Telling the story

Hello, and welcome to this week's public check-in. Today, I'll be talking Poppy's story. Progress on the project continues, we now have a great new third period event "group shower" and the new quest is being implemented now that dialogue writing is almost done.  Please be aware, the poll at the end of this article contains spoilers for The Bad Girl's Bitch and Down with the Bad Girls!

First, a word on the nature of trilogies, as this is what Poppy's story is. A basic three act play has distinct elements in each part: introduction, escalation and resolution. Watch or read any trilogy, and you'll see this rule in action.

The original Star Wars trilogy, for example, follows these rules. In episode one... I mean... four.... we meet the characters, we learn that there's an evil empire that needs defeating and we find out what a jedi is and how the force works. In the next part, the stakes are raised as the Empire goes on the offensive and we learn that Vader is Luke's father (shut up, the film is nearly 40 years old, you can't expect spoiler warnings for that.) In Return of the Jedi, all the plot points come together and the final showdown happens.  Same with Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future... even the Matrix, bad as the second and third films are, obeys this structure.

Poppy's story is a three act play, and we've already seen how the characters were introduced and the rules established in Act 1. Now the stakes will be raised, as both factions jockey for position. And as the battle becomes more desperate, they may do more desperate things to try and gain an advantage. Then we'll set everything in place for the resolution in Act 3.

Some of you have asked whether it will be possible to "lose" in Poppy's story - ie: side with one faction but that faction is defeated and Missy suffers the consequences of picking the losing side.  This is a fascinating idea, and one I'm going to look at for part 3.  For now, I have a definite idea of how this second part will end, as the most significant choices will come, of necessity, in the last part. The broader I make the decision tree early on, the more work I'm making for later.

Which isn't to say that your choices at this stage don't matter.  If you sided with Poppy in part one, she's already done significant damage to the popular girl's reputations, while if you defied her, they've managed to keep her much more under control. Similarly, the outcome of part 2 will give one side or the other an advantage going into part 3.

While we're on the subject of Poppy's story, I'd like to take this opportunity to fully answer a question I keep getting asked.  Many people have been wondering how it affects Missy's sub status with Poppy, and so here's how that works: the short version is that if you successfully become a bad girl, you're no longer Poppy's slave.

I know it would be great if I could square this circle, but it's quite simply the case that you can't simultaneously be the bad girl's bitch and also a bad girl yourself. They don't work that way.  Bad girls bow to no one.  So the new Bad Girl arc is a third path that Missy can take at this point in the story.

As you can see from the above illustration, you can continue on either the Sub or Domme path that you are on right now, or either could branch into the new Bad Girl path.  Once you've settled on one of these, that's the path you'll take into the third part.

Lastly for today, a poll.  I'm curious about the exact path you all took in the first part of Poppy's story.  If you've played it multiple times, please vote for either the option you chose the first time, or at least that you consider "canon" in your game.  See you next week!

Trinian