Rescuing Sara Waite

This is a school. There are always more students to open or make more doors. The authors are good enough to keep the story progressing. Where it was slowing up was when they were getting short on active authors. That appears to have been fixed.
Thanks to all of the authors who have found away to keep things going forward.

Valentine wrote: When she was hidden no one was present, there is no reason to think anyone but Speakeasy knows.

Security was told where and how approximately Sara, and the stuff stolen from her, was hidden. I can't remember which story this scene was in.

It was just that security did a haphazard and sloppy job of searching, probably having neither the motivation for a thorough search nor the belief that the information they got was trusthworthy. Speakeasy was a bit more thorough in hiding the incriminating evidence when he believed he might just escape justice for his actions and the security doing the searches did not look past the immediate obvious.

Yes, yes,... the box on the shelf in the closet.. The piece of tyvekk taped under the bench. We need a lab fire and an angry Kellith to appear in the labs to a new gen of students who don't know about Sara.. then for the first gen to find out when all of those psychic links/ blood sisterhoods become awakened and they run back to the school.

Nikki can't go too far. the World-Tree is in the grove so its not as if she has moved to North Dakota and opened a Sidthe casino on indian lands.

A reunification like that may "force" groups to work together or to choose sides.. The Bastard may have corrupted others in the league or even in TK.

Inanna wrote: If an author tires of the genre, dies or goes completely off-topic it just takes it all to a grinding halt. That is what has happened to Gen1. No more growth is possible, imagination dies as other authors just have nothing to interplay off of.

Sadly that is what is happening to all of Whateley Academy.

Wow, way to just write off the millions of words the Gen 1 crew have written in the last few years. Elrod and E. E. Nalley have been building a whole cast around Kayda and Lanie to drive the Nimbus and Bastard plots forward, and Kristin has been hinting for ages that Esoteric will become relevant Someday^TM. Then there are all the other fun Gen 1 stories that have nothing to do with Nimbus, the Bastard, or TK; or do Morpheus's, JG's, Phoenix's, and Bek's contributions mean nothing to you?

It sucks that so many individual character plots had to be abandoned or abridged, but to claim that no more growth is possible? Those who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those who are doing it.

Inanna wrote: It sort of kills off the entire universe if a key character can no longer be a major contributor to the overall story when there are already so many plot dependencies written around them being around for the next parts.

The "orphaned" characters can still be major contributors to the action without being the "Point of View" protagonists. The big difference is that the story protagonists will mostly only see the masks these characters present to the world, just like the limited view we have of our friends, family, coworkers, etc.

It's also similar to more "real world" situations: some people we count on are transferred, some die, some just find someone else to be invested in, but life still goes on.

Inanna wrote: What is another writer to do? Its as if you are in a hallway full of doors and they are all locked off to you.

Non-canon fan-contributed work can still be written with those characters as protagonists. There just isn't a lot of interest in doing so.

The canon authors still have some idea of what their colleagues intended for their characters' story arcs, so the death of Tennyo at the hands of Squirrel Girl's expy in Year Three can still happen. It's just that those final moments will be depicted through Hank's view of the battle instead of Billie's.

That's what story outlines are all about, right?

Inanna wrote: If an author tires of the genre, dies or goes completely off-topic it just takes it all to a grinding halt. That is what has happened to Gen1. No more growth is possible, imagination dies as other authors just have nothing to interplay off of.

From what I've read, the Whateley Academy project was never meant to be a single author's vision, revolving around one or two protagonists, with all the others busy filling out the trivial or boring parts. If it were, this complaint would make more sense to me.

Perhaps if you could explain what you mean by "growth"? I think we are using different meanings for this word in the context of a body of literature spanning multiple novel-length stories already.

Inanna wrote: ... imagination dies as other authors just have nothing to interplay off of.

Statements like this - characterizing everything not revolving around their favorite character as killing the entire universe, knocking on locked doors, lacking in imagination, amounting to nothing - are sufficient reason for me to never write a story from Jade Sinclair's perspective, unless I'm writing something NSFL.

And yet ... and yet ... it does not seem fair to the characters themselves to abandon them to a Null Hole.
It would not be difficult to rescue Sara while staying 100% inside Canon and without misusing any 'owned' characters. To be sure, the TK characters would be there and active, but they would not be 'central'. There are a number of very useful but 'un-owned' characters who could lead the plot. Yes, I have been thinking about it.

Cheers

Erianaiel wrote:

Valentine wrote: When she was hidden no one was present, there is no reason to think anyone but Speakeasy knows.

Security was told where and how approximately Sara, and the stuff stolen from her, was hidden. I can't remember which story this scene was in.

It was just that security did a haphazard and sloppy job of searching, probably having neither the motivation for a thorough search nor the belief that the information they got was trusthworthy. Speakeasy was a bit more thorough in hiding the incriminating evidence when he believed he might just escape justice for his actions and the security doing the searches did not look past the immediate obvious.

Security knows it is looking for a small safe, and a piece of Tyvek about 3 feet square. They have no idea where either are.

Riddle of Sappho wrote: "We're supposed to tear the place apart, looking for a small G-mart safe, and also for a piece of Tyvek, folded or rolled up." Metler started looking around the shelves, including underneath them.

...

Green snorted derisively. "Not asking for much, are they? The safe? Yeah, I can see finding that. But a paper like that? That could be folded up or rolled up and put damned near anywhere, including in the ducts."

I mean absolutely no disrespect to the authors; They are doing a fantastic job and I love every story they put out.

For me it is like working on a bid response where I may have a section that I need to write a narrative on. If it does not interlock with the overall design or if someone else drops the ball (professionally speaking) it forces me to go back and rewrite, abandon or tear-out major sections. I may have been thinking one way and playing out a design in my head but then when the overall story has a gap you can't use that part.

For what I do there may be six or seven of us writing a one hundred page response in one night and we each have our specializations (characters) if it does not work together as a whole then there are inconsistencies and the customer tears apart our bid package (the story line).

I have been the contributor of sections, I have also been the ringleader (editor) reading and rereading, editing, to fix inconsistencies. In a bid package the contributors just get to grumble about it. In creative writing it is rather more personal.

---

It can be fatiguing work when you are getting paid for it and it is on some sort of hard deadline but "its still just a job"... What is done here is personal and its a passion.. its imaginations and dreams... and the real magic of trying to make it work with many different people who all have their own ideas about their characters story and where they would like it to go.

I can understand how someone can get dispirited. I understand that people drop off the face of the Earth or lose interest.. I understand that reading BS on a forum that may seem critical can just make that worse.... SO I mean absolutely no disrespect... I hold the authors in the highest regard and am amazed that they can do this.

I do not think that expecting Security to find the Tyvek is realistic: that is not how things are done at Whateley. Forget that.

Nikki is Sara's blood sister, but the circle was well made and not even Nikki's powers would suffice to see through the circle. But she does not have to see through the circle: she only has to detect it. Perhaps one cannot detect a circle? Maybe not but then I would expect that, thanks to the Laws of Magic (the Essential Flaw), she should be able to detect an absence of reality just there. In essence, she would be looking for a sort of black hole.

If one cannot sense a circle with Magic, can one sense it with some other sort of power? Just how old are the Tarot cards (in Whateley-verse)? Gypsy has Sara's Mark, so she would have a very strong drive to find Sara. Can she do enough Tarot readings to get her just near the hiding place? After which, Nikki could scan.

Jade is backed by a Demon, even if that demon is unknown. Could that demon spur jade on to motivate Gypsy? This would only make Jade's appearance a minor one: Gypsy would be the lead character as she follows the cards.

I hate situations which end abruptly without some sort of closure. There are too many threads already where that has happened. Bad form.

Cheers

rcaffin wrote: Jade is backed by a Demon, even if that demon is unknown. Could that demon spur jade on to motivate Gypsy? This would only make Jade's appearance a minor one: Gypsy would be the lead character as she follows the cards.

Which Demon is backing Jade?