[SS 6.4] God's Justice (Crusader States AAR, with BGR IV and more!) Complete + Behind the Scenes

[Swaeft]

EPILOGUE

1245 AD, Five Years After The Events of the Previous Chapter

“Reports from the Holy Land, sir.”

Senior Master Scribe Robert De Quar thanked the messenger and carried the satchel of parchments into the room. Setting them down on the wooden table kicked up a cloud of dust, so Robert decided to vacate the room for a little while. Promotion doesn’t mean better accommodation, apparently. This is to be my life until I pass from this world? Sitting in a dark room organizing papers?

Robert had been pressured to join the clergy at a young age, to serve God and his fellows. Being raised in a pious family right here in Rome made it so that Robert would eventually grow up to serve the church itself. He didn’t want to be a priest, though, so Robert chose to serve in another capacity – an unbiased scribe serving the Lord by spreading the truth to the four corners of the world. He was allowed to travel and see things many of his own friends would never even dream of laying their eyes on. And he had found it meaningful.

Until now.

Robert saw first-hand what was being done with the reports brought sent to Rome from the Holy Land. Nothing. Even the ones he had spent hours painstakingly writing with his own hands were ignored. The warnings about the injustices, the severe conditions, the shortage of food and men. Either it didn’t matter enough to the Pope what was going on in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, or he knew but didn’t care. Both possibilities were highly unsettling.

Robert opened a window to let some fresh air in. As he saw the people milling about, chatting and going about their own business, he couldn’t help but wonder whether they would still be as comfortable and blissful knowing the horrors going on in ‘that faraway desert land’.

The talk of the city for the past few months had been nothing but Lord Henri’s crusade. It had made good progress, with news reaching Rome more than a year ago that Lord Henri had landed at Nicosia. The crusade had stalled there for almost two months, with Lord Henri writing back that he had to ‘bring order to a city in turmoil’, a most curious description, but probably reasonable given that it was the last city under Crusader States control.


From there he had landed at Acre, the stronghold of the Templars, where he had spent another three months quartering his troops, for reasons unknown. Lord Henri had sent out almost a hundred scouting parties, some even venturing as far as Aleppo, again for reasons unknown. The Pope had gotten most distressed about this delay, and there was talk amongst the bishops that perhaps the wrong man had been chosen to lead the crusade.

Fools. Robert thought to himself, shaking his head. They know not what it is like to command an army so large and so far from home. They had no experience managing logistics, supplies, morale of the men and the many other finer details that had to be paid attention to when leading an army.

With the air in the musty room having improved somewhat, Robert returned to his desk and opened the first of four scrolls.

Two hundred pilgrims led by a hermit and a saint have arrived safely at Jerusalem.

Robert furrowed his brow. That was the sixth such report in the past four months. Large groups of pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem unharmed and being allowed into the city. They could not possibly all be false. But why would the Saracens allow this?

The next scroll was longer, and was a detailed summary of the crusader army’s logistics and supplies. The Pope would never read that.

The next scroll immediately piqued Robert’s interest. It was written by one of the novice scribes that Robert himself had assigned to the crusade. It documented how the crusade had moved off from Acre three months ago and marched straight towards Jerusalem.

Surprisingly, midway to the famed city, Lord Henri had come face to face with the Ayyubid Sultan’s army. They were at a severe disadvantage, outnumbered 3 to 1, and with the terrain being unfavourable to the crusader army. What intrigued Robert to no end, though, was the fact that the crusaders were allowed to march on to Jerusalem after surrendering their arms and armour.

The crusade was now returning to Rome. Lord Henri had decided to stay in the Holy Land, and has been seen in the company of two noble ladies – one elder and one younger – as well as a young boy. Command of the crusade had been passed on to a French general.

Stunned, Robert picked up the last scroll. It was a report from one of the deacons travelling with the crusade under orders of the Pope.

This one written in a darker tone and mainly mentioned the encounter midway to Jerusalem, but with one more detail that had not been noted down in the previous scroll. The deacon had expressed concern that a young Christian man dressed like a noble was observed to be at the Ayyubid Sultan’s side at all times. The deacon had brought up his concerns to Lord Henri, who much to the shock and anger of the deacon, waved away all of his concerns. The deacon had therefore taken it upon himself to investigate further, and from what he could gather, the man was serving in an advisory capacity to the Ayyubid Sultan.

Most curious. Robert wondered. If he was twenty years younger, Robert would have come up with all sorts of theories and stories as to how this had happened, but now he had little time for mysteries and the imaginations of hot tempered priests. A Christian noble serving the Saracens. Perhaps it is God’s will that it be so.

Then, cursing his knees, he stood and gathered the scrolls to present them to one of the cardinals.

[Cookiegod]

A nice ending, Swaeft! I enjoyed this! Do you think you'll finish another AAR before I finish mine?

[Kilo11]

Indeed a nice ending, and I must say, I knew it all along! (I will leave the "it" without further elaboration, so as not to put spoilers in the thread ) But kidding aside, I think this makes sense, and works well with the way you had written things and set things up (I will send you a pm with some more thoughts on this). Also, I sorely owe you a rep for this, and for finishing, as that is an accomplishment on its own, but my rep-works are currently backed up to St. Petersburg!

A nice ending, Swaeft! I enjoyed this! Do you think you'll finish another AAR before I finish mine?

We love you Cook, but I believe we all think Swaeft (and a few others) will finish another AAR before you finish yours.

Though, then again, I am not one to talk at this point, as I have also slowed down to an unforgivable pace

[Turkafinwë]

A fitting end to a wonderful tale! Congratulations Swaeft on finishing a spectacular AAR! What a journey it has been.

Perhaps, after all this time, the Holy Land will know peace.

[Swaeft]

A nice ending, Swaeft! I enjoyed this! Do you think you'll finish another AAR before I finish mine?

Many thanks Cg, I'm glad you were here to share the ups and downs! And to answer your question: Heck no...I'm feeling a little drained lol.

Indeed a nice ending, and I must say, I knew it all along! (I will leave the "it" without further elaboration, so as not to put spoilers in the thread ) But kidding aside, I think this makes sense, and works well with the way you had written things and set things up (I will send you a pm with some more thoughts on this). Also, I sorely owe you a rep for this, and for finishing, as that is an accomplishment on its own, but my rep-works are currently backed up to St. Petersburg!

I don't doubt that, Special K To be honest I didn't actually intend for it to end like this: Explanatory post coming soon. But it's been a joy to have your feedback and I thank you for it.

A fitting end to a wonderful tale! Congratulations Swaeft on finishing a spectacular AAR! What a journey it has been.

Perhaps, after all this time, the Holy Land will know peace.

I'm humbled you think so, Turk. You've been an ardent supporter of God's Justice and I'm really glad you were able to follow it to the end, with all its twists and breaks (and that goes for you too, lurker readers!) I do hope the Holy Land will know peace, maybe the Sultan and the 'Christian noble' can unite it for once and for all?

[Swaeft]

The tell all - or, as I like it better, the AAR of the AAR
Inspired by Radzeer's own A-AAR.

Sup one and all!

Before anything else I'd like to thank you for reading this piece of work (that can be taken both ways), without you there would be no one to appreciate the writing or give feedback on it. So thank you very much for being on this year long journey with me. Many a times I did think of giving up on it, but you guys gave me motivation to finish it. And now it has been finished.

But not the way I expected it. Not at all.

What this AAR was supposed to be

From the get-go I had a very clear idea what this AAR was supposed to turn into. It would be a story-driven AAR, with the plot more or less ironed out before the prologue was published, with the campaign adding the element of unpredictability and the direct source for Jean's traits. This worked well for the first six or so chapters.

By Chapter 7 I started to notice that the story was going nowhere and was kind of meaningless - hence the titular cry going up at the end of the chapter. It wasn't that it was bad or unplanned, but it was taking too long to get anywhere, and with that level of build up it would be a 3 or 4 years project, not a 6 month (yes, I thought that was possible! ha!) project as originally planned. This was my first mistake. I ignored the signs, and it wasn't until Chapter 15 that I realized I would be doing GRRM a great service by taking even longer than him to finish my story.

So things had to change then.

What this AAR turned into

I had to make a difficult choice - either keep the AAR the way it was and accelerate the story, making it seem disjointed, or change the way the AAR was being written and try to inject the story in at a more appropriate pace. I chose the latter, but I probably didn't do it too well. I did cut short a lot of the less important plot points, but I failed to cut the characters themselves, so people like Sir Anduril, the 'boy, and Stefano had nowhere to go. So writing the new storyline with them always in mind diverted the story from where I wanted it to go, but that was still more or less okay. So now the story was being led by the characters and not the way I had initially planned it to go. I also hadn't actually settled into the new storyline completely, my love for battles and fighting turned the story driven AAR into a part story, part campaign AAR. Although battles can be used to show character growth, it is of my opinion that I did too many battles with too little focus on the characters.

Case in point: Battles and troop movement began to take up the majority of the words in the chapters from Chapter 10-25. As a result the story stagnated.

The ultimatum

It became abundantly clear to me by chapter 33 that this was not working at all. I was running out of time to finish this, because whilst I estimated a 40 chapter AAR, it was looking to me more like an AAR with over a 100 chapters, and I neither had the time nor the will to see that through. So things really had to change at this point.

It was also at this point during the 2 month+ break with no updates I seriously considered abandoning this AAR. After all it had devolved into a mess (though an exciting one, I hope!) and character arcs weren't properly done. I was on the fence for quite a while before resolving that I would not revert to my old ways and abandon the AAR. The question then was: How do I save this?

So I had to sit down and write it out on my notes where everyone currently was at and where they could go in to tie up most of the loose ends (because tying up all was impossible to me now).

And so we are left with what we have now. I hope I have not disappointed too much in the pursuit of finishing the AAR, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the alternative storyline (the one you have been reading) and honestly 2014 me would have been satisfied with this. So I hope you are too. At the very least I probably have given a good example to others of what not to do

The original story

So, since this is done and I won't be doing a sequel, I thought I might as well share where everyone was supposed to be and all the intricate storylines I crafted at the start.

First Prince Jean - Jean's storyline was the only unchanged one. He was to be a pacifist, out of his league with everything going on around him and unsuitable for command. He'd eventually die for his principles, though not before some successes, which makes others realize there is another path other than constant war after all.


Second Prince Baudouin - This was originally to be the character in the prologue being interrogated by the Pope. He would have grown up following his brother, First Prince Jean, around, and wisely taken note of how the elder Jean (the King) was too violent, and how his elder brother (the First Prince) was too kind. He would eventually grow to be a mix of the two, but leaning towards Jean's side after the King's death. He would eventually grow disillusioned with the Pope's orders and then speak out against the Pope at his interrogation.


King Jean de Brienne - Originally the King was supposed to have died much earlier, so that Jean would be thrust into the spotlight before he was prepared and thus muck things up, paving the way for the villain to overthrow him.


Lord Phillip d'Ibelin - He was originally not the villain! There was to be an entire plot arc dedicated to conflict between the Hospitallers (led by Sir Anduril - that was what he was for! - after their temple was founded at Antioch) and the Templars, and Lord Phillip would serve to be the leader of the Templars in this conflict. He would face off against Sir Anduril many times in court, but he was a principled man and wouldn't have gone against his King so murderously. This guy was supposed to be the aggressive hawk at war council meetings, especially since his son was murdered by Saracen assassins, but nothing more. But the plan was for everyone to think he was the villain. And when this storyline was abandoned, well...he became the villain.


Sir Anduril - Named after a reader of my previous Skyrim AAR. He was to be the guiding beacon of justice and honor to Prince Jean, and would eventually become his most trusted advisor and the grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller. (which would eventually cause conflict with the templars as they feel the King is too close to the hospitaller order grandmaster). He would teach Jean how to stick to his principles even in the darkest of times.


Lord Tigel de Linus - A character named after an old friend, Tigellinus. The true villain! The original villain! That I never got to use I dropped subtle hints that he was the one - the biggest being the "there is a time for patience and there is a time for action" line that was said to both First Prince Jean and then to Stefano later on. I mentioned that he hated Italians for 'corrupting the hearts of good men' during the fourth crusade in chapter 9, and he would later on reveal himself as the villain, having actually lost his son in the sack of Constantinople, and thus driving him to want to destroy the crusader states, so that further bloodshed may be spared. The 'tragic hero' if you may say so. I was going to flesh him out so much more, but sadly never got to His betrayal would have been even worse as after the King's original early death, he would be the rock that guided Prince Jean through the tough times, only to end up guiding Prince Jean into bad decision after bad decision that would eventually lead to the downfall of the CS.


Sir Raimondo - Elder Jean and then First Prince Jean's bodyguard captain. Died in combat when Jean was betrayed by Lord Philip. I was going to complete his story from my previous AAR, reforging Sicily with steel and heart, and I did give him the same backstory as he had in reforging Sicily (he was the main protagonist there) but sadly the campaign got away from me and I never got to finish his arc...


Lorenzo - The son of the tavern owner, the establishment which Jean finds himself in the very early chapters. He was eventually to be the treasurer of the Kingdom and one of Jean's friends.


Stefano - Origianlly supposed to be Tigel de Linus' friend and black ops dude. Changed him to become the Pope's servant midway through, but never stated so. After his storyline was abandoned, well, he simply existed to kill Phillip.


Cardinal Reynaud - The presiding cardinal of the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, he was appointed there by the Pope to keep an eye on things, and as an extension of the Pope's will and word. I was very on the fence for this character, he was the only character I didn't know whether to turn out good or bad.


The council of Nobles - the council was also, similarly to Lord Philip, supposed to be portrayed as the villains, they would eventually turn out (only at the very end) to be good and working for the good of the Kingdom. They don't trust the royal family because they feel that they are being manipulated by the Pope, and therefore do not converse much with Jean or his family until they are certain Jean is doing the right thing at the end. Paragon (another character named after a previous reader) was supposed to head this council, but again, didn't get to insert them into the story...


The 'boy' - This was supposed to be you, Turkafinwe! I know you love them ninjas and spies The story for this lad would be that he was an orphan from a faraway land, hence some exotic name like 'Turkawe'. Prince Jean would take a liking to him and they would eventually become good friends. The sick family thing was really a setup, and his parents were watching over him all the time to ensure his loyalty. (Loyalty to who? Read on!) In the end after having risen through the ranks in the spying industry, being so moved by Prince Jean's kindness and humility that he believed Jean to be almost the perfect ruler, he would ultimately reveal to Prince Jean that he was actually a Mongolian plant (sleeper agent). The Mongol horde had sent spies years in advance to the countries in the Baltic, the Holy Land, and to Asia Minor prior to their massive undertaking - the invasion. These spies would report back on which Kingdoms were the most suitable to be attacked by the full might of the horde, which would then influence the Khan's decision on which countries to invade.

Naturally the story would conform to wherever the Mongols invaded in SS 6.4, in my game they ended up invading and attacking the Cumans north of the black sea, so the storyline would have been the 'boy' recognizing that the Holy Land needed a ruler like Jean and thus reporting back to the Khan that the Holy Land was not a suitable target, sparing Jean the devastation of the Mongol Horde. (A really big thing, and also to thank Jean for sparing his life after being caught as a thief).


Henri de Lusignan - his storyline also didn't change much, he would be Jean's best friend and person he grew up and trained with, and eventually marries Yolande just like he does here, and gets punished for it similarly as he did.


Princess Joan - First Prince Jean's wife from England. She originally marries Jean for power and to increase her royal family's influence with the Pope, but eventually falls for Jean fully and assists him in running the Kingdom effectively and efficiently.


The Pope - this man was supposed to be the ultimate villain, scheming to control the Crusader States and by extension the rest of the Christian Kingdoms. I summed his intentions up by saying that the Pope displays his power for all to see by having the Christians intrude into the Holy Land and conquer over there in the name of the Lord.

In Closing

I could go on and on, which makes me even sadder since I spent hours thinking about these individual stories alone. Although I guess it was always too ambitious a project from the beginning.

If you're still here reading this, well, heck! That's an achievement in itself. Thanks very much again and I'm really sorry I couldn't bring the full God's Justice to bear, I was so excited at all the plot twists and reveals that I would have gotten to do, but I guess it's an important lesson for me - pacing and length! In fact, I do feel the need to point out that I hadn't actually written anything in between Reforging Sicily and this AAR, after my 5 year break from TWC (and writing) coming back to write again was a lot harder than I anticipated, and I did make some of the same mistakes I did in Reforging Sicily. So if you ever glance through that you might realize that the writing style and in fact the quality is about the same...my writing didn't improve these past 5 years


If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask away. I'll always check back on this thread when I have the time, so I'll answer any queries when I'm free. And yeah the formatting here isn't the best, I'll try to work on that after I deal with my other main problem atm...Skyrim ain't working :/

[Kilo11]

This is interesting Swaeft, and it is an insight to see how much you wanted but couldn't include.


Given the plans you spell out here, and what you were actually able to accomplish, one thing I might suggest to you is to next time also think about the individual chapters and what needs to go into them for each of the individual story arcs to move forward. That is one aspect where I think it can be helpful to think more in terms of chapters from a proper book, and leave the updates here as "parts", like I have been doing on my AAR. Obviously, for any given update there is no way for me to include something of everyone's story-arc, but I should be doing that at least once per chapter, and having things separated in larger chunks by chapters can help with that level of larger planning. I say this mainly because there were a few times when you brought back a character that had been absent for very long, and I always felt like you had just sort of remembered that they existed and wanted to get them back in the mix. If you were to have larger plans about each block of 4-8 updates already in place, then these recurrences of characters could be more strongly planned in.


All of those thoughts aside though, you really should be proud of yourself just for finishing, even if the final product isn't quite what you would have wanted. When you look at the AAR threads you see they are spammed with false-starts and quickly-abandoned pieces, and to have finished is an accomplishment!

In the meantime, I can now start reading the Skyrim AAR! And I do very much hope you can get it working again!

[Derc]

This is a common problem many of us struggle with.
It may sound easy in your head or as a concept. Setting things into motion, however, can be difficult. And once they are set up, they develop a dangerous self-dynamic on their own.

There are countless arcs, all of them telling their own stories, splitting into many different branches. Working them out in detail then offers, sometimes even demands, new subplots. This goes down to an infinite amount of levels, offering an infinite amount of risks.

It's good that you managed to set a limit somewhere. There's a reason the story is as it is. You had to find a balance. The final product is still something that had people hooked, as you've seen.
I myself favour every story with an ending whatsoever over one that hasn't one. Your story is one of the very few AAR's that has one.

You accomplished it! You can be proud of yourself!

Swaeft lo vult!

[Turkafinwë]

Like Kilo and Derc said to succesfully end an AAR is an achievement on its own and you should be proud of it. I sympathise with you that you couldn't bring out the AAR you wanted to get out there but like Derc said, these stories do get a life of their own once started and God's Justice was a enjoyable read all the same. I'm honoured to hear of your plans for "me" I would have loved the boy's story arc.

Remember, we will be watching

I can only hope you are pleased with the product you have delivered because we sure as hell are! (as you can read from the comments )

[Swaeft]

This is interesting Swaeft, and it is an insight to see how much you wanted but couldn't include.


Given the plans you spell out here, and what you were actually able to accomplish, one thing I might suggest to you is to next time also think about the individual chapters and what needs to go into them for each of the individual story arcs to move forward. That is one aspect where I think it can be helpful to think more in terms of chapters from a proper book, and leave the updates here as "parts", like I have been doing on my AAR. Obviously, for any given update there is no way for me to include something of everyone's story-arc, but I should be doing that at least once per chapter, and having things separated in larger chunks by chapters can help with that level of larger planning. I say this mainly because there were a few times when you brought back a character that had been absent for very long, and I always felt like you had just sort of remembered that they existed and wanted to get them back in the mix. If you were to have larger plans about each block of 4-8 updates already in place, then these recurrences of characters could be more strongly planned in.


All of those thoughts aside though, you really should be proud of yourself just for finishing, even if the final product isn't quite what you would have wanted. When you look at the AAR threads you see they are spammed with false-starts and quickly-abandoned pieces, and to have finished is an accomplishment!

In the meantime, I can now start reading the Skyrim AAR! And I do very much hope you can get it working again!

Great suggestion, I'll be sure to take that under advisement. Usually I write the chapters with the events in the game in mind, not the story, but I won't be repeating that mistake again! I didn't really forget about any of the characters (rather I was agonizing over where I could insert them in) but I understand that it appears that way. Perhaps writing more chapters in advance could be a solution for this.

Thanks for reading and giving feedback

This is a common problem many of us struggle with.
It may sound easy in your head or as a concept. Setting things into motion, however, can be difficult. And once they are set up, they develop a dangerous self-dynamic on their own.

There are countless arcs, all of them telling their own stories, splitting into many different branches. Working them out in detail then offers, sometimes even demands, new subplots. This goes down to an infinite amount of levels, offering an infinite amount of risks.

It's good that you managed to set a limit somewhere. There's a reason the story is as it is. You had to find a balance. The final product is still something that had people hooked, as you've seen.
I myself favour every story with an ending whatsoever over one that hasn't one. Your story is one of the very few AAR's that has one.

You accomplished it! You can be proud of yourself!

Swaeft lo vult!

I must tell you it was quite funny whenever a new question came up in the Writer's Lounge, because all of them were questions I actually could have asked as well. CG's 'the problem of complexity' was really apt here, as well as Lord of the Drunk Penguin's 'getting through the first chapters'. I wanted to answer more but I couldn't - because I was facing those same issues. I also think I set the limit too late, because it really feels to me like there was a ton of build up and not so much of an end product. But I'm glad people still like it

Derc wills it!

Like Kilo and Derc said to succesfully end an AAR is an achievement on its own and you should be proud of it. I sympathise with you that you couldn't bring out the AAR you wanted to get out there but like Derc said, these stories do get a life of their own once started and God's Justice was a enjoyable read all the same. I'm honoured to hear of your plans for "me" I would have loved the boy's story arc.

Remember, we will be watching

I can only hope you are pleased with the product you have delivered because we sure as hell are! (as you can read from the comments )

Always glad to hear your take on this, Turk! I'm sorry I couldn't fit your superspyninjaassassinboy in, I really was excited for that and the ultimate reveal. I have to say I'm not really pleased with how it turned out, but it does feel good to have learned some lessons and finally finish an AAR.

[Alwyn]

That's quite a twist in the epilogue, and I enjoyed your AAR of the AAR! It seems that pace is often a challenge for AAR writers, I had a similar issue with Andraste's Children. I agree with everyone that God's Justice is enjoyable and a great achievement.

[Swaeft]

That's quite a twist in the epilogue, and I enjoyed your AAR of the AAR! It seems that pace is often a challenge for AAR writers, I had a similar issue with Andraste's Children. I agree with everyone that God's Justice is enjoyable and a great achievement.

Indeed, pacing was a major problem for me. Glad you stuck with it from start to finish, though. It was a real pleasure having you all the way

[Cookiegod]

I'd say Swaeft that the problems you mention is a standard one. Even professionals don't always master it.
I did notice that you had started to hurry, especially towards the end, but generally speaking that was ok. Props to you for finishing it. You learn more by doing things several times quickly than by doing it once veeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly. You did some hard but also smart decisions there. I have also tried to do it a little bit and should maybe do it more as well.

One thing I regret I didn't do from the start, and which you did at some point, was to map out how many parts that thing takes. I also should've done it much sooner, though honestly, that can't be done that well if you choose gardening over architecture.

For those who don't know my "problem of complexity": I say that for every story element you introduce, your story becomes exponentially harder to write.

But other than that, I think pacing and length etc. is something you learn by doing, so it doesn't make sense for me to blabber about something I don't know anything about.

I've tried to cut down a little bit, but if I don't learn my lesson soon, then you definitely will finish your next story sooner than I will.

All in all, even though the ending was a little bit rushed, it wasn't ever bad. It was always entertaining and a light read. The writing style was what you (I think) were somewhat going for. You can always change your style of writing, and those lessons you learned about pacing will remain valid. But it fit the task. It was easily digestible, whereas I, in comparison, have locked myself in a prose that is hard to digest and harder to write (especially for a nonnative like me - that is actually the hardest part for me, and not the pacing).

EDIT: Oh I just noticed: You bastard already finished another AAR before me since your After AAR Report (AAARR!!!!) is already complete. And if I wasn't such a sorry loser I would admit it was a darn good one at that. But I'm not, so...

[Swaeft]

I'd say Swaeft that the problems you mention is a standard one. Even professionals don't always master it.
I did notice that you had started to hurry, especially towards the end, but generally speaking that was ok. Props to you for finishing it. You learn more by doing things several times quickly than by doing it once veeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly. You did some hard but also smart decisions there. I have also tried to do it a little bit and should maybe do it more as well.

One thing I regret I didn't do from the start, and which you did at some point, was to map out how many parts that thing takes. I also should've done it much sooner, though honestly, that can't be done that well if you choose gardening over architecture.

For those who don't know my "problem of complexity": I say that for every story element you introduce, your story becomes exponentially harder to write.

But other than that, I think pacing and length etc. is something you learn by doing, so it doesn't make sense for me to blabber about something I don't know anything about.

I've tried to cut down a little bit, but if I don't learn my lesson soon, then you definitely will finish your next story sooner than I will.

All in all, even though the ending was a little bit rushed, it wasn't ever bad. It was always entertaining and a light read. The writing style was what you (I think) were somewhat going for. You can always change your style of writing, and those lessons you learned about pacing will remain valid. But it fit the task. It was easily digestible, whereas I, in comparison, have locked myself in a prose that is hard to digest and harder to write (especially for a nonnative like me - that is actually the hardest part for me, and not the pacing).

I think you got my points pretty well. Yeah the last part was rushed for sure, but I hope the standard remains the same, because I only shortened the plot, not the time spent writing em. Also one could argue that the prose you are writing is a rather interesting one that would be sure to garner more attention, so don't despair!

EDIT: Oh I just noticed: You bastard already finished another AAR before me since your After AAR Report (AAARR!!!!) is already complete. And if I wasn't such a sorry loser I would admit it was a darn good one at that. But I'm not, so...

I...I didn't even think of that...way to beat you with a technicality?