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Q: "Why is the FineVerse so depressing, and why do the villains seem to win so often?"
A: "Because it's the same way in real life. For every corrupt CEO who goes to trial there's a hundred more who evade justice. For every heartwarming story of a child beating cancer, there's a hundred more who die uneventfully in a slum without a peep.
Yet I think your definition of 'win' may be skewed. Does Fine Point 'win' because he kills his victims, even if he goes home and cries himself to sleep? Does Reticent 'win' because she controls the city, even if she feels completely empty inside?
The FineVerse isn't a Saturday morning cartoon which professes that you'll always be rewarded for doing the right thing. Good people are screwed over all the time, and evil people are given what they ask for. Life is a messy cluster fuck, and we're tasked with finding meaning in spite of that. Heroes don't become rich and famous, but they do die happy and with people who love them.
If you look closer you'll see the real thesis. Villains never 'win'- not truly. Not in the ways that actually matter. That I think mirrors real life too. I want to convey that despite a cruel universe you can find a sense of passion which looks small to the villains of the world but is larger than anything."
Q: "Aren't a lot of these scenes needlessly graphic?"
A: "There are two ways to approach this question. The first is to tell you that there are different stories in the FineVerse with different content ratings and tones. Equa contains such scenes, but Dragontooth does not, and in fact is completely TV-14 friendly. So if you simply find certain content objectionable, but otherwise want to participate, there are options.
The second would be: Is it needed to convey the themes I want? No. Is it needed to convey the particular impact and emotion I was aiming for? Yes. If I'm writing a universe which contains immense tragedy then I will want to write about said tragedy. To 'tone it down' would essentially be censoring my original vision. I'm not willing to do that for some sense of enforced morality over a setting and characters which are entirely fictional.
Art is expression, and I have a wide variety of ideas I want to express. Not all of them are comfortable, and those ones have warnings to preface that fact. That said, if you really want to read a story, and those scenes are simply too hard for you despite an otherwise genuine interest, then feel free to reach out to me; it wouldn't be hard for me to give exact points where a scene ends, or repackage it as a summary if needed."
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