Being Fiona 331

Of course, if Felix did follow Hugo's advice, we would lose half of the plot!

Spoilers below as I ponder about future plot possibilities

I recently started watching an anime on Netflix called Leviathan which is set in an alternate reality of World War 1 where there are mechs and genetically modified creatures. I bring this up because one of the main characters is a girl who is cross-dressing as a boy so that she can join the army as an aviator.

This got me thinking that it might be a weird experience for Felix to experience a VR story where the protagonist is a girl cross-dressing as a boy. It would be like one of those dreams where you struggle to accomplish an ordinary task, but the dream prevents you from doing it. But in Felix's case, he knows how to act as a boy, but the character he inhabits constantly fails at his attempts to act normal. And not only that, but his clothes never feel right, how he moves doesn't feel right, and whenever he loses focus, his voices strays into the wrong pitch.

And then the next question is, if I do add this in, where would I fit it into the story?

Going off on a 'brief' tangent for a moment, my current plan, is for Jess and Hugo to have their date night, and then jump over to Felix and company as they play Lost Desert as shown in the final panels way back in strip 176.

And then, since Hugo will be staying the night with Jess, he'll be around the following morning when Jess and Felix make their final preparations for meeting Lisa at the cafe. Originally I considered having Jess suggest that Felix simulate meeting Lisa at the cafe in VR as a practice run, but how would that work in the comic? Would I show the cafe scene twice? From a story perspective, it didn't seem like a good idea, despite practicing the meeting being a good idea.

Which is where Hugo comes in, he takes Fiona out on a 'date' for the morning, and asks her questions that he thinks Lisa might ask, and helps Jess and Felix flesh out Fiona's character and backstory.

One of those questions would be "what are you reading/watching," "what series/franchises are you into?"

And then when the topic comes up when Fiona meets with Lisa, Lisa adds the question "who is your favorite character in that story?" leading Felix to talk about all the wonderful qualities the protagonist has, causing Lisa to think that Fiona wants to be her instead of Felix wanting to date a girl like the protagonist.

Which then leads to Lisa suggesting that after her exams are over, Fiona use Sophie's VR game engine to make a game around that story, with Fiona as the protagonist, and Lisa and Craig as her pair of friends. (which Lisa doesn't realize form a love triangle in the story, MC in love with the boy, girl in love with the MC, thinking MC is a boy, boy in love with the girl).

After that we'll have the Star League convention and Superhero game I described in previous posts.

And then finally, what is the story? I could set it in World War 1 like the anime that inspired this, or perhaps the Victorian era? But I don't really have the art assets for either of those periods.

Back in strip 241, Jess found out Felix likes "King of the Rings" or rather Lord of the Rings. Maybe this story is "King of the Rings" where the fellowship is cut down to five characters (to save me from designing a ton of characters for a short story arc). And instead of focusing on the hobbits, in this version, Arwen one of the main characters and she is in disguise pretending to be Legolas (but wouldn't Aragorn recognize her?), and Lisa plays as Éowyn who replaces Boromir?

Or maybe its a different, more modern fantasy story (since Felix is more a fantasy nerd in contrast to Craig and Lisa being Sci-fi nerds). A dark lord has invaded the land, and a party of 3-5 heroes set out to find a legendary magic sword to defeat him. A princess, forbidden from joining the fight, sneaks out, disguised as her injured brother, to aid the heroic party in their quest. (I probably don't need to figure out too much of the plot, since it would mostly be Felix attempting to turn the tables on Lisa, and trying to push her and Craig together, while trying to avoid the story beats that push the MC and the boy together). What I like about this last one, is that this story has more space for a lot of romantic tension much to Fiona's chagrin.