Write Your Butt Off 358/II.8 prompts HD Final Chapter Prologue

[TheSilentChloey]

Who said anything about brides?!

[AnonymousSpeed]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Damnit Anon, you didn't tell me you were offering bribes this round.

 My strategies are nefarious and many.

4 hours ago, TheSilentChloey said:

Who said anything about brides?!

I would bribe people with anything. Anything.

[Venger_06]

I ultimately went with "The Last One" for the same reasons Benice and Anon stated before.

@indigoasis You should have developed your story more. I only have two words to describe: shocking swerve.

Spoiler

Also, did the guy rob a bank and only got one pearl?

[AnonymousSpeed]

So, I have given some thought to some things and decided to post these questions and critiques.

On 1/1/2022 at 6:27 PM, TheSilentChloey said:

I'm aware, but the setting of the story is before they knew that for sure.

Is this to say that the archeologists are old-timey 1800s archeologists? Maybe I glossed over a detail, but I feel like that didn't come through. I had assumed they were modern archeologists, which was not helped by the smarmy attitude of the dude's assistant. Smarmy attitudes generally come off as more contemporary.

@indigoasis

After pondering the ending, I have reached this possibility.

Spoiler

There are a couple reasons I think the twist might not work.

In a strictly technical sense, I can't help but wonder how this guy even benefits from hiding the pearl in a peach. Why does he have just one pearl anyway? Do banks keep pearls, and if so, why does he only have that? That's a small complaint though, not really structural or thematic, it's just details.

It does a nice job recontextualizing actions- the guy isn't rushing to meet someone, but to avoid the police (although, again, I don't see how this plan is to his benefit). The fact that he pays in a wad of cash actually works very nicely with this information. However, I think it falls flat because it lacks a "lesson"- not advocating for an obvious aesop, but what does the jeweler really have to kick himself about here?

The thief is not a very resonant character. The story is short and we only see him talking, not acting, so there isn't much attachment. A revelation about his character doesn't do much to rattle the reader as a result. However, the jeweler isn't so shocked as to rattle the reader either. This might be different if he made some personal sacrifice to help this kid out so he could later have more poignant regret, but he did his standard work for pay and will end up having to talk to some police officers, nothing that disruptive. It's not like he has a story he can use to tell people not to be trusting because he was not any more trusting of this kid than he would presumably be of an arbitrary neutral client.

The audience hasn't been sufficiently shocked directly (since we're not super invested in the kid) or vicariously (since the jeweler hasn't had some destructive experience or revelation).

Probably not properly articulated, but hopefully you get the point.

Fair prose though, it flowed pretty smoothly.

[TheSilentChloey]

3 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

So, I have given some thought to some things and decided to post these questions and critiques.

Is this to say that the archeologists are old-timey 1800s archeologists? Maybe I glossed over a detail, but I feel like that didn't come through. I had assumed they were modern archeologists, which was not helped by the smarmy attitude of the dude's assistant. Smarmy attitudes generally come off as more contemporary.

@indigoasis

After pondering the ending, I have reached this possibility.

  Reveal hidden contents

There are a couple reasons I think the twist might not work.

In a strictly technical sense, I can't help but wonder how this guy even benefits from hiding the pearl in a peach. Why does he have just one pearl anyway? Do banks keep pearls, and if so, why does he only have that? That's a small complaint though, not really structural or thematic, it's just details.

It does a nice job recontextualizing actions- the guy isn't rushing to meet someone, but to avoid the police (although, again, I don't see how this plan is to his benefit). The fact that he pays in a wad of cash actually works very nicely with this information. However, I think it falls flat because it lacks a "lesson"- not advocating for an obvious aesop, but what does the jeweler really have to kick himself about here?

The thief is not a very resonant character. The story is short and we only see him talking, not acting, so there isn't much attachment. A revelation about his character doesn't do much to rattle the reader as a result. However, the jeweler isn't so shocked as to rattle the reader either. This might be different if he made some personal sacrifice to help this kid out so he could later have more poignant regret, but he did his standard work for pay and will end up having to talk to some police officers, nothing that disruptive. It's not like he has a story he can use to tell people not to be trusting because he was not any more trusting of this kid than he would presumably be of an arbitrary neutral client.

The audience hasn't been sufficiently shocked directly (since we're not super invested in the kid) or vicariously (since the jeweler hasn't had some destructive experience or revelation).

Probably not properly articulated, but hopefully you get the point.

Fair prose though, it flowed pretty smoothly.

Actually lady's.

 

That said, it was too short and could have been expanded up to make it clearer.

[AnonymousSpeed]

9 hours ago, TheSilentChloey said:

That said, it was too short and could have been expanded up to make it clearer.

I don't know if it was too short (it honestly would have been just as good as a long poem), but a little clarification would have been good.

Anyway, congratulations on winning. What shall be our new prompt?

[Benice]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Anyway, congratulations on winning. What shall be our new prompt?

Curses, ya beat me to it.

Congrats to @TheSilentChloey for bringing home the bacon this round! Please select our next round's prompt at your earliest convenience.

This writing phase shall last from when the prompt is submitted until the 28th of January!

---

In other news, we have officially mended the constitution of WYBO! Henceforth, anonymous entries submitted through a PM to me will be accepted.  All that you need to do is send your entry to me via PMs, and I shall post it under an anonymous name on your behalf! (All other rules also apply to these anonymous entries.)

Have an excellent month, and happy writing!

[indigoasis]

18 hours ago, Awakened_06_ said:

I ultimately went with "The Last One" for the same reasons Benice and Anon stated before.

@indigoasis You should have developed your story more. I only have two words to describe: shocking swerve.

  Hide contents

Also, did the guy rob a bank and only got one pearl?

That's a good point about the pearl, I could've fleshed that out a bit more.

It could be a fake or the thief had more in his bag, but only had time to make one of them into a ring to sell for more. I'll leave that up to reader interpretation. Maybe he's actually a really bad thief!

17 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

After pondering the ending, I have reached this possibility.

  Hide contents

There are a couple reasons I think the twist might not work.

In a strictly technical sense, I can't help but wonder how this guy even benefits from hiding the pearl in a peach. Why does he have just one pearl anyway? Do banks keep pearls, and if so, why does he only have that? That's a small complaint though, not really structural or thematic, it's just details.

It does a nice job recontextualizing actions- the guy isn't rushing to meet someone, but to avoid the police (although, again, I don't see how this plan is to his benefit). The fact that he pays in a wad of cash actually works very nicely with this information. However, I think it falls flat because it lacks a "lesson"- not advocating for an obvious aesop, but what does the jeweler really have to kick himself about here?

The thief is not a very resonant character. The story is short and we only see him talking, not acting, so there isn't much attachment. A revelation about his character doesn't do much to rattle the reader as a result. However, the jeweler isn't so shocked as to rattle the reader either. This might be different if he made some personal sacrifice to help this kid out so he could later have more poignant regret, but he did his standard work for pay and will end up having to talk to some police officers, nothing that disruptive. It's not like he has a story he can use to tell people not to be trusting because he was not any more trusting of this kid than he would presumably be of an arbitrary neutral client.

The audience hasn't been sufficiently shocked directly (since we're not super invested in the kid) or vicariously (since the jeweler hasn't had some destructive experience or revelation).

Probably not properly articulated, but hopefully you get the point.

Fair prose though, it flowed pretty smoothly.

I can certainly see why the twist ending doesn't quite work out. It was kind of a spur of the moment idea, and I didn't want to make it super long, so I rolled with what I came up with.

Honestly, I really wanted to use the title I came up with. I have ideas to make the story longer and not a crime drama, but didn't think a longer story would work as well for the purposes of this thread.

~

Anyway, I'm looking forward to what's in store for this next prompt and it's entries. Good luck guys!

[TheSilentChloey]

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I don't know if it was too short (it honestly would have been just as good as a long poem), but a little clarification would have been good.

Anyway, congratulations on winning. What shall be our new prompt?

Shhh!!!!

 

4 hours ago, Benice said:

Curses, ya beat me to it.

Congrats to @TheSilentChloey for bringing home the bacon this round! Please select our next round's prompt at your earliest convenience.

This writing phase shall last from when the prompt is submitted until the 28th of January!

---

In other news, we have officially mended the constitution of WYBO! Henceforth, anonymous entries submitted through a PM to me will be accepted.  All that you need to do is send your entry to me via PMs, and I shall post it under an anonymous name on your behalf! (All other rules also apply to these anonymous entries.)

Have an excellent month, and happy writing!

XD Oh what fun, and let the PUNS commence!

 

Okay I'll stop, but in all seriousness...

 

Your theme is:

 

New Beginnings

 

Have fun~!

[Benice]

Int Interesting... I quite like this one. I hope I can get something done for it, but I don't have any clear idea off the top of my head.

 

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 1/3/2022 at 12:06 PM, Benice said:

Curses, ya beat me to it.

I am Speed.

Time to get maybe thinking about writing.

[TheSilentChloey]

Yeah I went broad for this one...

[SoulWeaver]

On 1/3/2022 at 2:28 PM, TheSilentChloey said:

New Beginnings

Hm, too bad I already shared Insanity back during the Subvert Expectations one. Might continue that story though.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Maybe @Jotari can treat us to the tale of how Dheginsea began to grow his facial hair out.

[TheSilentChloey]

10 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Maybe @Jotari can treat us to the tale of how Dheginsea began to grow his facial hair out.

I'd like to see that.

[Benice]

Just over one week left!

 

I finally got going on my entry, but it's gonna be extremely long... Hopefully I can finish it in time.

[SoulWeaver]

I'm working on it, Chloey can attest I have something, I'm just procrastinating again. Should be done on time now that I know where I want it to go.

[TheSilentChloey]

It seems everyone is procrastinating lmao

[Benice]

>The rules advise staying below 10k words

>The introduction to my as of yet incomplete submission is just shy of 2k

>It's not even supposed to be 10% of the story and is only setting the table for the next bit

>The current plan is to have multiple different arcs

Zoinks, why do I always do such longwinded stories? It's been so long since I last wrote anything, so it's unlikely to be very strong too...

Welp, if I can get my story in on time, y'all better strap in. And go to the bathroom before you do, because Lanta almighty, this one's gonna be bigger than my ego.

[SoulWeaver]

Dude probably half of my early entries required like three paragraphs of pre-read exposition dump to properly understand and I'd say about half of my overall entries are just tiny pieces of a much bigger story, we'll all be happy to see whatever you have time to share.

[AnonymousSpeed]

11 hours ago, Benice said:

>The current plan is to have multiple different arcs

Hey dude, sounds like you've got this one planned out.

11 hours ago, Benice said:

this one's gonna be bigger than my ego.

That doesn't sound too bad.

On 1/20/2022 at 3:06 PM, SoulWeaver said:

I'm working on it, Chloey can attest I have something, I'm just procrastinating again. Should be done on time now that I know where I want it to go.

On 1/21/2022 at 7:46 AM, TheSilentChloey said:

It seems everyone is procrastinating lmao

Undoubtedly. But with 3 days left, I can still probably fit in all the bits I wanted.

[indigoasis]

Okay, I hope I've got this in on time, and from the looks of it, I think I do.

I'll admit, this prompt was kinda hard for me to come up with something decent, but I think I pulled through. Hopefully.

It's mostly dialogue, so it should be a fairly quick read.

Title: His Woes

Words: 1133

Spoiler

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nrEBBh4nb-ej4ct53JblRaCTjogpyYzmxMDFiPiyRA8/edit?usp=sharing

[SoulWeaver]

Alright so this ends in an awfully rushed fashion in my opinion but I was almost completely incapacitated on Wednesday and spent all my functional time yesterday playing Exceed and watching TerminalMontage videos because time and me do not mix. However, finished is finished so here we go.

Don't have a title yet

2011~ words

Spoiler

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YKLXh40bevg873mpofiD7RzgkRzW_P6wi-P9_wn-ue8/edit?usp=sharing

Notes:

Spoiler

This is set in the same world as 'BEHOLD A CONCEPT' from the villain round, if anyone still remembers that one. Dr. Jonathan Staner is one of the key people from that world for a number of reasons. Jane is new for this piece, but I already have a pretty good idea of what happens to her in the end after the researchers of The Facility bite off more than they can chew, which begins a series in my stuff ominously titled Demons & The Dead. Hopefully I can share more of that at some point in the future.

 

[AnonymousSpeed]

Ayo, did somebody ask for a last minute entry where unfamiliar characters and concepts are introduced without good explanation?

No?

Well. Um. That's a bit awkward.

I'll just...leave this here, then.

Title: I'll add this later
Word Count: ~2,000

Spoiler

A tall, broad-shouldered man stood over his desk in a private laboratory. The room was filled with towering mainframes, controls longer than an average desk and monitors like massive windows into a strange digital world. It was buried deep beneath the Earth, hidden behind no less than three immovable metal doors, each with advanced electronic locks. It was, to most, impenetrable.

The man flipped through the yellowing pages of his journal, thinking back on old times that had lead him here. The book had been with him since he was a boy. He had built an empire, the multinational corporation Slithr Inc. From his basement in a far away and foreign land he had secured all the power and resources needed for his life long dream.

A horribly racket echoed from down the hall, as though a bull was charging down it. He looked up from his journal and turned around.

A dark and hazy figure stomped through a closed door. "What the fuck Serpent?" The form of the intruder solidified, revealing a thin build, dark bodysuit, and purple visor. "I gave you this tech on the explicit condition you wouldn't try any of this 'fix the world' bullshit."

Serpent look at the figure and smiled softly. "Apostate, how kind of you to check in. I must thank you for that. Without your help, the Dimensional Area would not have been possible. We are now mere weeks from surrounding the entire planet in a single, uninterrupted, perpetual Dimensional Area. The boundary between the physical and digital world will be, for our purposes, erased. We can summon any program in any place that we like. Whenever we see a problem, I can take immediate steps to address it. All thanks to our efforts."
"Don't say 'we' or 'our' at me. I'm giving you ten seconds to shut this shit down, or I'm gonna rip your head from your neck and shove it up your ass."
"...I must respectfully decline your request."

Serpent reached casually to his desk and pressed a button on a small remote.

In a series of bright blue flashes, three strange entities appeared between the two men. A ghostly knight with a sword of violet fire, a red and black turret with three flaming barrels, and a deep blue hardhat hiding a pick-axe swinging blob. A Swordy, a Basher, and  Mettaur, of various levels. Viruses from the net, materialized into the real world. Such was the power of the Dimensional Area.

With a hateful sigh, Apostate cracked his knuckles. "You never fucking learn, do you?" There was a lingering, contemptuous emphasis on the word 'fucking'.

"No," began Serpent. "I am eager to learn everything." With another press of the button, crystalline-looking walls surrounding him and his mainframes, manifested by the power of the Dimensional Area. They would not defend against Apostate, he could just walk through them, but it would prevent the viruses from dealing any collateral damage.

Having the advantage in range, the Basher began first. The turret raised into the air and aimed as Apostate, firing three flaming shells. Fighting instinct took over, and he dashed forward as the ground behind him shattered, the Swordy rushing up to meet him with its sword at the ready. The mettaur slammed its pickaxe into the ground, sending a shockwave towards its humanoid opponent.

Apostate quickly side-stepped the shockwave. The swordy lunge at him with a heavy swing, but his body body once again became surrounded by a haze, and the attack passed harmlessly through him. He grabbed the knight's exposed hand and swung the creature overhead, slamming it into the ground, shattering the concrete and sending pieces of armor flying in all directions. The shards of the swordy soon disappeared in the same blue flash they had come from, data banished back to the digital realm.

The Basher had locked on its mark once again and readied to fire. Apostate glanced behind him and back-flipped into the air, avoiding the volley, twirling around so he faced forward once he landed. This brought him near the mettaur, now cowering under its helmet. His hazy hand reached through its hardhat and grabbed the virus by its stubby foot, and Apostate flung it at the Basher's turret.

The force of the throw knocked the canons aside, if slightly, and sent the mettaur flying into a wall. Apostate marched towards the Basher and leaped atop the turret while the hardhat skid upside down along the ground.

The Basher couldn't do much but try to shake off Apostate, but failed to do so before he'd ripped the cover from its vent slammed it into the firing mechanism, causing the fiery guns to die a quiet death. Disabled, the Basher too was banished to net in a flash of light, letting Apostate drop to the ground. He marched ahead, crushing the mettaur underfoot just as it came to a stop. The wall between him and his target disappeared, as if inviting him forward.

"Alright Serpent, I'm giving you one more chance, since you signed my paychecks for two years. Turn. It. Off."

Serpent turned around calmly. He was almost twice Apostate's size, two heads taller and with far more musculature, but they both knew he stood no chance against Apostate in his current form. The CEO shook his head, disappointed. "Having known you for two years, I can say with confidence that you, unfortunately, cannot be convinced. I cannot either. Let's not degrade ourselves with useless-"

Apostate threw a sudden jab which Serpent, impressively, dodged. Cleanly too, though this didn't stop Apostate from grabbing him by the collar and rearing back to pummel him. He'd have lifted him off the ground if not for the difference in height.

"You just had to try and be a hero, didn't you?" Apostate snarled.
"How could I not? I have the opportunity to address all the evils I see in the world. No more crimes. No more accidents. If I can prevent it all, I would be a villain not to try. Innumerable sins of omission."
Apostate narrowed his eyes. "Fucking no. I don't trust anyone to make that call, and I definitely don't trust a pink-haired communist." Just then he felt something hard and metallic slam into the back of his head. He stumbled to the side, dropping his mark, and spun around to see a white and gold figure. "Oh fuck. WatchMan."

"Impressive, isn't it?" Serpent asked. "It took a bit more configuration for him than your typical navigator, but I think he'll prove to be worth it."

WatchMan stood like a statue, static and emotionless, as he always did. Camera-like eyes and a giant stopwatch which could be used as a ball and chain. Apostate collected himself and cautiously approached, then threw another punch. WatchMan was sent stumbling back, but Apostate watched with wide eyes as he opened the watch and pushed a button on its side.

Time had stopped.

At least, time had stopped for everyone but WatchMan. The shining navi closed his stopwatch and swung it again, hitting Apostate on the shoulder. The frozen fighter spiraled a short distance to the side and then stopped, his momentum frozen, his mind unaware. WatchMan struck him with the flail a second time, then grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against a guarded mainframe.

As he stepped back, time resumed.

Apostate suddenly felt the full force of two blunt impacts shoving him into the wall for a third. All the wind was knocked out of him, and he crumbled to the floor, struggling to regain breath. Serpent walked forward, keeping WatchMan between him an Apostate, and began speaking.

"Now, Apostate. As you have been a useful contributor for these past two years, as well as an interesting conversation partner, I will give you another chance. Hopefully you can now see reason, having seen the fruits of our labors."

Apostate gasped for air and got up to a kneel. "Serpent...." Slowly, he came to his feet. "Sooner of later you're going to fuck up, and it's going to leave people worse off than they were. Don't do this."

Though he resented the implication of fallibility, Serpent shook his head and did not argue the specific point. "I would rather die as a villain than live as a nobody who did nothing. I am tired of people doing nothing."

Apostate thought about his situation. He'd beaten WatchMan before in standard netbattles, but the opposite had also happened. His win record wasn't consistent enough for him to want to bank on it.

"God damn it Serpent..." Apostate wiped his mouth and backed away towards the door. As fast as he could he phased through it into the hall. With a single line of instruction Serpent had the door open, but by then Apostate had already disappeared.

***

A floating green program carried a bottle of wine on its flat head.

Apostate took it from the odd creation and poured a glass for Serpent. For himself, he took a swig directly from the bottle. "Well Serpent, you actually did it. You put a Mr. Prog in your lab."

Serpent held up his glass, and Apostate nearly knocked it from his grip with a toast.

"No friend. We did it. Your contributions are immeasurable."
"I guess I am pretty amazing."
"Quite. You are a technological visionary, if not a political one."
"Fuck politics, my dude."
"A crass visionary."
"I won't deny it." Apostate shrugged coyly. "Here me out though. This is where the real work begins. Now that we've proven it can be done, it's just a matter of getting it right, getting it cheap enough that anyone can use it. It'll be like how the internet made it so anyone can learn whatever they want, except instead of knowing stuff, it's everything. It's power to do whatever you want."

"It's a dangerous game to give away that kind of power freely."
Apostate scoffed.

"I know you don't agree, but this is how it is. If everyone has equal power, then so too will people who will act violently, or even merely carelessly. If there is no greater concentration of power to control and oversee these people, they will bring tears and destruction to everyone, even themselves."

Old memories began to stir inside Serpent, and his countenance grew somber, almost mournful.

"My grandfather lived with my parents and I, back in the old country. He was a man of the merely careless sort, and we lost more cats and dogs to accidents than I care to think about. There are things like that happening all the time in the world. But with this, I could just...reach out, and catch anyone who went too close to the edge. I could remove the risk of falling."

"Fuck off Serpent!" Apostate tightened his grip around the neck of the bottle and very nearly slammed it on the ground. He took a deep breath. "Listen. Back before I was an 'apostate', when I was still living in a Murian computer cult in the middle of the fucking desert, they had this 'council of the elders' thing. Those guys got to call all the shots. They had rules and they got to pick who the rules applied to. Well fuck the rules, Serpent. Let me tell you this, if it means nobody gets to boss everyone around like they did, I'll take all the falls in the world. People can beat the shit out of each other however much they can get away with."
"I do not think most people want to live that way."
"Sorry, no choice in it. You can either throw a punch or take a beating. I don't give a fuck if that's what people want, that's how it is."
"I must respectfully disagree."

Apostate rolled his eyes and took another swig from the bottle. "Damn, this stuff is nice. What is it?"
"It's an Austrian Lutzmannsburger. The country is more known for whites, but I prefer reds."
"Of course you do, tankie."
"Yes, well." Serpent took a slow sip from his glass and then placed it down. "Regardless of what form that takes, I'm certain we can agree that what we've accomplished here today signals the arrival of a new, better era."
"No doubt. Hopefully the economic impacts will finally get milk prices back down."
"Agreed."

 

For those unfamiliar, this is basically in an alternate version of the Mega Man Battle Network universe.

Edited January 29, 2022 by AnonymousSpeed

[Benice]

Much like AnonymousSpeed, I shall last-minute drop my own entry with not enough context!

 

Title: The Hollow Dragon

Word Count: Too many/5,153

---

Pre-pre-read notes:

So, uh, remember how I said the introduction to the main story I had planned was 2k words?

I was wrong. I was very wrong.

This is not the story I had in mind; in fact, this is just the introduction to it, and I barely squeaked this in on time. Thusly, it's not super relevant to the theme of "New Beginnings".  I probably shouldn't get into the habit of being disparaging of my own works before people can even read 'em.

It's also the first thing I've written in nearly two years, so it's very scuffed and honestly fairly cringe. I'm not particularly proud of the product, but I'm very proud that I finally did the thing I said I would and submitted an entry, and I did have a good time writing it. Hopefully I can make a part 2 for a later round or something so that I can do something with this introduction?

Either way, I hope you enjoy reading it.

---

Pre-read notes:

Spoiler

The setting isn't really explained at all, but it's basically just a generic medieval fantasy world. Magic exists but is seldom used outside of big cities, and mythological creatures might exist, but if they do, they are beyond the reach of humanity at this point.

-Also, pretend that this is Yakuza/use anime logic; anything that happens within a fight scene won't kill you unless it's clear that either person really wants to kill the other, so people using sharp weapons against each other isn't too huge of a deal. You would not die if you got shanked and lose during a duel, because that is inconvenient for the way I tried to write fight scenes. I am a good writer.

The entry:

Spoiler

Have a nice day, my friend

Post-read notes:

Spoiler

-The names are a bit of a mess because I initially was going to name all of the bandits after fire-related things, but the names got way too long. Velikan was subject to, like, six name changes. Inun and Aestus retained their original names that were themed after water. After a lot, and I mean a lot, of name-theme changes, I eventually settled on naming the bandits after Geysers and hot springs; Faithful being named after Old Faithful in Yellowstone,  Andernach after a cold-water geyser near a town with the same name in Germany, and Velikan after a geyser in Russia.

 

-I've never really written fight scenes before, so this was my first attempt at really doing so. I don't think I did a great job with it, but I'll see what the feedback about that says.

 

-The inspiration for Inun's race's lore, as well as her own fighting style and attire comes from the Okami, the Corrupted Monk's moveset combined with the Juggling Okami, and True Monk, respectively, all of these from Sekiro. I don't think I did those beautiful animation justice here with my interpretation of them, but as I learn how to write well over time, I look forwards to doing stuff with Inun as a character and warrior. I shan't relinquish the other character who inspired her a little bit.

 

-I will admit to Velikan kind of being inspired from Josette, though I tried really hard not to emulate a character who I've seen basically one scene of and hoped to get a little more depth to her than that.

 

-Much like Inun's fighting style, my idea for Velikan's fighting style is a bit like the Wolf's from Sekiro. Well, mostly in the sense of using lots of deflections to wear down a foe's posture, though I also wanted to emulate parts of Saejima's and Akiyama's fighting styles from Yakuza 4, though this only manifested with a single punch. Ah well, maybe in a part 2.

 

-The tattoos were inspired, nay, ripped from Yakuza as well. I feel like it's clear enough, but Velikan's got only the outlines of a dragon's scales because she's fairly new to banditry, whereas Andernach is seasoned and therefore all colored in.

 

-I feel like the pacing in this was very off, so feedback regarding that is very much appreciated.