Thread:AngryLance/@comment-37028137-20200128044919/@comment-37028137-20200426211741

Greetings Lance,

First may I say, thank you this is stupendously helpful, and very much appreciated! Also please don't apologize, about taking your time this except was enormous frankly I hadn't realized it was so long till I posted it. I'm just glad you were willing to wade through the dregs of my brain to read this mess.

I'm glad you liked it, the little voice in my head is going WooHoo someone else thinks it's not complete shite!

Silmë is around half a million years old so she's the oldest character in the novel. (I'm doing a chapter with the Reptile Kingdom, with Rep's permission. So Rep's going to show up. But he's going to be de-aged in my story, the whole three million years old thing is as he says 'It was a clever lie!' Just to poke fun at him and keep continuity. So don't tell him I told you!) She is certainly one of my favorite characters to write for, just so sweet and happy no matter what.

-After all, the Doc did died 14-15 times before. And Emma likely had to deal with that every single time... I feel it must've been heartcrushing even to Emma. Yet she keeps up the mirth and optimism.-

Yes and that comes up later in Chapter 30 I think. Vels convinces Emma to show her how Nick dies in his previous lives, so that she can understand him better and as she sees Emma relive those deaths it takes a toll on the avatar. Silmë is for all intents and purposes Nicholas' mother so watching her child die is soul shattering, (by the end of his 15th life he'll finally acknowledge that too.) But the two ladies grow closer as a result. I'm also going to have Emma confrot Lilith on a few things too, mother to mother, because she learns a few disturbing truths about why Vellantha is the way she is.

The lab and specifically the pocket watch, childrens books, and blanket tie into a thread from previously in the novel. One that explains Nick's self reservation to get close to anyone again, that Vellantha will uncover with some coaxing eventually. The metaphor as you said becomes fairly dark once she finds out why he had all that stuff kept in pristine condition.

The books are refences to actual Fairy Tales:

The Cyber King and the Seven Keys to Doomsday - Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

The Three Little Rutans And The Big Bad Sontaran - The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf

The Nanogenes And The Computer Engineer - The Elves and the Shoemaker

I had a hell of a time coming up with those but I thought it was hilarious.

- Huh, seems Nick made a fast recovery here. A cute little relief for Vell. Dude even feels good enough to walk around and go together with Vell into the library. Also, seems he also has some things to tell her. Heh, can never go wrong with some cofee. Unless you need to sleep. Badly. Jokes aside, this is it: she spills her heart out to him, about her fears of the 'other her'. And an interesting insight into that whole thing; seems like it's addictive rush of power from her perspective.-

Nick has a healing factor of sorts but it's imperfect hence the scar tissue, he only Regenerates when the damage is extensive, see Fourth Incarnation-Plasma Burns, (forthcoming) or sudden such as his Third's broken neck.

Addiction is a big theme is this novel, you hit the nail on the head with that. Vellantha gets a rush from her other self, and Nicholas is addicted to the serum he created to heal his condition all those millenia ago. Wait till you see his withdrawl symptoms they're nasty, that comes from experience.

-Second part of the confession: seems her rage is due to repressed negative feelings, outrage at wordly atrocities (most of them related to the Order and the CG) and even what she percieves as her own failures (protecting Nick). Nice moment of tension here, until Nick breaks it up. Here, Nick's reassurance is very nice, being quick to not only reafirm her victories, but also her 'humanity' (hah).

Vellantha is a Knight so she is bound by an honor code of sorts. When they first meet (in the past) Nicholas preforms a life saving surgery on her after she is wounded in battle as a result she swears a Vow of Allegiance to him, one that he only accepts so as to not commit a faux pas. Not only that but as Vellantha later tells him

"I-I don’t have many…any friends really. People tend to act, reservedly around me since everyone sees my mother as ‘The Demon Lord’ and me as an Admiral. So I don’t really get to talk with anyone in depth, let alone have actual friends. You’re the first person to see me, just me not ‘Princess Vellantha’ or ‘Admiral Vellantha’ and you treat me like somebody that matters.

He is her only friend so she is very protective of him, somewhat to a fault as you saw there. When creating her character I took inspiration from Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Vellantha is all sweet and funny, and gentle, till you screw with her family and then she isn't.

I'm really walking a line on how far to take her into dark territory, specifically once she recognizes the importance of the pocket watch, childrens books, and blanket and what they really mean. I may spoil that surprise for you simply to ask advice again. (Please feel free to tell me to bugger off if I'm taking too much of your time with these questions.)

- So that earlier paper research; turns out he used that cure himself, but it has gone awry. He was big man, though, not wanting to test it on someone else for fear of hurting them, as well as to not make himslef a liability to others. My respect to the character for being willing to wheather ALL of it.

He didn't really use it to cure himself, he'd already made a 'cure' in the serum he uses, that he's been habitually taking since his third incarnation. (I think the little blurb I put up about Incarnation number three mentions it. Otherwise I'll need to add that in.) He took the papers to try and find a way to free himself from the serum since it's addictive and causes so much pain but he couldn't understand it since Magi-Tech is utterly alien to him.

(Here's a twisted tidbit, Nicholas actually uses his pain to fuel his mystical abilities so while he know the serum is bad he doesn't want to get rid of it. Addiction is fun stuff eh? He's going to have to learn a new way to access his powers once Vellantha helps him get free of the serum. A similar crisis will happen for her too. Trouble is I haven't thought of it yet.)

Readers are going to meet Nick's brother somewhere down the line and he's a lot more angry than Nick is and he's got his own issues.

I rewrote the bathroom scene slightly to be from Vellantha's perspective since I thought it was more impactful that way. Initially it was from Nick's perspective but I swapped it around.

Once again thank you so much for taking a look at this it was great to have a second set of eyes, and thoughts on my work.

I hope your own work is going well and if you need any thoughts please don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers,