8FOLD: Mancers # 4, "The Old Dark House"

Tom Russell joltcity at gmail.com
Wed Dec 5 10:26:32 PST 2018


On Wednesday, December 5, 2018 at 1:14:37 AM UTC-5, Drew Perron wrote:
> Back on my bullshit! <3

Huzzah!

> >     Well, no one said she had to stay in her room all night. And she's
> > supposed to be the grand poobah of this crazy shindig after all. So
> > why not wander around the weird magical Gothic mansion? "What kind of
> > trouble could I possibly get into?" she asks one of the countless cats
> > milling about the hallway.
> 
> Augh okay this character is cute as hell. Seriously, every one of these 
> sentences is gold.

Part of why it took me so long to write this first arc - I started it back in 2016 - was that I had to do a lot of rewrites to find Maile's voice. Particularly because she starts in a situation that by definition denies her agency and gives her a lot of confusing questions to grapple with, and also because it's easier to define characters in relation to one another, and she's starting in a situation where she doesn't have relationships with any of the people surrounding her - I needed a thorough-line. Having her be adorable and funny and nerdy seemed to do the trick, and I think makes her more compelling as she claims more agency and starts to establish those relationships.

> >     So. Samson was right. They're lying. They're gaslighting her.
> >     Now what?
> 
> THIS IS SUCH A GOOD CLIFFHANGER ZOMG. :D :D :D Man, I have been sleeping on 
> coming back to this. You're such a good writer! <3 <3 <3

That's very kind, thanks. I think you'll probably find the remaining issues of the arc quicker to read - the first three issues in a way were about table-setting, turning all the cranks, and from here on it's more about watching 'em go. There's also less sexy stuff in the back-end, so that aspect will be less intense than it was in the first half of the arc - but it does get quite a bit more violent.


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