Emily Lockwood in Death of a Schoolgirl - A Perilous CYOA (S2.5)
Added 2021-01-02 17:14:01 +0000 UTCThis is a choose your own adventure where you play as Emily Lockwood. Take Emily on her most high stakes adventure yet to save everyone she loves and the town she calls home. There are dozens of different unique ways for her story to end, each ending is totally different and you get to choose where Emily goes and what she does!
Emily Lockwood has been all over the world, but the only thing she wanted was to be a schoolgirl again. Now she's finally back in Greenfield, her wish so close to coming true. But the perils of her past have followed her home. Reo's returned with a desire for revenge and a burning hatred for the famous girl detective that threatens to destroy everything she loves. This time Emily won't be able to run and hide. She'll have to face her greatest threat to save her town and the people she loves. She might get her wish to go back to school but death will be waiting for her.
(Story Attached)
To see 'What Happened Next?' in four endings from this story click here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/98wgzebhpj70pnh/5.%20Death%20of%20a%20Schoolgirl%20-%20What%20Happened%20Next.pdf?dl=0
Comments
Hey, thanks for reposting. And thanks so much for delving into the story and leaving such detailed feedback. I sometimes wonder if I put too much effort into the story and characters in these things so its really nice to see someone really analysing the themes. Even if in this case it didn't quite connect in the ending I really enjoyed seeing your take on why Reo wasn't clicking for you. I always try and have Emilys villains target a specific weakness in her character. Veronica is a trained fighter and she she targets Emily's lack of physical strength. Eliza used to be her best friend and targets her emotions. Tommy thinks he can be a better detective than her because he's a boy and he has all these resources. And they all become a little obsessed with Emily through clashing with her and failing to stop her, she proves them wrong in what they see in her and that shakes them in a way that can either help them improve like Eliza or make them worse like Veronica. With Reo the unique thing about him is he doesn't see anything in Emily at all. He's trying to capture her mom at first then in the finale he's using her as a distraction to kidnap the other girls, she's never his goal. He says that when she walks into the hall, that when he looks at her he sees nothing. So in seeing nothing in her she now comes to represent all the other girls he's planning on capturing. She knows she cant make a moral point with him, he doesnt care about morality, he just believes that if he can capture you then thats the natural order of things. So if a nobody like Emily can stop him that proves his life philosophy wrong, by stopping him she saves everyone in the school and a lifetime of girls he would go on to abduct. The neck snap in the final ending is just because thats what he would do, he's not letting her walk away, but the big defeat there is that he captures all her friends, carrying two of them and making Naomi march out, he's proving his point in that he can take even her allies and make them belong to him. You probably have a pretty good idea of who the next villain is going to be from the ending to this one so I'm really looking forward to seeing what you think on whats coming next. Thanks again for taking the time to write the feedback, I could honestly go on and on about what I was trying to convey in these things, negative or positive always love seeing what people think.
Markus Jones
2021-01-14 19:37:21 +0000 UTCSPOILER WARNING So I've been sitting on some thoughts about this CYOA for a bit. I wanted to make sure I'd mulled them over, because this adventure started out as my favorite, and honestly, the first act with Emily and her girlfriends sneaking through town to reach the school is the stuff of dreams. But the further in I got, the more my interest wavered, despite the solid prose, and fun set pieces. Seeing Riko team up with Emily and her friends was another delightful standout, just for how well those characters play off one another. But by the third act, I had mostly disengaged. And I think I've figured out why: Reo just isn't a compelling villain. I don't mean that in the way he's written, or acts. By all accounts, he's certainly dangerous, menacing, and effective. The problem is that he isn't a foil to any of our heroine's characteristics. If we look at Emily Lockwood, we see a dainty, nervous, feminine archetype, with a general deference to authority figures, and a budding sexuality. And the reason why Veronica, Eliza, Tommy, Diana, and Riko all make such excellent villains is because they embody each of those insecurities, respectively. When Emily succumbs to failure at their hands, it means she's succumbed to her own weakness, and incidentally, makes the game overs so wonderfully delectable. It also justifies why Emily is eventually able to make peace with them, once she's overcome those flaws. By contrast, Reo has no idealogical complement to Emily. In the last two CYOAs, one could've perhaps made the argument that he represents the strained relationship between Emily and her mother, and their mismatched views on how to deal with danger. But in this story, that's gone. Lynda confronts obstacles with the same creative problem-solving approach as her daughter, and even embraces her decision to save Greenfield Academy on her own. And that's fine, their arc has been told already. But when the overarching threat is a villain who, frankly, is more afraid of Emily Lockwood's ethos than she is of his, it significantly lowers the stakes of the sleuthing. Because now, when Emily loses, it's not a defeat. It's just a capture, usually by nameless, faceless henchmen with little to no personal investment. I mean, the final fail-state is just Emily getting unceremoniously neck-snapped, which doesn't hold a candle to the emotional weight of your other stories' fail-state conclusions. If you're looking for specific feedback, I'd have leaned way more into Emily's insecurities about leadership. That would've immediately set up a clear parallel between her and Reo, and brought the potential for all sorts of wonderful game overs where our heroine's choices led not only to her downfall, but her followers' as well, a fact she'd be made miserably aware of each time. And then the final game over could be something truly fateful, perhaps laced with that twinge of morbidity you seem fond of, like Emily and her friends getting strung up by their ankles and stripped/drowned/whatever, while the school is forced to watch. This is all just my take, though. Honestly, I'm happy to see you switching gears to another character for a change. Tomb-sleuthing is a whole other ocean of potential, and I look forward to see what degrading misadventures Ciara encounters!
bonesteoca
2021-01-14 18:31:45 +0000 UTCThat’s strange. I really enjoyed your feedback and was looking forward to replying. Please do repost.
Markus Jones
2021-01-13 09:03:21 +0000 UTCI had a whole review posted as a comment here. What happened? Is it all right if I repost?
bonesteoca
2021-01-12 23:42:56 +0000 UTCI'm really glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know! Riko doesn't rely on hypnosis exclusively but as she didn't have access to sedatives in this story she leaned on that skill a little more. She hypnotizes Em in one of the endings in Halloween Horror and as a former villainess who's highly trained in capturing women that's just one of the skills she's picked up over the years. Emily isn't going to jail, she agreed to say the police saved everyone so they look like the heroes and in exchange they let her off for her crimes. Reo's fate will be shown very soon in an upcoming story and Riko will be left ambiguous for now. I'm glad you're looking forward to season 3! I have a lot of plans for Tommy and Em's father working together. Season 2 was all about Emily relying on her mom and her friends to save the day. Her father and her boyfriend however might have more villainous intentions for the girl detective.
Markus Jones
2021-01-03 10:36:11 +0000 UTCI love this CYOA (SPOILERS) I haven’t done all the endings. The endings I got were amzaing and hilarious especially the one with Veronica Stone and Riko I love that we played as Lynda again. Riko’s return. Though how did she get hypnosis? Did she always have it? I really hope things get better for Emily. It’s horrible that she’s going to jail I hope that Riko is alive. Though since Reo isn’t dead does that mean he will return? So does this mean Lynda’s stories will be while Emily is in jail? Oh! And we finally get Emily’s father! And Tommy is working for him that’s probably why Tommy supposedly stopped being evil. Her father is probably why he started dating Emily especially becuase of the ending. This hints that her father might be evil. This CYOA was an amazing end to Emily Lockwood season 2. And I really want Season 3. I’m excited ^^
spyrocyndersam13
2021-01-03 06:06:03 +0000 UTCI certainly tried to make it exciting! Hope you like it! I did consider releasing a short Christmas story but I didn't have any good ideas for it. I don't even know what christmas themed villain would look like.
Markus Jones
2021-01-02 17:54:13 +0000 UTCAn exciting conclusion, I hope! Each one of these CYOAs mixes up the formula somehow, and this one sounds promising. I'm just glad you didn't go with a full Christmas-themed story. Somehow, I doubt that would've worked out as smoothly as Halloween!
bonesteoca
2021-01-02 17:48:46 +0000 UTC
