Direction chapter four notes

One of the things I ended up doing with this story, unlike what I’ve been doing of late with First Ones or the revised Identity is this interweaving of stories. To tell the truth, I think if I had to be confined to one person’s viewpoint (as I am with Hisao’s) and only one storyline, say, per chapter, I would find it pretty boring. That may be why I found it difficult to keep going with Shinji’s point of view in that story. Here, I had the luxury of basically everything being planned out for the whole length of the story—all three plotlines (Hisao’s career, Sumi’s relationship problems, and Rin’s struggle for self-identification) could be easily envisioned.

Now, why is that? On further reflection, I think it’s because the nature of the story demanded creativity only in personal interactions. It’s not the same kind of thing as creating Eisheth Zenunim for First Ones or the Sorcerers for Identity, or even the Piggies in The Coin. I did have to do something like that, some building of the world, with the environments of Toudai and Geidai, but not nearly as much as other stories. I think that meant there were fewer tough details to have to get figured out. On the other hand, it also means I’m strongly considering trying to plot more out in advance—even if I have to rewrite it—just to make my overall plans more explicit. For “Direction,” I basically had at least a sentence or two describing each scene, with the only real major change that comes to mind being my backing off on the Sumi plotline.

I’ll be the first to admit that there are some weaknesses to the piece. For instance, I went back and forth with how much or how little Rin put of herself in her paintings and had to eventually resolve that contradiction as I do in the first scene here. I also, in retrospect, wish I had done more with Adachi, who felt like a cool character, but once Hisao had learned all he could about Rin from her, he had to deal with Rin himself, and Adachi had little place in that. A fourth plotline about Adachi might’ve been warranted, if only to round out the character.

First scene. Rin gets to explain her painting series here, which is good. This Rin we see is the Rin you might’ve expected after the route ending—awfully suppressed, nearly defeated. The line about being unable to slit her own wrists (because she doesn’t have any) was just too powerful to pass up. Do I think Rin really meant it? No, it just highlights her inability to connect with people (which has never really been about her arms, but it serves as an apt metaphor nonetheless).

Like with Rin’s paintings, I found Sumi’s exact motivation for having problems with Ryou to be almost as problematic. Perhaps this is the downside of planning everything out—you have to be careful your characters have enough room to breathe. I hope that Sumi’s reasoning for being resistant (while also trying to understand Ryou and find a solution to their marital problems) felt reasonable. In the end, I also wondered if Hisao’s involvement managed to tie things up into too much of a convenient bow. I did end up slowing things down so that Ryou was only accepted into SDF properly in the final scene.

Hisao’s career path storyline did feel at times a bit less well developed than the other two, but I think this scene managed to do it justice. The conversations with Jirou and Michel (which are the ultimate reasons they exist in the story) had to be broken up a bit to keep them from veering into monologues, based on reader suggestion. Still, I felt it was important that Hisao not make an immediate decision. Even Chiba’s advice to him doesn’t persuade him fully. But there is a task Hisao can undertake that he is uniquely qualified to pursue.

The final scene ended up quite a bit longer than expected, and honestly, with a little less sex than I expected. Granted, I’ve operated under the maxim that you should write a sex scene like it’s about making toast and write a breakfast scene like it’s about sex—that is, too much detail can distract from a scene that is supposed to be interesting, but a scene that is dull can benefit from detail to keep attention, or that’s how I’ve interpreted the idea (I’ve paraphrased it somewhat). The focus is much more on the relationship than how that relationship is consummated.

I considered having Rin break down and cry, but it just didn’t come out that way. These are adults, and they’ve had time to come to terms with what happened. It’s true Hisao can’t anticipate what kind of person Rin will make herself into, but that’s what faith is for, and he has faith in her. That faith and trust is why they can be together here, why Hisao can give her the comfort and connection she needs.

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First Ones 05 - Assassins - notes

I took a break during the writing of this chapter to pen “Direction,” the Katawa Shoujo story that I’m still in the process of editing and publishing. I learned a lot during the writing of that piece to try to organize my chapters better and in a way that will be easier to write—and I also learned that no amount of organization makes up for enthusiasm.

That’s not to say I don’t want to write this piece. I do. But with any long piece, it takes a lot of energy and persistence, and the high that you have when you start it wears off over time. I felt that with “Direction,” even though I was able to maintain a high level of activity (partly aided by winter holiday) to finish it, just on a smaller scale. With longer pieces like this one, you ultimately just have to grind it out, even when you don’t want to write, even when you’re busy. It’s a long and continual process, but it is what it is.

What I realized after writing “Direction” and coming back to this chapter was that it was way too long. For “Direction,” no chapter had more than five scenes, and I was able to reach healthy lengths on the order of 9000-13000 words or so. When I came back to “Assassins” here, I realized I had at least eight scenes, perhaps nine or ten! A bit ridiculous. I pared it down somewhat and reorganized some things, but even then, the battle scene in Germany (which plays out as one big scene) ended up much longer than expected, even though I compressed it significantly.

This chapter ended up going into territory beyond what I initially expected. I was going to make it about Keel and his followers trying to assassinate the Prime Minister and Misato’s subsequent pursuit. I ended up cutting that entire attempt out for length, and Misato pursues Keel Lorenz entirely on her own.

The chapter is quite long, but I failed to find any obvious points to cut without consequences. The initial scene sets up Misato’s state of mind. Her conversation with Rei helps flesh out their relationship, as with the situation between her and Hyūga.

I originally had planned a ball for Misato to attend after returning from the LCL sea, where she would meet with Shinji, seeing he’d grown close to Asuka, and receive her pendant from him. I ended up cutting this from the outline and finishing out the boat scene as we see it now.

This chapter is all about Misato’s growing cynicism toward humanity—it’s more about her struggle with her outlook than against Keel, really. The mayhem in the streets—that people would even go along with Keel at all—damages her. What she saw when she emerged from the sea, how the police could only keep the crowd under control under threat of gunfire, catalyzed her drive. Her descent continues with her stark threat toward her prisoner and her wielding of a rocket launcher against the German fighters, culminating in her execution of Keel. Until that point, I don’t think Misato crosses the line. She dances around it, flirts with it, but that execution is really when she steps over, when her fear of humanity’s failings as a whole drive her to make a bold decision.

The wrong decision, as we see, but a decision nonetheless.

There were some other things I scaled back or changed. Originally, I wanted Keel to escape Erbach and Misato to shoot him with no one else around, making the secrecy of the murder more plausible, but that would’ve required her to go alone, which would’ve been massively unwise—or premeditated, or both. The result is that Misato’s decision is more spur-of-the-moment, and I think that’s a good thing.

One of the parts I considered cutting was the conversation between Shinji and Misato. It doesn’t really serve a lot of purpose as far as furthering the plot, but I felt it was too important from a character standpoint to cut out. I haven’t spent a lot of time with Shinji since chapter three—even then, one of my pre-readers has long expressed his preference for that chapter’s original draft, which was written in Nozomi’s perspective instead. I admit, I grew a bit bored with being confined to just Shinji’s perspective. Either the story had to be shorter, so I could stay solely in his viewpoint, or it had to be longer, so I could give everyone more time without seeing them only once or twice.

So it was really after chapter three that I decided to turn the piece more into an ensemble work, focusing directly on a lot of these characters, rather than on just Shinji’s view of them. That means it’s been a while since we’ve seen Shinji—not since the beginning of chapter four, at least. I always had in mind this character arc for him though: the idea that he would slowly move into a greater and more pivotal role. I felt this scene was important for that, as well as for the acknowledgement that Rei cares for Shinji deeply (whether it’s truly romantic love or something different isn’t something I care to quibble over). So while I seriously considered axing this scene because it contributed to an already huge chapter (seriously the largest single chapter I’ve written since the original “In the Cold Rain” in Identity or “Pilgrimage” in Echoes), in the end, I could see no way to redistribute these elements which I considered so crucial.

A note on research: research is very important to me, mostly because I can’t be bothered to create too much out of whole cloth. So the town of Erbach in the German state of Hesse is very real, and Google was quite helpful in providing aerial photos and images of the town.

Next time, we’ll be with Asuka.

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Direction chapter three notes

When I originally conceived the first scene, it was decidedly more negative in overall tenor. Rin would’ve found Hisao’s story in the last chapter to be discouraging, knowing that he went through hardship on account of her. I ultimately decided against that path because it felt a bit predictable. Having Rin be encouraged, as Hisao intended, yet still be beyond his understanding—that felt appropriate.

Adachi is really quite attached to Rin, and she’s going out on a limb here to bring Hisao and keep Rin in school. Adachi is without her husband, and her children have long since left home. Rin is like a granddaughter to her—a granddaughter who may seldom have the presence of mind to show her affection, but Adachi’s seen that, too. The piece Rin created for her after her husband’s death is a testament to that.

Like with the first scene, I toned down some of the more overt negative overtones in this scene with Ryou. Given that this is really the first opportunity for Ryou to be characterized at all, I felt having him be unreasonable would not come off well. Ryou is a smart, dedicated guy. He is, in many ways, intended to be a reflection of Hisao, finding himself in a similar predicament that Hisao did back at Yamaku. The difference between them is that Ryou has a significant sense of pride, too much to admit faults in front of Sumi. Still, Hisao is able to find some traction with him, even though Sumi’s arrival spoils things.

The alternative that I originally had in mind would’ve been much worse. Ryou would’ve punched Hisao in the chest, a deliberate and vile act that would’ve had Sumi throw him out and Hisao, in a moment of despair over Rin, would’ve considered trying to get together with Sumi, only for her to refuse. Still, this proved to be a major turning point in the direction (so to speak) of the story, as after this, some time would’ve been spent with Sumi going through with a divorce, feeling prepared to make a new life for herself. The overall idea of Sumi finding a new path still lives, but it doesn’t get quite that dire or extreme.

In retrospect, I would’ve liked to do more with the novel Kokoro, but given the length of the story, there really wasn’t more time to deal with it.

Rick Ankiel last played for the Washington Nationals. He hit a game-winning playoff homerun in 2010 for Atlanta, also. It was nice to have Mitsuru overcome his comic relief status for a moment to give Hisao some encouragement as he was sliding downward. Mitsuru’s a good kid.

As with Hisao’s prior experience in the lab, many of the details in this scene come from my own undergraduate work in solid state physics, particularly with graphene. I’m glad to say I never blew up a high pressure fan, however, but the sequence of events needed to operate an apparatus such as the vacuum chamber used for LEED and Auger spectroscopy is indeed quite complex.

To this point, everything has been doing wrong for Hisao. I wonder if that’s too much the case. Still, the trajectory of this story is pretty straightforward. This is his lowest point. Nothing is going well, and the only solution is to get away. I knew right away the inspiration for him to get off the mat should come from Mutou. I actually had to fix this last scene to make the sequencing of events clear: Sumi goes to class, sees Hisao isn’t around, tries to reach him with no answer, goes to his lab and hears about the accident, and she calls up Mutou hoping Hisao will listen to him instead.

In many ways, the nature of science—to try to understand things—forces the issue with Rin. Hisao has to either truly understand her or accept that he doesn’t understand some things yet. Thus, I could think of nothing more appropriate. This gets to the very core of Hisao’s identity. His professional and personal futures both ride on this decision, and when Hisao gets off the bus, he takes the first step along a new direction, a change in mentality—or in some ways, a reinvigoration of himself.

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Direction chapter two notes

As a physicist myself, I drew a lot on personal experience to help craft the physics department at Tokyo. Regrettably, I could not interview a real graduate of Tokyo’s physics program. I did do a good deal of research to get some details right. Tokyo has an Institute of Solid State Physics, but it’s quite a ways from the main campus, so I ruled out having Hisao spend time there. It was much easier just to put him in a lab here.

Physicists in the States can be very eccentric, and Professor Tanaka reflects that with his casual, unflappable nature. He also thinks Hisao will naturally get what’s going on more or less on the fly. This is part of why he can so easily throw Hisao into the fire to gain experience hands-on.

All of the description of the AFM should be relatively faithful to its operation. It’s a very cool piece of technology and only a small part of a solid state physicist’s toolkit.

Overall, the first scene is important because it helps complete the triad of issues going on in the story: Hisao’s own career, matters between Sumi and Ryou and how that affects Hisao’s friendship with Sumi, and finally Rin.

Rin herself has been living a relatively isolated existence. I struggled with how to portray her here—should she move on? Should she still be stuck in a rut? Ultimately, I settled on a combination of the two. Her professional life is fairly good, even if her reasons for painting have changed by necessity, but her personal life is somewhat stunted, so she quickly gravitates back toward Hisao and the hope he was able to show her the other night.

I also wanted to make a point of how she is somewhat different in manner—more restrained, especially when she senses herself going on a deep tangent. Her observations about the sidewalk are indeed a hidden way of asking about herself: is she broken? Even if she’s managed to glue the broken pieces together, is she functional? Is she the same?

It’s through Adachi that Hisao is able to gain more direct insight into Rin. Adachi is very fond of her, treating her almost like a (grand)daughter, but there is still this undeniable distance that can’t be overcome. And as Hisao says, he’s never seen Rin with anyone else, her story about her old boyfriend notwithstanding.

I do wonder—is it inherently unequal that Rin isn’t able to move on fully while Hisao does in many ways? Is it realistic, given Rin’s inability to relate to people? Both?

The most important thing to Rin is having someone know how she feels. Adachi gives Hisao the insight of years to help him find out how she felt once, and he’s able to relate. I considered having him recount this story to the reader only, which would make it unfold more or less in real time, rather than in dialogue to Rin, but the words he uses with Rin are important, and I didn’t want to gloss over that. That he recounts Mutou’s speech to such a degree does strain credibility, but I couldn’t bring myself to paraphrase it either.

In some ways, the symbolism to use around Rin is too easy to use. Oranges and butterflies. I think, in retrospect, I should’ve found some other object for Rin to enjoy or identify with, but I can’t think of such a thing that would be appropriate.

I’ve skipped over the Sumi storyline for a bit, so let me get back to that. To this point, we haven’t actually seen much of Ryou except that he doesn’t dress up and typically says little during their collective meals. Still, I thought the implication of him losing his temper was more powerful than seeing it first-hand. This is more about Sumi’s reaction than what Ryou does himself.

Initially, I had conceived of Ryou as a traditionalist person, one who would’ve resented the strong role that Sumi was taking in the world, but I realized that wouldn’t make sense. Why marry a physicist at all if you didn’t expect her to be forward-thinking? So I scaled it back a bit and reimagined him more as being traditional about displays of affection but resenting more some other things, which will be clear more in chapter three. As it happened, that meant that Ryou became more and more like Hisao—he had the path of ahead of him blocked, and he finds himself increasingly discontented with the situation he’s in and the kind of person he is. This is a great mirror to Hisao’s dissatisfaction with being “disabled” in the game, and this sympathetic angle ended up reshaping the course of the story, at least for that storyline.

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Direction chapter one notes

I started playing Katawa Shoujo a few weeks ago, having heard about it from Tvtropes’ twitter. I found the concept intriguing and played through three routes in three days. The first, as it so happened, was Rin’s.

I hadn’t planned on playing Rin’s route first. I was going for Hanako’s, but I’d resolved not to use any guides on my initial playthrough. As it happened, I seemed to have refused to commit wholeheartedly enough toward Lilly and Hanako, and as a result, I found myself with Rin as my lsat chance before having spurned everyone. I enjoyed the route quite a bit, finding the intimate scenes tasteful and justified from a literary standpoint. Based on the “neutral” (or rain) ending, I had a nascent idea about Hisao and Rin’s reconciliation. It wasn’t the first idea I had—I actually considered a rewrite of Shizune’s route, but I later decided that it was better to leave that the way it was, appreciating it as a different flavor and approach.

What is Hisao trying to do here? Well, I think he rightly has longstanding regrets about what happened with Rin, but he’s also tried to move on as best as he can. In his mind, this is an action not borne of desperation or need but one he doesn’t feel right leaving alone. As he says often, he does not feel he was a good enough friend to Rin.

Still, Hisao’s had four years to grow, and one of the things I felt he would do is consciously try to maintain connections. This makes him the antithesis of Rin, in the sense that he’s rejecting what she did in breaking off relationships when she left. This, I think, is the long-lasting consequence of their final confrontation. Once the shock fades, he goes about trying to prove Rin’s pessimism (and his own) wrong.

Hisao actually knew a bit more about other students, like Hanako, and what they were doing, but I cut it down to the current state, since most people outside of Emi were already pretty ancillary to Rin’s route. Shizune and Misha seemed like a good enough balance.

I wanted to introduce a world around Hisao, and to go with that world, I created several characters here. As Rin struggles with the goal of her painting, and as Hisao has a struggle all his own, the plotline around Sumi, Ryou, and Mitsuru will reflect that theme as well. Sumi gives Hisao a good grounding, a connection outside of Rin that reinforces how he’s tried to stay connected to people. Mitsuru’s baseball obsession gives us some moments of levity—he is, in a lot of ways, the new Kenji, except not nearly as offensive (or, I admit, quite as funny, but I felt it would be a mistake to try to top Kenji as a comic relief character). Ryou, as Sumi’s husband, is more of a silent presence, but what’s going on in his mind has a long-term impact on the story.

I actually had Hisao be unaware that Sumi was in Tokyo at first, but this seemed contrary to the efforts above of keeping in touch with people.

Hisao’s main storyline (outside of Rin) has to do with the new stage of his life that he’s on, which involves his studies. The characters Jirou and Michel give Hisao’s class of fellow graduate students a couple faces and neutral, unburdened opinions outside of him and Sumi to look to for guidance and advice. Jirou is excitable and neurotic, while Michel is profoundly steady. Both will prove helpful for Hisao’s journey.

The thrust of the story doesn’t have to do with these ancillary characters, however. It’s about Hisao and Rin, and I wanted to give Rin a world and context in the same way. Rin’s school, the Tokyo University of the Arts, is colloquially called Geidai, though I avoid this term in the story itself (since it derives from the Japanese and isn’t as easy a stretch as Toudai is). The exhibition hall I describe is actually a museum on the school grounds. I conceived of the character of Adachi knowing Rin would need an advisor, but I wanted to differentiate her from Saionji, so I made her older yet energetic. Some have speculated that Adachi already knows about Hisao in some way, based on her conversation with him when they meet. I will say this is true, but what exactly she knows and how is something best revealed in-story.

I actually conceived of Rin’s new painting styles as being rooted in her trying to find the best way to communicate an idea, even if it wasn’t an idea that had to do with what she was feeling, but it actually proved difficult to be symbolic about something that had nothing to do with her. I later decided to be less ambitious with this aspect, and Rin’s attitudes toward what she tries to paint now will be somewhat different. Still, it meant originally that I didn’t intend for deep symbolism in, say, the painting of the fruit bowl and rotten orange, but drawing upon something as important to Rin as an orange really made it unavoidable, and I decided it was more sensible with some intended symbolism anyway.

Rin as I imagine her now, four years later, is mostly the same person, but she paints believing she has different reasons—artistic reasons, not personal ones—and she makes an effort to maintain some semblance of normalcy in her behaviors, enough to facilitate making contacts with people. Adachi is very helpful in this regard, as we see her guiding Rin through some of the more stressful parts of such interactions. It’s tempting to say Rin must be a very miserable person, having cut herself off from the her old friends; I think this is simplistic. She may indeed be miserable, but that does not mean she will overtly wallow in her misery for all to see all the time. People operate at a reasonably neutral level most of the time anyway, and Rin especially is capable of this.

Hisao is someone willing to make the effort to understand her, even if he’s not ultimately capable of doing so. He catches Rin’s distress, when she’s almost overwhelmed, and this is enough to make Rin reconsider her stance from before, or at least to think about it. It means there’s hope for the two of them, if they’re willing to work at it.

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Identity rewrite Chapter One - "In the Cold Rain" - notes

So here we are again, starting from the beginning, except the beginning is very different from what came before. In a lot of ways, this first chapter is a microcosm of the whole rewrite project—I’ve found it more natural to be liberal with changes, rather than to be minimal. This rewrite is far more than a tweaking; it’s more like an entirely new writing process. This makes the process a laborious and long, but I feel the end result will be much better for it.

This is the first chapter of the new version, and as such, a lot rides on it being representative of the work as a whole. I felt like the old version didn’t really do that, and so damage was done in causing a misleading expectation. That is a big part of what I wanted to correct with the rewrite. I can comfortably say that this new version sets a tone much more in line with the overall tenor of the piece, and I’m glad for that.

By the same token, it also discards a lot of stuff that was in the original first “chapter,” and so, while I’ve had this chapter written for a while, I was hesitant to push forward with it and publish until I had a comfortable idea of where all that background would come back in. I feel like that’s done now, so I can go ahead with this.

So now, what do we have? A slightly different take on the Sorcerers arriving at Jusenkyō. I always felt it was too coincidental that they arrived just when Ranma did; in a way, I still couldn’t avoid that, even with them coming two days prior. The timing with Ranma having to leave China, go through the wedding disaster, other stuff, and come back still made it really quite convenient. I hoped two days between would just retain enough suspension of disbelief to work, but it still bothers me. Any longer, however, would make things very problematic. How long can the Guide keep quiet? How long can Plum survive on her own?

Note that Ranma’s call comes in just as the Sorcerers are attacking, also. This is more a matter of convenience than the plot hinging on it, as if Ranma hadn’t been cut-off mid-call, he would still come to the same ultimate conclusion. It just gives a little more punch being able to see it happen.

What’s changed in the three years since I started this story is that I’ve largely shed the minimalist approach I had back then, feeling that I had a tendency to try to do very complicated stories without enough scaffolding to keep people anchored. The result is less dialogue heavy and should require a lot less reading into things. On the whole, I feel it’s better to say what I mean early and often, to make sure it’s not missed or overlooked. It’s not going to be perfect, though.

One thing I tried to do this time was start off with the Sorcerers having a much better and more cohesive set of powers. The Captain, for instance, now boasts a much more impressive array of abilities, focusing on abstract ki manipulation as opposed to the more concrete powers of her men. I felt that this would make her more distinctive and unique.

Otherwise, most of this chapter really took shpae on its own. Based on feedback from pre-readers, I toned down some hijinks between Ranma and Kunō that made Ranma come off a bit sociopathic, as well as drawing out the timeline to give Ranma and company adequate time to get back home from China in the first place. I added a scene where Ranma contemplates killing a partridge, which I hoped would serve to better setup his decision to spare the Captain. It’s not that killing her, after she’d done so much damage, would be wrong per se, but Ranma is afraid he’s become too callous, too bloodthirsty, and to err on the side of caution, to show mercy, makes him more sure he’s a good man.

Because a lot of the details of Ranma’s motivations are deferred to later, I think the chapter is well-focused, and the personal story, while it can be understood, does not overwhelm the action. In other words, I’m happy with the balance here. It’s not appropriate to balloon the story too large too fast.

It’s my hope that the first chapter provides a digestible introduction to the story now, one that raises questions. Who are these Sorcerers? What do they want, and what does it have to do with Saffron? How will Ranma escape? What spurred him on to return to China, even though he clearly doesn’t want to be there, and claim his cure? What curse does the Captain bear?

That is the role of an introduction, after all—to raise questions, hopefully intriguing ones.

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First Ones 04 - "The Archon" notes

It was with some chagrin that I realized, after having avoided writing chapter three from Nozomi’s perspective, that there was really no way to avoid writing this chapter from Maya’s perspective. I know one of my prereaders had campaigned vigorously for that chapter to be told from Nozomi’s point of view, so it was a bit awkward. Still, aside from the pragmatic issues (it would’ve been difficult to tell this chapter from Shinji’s point of view, just on the level of how involved he could’ve been), there was one reason I found this approach ultimately best: I’d started running out of issues for Shinji to confront. Perhaps that was poor planning on my part, but on the other hand, it meant I could explore another person’s issues without the distancing of using Shinji’s point of view. So, ultimately I’m comfortable with this approach, and for a while, I plan to rotate POV characters, making this more of an ensemble piece. Shinji will return to the forefront, and I do worry about balancing when that should happen.

But that’s an issue to confront later. For now, we have Maya, an unusual choice of protagonist, I’m sure, despite her status as a fan-favorite in some circles. This chapter about Maya and the Cult of Lilith is one I’ve had in mind for some time. This is really the point the Cult serves in the story, I should say.

Aside from her “cult” status among the cast, Maya is the last person you’d expect to be a Cultist, and I chose that deliberately. I felt her background would lend to her searching for a new direction, and Maya has always been a character who believed wholeheartedly in the goodness of civilization and science. In that sense, I felt her new role wasn’t so much of a stretch after all.

I had a fair number of ideas about how this chapter would play out that I ultimately changed even before I finished outlining. I’d originally thought Eisheth would appear to Maya as Masuyo and serve to subvert the Cult that way, without Maya even realizing she was being deceived until very late, but I quickly discarded that notion, for it didn’t flow well with others. I’d also thought Maya would meet with Shinji over lunch, and we’d realize she was a Cultist only after, but that didn’t fit with the ending of last chapter, so I chose to reverse the reveal instead. Masuyo mentions Archon Juniper in chapter one, remember? And Shinji clearly knows her and who she is.

The bit about Nozomi’s attacker exploding himself into goo was something I’d briefly had in a draft of chapter three, but I decided to cut it and put it here instead because it really helped ground the opening and didn’t fit in three. I expanded the scene dramatically with Maya’s involvement. Of course, the man could’ve popped himself as soon as he was captured, but his purpose here is to intimidate the characters and, by extension, the audience. This was a concern that was relayed to me about last chapter—that to an extent, Eisheth didn’t present a pervasive threat. It’s true chapter three presented a bit of a lull in terms of Eisheth’s large scale campaign, so I set about to try to change that. The vanguard’s rhetoric is confident, and his cohorts’ efforts to subvert existing institutions and groups, to plant eyes where Maya would find them—they serve to foster anxiety and fear. These are the reasons people would turn to Eisheth, and she and her followers all know that.

The theme of this chapter is hope in the face of despair, in spite of things we wanted that we never got, that we regretted but could never fix. Maya is searching for Ritsuko, or to replace her with Ami, and her inability to move on complicates her existing relationship. Ami, in turn, is dating a woman who strikingly resembles her dead girlfriend, Minori. Archon Camellia refuses to trust SDF or the government after her son was killed, and Lorenz has come back spefically to recruit from people who have found only despair in the new world.

There is also a secondary element of trust vs. suspicion and paranoia. Eisheth promotes suspicion and fear, and Maya’s inability to trust people with relgious faith (as opposed to her own logical belief in the goodness of what Rei has done) contributes to the debacle at Camellia’s apartment. Camellia’s own intransigent suspicion, along with Misato’s refusal to trust that Camellia might realize the truth, plays a part as well.

Let me speak a bit on the character of Ami. When I first conceived of her, I had in mind someone who worked most to mitigate the connotations of the word cult. She’s blonde, fair, pretty, upbeat, and caring. That’s a good start. Her dark backstory is something I came up with rather suddenly, to contrast against Maya’s refusal to tell her own story. I figured that people’s stories of how they came back from the sea and why would be important in the Cult. I admit I wondered whether it made sense for Ami to be so idealistic despite that experience, but in part, I viewed it as being something of a defense mechanism, too. Ami is very little like Ritsuko, and that’s purposeful. Any resemblance is only superficial, to emphasize how faintly Maya is grasping for something like Ritsuko (or for contact in general), and Maya’s hesitation to enter into a relationship with Ami shows how she’s still holding a candle for Ritsuko, waiting and hoping for her to come back.

I realized some ways through the outlining of this chapter that I needed to really keep things moving. The end of this chapter should come with some distinct change in the circumstances and move the story forward. It seems like an obvious maxim, but it’s still something I had to ponder. I decided that the time for Eisheth to wait and let things develop had to be over. This is the beginning of her efforts in earnest to destabilize human civilization as a whole, even before her main invasion force arrives. Hence, Eisheth’s Reckoning. The honeymoon is over. Things are about to get worse, and the anticipation over what Eisheth’s Reckoning is and how it may come about is, I hope, what keeps this chapter focused and gives the story the forward momentum it needs in the coming chapters.

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