sorry, had to start with that, otherwise I felt like a lot of you guys would be sitting there wondering “There’s no way the name is that obvious, right?”

Ok, onto the more important stuff. First, this is going to contain spoilers for the entire first arc so just in case you’re new to the site and you randomly stumbling across this blog post, you should definitely read that first.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned a fair amount of times that this is sort of a second prologue arc, so I should probably elaborate on that. The entire point of this arc was to more deeply introduce you guys to complicated concepts like Psynesis, while being more slow with things such as themes and plot progression. Since a major theme of the story is about how societies should be made, a racist society that purposefully refuses to help certain types of people despite having the resources being a stupid idea is a simple concept to understand, so I don’t have to spend a lot of time telling you guys what you already know. Because of that, I can be more liberal with other concepts I throw at you guys, such as the Psynesis system. Okay, really, this entire arc was just me making absolutely sure that I’ve told you guys everything you need to know about Psynesis, so it doesn’t feel like I have to pull things out of my ass trying to explain the power system for future arcs. Hell, we only just get our main three protagonists until the very final chapter part.
Although, in the Chapter 11 Thoughts blog post, I made it clear that my original intention was to just have Isaac and Messa be the only main characters to leave on the train to Rosemerry Town.

My main concern is if I didn’t engage you guys enough. I guess if you’re sitting here reading this, then you obviously were engaged up to this point, right? I just can’t help but wonder about how many people would really like this series. The ability to go back and edit your work really is a blessing. No matter what, whatever I write won’t be perfect. With the ability to edit, I can go back and change any mistakes. But because I want my work to be as good as possible, if I can fix a mistake… I have to. Does that make any sense? Anyway, that’s pressure for future me to worry about. I just have to take the reviews of people who weren’t able to get to this point, and try and understand what made them drop off so early from their limited comments.

Your feedback is really important too, even though, or perhaps, especially because you’ve gotten to this point, and you like my work so much. So please, comment about any grievances you had about the arc. Hit me with whatever you’ve got, because I’ll need it! Someday, I want a lot more people reading my work, so I want to make sure Psynesis’s Wasteland is as good as it can be before that happens!

Honestly, I thought I’d have a lot more to say. Maybe it’s because I’ve been taking soooo long with this post. I don’t know, maybe I’ll make a follow up post. If how long this took has taught you guys anything, it’s that I can’t be trusted for scheduling. So just follow The Official Twitter Account for actual notifications to get updated.

So, as an apology for stalling you guys for so long… I’ll give you guys a little tease for the next arc.

In the Rosemerry Town arc, many secrets behind Isaac’s lost memories during those 5 years will be revealed. Although, more questions may be brought up than answers. Many new characters will be introduced, almost all of them having a major role in the story.

1-11 Thoughts (FINALLY)

This is a blog post talking about 1-11, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here! Really, you’ll want to read this one.

Finally, 1-11! I’m only a little bit less than two weeks late to the delayed date that I said this was going to come out! Wow, I’m bad at this! There’s quite a bit to talk about for this chapter, as it is both the climax of the arc while also being the “real” start of the story! Arc 1 up until this point has been… well… I’ve said that point enough, so I’ll leave it for the Arc 1 Thoughts blog post.

First, let’s talk about the mind merging 1-11-1. That sort of ‘‘‘psychological horror’’’ chapter part was really new for me, but the main goal for it was to be a memorable and confusing scene. I know for sure it’s confusing, which typically means it’s a little memorable, right? The lack of chapter title until 1-11-2 and warning message was supposed to be cryptic enough to maybe get you guys in the mood for that type of stuff. I really don’t know if I made the mark for good horror or not (probably not) but I hope you guys liked it or at least found it interesting to read. As usual, I hope you guys give me feedback for this chapter, but this chapter part matter especially, since I want to know if it felt like a waste of time or not.
Next is everything of The Liberators of Society, and hoo boy… is there a lot here. It sort of goes without saying that these guys will be major players throughout the rest of the story. They’re my favorite of the entire cast that you guys have seen so far. With Isaac and Messa I always felt like I have to constantly prove that these characters were worth following, but with these guys, I feel like I’ve created some damn cool characters from the outset. They’re supposed to be a “Hero of their own story” type of villains. Now, some may argue that if these characters are so much more interesting and that they’re the hero of their own story, then why don’t you just tell their story? Wouldn’t that make for a more interesting story? Well, I don’t want to spoil the exact contents of their backstories, but let’s just say that the villains they fought in the past are just as generic as the leader of the hotel. (Someone who I literally haven’t even given a name yet) Their characters aren’t really that interesting until after the world ended, everything before that is just… backstory.

Oh yeah, I should probably talk about the semi-twist climax. After all, I kinda hyped up the leader of the hotel, then just killed him offscreen. Well, his place in the story was really to be a simple villain that’s only there to set up a simple plot forward while Isaac and you guys are spending most of your brainpower in understanding Psynesis and such. I didn’t feel obligated to write a generic racist villain because him getting off screened by the actually interesting antagonists to show off their overwhelming power was simply a better and more unique use for his “character,” if you can even call him that, since he never shows up.

Finally, let’s talk about 1-11-3. Most of this chapter part is to establish the viewpoint of The Liberators of Society, since I really want to establish them as characters with a lot to say for themselves. It’s one of those scenes that you come up with early on and you’re constantly excited to work on it when it finally comes. I think I did a really good job with the introduction of these characters. But of course, if you disagree, or you have any suggestions to improve it, then you can feel free to write in the comments!

Talking about the other major thing to occur in 1-11-3, Elizabeth is dead! Except, no, she isn’t. This wasn’t a fake out death to try and trick you guys, but I’m curious if you genuinely did think she was dead. After all, she didn’t have a custom font, so she was clearly a minor character. But that isn’t the case by the end of 1-11-3. I wanted to pull a reverse of what I did in 1-7. For those who’ve read my other blog posts, you may remember when I said that Lina (the 1-6 minor antagonist) was originally going to be a major character with Messa’s ability, but I ended up not wanting to include her. Well… I sort of backpedaled on that decision. I was originally going to have Elizabeth actually be dead making her a sort of “tragic” character, since she was so close to redemption. But also… she was only around for a chapter. I think I did pretty ok with her character during that time, but not enough for people to feel legitimately sad if she died. At least, probably not. When I took a moment to really sit down and think about what I could do with this character, I noticed that I simply couldn’t pull off her death in a dramatic way, while also noticing that the concept of a bystander turning hero, or even just… something a little better is a pretty good character arc idea, so I decided to let her live in hopes that the cast doesn’t get too big. Although the next arc may cause some problems in that development, but I think I have a pretty good plan to try and circumvent that.

As per usual, be sure to post any comments here talking about the chapter, and sorry for taking so long for me to upload this post, turns out I have way more to say about this chapter than usual!

1-10 Thoughts (For real this time)

This is a blog post talking about 1-10, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

Alright, now that I’ve uploaded 1-11-1, I can properly discuss how I went about writing 1-10. The first thing you might have noticed is that it’s sort of strange that Messa is the one fighting Elizabeth, rather than Isaac. After all, I gave them a little bit of a previous relationship before, wouldn’t it be more dramatic to make those two fight?

Well, kinda? Isaac does get attached to people very quickly, mostly because he has no other option, since he doesn’t know were his friends/family is. But, the two only spent like, an hour together, at most. I poked fun at this with one of Messa’s lines. I’d also like to take a second and say that if you thought this was going to spring into a romantic subplot, sorry, but I’m not particularly interested in that. Most because Isaac has the mentality of a 15 year old right now, thus creating a pretty concerning age gap. But it’s also because arc 1 is basically the introduction arc to this world, and I want it to be as simple as possible.

In fact, I’ve tempted myself to merge this arc and the prologue arc several times, but I decided against it. Mostly because I feel like most people don’t want to read a 13 chapter prologue arc. But enough about the prologue!

I wanted this battle to be with Messa because I wanted him to properly show off how experienced he is in battle, without the fight literally lasting a single chapter part. Messa needed another good fight, since Isaac just got one. I considered Isaac getting both of these fights, since Messa already got the really good fight against Lina, but since I know I wanted this fight to end early, I figured I’d give Messa a little more time to shine.

With that being said, this next paragraph has spoilers for 1-11-1 and 1-11-2, so if you haven’t read that next, I’d recommend either reading those now, or just skipping this paragraph. Basically, the ability that forced Messa and Isaac into Body’s Mind was the leader’s ability, and it only activated if someone was stressed inside the hotel, something that was forced upon Isaac and Messa due to Nash’s ability. Although I want to note that Messa was on the outer radius of Nash’s ability, meaning that he didn’t get hit with the same traumatic memories that Nash has, although he was affected by it enough for him to be stressed out to the point where it would activate the main villain’s ability.

I wanted to show off that Elizabeth wasn’t very experienced in fighting, showing that in how she had very clear habits that were derived from her very specific strategy. Normally having a plan isn’t bad, but when such a plan has been proven not to work, I wanted to show off that Elizabeth doesn’t have the improvisational skills needed in a more messy fight.

As per usual, be sure to post any comments here talking about the chapter, and sorry for taking so long for me to upload this post, turns out I have way more to say about this chapter than usual!

1-11 Delayed

I probably should’ve made this post yesterday, actually- no, two days before this!

Whatever, I initially delayed 1-11 to today because it was pretty trippy and horror themed as some sort of spooky gimmick, but as I’ve learned throughout writing this chapter, it’s that horror is like, REALLY hard for a first timer. So I’m going to need an extra week to write it. With that being said, on 4/9/2021, the entirety of 1-11 will be released. It should be 2 or even 3 chapter parts when the date comes, which might end up topping off the arc. I sort of have a weird middle section between Arc 1 and Arc 2, so I’m not really sure whether to classify it as the end of Arc 1 or the start of Arc 2…
If Patch notes don’t come on Monday, don’t worry, that’s probably because I was too lazy to re-read my later chapters for mistakes, haha. But for real hopefully a bunch of fixes should come by tomorrow.

New Prologue Chapter!

Alright! As I teased yesterday, I’ve added a new Chapter to the Prologue arc! Hopefully this is a chapter that gives newer viewers a reason to continue reading. Consider this post a “0-1 Thoughts” post and be sure to put any criticisms in the comments below! With that being said, here’s the link in case you haven’t read the new first chapter yet!

As for the lack of 1-10 Thoughts, I figured there’s not much to talk about that chapter, and that everything that I do want to talk about it pertains a lot to what I have in store for chapter 11. Although I do want to note that if you felt that 1-10-2 was short, then that’s part of the point, and that will have a purpose in the upcoming chapter.

Patch delayed until Tuesday

Title is self explanatory, the patch will be delayed until tomorrow, 3/30. This is because I’m planning on adding a new chapter to the prologue along with the edits since I feel like my story is still really lacking the hook that it needs. The chapter is going to be about Isaac’s first day in the wasteland, it’s going to be an introduction to the themes and plot of Psynesis. Since the other two chapters were about Psynesis itself along with some minimal worldbuilding, and the other one was about the fights that’s going to take up a majority of the story.
I’m not sure if I want the chapter in between the two prologue chapters I already have, making it 0-2, or making it the first chapter of the prologue. Hopefully I figure it out soon, haha!

3/22/2021 Patch Notes

…So… Due to the unfortunate timing my Mother’s Birthday, and a dentist’s appointment, my momentum for writing was… halted. But with that being said…
- 1-10-1 Has been uploaded today, sorry for the delay!

- The link on 1-9-1 leading to the 1-9 blog post has been fixed.

Still no archive system yet, sorry.

3/15/2021 Patch Notes

Hoo boy! Big one today folks! As you might have all seen on my twitter, I've decided to move these patch notes to Monday. The two reasons I listed were very similar, as one was that I wanted time to reflect on a chapter part after I posted it, with a quicker chance to edit the chapter part in case something was wrong, while the other reason was that I wanted a bit of time to reflect on a finished chapter before I made the blog post talking about it.

Honestly, I'm so happy I did this. Surprisingly, It wasn't because of the reasons I listed. Out of seemingly pure luck, I spent Saturday doing something that inspired the main set of changes in this week of patch notes! Speaking of the patch notes...

-Changed the site’s default font to more clearly show the difference between Narrator text and Isaac’s text.

-Uploaded 1-9 Thoughts

-Added an extra paragraph in 1-4-1 elaborating on the state of the makeshift bar, while also talking a little bit more about the treatment of black people under the hotel's new management.

-Added Maribelle, a new character*

-Chapter parts in which she's included is: 1-1-1, 1-1-2, and 1-7-1

Given the relative intensity of the changes found in those chapter parts, I’d recommend anyone who’s caught up to re-read those chapters, since I think those added scenes really add a lot.

*Technically she's not a real character, she's just a figment of Isaac's imagination. Hopefully her existence gives Isaac's character more... character. The idea for her came when I was watching Jujutsu Kaisen after getting caught up on the manga. After being reintroduced to Aoi Todo, the way that he uses his Idol Takada-chan as a representation of a certain part of his mind, with him imagining scenarios in which she helps him out. I remember getting to that part of the game again, and remembering how when I was a young teenager, I'd do something similar with a fictional chara-

Fuck it, I'm dropping the formalities. I used to imagine my waifu cheering me up late at night when I'd realize how lonely I felt. (Honestly, as a self quarantined 19 year old who literally hasn't felt the touch of a woman in over a year, I admit that I do it occasionally even now.) Since Isaac is, in many ways, a character that's based off of younger me, I figured adding this character trait adds quite a bit more identity to Isaac, since that was something that I felt was really lacking from him. The point of the addition of Maribelle enhances the idea of Isaac being an nerdy loser of a teenager despite the situation he’s been put in. Hopefully this doesn’t make Isaac feel unlikeable at all. I want his cringiness (cringyness? It’s technically not a real word yet so I just kinda have to guess) to not be so intense that it makes people’s opinion of him drop. I want it to feel like “Aww, poor guy” and less “Wow, what a loser! Our Protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!”

I actually have plans for what I'm going to do with Maribelle in the far future, and I hope you all will be as excited for it as I am!

Now that I’ve updated some chapter parts pretty heavily, I’m going to see if I can find some type of system for people to potentially read the old versions, in case they’re curious on how the story was before. Hopefully, I’ll get this system in place by next week. If you’re reading this, that means I haven’t done it yet.

1-9 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-9, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!
A much shorter one! I knew I wanted to make a chapter part showing off Messa’s expertise in Psynesis combat, with him effortlessly dispatching a new foe, in contrast to the uphill fight that Isaac had to go through. To be honest, I think I gave the opponent way too strong of an ability, so I had to take him out so fast that he couldn’t properly showcase what his ability was capable of. But I was halfway through the chapter and I was already pretty strained to find this ability so I decided to run with it, even if it means the fight is pretty boring as a consequence. I got another great ability idea when I was making this fight, but the problem is that the ability was too great of an idea, because I ended up giving it to a more important character that shows up next arc.

With that being said, I wanted to give you guys something in return for a short chapter, so I started to hint a little about Messa’s backstory. Hopefully giving you guys a tiny bit of that mystery will keep you guys somewhat entertained for the week.

As usual, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and feel free to post any comments about it below!

3/6/2021 Patch Notes

Oh cool, I was actually keep on my promises! It was a bit tight, but I was able to get two chapter parts done this week!
-Added 1-8-2
-Added 1-8-3
Unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to work on the editing portion, so next week will be only one chapter part and mostly past edits. Which is nice, since I’ll probably need that mental break.
Since a full chapter has been finished, I’ve uploaded a blog post talking about that as well!

1-8 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-8, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

Hoo boy! This chapter, as most 3 part chapters are, took a long time for me to create. I was still suffering from writer’s block while going into creating this chapter. I knew I wanted this ability to interact heavily with Mind’s Body and Body’s Mind, since we haven’t had a fight really going over those two abilities yet. Hopefully these fights help really establish how Psynesis works in the reader’s head, since giving them all in one big exposition dump isn’t really efficient?
You may ask “Why did you even give us that big exposition dump in the first place then?” Well, because the alternative was to explain the Psynesis systems during the fights, which is problematic for a couple of reasons.
Reason 1: It ruins the pacing of the fight. Psynesis is still complicated to explain, even when I split it up into pieces. I’d basically have to put the entirety of 1-3-3 in the middle of this fight!
Reason 2: It cheapens the value of the power system. By continuously revealing core parts of the power system during the fights, in future fights, readers might get the impression that I could just add an update the battle system in the middle of the fight to “cheat” around a victory. After all, if I only explained Mind’s Body and Body’s Mind during this fight, the concept of my characters suddenly gaining a 6th sense to negate the main ability of the enemy seems really cheap.

Ok, so I knew I was going to use an ability that was going to mess with the perception of Isaac, but how would I do that? I initially asked a few of my friends what are some creative alternative abilities to invisibility. One idea I was given was the ability to remove someone’s presence from someone else’s mind. At first, I really liked this idea, because it had basically the same effect as invisibility, but it was unique in it’s own way. But I ultimately decided against it for another two reasons.
Reason 1: It’s like… really hard to write temporary short term memory loss during a fight. At least, it’s hard to do so in a coherent way. I’m sure a more skilled writer can do it, but I do not have the skills for that.
Reason 2: Conflict with Isaac’s memory loss. It’s hard to distinguish between the ability that’s causing Isaac’s actual memory loss, and the enemy’s ability.

So I decided on using a more generic “just but him in a dark area” technique. I knew from the start of the battle that I really wanted to dig into the fact that the enemy for this encounter was an asshole, so I came up with the “Not actually blind” plot point first. Which is nice, because that idea really shaped the ability. The entire idea behind the ability is that it’s supposed to seem like it’s supposed to make anyone trapped in it feel from the blind guy’s perspective, making it an almost empathetic ability, with the victim starting to feel for the “blind” guy. But then the plan was to force the enemy to do an impossible feat with the limited perception that they have, and then Isaac would get suspicious. So when Isaac eventually breaks through, he’s already mad at the enemy for trying to make him feel empathetic for someone who was lying about a major disability. Everything else dialogue wise was just designed to make you hate him even more. Admittedly, this fight could’ve had a bit more build-up, (I might actually do some edits to previous chapters to naturally build up this fight a little more) but I think it’s fine for now.

You also probably noticed that I used a bunch of things that Isaac learned from previous fights to help defeat him in the final act here. It was a pretty un-subtle reference, so I hope you did notice it. I wanted to add that because it shows how Isaac has grown over the past few days, and what he’s really capable of when he puts his mind to it.
Fun fact, I actually had this entire scene played out in my head, but I forgot my friend drew the enemy with a gun. So that was an extra element that I had to compensate for, in case you’re wondering why it was dispatched of so quickly.

As usual, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and feel free to post any comments about it below!

2/27/2021 Patch Notes

Nothing really here, since I put some extra effort into conceptualizing chapter 8, which took quite a bit of time.
I had some pretty heavy writer’s block for a while now, but luckily, that time seems to have passed. I’ll try and give you guys two parts next week, so you guys get the full chapter.

-Uploaded 1-8-1

…Yeah, that’s literally it. With that being said, I think I did a pretty good job with this one, and I know how the rest of the fight is gonna go in my head. The issue now is getting it on paper- er, getting it written down. Anyway, more information will likely be next week, since that’s hopefully when the 1-8 blog post will come out.

1-7 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-7, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

First chapter since after the website has gone public! I actually got hit by a lot of writer's block when I was writing this chapter. The scene with Aroha and Messa was easy enough, since I already knew what her ability was. But that scene was basically all stuff that would be included in 1-6-2, but I wanted a more intense cut-off, so I put it here. But when Isaac stepped into the guest's room, I really had no idea where to go from there.

That's something I often struggle with, actually. These little moments that happen in between the more exciting fight scenes. It's difficult to write these scenes because I don't want to put in filler, but I can't just cut to the next fight, because pacing. I realized that if I had more well defined characters, then I could have more fun or have the scene have some type of substance.

The thing I've been learning is that if you feel like you're writing a scene just to fill the gap, then you should add something more interesting. As I've said in my previous blog posts, I've had a bit of trouble writing Isaac and Messa during these early chapters, so I decided to help fix that.

I actually wrote the scene of Isaac waking up from his dream first, as a 1-7-2 before I thought of the little dream sequence, but then I figured that a two part chapter was unnecessary. Although, having it immediately cut to the next day just felt... off, you know? That's when I finally came up with the dream sequence. I already know where I'm going to take Isaac's character in the future, so here I could add some foreshadowing. Don't worry though, there's a good reason on why Isaac's subconscious would produce a dream like this.

Another thing I often do (that I really shouldn't) is compare my work to others in a really unhealthy fashion. It's often good for newer writers to try and analyze series that they think are great, in an attempt to find out why they work so well. But you can often fall into the pitfall of finding great media that you love, and be hard on yourself for not having some of the great parts of that piece of media. As an example, I'm reading through Jujutsu Kaisen right now, and now I feel like an idiot for not having an introductory arc that's not nearly as exciting as that series' introduction arc. It makes me feel like I didn't capture the quality in battle shonen manga that I try to capture. It feels like I've, in some capacity, failed as a writer.

So as a reminder to myself, and to any future writers out there, just know that your series will be flawed. Sometimes, it will be flawed in places that are strengths for the series you love. But, that's okay. You're trying to make your story, not the epitome of every single thing you enjoy mashed into one piece of media.

Now, I'm gonna chill out and enjoy my 19th birthday, as usual, feel free to post any criticisms in the comments!

2/20/2021 Patch Notes

Hey, welcome to the first week of Psynesis's Wasteland patch notes!

"But Lyrune," I hear you say, "why would a web novel have patch notes?"

Because I am far, far less than perfect. I use literally only google drive for spell and grammar checks, and I write most of these pretty late at night. In fact, I'm writing these patch notes at 2AM, how fun!

Point is that between a lack of clarity in my writing, to spelling and grammar mistakes, to just going back and changing things I don't like, I have to go back and do edits to my previous work.

Anyway, on to the patch notes!

-Corrected many grammar mistakes from 1-3-2 to 1-4-2.

-Uploaded 1-7-1

-Changed the town to have only two completely intact buildings in the hotel and the train station. The 3rd building, the bar, has been changed to be a barely livable environment that was set up by people who were kicked out of the hotel. (Changes seen in 1-1-2 and 1-4-1)

Soon, I’ll set up something that will allow you guys to see the original version of these now edits chapters, because I want future writers to understand that their first draft won’t be perfect. In fact, it’s probably going to be really bad. I’ll update this post when I do get the system in place!

1-6 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-6, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

If everything went according to plan, this should be the last of the immediately uploaded chapters when the website is released to the public. Hope everything works according to plan!

Regardless, this is the chapter that introduces The Liberators of Society! You know how I was a little concerned about characters like Messa and Isaac having a lack of depth at the start of the story? Well, that’s not the case for these guys! Now, a smart person may ask “If these are the far better characters when compared to your current protagonists, why isn’t the story about them?” Well, a few reasons. I feel like I’ve made it clear enough in this chapter that I can say it here: These guys are villains! While that doesn’t technically make them any worse candidates for spot of protagonist group, since plenty of people have written evil protagonist characters before. But that’s not the type of story I want to tell. Unless you count that part where Isaac being a race ignorant white guy, something that’s reinforced this chapter when he has to say to himself that the person he just met is, in fact, not white. Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!

Speaking of our protagonist, I gave him a drop of trauma this chapter, it’s not gonna be a super important scene though, so don’t except a super serious and dark consequences from that moment. Although, the moment is important in a roundabout way, as you’ll see next chapter.

Another thing I want to talk about is the use of special fonts. Remember when I said Lina won’t be an important character because she doesn’t have a special font. Well, one of the points I wanted to get across for this chapter is that just because a character has a special font, doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna kill them off immediately. No using meta stuff to find who is and isn’t important. Well, there still is meta stuff that you can use, but it’s just the normal meta stuff, so no problems there.

1-5 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-5, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

First thing you may have noticed is that I included the difference in attack speeds depending on Psynesis specialty thing. The reason why I ultimately made that decision is that otherwise a character picking between using a universal physical attack and a universal mental one almost completely arbitrary. It’s obvious that the universal mental attacks functionally almost the exact same as physical attacks do, so if a character prefers one over the other, it doesn’t say anything about their character.

But with this feature, then what types of attacks they’re better at not only says something about their character, but what it says is valuable information in a fight. So now that character has an interesting decision to make. Do they use the more reliable side of universal attacks and immediately give away if they’re special ability is mental or physical, or do they try and conceal it? If they choose concealing it, then how would they go about it? Would they alternate between attacks in a way where it’s hard to tell which kind of attack is slower? Do they entirely use the slower universal attacks to try and make the enemy believe that they not only think they know what type of special ability they have, but to also think that they’re much faster than the enemy? If they use that method, how would they pull the cover out from under the enemy? By using their fast type of universal attack to immediately catch them off guard and likely punish the enemy’s overconfidence? Or would they unveil their ability, which could be potentially even more dangerous, depending on how the ability works.

Next is how I handled Isaac this chapter. Which I know may seem strange to talk about because this chapter is mostly about Messa but there’s quite a bit here that I do want to talk about. First thing I want to mention is that if you thought Isaac was kinda an asshole, that’s intentional! I wanted to get across the idea that Isaac was a wimpy 15 year old who is too nervous to get himself into issues about race, he doesn’t want to get caught up in what he thinks is violence, even if he’s going to be saving many people’s lives in the process. He simply can’t relate to all the people suffering due to the malicious management of Dirpending, and because of that, he has a hard time mustering up motivation to help them. Now, since he does have the mentality of a 15 year old, it’s not as simple as him being too lazy to do the clearly right thing, but this is still an issue that many white people tend to have, and I wanted it to be a part of the story because it’s something that people should know about. People should be kinda mad at Isaac for not doing the right thing, even if it’s reasonable why he doesn’t do it, because there are a lot of real people who are in the exact same position that people should be kinda mad at for not helping, at least a little. I’m obviously not saying to bully 15 year olds, I’m talking more about the grown ups who are just to tired from a long week or other more mundane issues to prevent them from being a part of something much more important.

Next is… still Isaac, actually. This is more about his role as the commentator for this battle. It’s not something I’m going to be planning on doing too often, since I think getting into the head of the character as they’re fighting is a much more interesting that hearing someone unimportant say the obvious throughout the entire fight. Sure, it works for more visual mediums, because what’s happening on-screen sometimes has to be described or else the viewer may be left confused. But this isn’t a visual medium, I’m going to have to describe everything that happens anyway. Thus, a commentate character really isn’t necessary, unless they have some other use, like noticing something that the people fighting don’t, or something along those lines.

Okay, now we’re gonna talk about Messa, finally. Messa has always been a difficult character for me write about, since all the interesting stuff I have planned for him doesn’t happen until way later, but he’s still necessary for the story even this early on. So I sort of have to constantly stuff interesting stuff into him where I didn’t exactly have plans for. The thing you may find most surprising though, is that I had no idea what his ability was going to be for the longest time. The ring ability was actually going to go to Lina, with her being a much more important character. But I looked at the later sections of the story and realized I had like, wayy too many side characters. I’ve read Naruto, I know what’s gonna happen if I put in too many. So I ended up combining her with another important character who will be prominently featured next arc (if everything goes as planned.) So, I gave Lina’s previous ability to Messa, because it helped give him more of a backstory (something that I didn’t have much of for him at the time), and thought of something entirely different for Lina on the spot, while reducing her to an unimportant role in the story, which is why she doesn’t have a special font for her dialogue. Hopefully in the future I can make Messa a beloved character in the future, or at least, make him not just a writing tool with the label “Mentor Figure” slapped on top of him.

When it comes to Lina, I have a small handful of things to talk about. Her ability was meant to highlight different important aspects of Psynesis as a battle system, thus, her abilities are designed to have a huge impact on the fundamental abilities of Psynesis users, because then, I can talk about how Psynesis battling typically goes without everyone’s special abilities mixing everything up.

I hope you guys liked this chapter, because I’m pretty proud of it! If not, feel free to post any criticisms in the comments!

1-4 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-4, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

Hoo boy. When compared to 1-3, I’m definitely a little less proud of this one. That’s not to say that it’s a chapter I’m going to re-write, though. I feel as if it’s a necessary evil.

It’s a fuckload of stuff to go over in one chapter, but I feel like since it’s a system which ties into itself pretty frequently, and one that really requires an basic understanding of the entire system for you to really get into the meat of some fights. That’s not to say that this will be all of the introduction of Psynesis in general. The next couple of fights will be focused on going more in depth about one of the most important aspects of Psynesis that was already covered in this chapter. Although I haven’t written them yet as I am making this.

Now, onto the power system as a whole. If you’re familiar with Hunter X Hunter’s “Nen” then Psynesis will be very familiar. The conceptualization of Psynesis started with nen from Hunter X Hunter. With the whole Psynesis specialties thing. The first problem I had with Nen (and thus, creating a system that was heavily inspired by it) was how similar it was aesthetically to things such as Ki from Dragon Ball, and Chakra from Naruto. Every single one can be described the same, since they all come from very similar origins. They’re all “spiritual inner life forces” weaponized, and I thought that was very boring. So the first change I made to separate myself from Nen was conceptual, and visual. Now, instead of a spiritual origin, it’s a Sci-fi one. While I sat on the idea of “Mind Powers” for a couple of weeks, I then made the decision to split the entire power system into tricks on the mind, and more standard visual superpowers. Thus, the entire unique dynamic of Psynesis was born!

I’m thinking of making it to that people have a 100% proficiency in a physical specialty, they’ll be faster at empowering their body physically, while if they have a 100% proficiency in a mental specialty, they’ll be faster at surrounding making their body more dangerous in the mental realm. That way, I can emulate high-low defense in fighting games. For context, in standard fighting games, some attacks will be registered at a “High” or a “Low” which will determine you to block either high or low to block each of those types. In most fighting games, lows come out way faster than highs when someone is on the ground, so unless the opponent is jumping, most people block low by default, then react if the enemy is doing a overhead (or “High”) attack, and try to swap to blocking high. So if someone has a 100% mental proficiency, then the opponent they’re facing will typically block their body in the mental realm, and should be able to react to if they swap to trying to attack them with physically empowered attacks. Then vice verse if they have a 100% physical proficiency. Maybe I won’t though, I dunno.

Be sure to post your comments here about the chapter! Or about some of the ideas I brought up in this article.

1-3 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-3, if you haven’t read it yet, do so here. If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

Hoo boy. The first fight of this arc! Pretty exciting stuff, huh? I’m normally more methodical when it comes to conceptualizing this story, but when I get into the fight scenes, I usually think of one or two cool interactions that each new ability shown off in the battle, and then I write by the seat of my pants. It’s pretty fun, if you have the inspiration for it.

Although one of the hardest things to write in a fight scene is how the environment affects the battle. Although it’s something that you have to do, since otherwise it feels like your fight will quickly become boring without constant new elements added in. Sure, some battle series just constantly add in new factors through the characters, but that can feel really cheap if it’s done too much, especially if it’s without explanation. But as long as your power system is on a relatively low power level, you can easily add new environments as elements into the fight, which will quickly make your fight more interesting. Although if the power levels of your characters are too high, then it becomes a lot harder. After all, if someone can punch the peak off of a mountain, and survive a yacht falling onto them then what does it matter that their next fight is on a speeding train? It’s not impossible, but the lower the power ceiling, the more the impact the environment has on the fight. Granted, it’s not impossible to threaten powerful characters like that, if you usually have to almost invent the environment yourself. “Why aren’t these two super powerful not smashing through these train cars? They’ve punched the peaks off mountains before!” Then you’d have to invest some reason like how the train cars are 100x as dense, and that the train is going at hyper sonic speeds, so even such durable people will surely be killed if they fell off! So basically when the power level of your characters are high enough you have to constantly stop the fight (or explain beforehand) why these things actually matter. In many ways, this is actually worse than just adding in new abilities attached to the character, especially if their edition feels justified.

Man, I went off on a huge tangent, huh? My point is that since environments are so important to the types of fights I’m writing, that I made the main ability of the protagonist be one in which it’s interaction with the environment is key to utilizing it correctly.

When it comes to the actual chapter I think it shows off pretty clearly at what points I want to split a chapter into parts. At the end of each chapter part something intense happens that makes you want to read more. At least… that’s what I was going for. Again, I hope you liked it, I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope you thought it was a good introductory fight!

1-2 Thoughts

This is a blog post talking about 1-2 if you haven’t read it yet, do so here If you want to give criticisms for this section of the story, you will be able to post in the comments here!

But honestly, there’s not much to talk about here. I maybe merged this single chapter part with 1-1 or 1-3, but I decided that since the chapter was talking more about Elizabeth’s small backstory and establishing the hotel privileged side of the small community here, were’s other chapters will get into the other side of the community.

Again, not much to talk about here, which is a big contrast to 1-3.