So today I was thinking about why Erica was named Erica – spoilers, the reason is phenomenally inane – and it again sent me down the inevitable spiral of how things got to where they are. As it happens, I keep things straight in my mind by running over them again and again every once in a while. Thus, I figured I’d do a little write up about it. For fun, you know? And as a preface: names are hard. Any of you out there that are GM for a tabletop campaign probably know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not really all that good myself and now you’ll see a bit about that. At least the four main protagonists of Ember King’s Inheritance have reasonable names unlike some people who I instead decided to mash syllables together until they sound something like a name [Footnote 1]. Now having said that, since I’m also working a bit of the base of the story and characters into this write up, we’ll start with a bit of backstory.
I believe I’ve said before that I first started working on what would become Nocturne of Fog in my junior year of college after I read (most) of Wheel of Time and got struck by passion. Kind of. It was a process. But some things – mostly Levi – came from an earlier idea I never really put much work in. That one goes back to my senior year of high school. You see, after playing Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Outrealms filled my mind with the idea of a kind of multiverse style setting. An idea solidified by, of all things, Blink’s portals from Days of Future Past. Something about the color really got me. So I came into an idea about a group of heroes wandering across a set of connected worlds just kinda… doing stuff. It wasn’t all that interesting conceptually and fairly derivative [Footnote 2], but there were things I liked about it. Most critically the characters. I mean, the protagonist was – and keeping in mind this was before I really started any kind of serious writing – basically just a cheap self-insert [Footnote 3], but there were some nice things about the others I wanted to keep around. Mostly just one of them, but that’s not important [Footnote 4]. Thus, backstory over.
Skipping back to college, we get to my first thin thoughts of Ember King’s. From Wheel of Time, I decided I wanted to do a kind of continent sprawling, political intrigue [Footnote 5] story with a bit of a spin on the classic ‘chosen one’ tale. But that’s about it. Early Ember King’s only really had the ending in mind. I have always had the general, series-wide conflict in mind and it’s resolution, but… Well, actually the first real story I had in mind was book 2, but I knew that one couldn’t start the series from a structural standpoint. And so there weren’t all that many characters in this plot. Allard and Erica were there, but the my were more the role of protagonist than actual characters at that point. Knife still existed [Footnote 6] and Grandmaster Fionn of the Order of the Eagle existed in some capacity [Footnote 7], but I think that’s it. At this point I’m a bit hazy on the order of some things [Footnote 8].
The first major change, perhaps fittingly, came about when Adelaide entered the scene. And she did come from a rather odd source. Y’see, one of the anime I watched that fall was Restaurant to Another World [Footnote 9] and I just… I thought Adelheid (we’ll get there) was neat. And I thought to myself that my story needed a princess. But it didn’t feel right to just bring her into the scene on her own. And my mind circled back to probably the most fleshed out of the characters from my previous story: Levi. Now Levi himself went through some stages. The first was not interesting. At all. He was just a taciturn knight with sword magic that I, very deliberately, patterned after Lon’qu and Frederick. Remember, Awakening. But since that was uninteresting as a character, what we’ll refer to as Levi Proto-proto developed away into more of a second-in-command to the protagonist. Since Gideon [Footnote 10] was intended as a more swashbuckler-y style, ‘clever and charming in a quick-witted way’ guy [Footnote 11], Levi Proto was meant to act as a more straightforward noble and heroic knight. Literal shining armor, a cool holy sword, and it turned it he was actually one of the Nephilim too. Turning back to Ember King’s, I wanted a knight in shining armor to attend to my new princess so I brought in the one who lived in the back of my mind and shaped him into something that would work for the story. Levi proper ended up as a bit of a middle ground, since I wanted to ease off on some of the holy vibes from Levi Proto and liked the beleaguered butler feel the Frederick half of Levi Proto-proto could provide [Footnote 12] to contrast with Addy’s princess-y attitude which was… somewhat different at the time. I liked the idea of him as a knight in shining armor being something special, to show that a knight meant something in the setting, so I worked in Ancient’s Armor and the resulting dearth of plate mail. Whisperwind… I mean, I like Whisperwind a lot but talking about it kind of requires later in the story knowledge. And as for the Nephilim bit… Well, I did say that Addy and Levi are distantly related, so he also works in the descent from Zephyros thing. But the real question here is: why Levi? This whole write up is supposed to be about naming, so where’d that come from? And there’s a reason I started with Levi: at this point, I don’t actually know. I think it’s probably as simple as keeping consistent with Gideon in the religious theme. So yeah. I named Levi ‘Levi’ after Levi. There you go. Though it did also lead into my decision to keep that consistent with the rest of the Crowngaurd family (beside Zephyros). Since they’re from Morningstar, I gave them a touch of Morningstar culture in taking names from the Old Testament like Aaron, Maccabees, and Zekharyel. Y’know, because the demon part of the Demon-folk comes from the fact that their society is split in to seventy-two houses (seventy-one now, because of Lord Morata) á la Lemegeton. It’s probably fine. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Which then leads us off to the next easiest name: Adelaide. So yeah. I said the reason I came up with her was because of Adelheid from Restaurant to Another World. Thus, when I was getting to work I searched desperately for a good name. But since naming’s hard, I went to one of my old standbys of looking up names by meaning. And I had two standards: A) ideally French since I’d decided at that point Tycortua should be vaguely French [Footnote 13] and B ) means something along the lines of ‘noble’. The only problem is… Well… Take a guess what the root ‘Adel’ means. So I decided since I wasn’t actually basing Adelaide off her I could just call it an homage and say that’s good enough. And if I’m feeling very glib [Footnote 14], I’ll just say I took the name from HoMM’s Adelaide instead. I like playing Loynis better, but she was my favorite Castle hero for a while [Footnote 15]. As for her development, I’ve really enjoyed how much she changed as I wrote her. Originally, she wasn’t very good. To start with, Ember King’s Proto actually started with the events of three years prior when Addy met Allard and Erica. I ended up changing that principally because I thought the story didn’t need to last for three years and it would be a better story if we didn’t have to suffer through the protagonists getting to know each other and learning to be competent. It’s just better with the rapport established and more than Levi capable of driving the plot. If you’re doing some math here, you’d notice that means Addy was originally a mere 13. I accounted for this by making her role that of a fool; she was basically useless in every situation, but always happened to be the spanner in the works needed for the good guys to win. But that’s not an especially interesting character to read. Which is where Hayate the Combat Butler came in [Footnote 16]. With Nagi in mind, I decided I could still keep some of the spirit of what I had in mind for Addy while giving her an actual niche to fill. If I made her actually intelligent and studious, made it so she knew things and was capable of affecting things in that way, she could still be useless in some ways and helpful in others. And I could still keep her role as the fool – the spanner in the works – while actually making her interesting, particularly since she could have a passion for lattice engineering to give something of a flavor to it. Of course, she isn’t meant to be especially Nagi-esque either, but she’s what led me this way. Then while I wrote her I started to get a better idea for who she was independently [Footnote 17] as her desire for adventure, more blithe than tsundere attitude, and hidden (and thus not seen yet, wait for book 2) contradictory feelings towards her role as crown princess revealed themselves to me. All leading to the next big step in her development that’s wa~y out of scope for this conversation [Footnote 18]. And that about wraps for her.
Except I suppose I should tie in how she relates to the four of Gideon and Friends. Admittedly, if you’d asked me any time before yesterday, I’d say she had no relation whatsoever. But as I thought about it, I couldn’t really deny that she is fairly similar to one of them, the ostensible inciting incident incarnate of the group ‘Sylvia’. So this one is a bit wonky. At the time, I ‘based’ Sylvia off a character from a webcomic I was reading (I won’t mention which because I stopped reading it when my webcomic kick died [Footnote 19] and therefore can’t speak to it’s quality for the eight or so years which goes beyond what I consider my place). But I put it in quotes, because she wasn’t really inspired by the character at all except insofar as they shared an archetypal base. Effectively, both were outsiders whose sudden appearance in the protagonist’s life set them on a path to shenaniganry ensuing and both had a generally cheery disposition. Put that way, the ‘inspiration’ is basically just that both were vague examples of the shounen manga classic of the magical girlfriend [Footnote 20]. And in that same way, Addy isn’t really Sylvia. Sylvia was some kind of vaguely not-human species with glowy skin and gem-like eyes and some kind of not quite bestial ki-based martial arts. She was a fighter in a party of fighters and meant to be almost as much of a partner-in-arms to Gideon as Levi Proto. Addy is neither of those things and fills a very different role and is a very different person with a different outlook, ambition, and anxieties. But they are both people whose introductions in the story roust their respective protagonists from the routine (even if Gideon’s routine was world-hopping and Allard’s break of routine happened off-screen). They both have a kind of indomitable cheer that leads them to drag their respective protagonists out of their comfort zones and into adventure. So I think if I did write Sylvia today, she’d probably be a lot more Addy than she originally was.
Now then! On to another rather easy explanation for a name in Allard. This one’s almost pathetically easy. So remember when I said I was looking for a name that was A) vaguely French and B ) meant ‘nobility’? Well guess what name I happened to stumble upon? Yep. I named Allard that because I found the name while looking for a name for Addy and it just kind of clicked for me [Footnote 21]. I liked the idea of our protagonist who’s just some regular dude from the countryside also having a name that’s kind of high and grand. It felt like a fun contrast, especially with a lot of what I intend to do with him as a character and his role as ‘hero’. Which in turn then leads to why Allard is the way he is. Honestly… I find him kind of boring. On a more foundational level than anything else, though. Historically, I’ve always found side characters more interesting than protagonists. Thus, when I first started considering what I was going to write, I had a cast of side characters I wanted to use surrounding a protagonist qualified as ‘he will be the protagonist, that’s for sure’. The early foundation of Allard was basically ‘he should use a bow because remember when Rand was more of an archer than a swordsman? That was cool’. And also related to that his motivations were supposed to be mostly hero-centric to tie into the whole idea of the ‘chosen one’ spin I intended from the start, though as I wrote that shifted more toward knights specifically because the crux of the issue is about the trappings of a role as opposed to the ideal of the role itself, but I digress [Footnote 22]. In that way, a lot of Allard’s development has been me kind of blindly trying to find who he should be and how to reconcile the dream of someone who wishes to be more than they are with the self-consciousness of how they don’t meet the arbitrary standard they’ve met for that ideal. More or less, while you don’t have to be who you should be, that isn’t a consolation if you aren’t who you want to be. But I think I’m getting too far into interpretation that should be left up to the audience anyway and I don’t think I did all that good a job of putting that across in NoF anyway, so grain of salt. Text trumps Ramblings. The point of this is that I’ve been making him up as I go as much as Addy, but I don’t like him as much because I haven’t quite found the singular moment yet. The thing that makes him sing for me. Or, put another way, all of the things I do like about him are in future books that haven’t happened yet so my current struggling is to find out how to get him there. Whoops.
And much like with Addy, Allard’s tie to Gideon and Friends is very thin. He doesn’t really have all that much in common with Gideon, but that’s because neither of them were especially interesting. I was always more concerned with the side-cast and Gideon was a self-insert anyway, so he was lame. Thus, Allard’s origin of being more a vehicle for more dramatic characters around him that I then had to mold into a real protagonist kind of fits since he was also very blank until I started writing. The lesson in all of this is that I struggle with protagonists because what’s required for a viewpoint to be interesting just often isn’t what I find interesting. By nature. The side-cast is there to provide something the protagonist doesn’t have, so if the protagonist had all of that flair, there wouldn’t be much need for anyone else. And I mean, this isn’t to say a protagonist can’t be flashy or dynamic. Your protagonist better be interesting in some way, or why the heck are we following them. It’s just that they can’t ever be that one character that shows up, does something cool which leaves a huge impression and leaves. Because they’re always there. My long term goal is to make sure that I don’t fail Allard by leaving him bland and lifeless. And at this point if I ever do bring Gideon back along with his pals, he’ll have to be completely different in order to be interesting. Though as I think of it, there is something to the idea of him being something like an in-universe rip-off of The Winter Swallow that I like. More opportunity for me to kick the crap out of my author avatar by having his copy absolutely hate him and find him insufferable. I might be able to find a way to make that work.
Which then leads us to our last character, the one who started this whole line of thought: Erica. Erica, Erica, Erica. Why did I choose that name? Basically at random, honestly. So you see, back when I first started this, I came up with the whole ‘Tycortuan naming motif thing’ and decided on ‘AL’ after naming Allard and coming up with most of Regina’s Reckoners (Mallory, Kalan, Nalren, Paula, and Lalia for those of you keeping track [Footnote 23]). To round this out, I looked for a good girl’s name that fit the motif. And I came up with Alexandra because it derives from something like ‘defender of Man’, which I liked. What I failed to see until someone else actually read a bit of what I wrote, is that it… doesn’t track well with the other names. It’s a bit long and formal for what I was looking for, but if I shorten it accord to motif, I get Al. Which I was already using for Allard. And if I take the next natural shortening, as Addy did in that first not even full draft, I get Lexi. Which is distressingly close to Levi in terms of readability. So when that was pointed out to me, I kind of floundered about for a name since I was on a deadline for a creative writing class [Footnote 24] and basically said ‘Uh… Eirika’s cool! I like Sacred Stones! Let’s go with that.’ Thus with a bit of re-Anglicizing, we got to Erica and there she’s stayed.
In terms of development, she’s fairly similar to Allard in that I always had in mind that she should exist as a protagonist (and she does have a very important role to fill in the resolution of everything), but not much else because as I’ve made clear, I find protagonists generally lame. I had in mind that she should be a mage basically because one I ported Levi from Gideon and Friends, I ported the idea of Melissa as a mage onto Erica and solidified that thought when no one else was especially interacting with magic. It gave her a niche to fill. From there, she’s had a similar kind of stumbling through the dark experience in my writing as Allard with one major exception. I’ve had the idea for a very long time at least, that she was meant to be effectively two things: A) the pillar of support in the group and B ) generally complacent and unable to see her own troubles. The later was probably the first thing I came across for her, that I liked the idea of her being someone that tries as hard as she can to help her friends but simply can’t grasp the fact that there’s something wrong with her that leaves her so dissatisfied; that her own lack of motivation and ambition is in itself a problem. But that’s gone a little by the wayside (not fully, I just think that she’s started to go in a bit of a different direction as a natural consequence of the story). In some part due to what I said about her being the pillar of support. I came across a character that I rather liked who was, in short, the one stable character in an angst-riddled cast and therefor despite being a fairly static character still came across as interesting to me because she was a point of stability for everyone else [Footnote 25]. And I liked that idea for Erica. It still captures some of the essence of the previous conception, but with a more useful for the story twist. That she’s perceptive and intuitive. She’s someone who sees the other character’s anxieties and strives to be there for them, even if she doesn’t often focus on herself as a result.
Then there’s magic and Melissa, two points I pair together for good reason. I don’t think Erica was originally meant to be basically a Cleric in all but vocation. That just kinda happened. I think (this was a bit ago, remember) she was originally supposed to be a straight blast mage. But that’s also when she started the story as a nobody who needed to be taught magic (basically) wholesale by then-Finn before he fell off a bridge. When we got to the point of ‘how is she able to convince Levi to take her along with Allard’ and ‘why was someone in a random village studying magic anyway’, we got to Greenmaidens and Greenmasters and thus her course was set. All the more because it fit better with her growing characterization. Thus leaving her vague inspiration cut off and drifting in the void. Because like I said, she was kind of inspired by the resident mage that acted as Levi Proto’s partner. But mostly in that she is a mage that works alongside Levi. Melissa might have been the least developed of Gideon and Friends, even considering the protagonist was a self-insert. I just never found anything about her to kind of breakthrough and be a really interesting part of the cast, aside from her role in balancing out the party. With that being said, she has one of the biggest things I wish I’d been able to bring over to EKI but never found the opportunity for in an aesthetic choice. For her, I’d had in mind that she’d cast spells out of two tomes she kept chained to her belt – one for rituals and one for evocations – so she’d have the magic floating books bound to her while she fought or did the other magicks. But that just didn’t fit Erica’s vibe at all, so I had to abandon it. Much to my regret. But it is interesting to me that at the end of the day, both of them were effectively the support of their teams; Erica just does it better since I never found a way for Melissa to actually support them rather than orbit them.
And that’s about all for this. Probably not a terribly interesting write up, but the mood struck. I suppose I can give one last note to the surnames, even though that isn’t terribly interesting. They’re all incredibly on the nose because it’s meant to call back to the idea that older societies only used surnames insofar as they were necessary. Most names were occupational because that’s the information they needed to convey. Otherwise where someone was from tended to be more important since odds were there’d only be one person of that name from that place. Thus, Crownguard and Greenmaiden are literally their jobs; Erica’s family has the name of Westhill because they live on the west hill of Regina’s Bounty. Allard’s family goes by Fortunata basically as a generations-long in joke by the people of Regina’s Bounty since they tend to be luckier than most. That’s it. If they hadn’t been brought in as Addy’s retainers, they would be ‘Allard and Erica of Regina’s Bounty’ and that’s about it. Also to that point, Addy doesn’t have a last name because she really doesn’t need one. If you said Princess Adelaide, pretty much anyone on Chevaladin would know who you meant. And as for middle names, since it’s meant to be a royalty or royalty tangential thing (at least for these two), that was an easy fix. To keep with the general vibe of Tycortua, I went to that old well of the Song of Roland and there we go. Olivier, Roland, and Naimon are all fairly obvious and Angelica tangential by way of Orlando Furioso [Footnote 26]. As for Jacques… I don’t really remember why I felt the need to give the name of Joan of Arc’s father to Levi’s dad, but I’m sure I had a reason. And for one more bonus, Addy’s mom gets Georgios by way of the Golden Legend which I’m counting, because of Skahios, Naktikos, and dragons.
Thanks for sticking around! Sorry it’s a bit of true Ramble this time.
Footnote 1: A thought you like Melyr – The Twisted Jerk
Footnote 1A: That’s one thing and this is another. Sure, the name’s grown on me, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s dumb.
Footnote 2: That being said, I wouldn’t mind trying to bring the base story to the Eleven Realms. I think it would be a great way to explore the broader setting of the Realms, but now’s not really the time. I have other projects that take precedence. If I ever mention Gideon and Friends, that’s what I’m talking about. For the moment, assume it exists in the psuedo-canonical Schrodinger’s space of ‘consider it to be happening, but I retain the right to change my mind at any time’. Basically, unless I do write something about it, you don’t need to pay it any heed.
Footnote 3: And yes, I still do have an author avatar in Ember King’s in the form of The Winter Swallow – in case you haven’t picked that up – but that’s not really… what he’s about. He’s more there because I wanted to have someone in continuity that could explain bits of world-building that wouldn’t come across in proper narration. I liked the idea of having an in-universe narrator for the appendices and such. Especially since it let me include the Mage of the Blossoming Wind and the Witch of the Lake to round out the trio. And from there I elected to make him a character of his own right working from the base of author avatar. But I digress. And, and in exchange for being an author avatar, everyone finds him insufferable and a few of the largest problems in the setting are either directly or indirectly his fault.
Footnote 4: Though ironically, the course of this line of thought actually led me to realize the four protagonists of this story all kind of share attributes with the four from Ember King’s. It might be that Gideon, Levi (we’ll get there). Sylvia, and Melissa are something akin to my archetypal four protagonists in some way.
Footnote 5: This is before I realized I’m not good at political intrigue.
Footnote 6: Though they – and their Master – are actually ported from a half-hearted DnD setting I was working on in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I’d gotten into Castlevania after Bloodstained was announced a year earlier and then Curse of Strahd came out, so… Castle Lunavexen came into being. We’ll see if that name sticks. It probably won’t unless I can’t think of something that makes more etymological sense.
Footnote 7: At that time it was just Finn, though, since he wasn’t Lugheri and just a mage since the Watchers didn’t exist yet. And he died when a bridge he was defending collapsed which outright won’t happen in Ember King’s.
Footnote 8: So this is somewhat relevant, but before I started and I was still working on establishing a base for the story, I actually charted out characters (after the main four were established). To make it easy for me, I did a kind of symmetrical allocation where each protagonist had an associated character in a set role. A diagram I mostly threw out because there were a lot of flaws in it. But aside form the protagonist, there were three categories: mentor, rival, and Folk. Yes, that last one is the ultimate example of why this needed to go. The mentor category is mostly still the same; we just haven’t met any of them yet. To go through it quick: Allard had Lehabim who was around from very early on since she was conceived as a mix between (most critically) Lan and Say’ri before I really got an idea of what Austall’s like and who she should be; Addy has Morwenna because I thought a not-pirate would be cool (I blame Fate-Drake) and Lehabim could use a rival; Erica had Fionn who went through the wringer of being marked for death, retconned out of existence when it felt like Erica didn’t need a mentor, then brought back when I realized he could fill the role as Grandmaster of the Watchers; and Levi had an odd case with Wind who has always been Wind but was originally a character ported from a DnD campaign under the armor until that left scope and I needed to rework… let’s say ‘them’ for now since their identity is ostensibly secret. Rivals are also mostly the same, it’s just that half of them were originally going to be ‘antagonists until they realize they’re after the same thing as the protagonists and they should work together’. But then I realized that makes no sense for them in character and there’s literally no reason for them to be helpful from the beginning. In order, they are: the Black Knight Allard will meet in Book 3, a character inspired aesthetically by someone I think is very neat from Stella Glow and I don’t want to say more at risk of spoiling anything, the lamest of the bunch but actually probably still the most relevant since ‘Warlock who messes with dark powers and Erica needs to stop’ is actually a plot point that does a lot of work, and Knife. Then since members of the Folk is a dumb category, half of them got the ax (though… Cira I think? I’ll need to check my notes – just got shifted to twenty or so years later). But Rion ‘the Desert Lion’ [Footnote 8A] and Lowell ‘Little Wolf of the North’ are still slated to show up in Book 2. And Lyonors kind of fills the role for Addy as a (half) member of the Snow-folk. Which just leaves Levi as the odd man out without a fun Other-worldly person to hang out with. Check back later to see how that changes. And the last note to make is with Xavi. Originally he was going to be a member of the Sun-Folk who was there simply to form contrast with the fact that the Moon-Folk feature in FEB. But then Morningstar creep happened and I realized he’d work way better that way, making him into an entirely different and more relevant character. I blame Manga-friend [Footnote 8B].
Footnote 8A: Lol.
Footnote 8B: You always blame Manga-friend – The Twisted Jerk
Footnote 8C: Because he deserves it!
Footnote 9: I have a soft-spot for that series. I don’t think I have enough to say about it for a full Rambling, but it is some nice, relaxing, fantasy slice-of-life. And I like food themed anime and manga, though admittedly this one doesn’t really show you about how to replicate the food it shows, so that’s a tick against it. Would recommend if you’re looking for something low-key.
Footnote 10: I’m not dancing around that anymore, we’re going by name. It’s not actually my name; I had enough standards to not sink that low.
Footnote 11: At the time it’s what I wanted to be if not what I was.
Footnote 12: For pity’s sake, couldn’t you come up with a better way to keep them straight? There’s too many Proto’s and we’re not even halfway done – The Twisted Jerk
Footnote 12A: Quiet, you. You know why I did this.
Footnote 13: I mean… ‘Vaguely’ carries a lot of weight in that sentence. I don’t have time to go over the specifics, so for now I’ll just point out that it’s also mixed in with the culture of Morningstar thanks to Zephyros, so it has a bit of vaguely Hebrew-Irish weirdness that is, at the current point in lore, best described as ‘modern’. That’s an entirely different discussion.
Footnote 14: Never forget. For those we have lost. For those we can yet save.
Footnote 15: And I still like Mephala better than either of them. I’ve always liked the Rampart and I think she’s neat, even if Elleshar and Kyrre are objectively better.
Footnote 16: Yes, that’s why three years separate Addy and Allard. A little in-joke just for me. And now you if you read this.
Footnote 16A: I mean, Hinagiku’s better – The Twisted Jerk
Footnote 16B: You’re not wrong, but that’s not how I meant it in the first place.
Footnote 17: In a lot of ways she feels like the first character I really started to get into and develop as herself rather than an influence from outside. While there were the influences I mentioned, I met Addy in the middle of them and she showed me who was beyond those boundaries.
Footnote 18: So this is a bit of a fun one. Technically a behind the scenes for another story, but who cares? This write up is already way too long. So in the fall of 2021 – which for those keeping track places it right about when I was waiting on edits after my second draft of Nocturne of Fog [Footnote 18A] – I was waiting in a Five Guys’ parking lot for a burger before I went to pick up my parents at the airport. I was fresh off Star Wars: Rebels, Blaster Master Zero 2 and 3, and in the middle of playing FEH. Watching Ayra do Ayra things, I thought to myself “I wish I had a place for a character like that in Ember King’s. But Lehabim already fills that role except less angry. She could never pull an ‘I am surrounded by fear and dead men’.” And then my mind got ticking and Misericorde (you’ll meet her in book 2) leapt into existence. And with her a good deal of the actual plot of Allard’s section of book 3. I’m not willing to say much about her right now [Footnote 18B], but that she exists is important for the next part of this. Because as December approached, I read Spinning Silver. And that one is one I’m going to have to put a full write up on, because I cannot express my love for it enough. But the Staryk left a lasting impression on me which combined with my second watch of Klaus and Misery’s backstory to lead into A Tycortuan Fairy Tale. A story which I hope to be able to put out at an opportune time [18C], but for now is mostly relevant in the ways it helped flesh out Addy’s backstory by proxy. Particularly in relation to those hidden contradictions I mentioned.
Footnote 18A: A piece of advice if you’re going to self-publish: there’s a lot more to consider than just writing and it takes a good deal of time, so it can pay to get started on that sooner rather than later. I spent a solid six months waiting on those edits and that’s not a criticism, just a reality. You need to plan ahead. Then there’s stuff like cover art, which also has a waiting period and is very necessary. And you also, also should not do yourself unless you’re a professional graphic designer doasIsaynotasIdo. Point – I had Nocturne of Fog where it is now easily six months before I published it simply because I didn’t take care of admin work early. Add that to the six months waiting on edits and an entire year of the process was spent waiting (and writing other stuff). So let that be a lesson to you in planning ahead.
Footnote 18B: For those of you wondering about why BMZ is in there, let’s just say a certain moment from 3 stuck in my (and everyone who played the game’s) mind and I decided she needed to wear a masked helmet.
18C: A first draft is finished, I just think there’s some stuff that could use filling out and since I’m focused more on main series right now I’m not especially rushed on edits beyond what any alpha readers might provide. And I don’t currently have alpha readers, so… Plus I also think it would work better to release at least after Book 2. Maybe Book 3. Especially if I can get the Baron of Chevaladin together by the interim between 2 and 3 since that one takes place 5 years before EKI instead of 2 years after.
Footnote 19: These days the only webcomics I really read are DnD based or Girl Genius. Not necessarily because I think there aren’t any other good ones. Just because that’s all I’m willing to devote time to.
Footnote 20: Quite frankly, Sylvia probably has more in common with Lala from that series I definitely know nothing about and wouldn’t ever think of mentioning here because it would be a breach of my website standards.
Footnote 20A: Why do you do this to yourself? — The Twisted Jerk
Footnote 20B: I figure it’s better to be honest about my faults. Only in knowing what you must overcome can you strive for what you wish to rise to.
Footnote 21: Though now that I check again, it seems like Allard is actually Dutch in origin? Or rather a Dutch variant of a Germanic name which has its own French variant I ignored… I’m going to chalk this one up to I knew it wasn’t right but decided to do it anyway because I liked how it sounded.
Footnote 22: And he is not meant to be nearly as Shirou as Manga-friend would like you to believe.
Footnote 23: Also for those keeping track: Mal is a corruption of Mat, Kalan a shortening of Kaladin, Nalren… Uh… That’s probably a random syllables name, Lalia from Lala (and being an actual name) [Footnote 20], and Paula… I think was just because it fit the motif.
Footnote 24: That’s right. I think I mentioned it before, but the first few chapters of NoF proper were written in and for a creative writing class. That’s when I committed and made the shift away from the three years prior start.
Footnote 25: Shout-out to Rinslet Laurenfrost.
Footnote 26: Or is it Orlando Innamorato? I don’t know. There are things I can’t stand about the Italian fanfic of the Matter of France much like there are things I can’t stand about the French fanfic of the Matter of Britain, even if there are also things I like.
Footnote 27: And also, if the lesson you take from this is that I’m a real mongrel of a faker who can’t come up with a character without taking it from somewhere else… Fair. But the reason I strive to transparency in my inspiration is because it would be foolish to act as though I’m writing anything in a vacuum. No one does and pretending otherwise would be counterproductive. Of course I don’t set out to outright steal anything. But I’m not going to pretend like there aren’t attributes of stories and characters I like in other stories and characters that led me to want to use them myself. That’s how storytelling works. Good writing is about making sure it stays at shaping, however, instead of stealing. Not only does telling you about the things that I love which shaped me – however large or small – mean that I can share those things I love with you, but it can give another perspective. It’s like discussing schools of philosophy. Talking about the stories that shaped me let’s you see how they have in my writing, gives you that perspective to see not just that I’m not writing in a vacuum, but what the space I’m writing in is. In this day, I find we place too much importance on trying to be singular and unique when it’s better to understand what similarities exist and why. In understanding those similarities, the inspiration that I took, it can then highlight both the differences that came from me and what I wish to tell through my story in the first place.
Footnote 27A: You’re still a hack, though – The Twisted Jerk.
Footnote 27B: Rude. And again, thanks for sticking around everyone! I know this one’s a little Footnote heavy.
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