#he wasn't talking to everyone. hard cut but it was nestled in between some really pointless and bad dialogue.

[wutheringmights]

<shakily rolling into your inbox> Would you gift us with chapter commentary, please?

Your wish is my command:

Framing the past section around headlines was not my original plan. I wanted to do a repeating refrain of "This is how the war ended," but when it came time to actually write it, I was bored with it. Yeah, kinda thought about it too hard. So I went back to the drawing board.

I also considered framing the chapter around the passing seasons, but that seemed too boring. I wanted something with a bit more pizazz.

Plus, one of my favorite genres of fan work is in-universe media like newspapers and magazine covers. This is a pretty weak attempt at it, but at least I threw my hat into the ring.

I've been trying for a while now to imply that the original HW storyline is what was spread as propaganda to the people of Hyrule, but this is the first time I made it really, really clear.

So the engineer being assigned to the coast is a reference to how the DLC that features Toon Link is the one where there's suddenly an ocean. Very smooth of me lol

This chapter ended up being a bit of a dumping ground for all of the relationships I was ignoring in favor of writing about the brothers, ironically because I too was too consumed with the engineer and the child to write about anything else, which in turn really drove home how all-consuming their presence was for Link

The fun thing about Midna's scene is that her and Link going on nightly walks together was one of the very first ideas I had for CTB by virtue of it being inherited from when I thought I was going to write a romcom. Incredible that it took half a million words to finally get to it.

My favorite part of the past is the bit where Link writes all of the letters to the engineer. It's just a lot of fun to sit there and figure out what kind of bullshit he would spout to kinda apologize but not really. It was even more fun to punch him back down with Lincoln's brutal response. Just rereading it, I feel like you can tell I was having a blast.

I also had a lot of fun finding ways to show symptoms of Link's alcoholism getting worse without him realizing it. The constant headaches, the nausea, the shakey hands, the sensory sensitivity-- him experiencing all of this and going so deep into denial that he can't understand why his body is reacting that way.

It's been so long since I've managed to give Toto some screen time that I kinda forgot how much I like his character? He's just a guy, but I like that he's just a guy. But I don't think I made it too clear in the chapter that in their friend group, they were the least friends with each other. Link was closer to Anders, and Toto to Uri. They're being driven together by virtue of being the only ones left, moreso than I initially conveyed.

And, of course, I got to talk about Uri again. Again, Uri is always so interesting to handle because he is a character who we will never see in person and Link is too traumatized by the death of to think about in detail. Even now, Uri feels like a mystery. All we know about him is how Link feels about him.

And finally, Zelda. The thing about Zelda is that I feel like her goals are really transparent, but I always get comments from people who want there to be this moment where everything about her is spelled out. And, despite the fact that she monologues about her feelings here, I don't think this is exactly what everyone was hoping for. The more I read it over, I can see how she probably just got more confusing.

Also, I know I need to stop writing monologues. But have you considered that the monologues are sexy?

I feel like I should say something about how Zelda's relationship with Hylia, but it really speaks for itself. I will say that as much as I like how BOTW is so ambiguous with Hylia, I am a little bit more fascinated with the idea that "your god is real and they specifically hate you." Like, how are you supposed to cope with that? We should all be thankful Zelda isn't more fucked up than she is.

I should also say something about her thoughts on the engineer... so first, my goal with that relationship was always for it to be toxic from both ends, with the engineer trying to use her while she uses him-- which gets even more complicated when you consider all the ways Zelda echoes Link. Like Link, she sees parts of herself in the engineer. Unlike him, she wants to save be saved, so she in turn saves him. Link hates himself so much that he has to drag everyone else down with him.

In the era of everyone wanting Zelda to no longer be a damsel in distress, it's kind fun to give her the traditional goal of being saved by someone else, to then twist it around. She is begging to be rescued, but she won't fix anything herself.

This idea really goes against the popular depictions of HW Zelda, which is why I have iterated before that this Zelda is not Artemis. She's her own thing.

There was going to be more about how the war ended, but I decided to keep it for next chapter because (you guessed it) the word count got too long.

On to the present--

Congrats to everyone who said they wanted to see more of Spirit and Warriors talking shop. You really won with this chapter.

That being said, I always think that I never write what people want when they want it. Like I will write a chapter with a lot of action, so everyone says they want more action next. But then I follow it up with a chapter of people just talking, so I get a lot of people requesting more of that. But then, it's back to heavy action.

All that's to say that I feel bad that there wasn't more character drama this chapter

Also, I feel really bad for not including either Hyrule or Wind in this chapter. Those two are the characters people ask me to write more about the most. But unfortunately, the thing about juggling a large cast of characters is that some times you have to sit down and get a few of those characters out of the way for a bit so that we can focus on other things.

I don't want to make it sound like I was targeting those two on purpose. They just had the best excuse for not going on the Nephus mission.

Speaking of which, I feel terrible for constantly finding ways to leave Lana and Linkle out of the action-- and that's after I've talked so much about adding more women into the story to balance out the default nine dudes LU requires me to add. But again, there are so many characters that I have to find ways to leave some of them behind. And again, it was really easy to give them an excuse to not be in the main action. But It's probably a bad thing that they are easily excused. I should work on that.

And I know I can write scenes with a shit ton of characters talking together. I've done it plenty of times in CTB and other ensemble stories before it. But it's a lot of work, and when I need to focus on more important plot points, the last thing I want to juggle is balancing every scene so that everyone has something to do.

Sorry to belabor that point. Sometimes, I get really annoyed with how big the cast it when it's not even my fault.

It is my fault. I just want to complain.

I appreciate everyone who has their own version of Spirit going on more legendary adventures while he is wearing his OSHA mandated work uniform. I know the Heroes of Hyrule are not unionized, but I at least would like to make sure he is properly dressed with an adventure.

That being said, his Castle Guard uniform was partially inspired by the uniform for the Free Planets Alliance in the original Legend of the Galactic Heroes:

That is not a great photo, but I was envisioning something like this-- "this" being a more modern cut with clear nautical influences (cause the Castle Guard was probably originally a navy)

Also the crest on Spirit's uniform is Tetra's pirate emblem. Do not get be started about how I fucked up the crest of the New Hyrulean royal family back in chapter 6 and how I have been looking for some band-aid to place over that mistake so that it would look like I did it on purpose

I didn't expect the scene where Spirit talks to Four to be so polarizing. I didn't even think it was a significant moment when I wrote it. Yet I've seen a huge gambit of reactions, from people calling Spirit cruel or others saying that the moment was sweet. That being said, I am living for this. If there is one thing I want right now, it is for everyone's opinion on Spirit to be split.

Did you guys enjoy me trying to write about how machinery works? Honestly, I could have probably cut all that, but I did so much work establishing the mechanics behind the ganons in previous chapters that I felt like I had to go through with it.

My original plan was for Warriors's plan to involve taking Philo hostage from the start, but I changed it because writing a kidnapping scene would have been too much work. It still really bugs me. The way the chapter is written now feels really cheap, but again. I didn't feel like I had enough space.

I also ran into the fun problem of wanting to show the nuances of Philo and Icarius's relationship when one can't speak and the other would not speak Hylian. Legend saved my ass a bit with this one, but I don't know if all of the little details got through.

Speaking of which, I should talking the House of Nephus

So obviously, I wanted the House of Nephus to reflect the original brothers dynamic. The idea is that they are what Warriors, Spirit, and Time/Mask would turn into if both Spirit and Mask stayed.

Except, in practice, I had to give them their own distinct personalities so that they wouldn't be boring as fuck

Icarius and Philo got away with getting small but really effective changes. They both still feel like reflections of Spirit and Time respectively

But Nephus.... so my original personality for him was someone as jaded and mean as Warriors is at his worst. But he felt too much like Zelda or Impa. So I went back to the drawing board to find some character angle that would be really interesting and effective for how little screen time he will ultimately get.

My inspiration came from the Virginia Woolf seminar I was in when I first started working on CTB. I was thinking a lot about rich, British assholes; very specifically about the kind who are self-prescribed intellectuals who fetishize non-white cultures while maintaining the superiority of Western imperialism.

So with that in hand, I got rid jadedness and turned Nephus into a guy dripping with charisma but is unaware of how terrible of a person he is. And as a reflection of Warriors, he works thematically.

But you can make the argument that this is not the story for this kind of a character, especially when I have already gone through such lengths to clarify that Hyrule is an imperialist nation that echoes America. You can see me poking fun at it in some of the dialogue during this scene, but still.

(And it gets worse when you look at the subtext of how light vs dark magic is treated between Hyrule and Faovaria).

So, yeah. I deserve some criticism for this one. I know it. But I didn't change it because I just liked how immediately interesting Nephus was. I couldn't think of an alternative that would have been as effective as this affable evil. Sorry about that.

Another idea I had was that Nephus was going to be the Faovarian equivalent of the Hero of Hyrule, and he would even have his own dual blades of dark and light magic to prove it. I ended up not doing this because it was too heavy handed.

I originally was going to keep the swords, and I even realized that if I had planned things out a bit better, the dark magic sword could have been Ghirahim. I decided that it would have been too out of left field to have worked, but man. I have regretted since day 1 that I cut Ghirahim from the story. I'm sorry, Ghirahim.

And then I didn't even include the swords. Motherfucker.

That actually was a genuine mistake on my part, because the point of the swords would have been to give Nephus's speech on his religion more credence. We as the audience know that the goddesses exist. And yet... why does there seem to be more to the gods of this universe? Are Hylia and the Golden Three really just oracles? If Nephus has these cool swords, what other powers and weapons does Faovaria have within its borders? You know, just world building stuff.

I came up with too much story for the House of Nephus than what I will ultimately have space to include in CTB. I'll try to strategic so that you won't be annoyed with the lack of answers from some of the questions you probably have.

As important as Nephus is, he's ultimately not the main antagonist of the story. If I was willing to write 20 more chapters, I could do a lot more with him, Philo, and Icarius; but I would like to see the end of CTB someday lol

Originally, only Time, Spirit, and Midna were going to go with Warriors to meet Nephus. There was definitely going to be this bit where Spirit and Warriors were going to be like "oh fuck, he's hot" as Nephus flirted with them. Meanwhile, Time (a married man) would be sitting there like "really??? both of you have horrible taste??"

I am also realizing I forgot to write a moment where Warriors is horrified to realize that Nephus was going to make Philo sit there in pain instead of rushing him to a doctor. Fucking hell.

Also, that Nephus's spirit feels normal to Spirit is important. Not on a plot level, but thematically. Just hang on to that thought next time you think about the whole spirit sensing thing.

I always knew that CTB was going to evolve into a Triforce quest story. There's no way I could write about a guy who's supposed to be this brutal strategist and not let him realize he has an easy solve to everything. But I also didn't want this to be easy or feel cheap. It's why I went through all that effort to establish that getting those pieces would involving going up against the Royal Family and the Knights of Hyrule. It's going to be hard, and it will involve all the fighting and manipulating you expect CTB to have. It'll also involve moral dilemmas.

After all, we've been talking about the moral dilemmas presented by the Triforce since at least chapter 6 (remember when I said that there was so much set-up in that chapter for stuff that was for far later in the story? Hello, pay off!)

All that's to say that I am worried that people don't like this direction. I have gotten a few comments about how excited people are for Warriors's plan, but only time will tell if this ruined the story for some people.

And I know I worry a lot about ruining CTB. That's not a problem that's going to be solved any time soon, so let me have this one.

Finally, the chapter was going to go until Time's talk with Warriors. Decided to move it to next chapter because, you guessed it, space.