Divided - Afterword ~ Divided and Imago: Sims 4 Fantasy Stories

CONTENT WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE STORY. References to murder and suicide.

There may be typos as some parts are copy pasted from my story plan, which is a mess.

I started writing Divided in June 2022, when, after finishing a magical story trilogy, I decided I wanted Áine to have a backstory as well (Anyone who has read my SimLit long-term will tell you I'm worse than the fucking MCU for this.) I was going to get a gaming laptop anyway, and then I ended up beginning Divided.

It's the most ambitious thing I've ever written. The longest things I've written before that I think were 15,000-20,000 words long. No idea how long my other Sims stories were, but they were only about 20-25 chapters at the most. I still have no idea how I managed all of this, let alone finished it. Divided was meant to be three Acts. It became four, five, six and then seven, and ended up 500k words with a much bigger cast than I was expecting. For those wanting more insight into this ridiculously-long Sims story that took 3 years and 5 months and took up most of that time, I have written a sort of afterword. Thank you to all who joined me at any point on this journey, special thanks here.

I did not post this story to Tumblr until about Act 5's start. This was originally posted on the original Sims forum before its closure, where it somehow had a mod reading it for a short while and also got a mention in the site's Friday Highlights. An archive of the comments from that old now-deleted thread are here. I am not responsible for others' comments and can't guarantee you'll agree with everything said.

Let's look into the story a bit more. This will be spread across sections and added to as I have time / remembering things.

References to real-life history

Divided takes inspiration from a fairly big gap in time, ranging mostly from the 17th- mid 19th century. It is not meant to be wholly-accurate to real life, but many aspects of the story are based on real history:

The witch bottle in Act 1:3/4 is an actual thing. However, it turns out that the nails mentioned in the real-life witch bottle were metal nails, whereas I am pretty sure I had them written as toe or fingernails. Partial research error.
James Tanner takes partial inspiration from real-life 17th-century witchfinder Matthew Hopkins, who thought of himself as 'Witchfinder General', and had one of the highest kill counts in terms of getting people sentenced and killed for witchcraft in the country out of any witchfinder in the last 160 years. He was known for using torture methods to get confessions out, which to be fair a lot of witchfinders were, but still.
Owen's complaints about Jacobans getting in the way of medical science are one of the rare aspects of the Peteran and Jacoban religions taking inspiration from real-life religion...though, upon later research, there's a chance it actually wasn't true about Christianity historically condemning the use of cadavers for medical purposes. Again, another possible error.
The 150-year-old manual 'Monsters from Across The Globe, And Other Fiends of Magic and Mischief; And How to Protect Oneself from Them' written by Gianni Volpe is of course based on the real-life witchfinding manual Malleus Maleficarum, written in the 15th century.

Inspirations / References to Other Media

The sociopolitical elements,the nuance of such things and the in-depth worldbuilding are based on one of my favourite game series, the Dragon Age trilogy.
The effects of the Rite of Dissolution are based on the Tranquil, mages that are cut off from the Fade and so can't do magic anymore (so quite similar to the Rite of Dissolution). They also have no emotions and are taken advantage of often in the games' lore.
I was playing Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One as I was writing this story, and I think some of that hyper-analytical eccentricity might have subconsciously slipped into Owen a little bit. (If I had a nickel for every questionable physician with a cane that takes some level of inspiration from Sherlock Holmes, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.)
Whilst I can't nail a bunch of stuff down, a few things are inspired by Final Fantasy. One of the big ones is Oskar's design being inspired by Sephiroth as well as his backstory as a soldier, and the black feathered wings in his dark form (though Oskar has two of them and is considerably more pleasant than Sephiroth.) Violeta's red dress with the black fluff around the neck is CC by sentate based on Edea's dress (a dark sorceress) from Final Fantasy 8.
Many aspects of the magic system and other tidbits are inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder tabletop systems, such as ritual spells and some spells requiring physical components to 'power' them.
Violeta's design was of course inspired by Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil: Village.
The witchfinders' faces turning up to scream and face the sky with whited-out eyes when having their life forces drained is based off something from Arcane.
The chapter about Eli 'The Man with his Heart on the Outside' and a lot of the text in it is inspired by the mini comic The Cat has its Heart on the Outside by eliasericson on Tumblr.
The night-wraiths and their lore are inspired heavily by the 'ghosts' in the game Oxenfree.
The bloodline houses having animal symbols, and sometimes being a bit obsessed with them or referred to metaphorically as them, is inspired by Game of Thrones / a Song of Ice and Fire

Elements of the Lunvinchenaîné lore were inspired by Hircine from Elder Scrolls, like Lunvin's Wilds being eternal werewolf hunting grounds - and also by the lore of the goddesses Selûne and Shar from DnD. The ‘pregnant with sword’ Lunvin goddess design is based on Lamashtu from Pathfinder.

The 'poison intended for Katlego' section from Act 2 is of course lifted from Emperor's New Groove. At least 3 people picked up on that which I am grateful for, haha!

Favourite Aspects of the Story

The way everyone comes together from across identities, cultures, classes, the lot to try and solve the issue of the witchfinders. It was fun making all these characters' lives come together and seeing everyone meet each other, and making everyone find common ground within one another. Easily one of my favourite parts of the story.
Seeing it from both sides, but not necessarily in a way that says the witchfinders were right, was a part I enjoyed, as well as seeing the reasons why people actually get into it. Even with some of the worst characters, you can sometimes understand why they do what they do even if you really do not agree with the reasoning why.
I had to kill a lot of darlings, but it was worth it. This story was a good exercise in doing so, as well as managing long storylines, planning, structure, and big casts. All difficult, but you have to learn somehow.
There are a few things in Divided that worked out well accidentally, and the reverse of the usual happened - where IRL ends up affirming the lore instead the research improving the story.
One of them is that my overcharge lore and the lore of Annorin's Syndrome / witches' pallor is unintentionally very similar to something by French occultist Eliphas Levi: '[magic] may over-excite the nervous system, producing terrible and incurable diseases'.

Also what worked out in kind of a sad way was Áine and her mother's animal form being a wolf, given I found out this year that the last wolf in Ireland was killed around the 1780s. The decline IRL of Ireland's wolf population is largely attributed to hunting and loss of habitat, both of which the English had a big hand in.
I enjoy the relative nuance of the story overall, even if there are some definitely terrible characters like Volpe and Samuel, it is never as simple as one group being good or one group being bad, and most of the cast are not entirely beyond redemption. It was hard to write this story for a lot of reasons, but one of them was worrying that everybody would be too problematic. I just said 'fuck it' and went for it anyway.
This point ties in to scrapped ideas - Volpe's death was originally going to happen in the end of the story. I decided to bring it forward because I loved the idea of criticising the idea that getting rid of the right guy will always solve everything. As Owen learned, it won't. Volpe's death sent a message, but it also meant all his witchfinders tripping over each other to be the next top dog and sent them after the witches more than ever. As Owen said, they got rid of the figurehead, but the ideology remained. The endgame of the story is trying to rebuild and fight back at the same time, getting rid of the worst threats and trying to make those willing to change see the truth about witchcraft.
It's thoroughly uncomfortable in a lot of ways. It was for me writing it given its historical context and it being more morally messy than my past work. So many people are allowed to reform who wouldn't be in real life. So many people who would likely not do the right thing in real life do the right thing eventually in this story.

The main characters end up largely, but not exclusively, a moral mess of serial killers and billionaires and people who did major harm to their families in the past. One snide tongue-in-cheek criticism this story got by someone was the fact it was 'pushing a social agenda'... a funny comment to make by someone who a) didn't actually read any of it and b) about a story where lifelong misogynists, serial killers and billionaires all end up reforming or as main characters. Do you really think Owen fucking Annorin is 'pushing an agenda'? XD
A minor thing: as this whole story will show you, 'weight gain as a sign of healing' is THE trope for me if it can be considered one. I love it. Eat and be merry, indeed. : 3
The werewolves. Werewolves are an allegory to a lot of things, and that's what I love about them. I didn't really have one specific thing in mind for them to be allegories to, though. I also liked their religion, and that it was quite pragmatic in a way that works for wolves, but not so much for people.
The result of the conflict and its resolution. With stories like this, it can be easy to either make it 'both sides but in a boring centrist way' or sometimes it can get into wish-fulfillment territory. Divided is a look at a fictional world's history, it is not a revenge fantasy about killing the right people and when the right people die the issue is solved. I also like the complexity of the solution - it's not 'violence is not the answer', it's not 'violence is the only answer', it's 'violence is part of the answer' - the other part being community building. Not everybody's minds could be changed, but some people's could be. I didn't want it to be utopian but also didn't want it to be 500k words of pure fantasy doomerism.
I love every character, but I really enjoy the inclusion of Reynold for a specific reason - the reason I designed him the way he is in the first place. I wanted a main male love interest who wasn't the typical dark, brooding, chiseled-chin muscular abusive type in fiction and whilst he does have his dark brooding moments later, at first he is just a friendly priest. Also not only does the fat guy get the girl, he has multiple people consider him attractive throughout the whole story ~~and apparently has half the readers after him as well~~. I wanted Áine and Reynold to have respect for each other, instead of it being a case of 'Omg he's so mean to me, he's so hot' cuz I am not interested in that at all.

Favourite Quotes

To be added

Scrapped Ideas / Plot Points

Originally, Oskar and Violeta were going to be brother and sister.
Was originally meant to be three acts long and mostly from Áine's POV.
Tsuna's original name was Ikue Takeda, but I changed it to be more fitting of at least two sources on Japanese history and naming convention though I found a lot of conflicting material there.
Below is Tray files from summer 2022, including old designs for Alistair and Blythe who would have appeared at some point; Kat with a rougher outfit on implying she'd been at sea far longer; an unnamed Annorin who I don't remember any context for, and Oskar and Violeta still labelled 'VASILESCU BRO AND SIS'. A research error meant I didn't know the Romanian naming conventions would have been different in her time, meaning her name was changed from Violeta Vasilescu to Violeta Vasile Nicolae.

Violeta is actually using a different character as a base - her design uses Esmeralda Viridis, an evil Sage character from my original magic trilogy, as a base. I changed Kat's eyes from pink to dark brown.
Valravn would have made Owen power-hungry and given him the feeling that he was unstoppable, to the point where he began using her and she turned on him and tried to get another character to get him to treat her with respect where her threats did nothing. Something like that.
Many people wondered what the 'Strong bloodline' was in terms of Oskar and Violeta. The Strong is actually a surname as opposed to strength of a bloodline. The Strongs were a cruel family of vampire hunting witches from a challenge my partner did. One of them appeared in the modern magic trilogy I wrote back in 2019-2021, and the Strong magical bloodline were meant to appear in the story, but I decided not to go along with it for the sake of not complicating the plot. The Strong magical bloodline do however help Samuel Annorin craft his vampire cure.
'Reynold becomes angered with Aine's violent and dangerous nature, and tries to get Roisin to stay with him in relative safety in the monastery. She refuses, wanting to be with her mother.' (from written plan'
Volpe's original backstory: 'He had a castle in Henford but it was destroyed by witches who tried to take revenge- all of which were hanged.'
Scrapped character: 'Temperance Blackwood: It seems that she is not a fan of her husband's business outlooks, and suggests to him that he is no better than San Myshuno medical professionals for gatekeeping his cures for the very rich. She loves him, but does not love his selfishness. She stops Samuel trying to go after Katlego for her herbal remedies.'
Cordelia Thebe was meant to be a witch, and would have begged for 's protection when Volpe found out. Based on her actual game lore more, here is the section from my plan: 'A rich woman who calls herself 'princess' and often takes the company of pirates and other shady types, although she is to marry Lord Eduardo Volpe. Cordelia is said to be a member of Royal House Thebe, who lost her home in a terrible invasion in Tartosa, survived a Kraken attack and used its power for her own purposes.' Since mermaids and water monsters were never a thing in my other stories, I didn't bother with it. In fact, she got put on a boat for the entire story.
'Ilse Lorenz: Turned by Oskar to somehow 'save' her from a terminal illness. She has been a vampire for almost 80 years. She resents Oskar because she will never grow up, but he did it to save her life, though how much of that was up to selfishness is anyone's guess.' Oskar's daughter who would have resented him for what she did. It was her who was meant to nearly die by terminal illness and not Oskar. In the final she is long dead from old age and not a vampire.
A plot point I totally forgot to include was her return, seeing Owen and recognising him. She would have asked him where Volpe was, to which Owen would have awkwardly admitted to murdering him and she and her pirate polycule would have thought him a hero and they would have gone to live with Bob the Butler in Volpe's mansion again. Missed opportunity for humour there. I totally forgot to include it.
Mother Joyce was going to be a witch who could turn into a gryphon. It got scrapped because it didn't make any sense and I didn't deem it cool enough to make up for not making sense.
I could not decide who to kill off later on down the line and wanted some aspects of the story to be not too coincidental. Some deaths were decided by coin-flip. One of them was Oskar and Violeta, decided in the start of Act 2, which Oskar lost. I did have a plan for if Violeta died, where his 'darker dark form' seen in the story would have been a sort of heavy grief alter ego named 'Rächenzahn' - 'Avenging fang' - and he would have gone mad with revenge for the sake of his dead mother, involving the others trying to talk him down.
I also flipped a coin between Reynold and Clementia in Act 1, and Reynold was meant to die in Act Six. However, my Act Six plot became less brutal and drawn-out than planned. It would have involved Clem going after Áine violently for makingher brother want to kill himself and Reynold sacrificing himself for her. He tells her, dying in Clem's arms, that it's okay because the moon is out, but he's too weak for his lunar magic to work and he dies. Áine would have been spurred by this to end her violent tirade. I deemed it pointless, not as effective as Oskar's sacrifice and I wanted Áine's move towards community building to be moreso off her own back than suddenly after losing someone close. I realised after that I could not shoehorn Reynold's death in and just scrapped it until the ending. Defeats the purpose of the coin flips, but..
One idea I wish I never scrapped (only people online tend to be really annoying about anything f/f) was a relationship between Violeta and Clementia. Yes, you could have had old woman yuri and I fucked it up. I'm a shit lesbian.
Violeta would have taken her under wing to make her see her full potential and strength, and Clementia would have become more like her Act One self, vengeful, angry, constantly on her guard but stronger and more for herself. Violeta's idea of self-betterment would have moreso corrupted Clem, but Clem would have seen it as empowerment. It would have been quite a toxic relationship, but I was worried that people would complain because of the biological age gap (25 at the time and 48, both adults yes but people online keep thinking anyone in their 20s is a child) and also because of the toxic yuri. Toxic yaoi is fine on the Internet but toxic yuri is not allowed apparently. I wish I never caved to this shit and wrote it, but I think in hindsight it was probably not like Violeta to be in a proper relationship anyway.
I once planned for Eli to kill Samuel and not Violeta, but didn't want to end up with no pacifists and it felt a bit TOO OOC.
Oskar and Owen and Maddie were never meant to be main characters.
Julian from Champs les Sims was meant to burn down the Jacoban cathedral. Scrapped because of riots and things being set fire to in France at the time, so didn't want people to think it was in poor taste.
Scrapped idea: 'Aine wants to leave to go and see Reynold with Roisin, and Iris angrily refuses either of them to leave. Aine defends Roisin . Iris demands that until they get justice for the deaths of witches, neither will leave. Aine speaks to the other witches who say they'd like to venture out now and again and Iris won't let them and threatens them with exile. None of them know why and none of them know anything of her past life other than that she's from Mt. Komorebi.'
Scrapped: 'Ellie asks Kat about her closeness to Owen Annorin and Lydia, and Kat states that she is being friendly to them because they have not done her wrong, and she isn't going to obsess over Annorin or something. Bad wording but. Kat sometimes feels held back by her humble life and her newfound success has made her yearn for something more.'
Scrapped Violeta idea after Oskar's death: '- Possibly becomes very clingy with Eli, trying to look after him. Possibly ends up at odds with him when he says he's not Oskar. Somewhat possessive of him as if trying to look after him. '
In relation to a plot hole below, a scrapped plot line: '- Has a plan to publicly humiliate Juniper by using Reynold, he admits to being a werewolf and so all the Jacobans watch during a full moon only for him to not turn, and she is accused of slander and possibly run out. A vengeful decision on Clem's part, Reynold might try to get her to see reason the way he got Julian to see reason. Clem isn't terribly happy about this since she did try to have her killed, but Reynold is not gentle with her as he is with Julian. Mess with Juniper's head. Talk of the blue glow. but he isn't a werewolf? So who is? Problem cuz it would get someone else killed.'

Mistakes, Issues, Plot Holes, And Other Not-So-Good Bits

Owen's hair changed from a sort of mid brown to a darker brown by mistake. I think the darker colour suits him better though.
The geography.

I didn't realise that real-world countries exist in Sims due to Sims 3 World Adventures. Champs Les Sims, Al Simhara and Shang Simla are places IN France, Egypt and China and not the actual Simlish analogue names for the countries themselves, which is what they are in Divided.

Also Henford. Henford changes from a town to a country to a county. Eventually I got around this by having Henford and the Surrounding Country, a sort of rough United Kingdom analogue.
I had no idea until after I finished the story that Tess Dyer (Áine) was set to not be able to get pregnant. Yeah, you can change these sorts of things, but I usually abide by them from a storytelling perspective. I didn't know at all until a week after I finished the story!
The numerous typos. Whoopsie.
I have a habit of repeating myself within the same paragraph.
Valravn was named after the same thing from Norse mythology, and was going to be closer to it in terms of the myth. she still retains the 'can speak and communicate with humans' as appears in some versions, but has none of the knightly similarities. However, it does tie in to the canonical fact she was used in wars a lot by kings and was a great fighter, even if she ended up killing some of her own masters in the distant past.
There was meant to be a scene referencing the first How to Train your Dragon movie, in which Valravn would open her wing after shielding Owen from an attack to reveal he was still alive. I couldn't be bothered to make the poses or the decos.
Scrapped scene: 'Reynold goes to Lunvik to get the wolves' assistance in finding Roisin or defending the witches.' I figured Reynold would not have wanted the wolf pack to be endangered in Henford by the witchfinders.
I had no idea 'disability as punishment' was a common issue in fiction until after Oskar had done this to Samuel for what he did to Eli and everyone else.
Whilst Oskar's OCD-like issues were a result of his vampirism and his bloodlust, so when he had an ample supply of blood the issues went away - I wonder if I should have made it so it didn't wholly go away, or the issue remained but with different reason or different cause. I don't like the 'curing disability' thing much due to what disabled people have said about it in fiction. I chose to do it since it was similar to the condition, not the condition itself, but I still think I should have just kept it and kept it as a trait of how vampirism had affected him, and had it remain regardless of whether he had a good supply of blood or not.
I lost the Sim for Matilda the maid at the Annorins' mansion, so she never appeared in any scene past 5:19 to my knowledge.
Scrapped idea: '- Possibly, Kat attacks Volpe to defend herself and Ellie in the form of a tiger, quite brutally (and almost fatally) attacking him. In a panic, realising her herbal remedies will not be able to save him, she hands him over to Owen. He tells her she doesn't need to pay anything, he'll do what he can. Owen lets him die, with the knowledge that he'll just say he couldn't be saved. Kat won't believe him but will question his integrity as a physician, to which he says that Henford will be better off without him. ' I didn't think it was in character for Owen to do this whilst still a physician. '- Kat, distraught at what Owen has done, but at the same time doesn't feel bad for Volpe. It's this action that spurs the witch hunts in part, Kat fleeing back to Glimmerbrook with Ellie at Owen's suggestion. '
An earlier draft of Reynold's original 'death' idea planned for Act Six: 'Reynold allies against Aine knowing what she is doing is doing no favours for their family or for the witches, and that what she is doing is only going to make things worse in the long run. Aine turns against him, and Clem turns against Aine. When Clem comes against Aine and Aine possibly goes for Clem, Reynold gets in the way, protecting her with his life. Possibly, as he is dying, he fears the night-wraiths are back, but it is instead the ghosts of both Oskar and his daughter who try to console him in his death.' As you can see, part of this stayed in, and that part is a remainder of an idea given to me by a friend, Yimi.
When Eli broke up with Dan, he was meant to have a fling with the young adult stable boy Alex in which Owen finds out about them having an intimate moment in a hay pile. Eli would have still been helping Owen with the horses at this point, to which Owen would have told him quite humorously that he should stick to riding horses and not his stable boy. I scrapped it since the humorous aspect didn't fit the sad breakup, the rest of the sad stuff happening there, and also it felt stereotypical and shitty rep to do with the bisexual character. Also added nothing to the plot.
A lot of pacing issues especially regarding timeskips.
As someone who does not feel emotional empathy (I will try and do the right thing, I just don't feel the necessary emotions that say 'I feel your pain) I wanted to have such characters who were not cruel or vicious as they usually are in fiction. Cue Violeta and Maddie, both with enormous kill counts. Way to screw myself over. I still like both characters though.
I should have fleshed out Xander and Ellie more.
There is a plot hole where Clem says she will hold Áine accountable for making her brother want to kill himself. Doesn't happen.
The plot line of Juniper asking Reynold to visit her with everyone watching upon the full moon to prove his werewolf-ness, and Clementia using that to her advantage somehow, is mentioned but was ultimately scrapped due to it complicating the plot.
One gaping plot hole in Act 3:20's ending is a result of a scrapped story plan involving Daniel actually going back to witchfinding.
Physical distance between Owen and Valravn was meant to cause mental distress for both of them, leading to a sort of depression and mental pain that mimicked how master and familiar feel when one dies. This was scrapped due to it being a weak plot point for the part of the story it was for even if it made for interesting lore.

Oskar says to Gideon before his death about Dan possibly already being indoctrinated by his time with the witchfinders. A scrapped story idea involved Lord Volpe finding out that Gideon had lied to him about killing Oskar. He would have had his witchfinders kill Gideon in a way that looked like witches did it. Daniel, mourning his father and assuming they killed him for being a witchfinder despite him being reformed for years, would have gone and joined the witchfinders, with the influence from his unwilling time in them influencing his desire to join them and find the witches that killed his father. I also wanted to not have all the comparative pacifists choose violence.

It would have ended up being physician Josiah and witchfinder Daniel and Josiah trying to get his brother back, life versus death. It was a really cool idea, but I decided not to pursue it since it meant an important character dying for nothing more than to further another character's plot - something I especially did not want to do a Black main character of the story.