Meta-Review - Analysis and Thoughts

~Preamble~ Edit: Nothing is intended to be changed; each review is like a snapshot of the time it was written. However, I felt it necessary to include my three rules of writing -- inspired by Frank Herbert.       1) Writing should be fun. People can feel when the author is having a bad time, so try to write about what you find fun to begin with. The same is true for reading. If reading your stuff back isn't fun, play with it, and make it fun -- even if it's just to yourself.       2) Writing should be immersive. Not realism, immersion. Be the characters, think like they do.       3) Passion. Why write something you don't care about?              Alright, let's get back to the preamble. Okay, this is intended to be a running draft that I really should have done at the start of the story. At the time of starting the amble, it is August 31st. I began writing the actual story somewhere around July 20th. The story was something I mulled on for months at least, before I decided to buck up and hunker down.       The main reasons why I want to do this are to archive my thoughts -- essentially a diary -- and put down story beats that I have planned for a long time in the future. Ideas evolve and change as the main story gets put to pen (1s and 0s) so I think it helps me to go back and see where I started and how it has changed in time.       For other people, I figure the insight of an amateur author might help in their own creative process -- or hinder it as the case may be. Fingers crossed people get some value out of this.       Which means, yes, technically this is -- SPOILERS. <------- ~Process~ I started with an outline, 6 arcs planned. The first arc was *ahem* let me pull up my word doc labeled 'Fan fiction.docx' . . .       Ah, the storyboard reads:       Arc 1; Journey to the River Styx -- noted underneath is the line -- recognize the coming storm in the Warp, and preparing countermeasures;       Arc 2; Bargain with Pruflas, the firstborn prince of Hell -- Adding the second layer of soul defense beyond the blessing of Styx;       Arc 3; Journey to the Orient -- With dual layer defense, begin the process of offensive soul strategy with cultivation -- also a second bullet point -- Perhaps a sub arc or dedicated arc in curse usage inspired by Sukuna;       Arc 4; Demon vs Daemon and the beginnings of necessity of a true daemon slaying weapon -- Journey back to the Occident to forge a weapon in the vein of God of War: Ragnarok -- Begin weaving Eldar in, emphasizing Tolkien-esqueness over Aeldari;       Arc 5; Regaining space in realtime -- Recapping time as it passed in reality, mixing fictions -- How culture went from Cyberpunk to post-apocalypse, Warframe, Dune, and the beginning of Warhammer;       Arc 6; Passing blessings on to the Primarchs -- Unapologetic slaughter of daemons -- *Extreme spoiler I don't want to reveal even in a draft* ~Reflections~ The above was roughly what I started with back in early July. Already, we can see some changes due to fleshing out of the arcs. Elves appear far earlier than I originally planned. Arc 5 was cut entirely. I instead decided on Intermissions, to both break up the monotony, and build things up in parallel rather than tackle the hodgepodge all at once.       And I do boring stuff irl, which lead to me writing further notes in idle time about story beats to start connecting arcs, intermissions, and other ideas for core concepts. I have -- today August 31st -- around 11 scrap cards with ideas on them, on top of the document I keep updated with maps, terminology, reminders, et cetera.       A lot of it is Warhammer and Dune mixing, since the two universes heavily play off each other. Beats like:       The Honored Matre mutations being reintroduced into Astartes + teaching them Prana Bindu;       Having Erda commit a catalyzing act of betrayal to Vykan;       Which leads to him hijacking the Astronomicon to declare galactic Jihad against Chaos and positioning himself as the inheritor of Guldur's Will (Leto Atreides II the God Emperor);       And having a jolly good time summoning the quadrillions of Scattered humans from the Universe and marching on Commorragh;       Inter-arc flow of the Commorragh War evolving into the War of the Sky-Fire; which I have escalate into the second War in Heaven. Astartes with Prana Bindu + Honored Matre mutations diff pretty much the current canon factions. Fight me. The threat I present with a true humanity awakens the Orks into Krorks, which then reawakens the Necrons -- it's a whole thing there;       I bring back tech from Dune; like Axolotl tanks, the spice -- Melange~ -- no ships, no-humans (Siona descendants), Holtzmann-era shields, nullentropy tech (Guilliman would cream), suspensor warfare, and I have some reason a bullet point on the Butlerian Jihad;       Ah, so I can have Vykan shit all over the mechanicus;       Here's where I start taking extreme creative liberties; Tyranids are revealed to be the Scattered, mutated sandworm-descendents of Dune -- the pearls of consciousness of Leto the Tyrant (Tyranid, tyrant, eh eah?) coming back to seek the land of Arrakis;       Krazilec is the prophecy of Vykan's actions -- more appropriately Chaos vs. the Galaxy -- which Vykan really fucks up in a way that makes Horus look like Muad-Dib to Leto's 3500-year-rule;       And some Intermissions already planned out, like Holtzmann discovering his theories are warp-fuckery to begin with;       Necromongers (Riddick) being Sionan descendants, and the most dominant of the Scattered factions now;       And finally, some notes on how Arasaka morphs into the Orokin of Warframe, who use Void travel with the minor warp god The Man in the Wall, The Indifference, The Lidless Eye -- and how such precarious travel leads to the adoption of the spice, Melange in the first place;       How the Corpus become the Guild, CHOAM, and all that;       And there's more, but it's all kinda rote to include here. Point being, I have plans. Maybe shit, yes, but plans I intend to stick to.       The future will tell how my ideas come to light (if they ever) and how well I can execute this. As it is now, August 31st, I'm not sure much but I still have the drive to continue. Anyway, I don't plan on publishing this to Ao3, since it would be spoilers to the fucking moon; but this site is much smaller, and I hope no bleedover.       Guilty pleasure, a litmus test, and a promise to myself that I will at least let this seedling go on the wind, and see where it lands. ~End of August 31st~