Commentary, Part 5: The Aftermath

This commentary covers the following posts:
Untitled
Untitled (Ravens and Writing Desks)
This is why I barely ever drink
Introduction (Ravens and Writing Desks)
Wrapping a few things up
Another Report
Messenger's Report (Heavy Boy)
Caper's Last Tale (Ravens and Writing Desks)

A lot of posts to cover again, but a lot of them with little substance that can be glossed over more simply.

The first post, as you may have gathered, was simply just trolling.  It appears to be a stereotypical "Slender Man is making me lose my mind!" post until it's revealed in my next post that...Messi just had a hell of a hangover.  Some people like realism, some people like meta, but what I really, really like to do when I'm writing is mess with people's expectations.  Build something up, and then subvert it.

Around this time, I had started getting worried about writing Poe.  I knew she would be a difficult character, largely because of who she was, and I knew it would be difficult for me to avoid writing her in a way that seemed sort of backwards in terms of female characters.  After all, Poe is quiet and submissive, and with potential romance playing such a large role in the story, you can see how I might have been a bit worried.  So I asked AJ, who had previously just helped me brainstorm some, if she'd want to write Poe, since she had helped develop the character and all.  She eagerly agreed, and Ravens and Writing Desks was born.

The first post is a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, entitled, "Annabel Lee."  As you might already know, that's Poe's real name.  She was, in fact, named after the poem as her parents were (as is later mentioned) both English majors.  This poem is the reason her name became Poe, so it made sense to start the blog with it.  The second post is just a basic introduction that's fairly self-explanatory.

Anyway, moving on past that discourse.  An important event that occurs offscreen (or, at least, more offscreen than anything else in the blog) is Poe visiting Messi and spending the night drinking with him.  This encounter was actually roleplayed through a Skype chat, with Alex playing the part of Poe.  While I don't believe I have the conversation anymore, it helped develop both characters and, more importantly, bring them closer together.  They bonded over memories of Caper.  Poe had many and Messi had few, but talking about them helped nonetheless.  The two also started actually paying attention to each other at this point.  Before that, they had been sort of peripherals in the other's life, connected by a mutual friend.  They do something close to flirting while drunk, though it's mostly just trying to cheer each other up.  And really, at that point in time, it's something that both characters needed.  Poe needed someone to latch on to, and at this point in time, Caper and Helios are both dead.  Messi was the next closest person.  And Messi, had Poe not reached out, would have shut himself off from the world and gone spiraling down into depression.

This is where we planted the first pushes towards a relationship between Poe and Messi, bolstered by their awkwardness surrounding the whole thing.  Also note that Messi states that he is not a frequent drinker at this point, whereas he's practically an alcoholic by the end of the blog.

I really have nothing to say about the other posts, other than Poe's eulogy for Caper straddles the line between heartbreaking and funny.

Commentary, Part 3: The Setup

This commentary covers the following posts:
Caper's Capers
Untitled
Interview with Caper. Again.
Who was William?
Interview with Alex
From Zero to Hero to Zero
Messenger's Report (The Last Refuge of a Dangerous Man)

A lot of posts to cover this time, but a few of them aren't as important to the story, and the next few posts are a lot denser.

Basically, these posts are where you get to see Caper do what Caper does.

Even back in the first post about him, Caper had a certain flair to him.  He liked dark comedy and was very rarely serious, and that transferred into "Caper's Capers" directly.  It's also where The Messenger started conducting the interviews that became such a big part of the blog.

The story Caper tells in "Caper's Capers" was suggested by Alex.  It is, essentially, Batman's backstory mixed with some phony bit about Caper's quest to become a comedian.  In fact, I think parts of it may be inspired by Batman's arch-nemesis, the Joker.  I'm not too familiar with the character, but it sounds like a story he'd tell.  Either way, the "Multiple Choice Past" that Caper used was, in fact, inspired by the Joker's.

"Caper's Capers" was also when the Messenger's nickname of "Messi" showed up.  The spelling is taken from Lionel Messi, the Argentinian football (soccer) player.  I liked the look of it and it didn't have the implications of messiness that "Messy" or "Messie" have.

The untitled post about trust was largely some exposition, brought about on Messi's part by reflection on Caper's lies.  He figured it was better to open up than to hide behind walls, since he was still determined not to lose sight of who he actually was.  I think it was also as a leadup to sharing about his brother Kyle, as he knew people would start figuring things out eventually.

"Interview with Caper. Again." was me returning to Caper again to build him up more.  He was a fun character and people seemed to like him well enough, which was what I was hoping for.  This is where Messi started using the transcript form he used for conversations throughout the blog.  It's also where I started actually delving into the operation of the organization he was part of.  I introduced the concept of "Trackers," at this point, and though the idea that the mole-like nature of the job made absolutely everyone in the blogosphere close to untrustworthy never caught on, I really liked the idea.  In my head, there's still a ton of runners that get caught that way and there are a ton of runner blogs written by proxies--you just never see them because they only exist within that universe.

This is where the indication of Caper using this as a coping mechanism started shining through more, with his "guy jumping from a window" speech.  It's also where you get the first hint that Poe's not what you think she is, with Caper's statement that she's "not really an agent."

Caper's "backstory" in this section references LOST, as the bit about him being a balloonist named Henry Gale references Benjamin Linus's original story and the bits about his father parallel Ben's actual backstory on the island.  The bit about the tentacles, though...well, as hesitant as I am to admit it, that's my own creation, brought about by joking around in a chat with some other creators.  I've found that the internet urges me to be profane in some new, creative ways.

I switched things up a bit with "Who was William?" showing Caper's joking around and storytelling as less comedic.  It shows that he's a compassionate person to some, as he gave some of the Husks (here still referred to as the Broken by Messi) an identity.  The story that William tells is a Ghost Rider reference.  Looking back at the post, I could have easily set up an arc focusing on William and who exactly he was, but I ultimately decided not to pursue it.  It remains a mystery, and you can come up with your own answers if you'd like.

The interview with Alex was pure filler, but one I wanted to do.  I liked the concept of a persona based on A Clockwork Orange.  It also sort of helped give Poe a bit more prominence in the story so that she didn't come out of nowhere.  It was fun to write, but ultimately served no purpose, and I ended up killing off Alex offscreen with only a small, casual mention later on.

Finally, I wanted to talk about the report for Zero.  I was glad to work with him since it ended up bringing me a fair amount of traffic, and it was my first time actually using the Messenger to end someone else's blog (instead of my own).  My character blasted his pretty hard for the choices he made, but it was fun to write.  It also helped complete a cycle.  He helped me end one of my blogs, and I helped him end one of his.

Anyway, this segment of posts just helped me solidify what I was doing even more, and helped me set up for the next set of posts: the conclusion of my first arc.

Commentary, Part 2: Finding my Footing

This commentary covers the following posts:

Death Threats?
Back to the Daily Grind

Only two posts this time because there's a lot of ground to cover.

"Death Threats?" requires a little bit of context.  It was sparked by this comment:

Marnax May 25, 2011 12:33 AM

Okay, you can either join us, or I'll have to kill you when I see you, and I WILL see you. Count on it.

Basically, he had entirely missed the point of what the character was saying, so I had the Messenger unload on him (and anyone else who might think that way).  The Messenger was very much intended, even from that point, to be a sympathetic proxy.  So I hammered the sympathetic proxy nature of the blog over everyone's head.

I like the post for several reasons.  For one, it allowed me to flesh out Hyde post-blog a little more, as well as reveal the name of "Girl" as Erin.  It also allowed me to present my view of the "hallowed" form of proxies.  It was also the birth of "William," an identity passed around from proxy to proxy.  Who (or what) exactly is William?  I'm not entirely sure.  I like to think of it as a sort of an infectious identity.  It gets passed on from one person to another, and then the original host dies.  There's probably still a William around somewhere.

In terms of plot, the post didn't have much purpose.  However, it set up the themes of identity I used throughout DSTM, and introduced the concept of Messi searching for answers about his place in the organization.  In reality, this post is where the blog really starts.

Once I had an idea of what I wanted to do with the blog, I started asking around for ideas.  I wanted to examine more proxies, and two blogging friends ended up helping me: Alex M (Dreams in Darkness, Watch this City Burn, Maleorderman, Deja vu Dreamer, and others), and AJ (It's All David's Fault, Throwing Voices, and others).

I asked a Skype chat of creators for a name, and AJ offered Poe.  From there, we started chatting about how we could work the character into the story, and after a bit, AJ, Alex, and I split off to a separate chat to talk about it.  I had an idea of a possible romance between a proxy and a runner, and Alex offered to involve an upcoming character he had planned to write.  As a result, Poe quickly switched to being female (she had originally been male), the romance developed into a love triangle, and her character started developing.

"Back to the Daily Grind" was the post where I introduced Poe and Caper.  Caper was originally named Eternity (or possibly Epitaph; though Eternity was how I remembered it), but I switched it when I realized that it was a terrible name for his character.  His nature was cemented with the name change, and Caper became a larger-than-life character designed to steal the whole show.  In fact, I purposely built Caper up more to hide Poe's importance.  In fact, I edited the original post, which had subtly revealed Poe's gender, to make it even more ambiguous.

There's also still some "Early Installment Weirdness" going on here.  Messi's talking about the Slender Man visiting regularly (or as he calls him, "The Boss"), when later on it was implied that Slendy doesn't really care much about what the organization is up to.  I'm also a bit embarrassed now by the small-texted "safer for everyone" line.  Really, all that did was draw attention to the line when it should have deflected it away.  It's really not Messi's style.

Anyway, like the post says, this is really where I started finding my footing and realizing where I was going to go with the blog.  I had some advice from AJ and Alex, and I was really excited to start putting it into action.