#Katan is a single mom who loves his kid and never stops

[t-the-ring-master]

My favorite thing about this game so far, is the fact that my character has like, this servant.

The servant is like a 13 year old boy and I love him. He’s so cute and aggressive. He literally asked me to buy him a sugar figurine (a type of cookie apparently) and when Katan said no (there wasn’t an option, Katan said this himself 😔) and he got so sad that the lady I was talking to bought him one.

I love my lil gremlin boy.

I imagine Katan (my character) literally picking him like Lilo picked Stitch.

Katan: I want that one!

The Emperor(my characters actual brother): are you sure you want that one?

My lil gremlin boy: 😀

Katan: yeah, he’s good.

[traditional-with-a-twist]

Names in the Sunlight, Snow and Rain Series

I thought I would post my notes on the names for the four Akagami babies for anyone who might also be interested!

I love names; I have for years. For my twelfth birthday, my mom got me a book of baby name meanings because I had read the family’s old copy to tatters. So, of course, I spend way too long on OC names.

Ringo is the most obvious, since his name is discussed in-story. It’s Japanese for “apple” and is actually used to describe Shirayuki’s hair in the anime. In a way, Raj is naming his son that to remind himself of how far he’s come since meeting Shirayuki and of how important being a good and unselfish king for his people is.

(For those curious about Katan’s name: I got it from a minor Star Wars character. I literally picked it out from a list of female Star Wars characters because I liked the way it sounded. Tanburun has a slightly smaller proportion of characters with Japanese names than Clarines does, so I was trying to maintain that. I was also expressing my frustration with the fact that google searching “Obi” always turns up Star Wars results.)

Fujiko is also pretty straightforward. Since Zen is dead in this AU, Kiki and Mitsuhide named their daughter for him. One meaning of “fuji” is wisteria, so Fujiko just adds the common Japanese feminine diminutive to become “little wisteria.” (Mitsuhide’s overprotective reaction concerning his daughter should give you a hint about how well he’s processed Zen’s death, even years later.)

The origin of Orbia is also hinted in-story: Ryuu asked Obi and Shirayuki to name her after the orbia flowers with the colorful seeds that he gives to Obi. I also picked this name for her because it beautifully completes the family: Obi and Shirayuki, Shigure and Orbia.

Shigure’s name has the longest, most complicated history. I wanted a name that indicated some union between Obi and Shirayuki’s names. Unfortunately the meaning of Obi’s name is unclear because it’s only written in the phonetic Japanese alphabet and a single sound can have a number of meanings in Japanese. I looked up all the meanings associated with the two sounds in his names I could find and compiled the following list:

“o” can mean male, cherry blossom, thread, beginning, center, idea, sound, peace, cheerful, great, imperial

“bi” can mean beautiful, Japan, day, sun, truth, reality

 Now if I were writing a fic solely based on the meaning of Obi’s name, I would probably assume that he made the name up. Getting everyone to call him “beautiful man” seems in keeping with Obi’s sense of humor, so I would probably go with “o” meaning “male” and “bi” meaning “beautiful.” Two things stopped me from doing that.

One, I don’t know enough about the Japanese language to say for sure, but I suspect that the kanji for “bi” that means “beautiful” is most commonly used for feminine names. Two, and more significant, that meaning didn’t help me pick a name for their kid at all.

While I was brainstorming, I looked up name meanings for other characters. I found out that Mukaze’s name meant “breeze.” I was thrilled: that meant he matched Shirayuki—they both have weather related names. And Obi had potential weather-related meanings for him name, too! The sound “bi” could mean “sun.” (I never did decide which meaning for “o” I would want to pair with it). It would be great to give Obi and Shirayuki’s son a weather name of his own. Meanwhile, my sister weighed in to opine that Shirayuki would definitely name all her kids after flowers. That made me think of the yura shigure because I had already seen the name “Shigure” used for another character. Looking up the meaning just cemented it for me. The name turned out to be pretty rare and also to refer to “a shower in late autumn.” If Shirayuki is snow (winter) and Obi is sun (summer) then “autumn rain” is the perfect name for their son!

I loved all my names so much that I incorporated them into my chapter titles, which I could go on ad nauseum about. I like to read this sort of stuff, so I’ll write it, but feel free to stop here if you’ve had enough.

Day 1 – The Sound of Sunlight on Snow

This is just a reference to Shirayuki and Obi.

Day 2 – Sun through the Cloudburst

Obi and Shigure, plus my trying to avoid using the word rain over and over. Honestly I wanted just the phrase “sun shower” for this chapter but it was too different from the others.

Day 3 – Thaw in the Springtime Showers

This where the titles start getting complicated. I wanted to have a chapter named after Shirayuki and Shigure, but I love Ryuu and wanted to include his name, too. Unfortunately, I could only find the phonetic alphabet version of his name (I don’t know if any other is ever revealed). Most commonly, “ryuu” can mean “noble, prosperous” or “dragon” in Japanese. Since spring is the growth season and also associated with the blue dragon of Chinese mythology, I thought that it would be a good season to represent Ryuu. Then the “thaw” could refer to Shirayuki’s winter (and to the thawing of Ryuu’s hurt and loneliness).

Day 4 – The King’s Harvest

This one’s easier but still complicated. Harvest refers to both Shigure and Ringo, since both apples and harvests are part of autumn. The king obviously refers to Raj’s station but also to the likely origin of his name: the Hindi word for reign or rule.

Day 5 – Windy Mountain Rain

I eventually decided to give the name reference in the title to Mukaze since he’s the reason that Obi and Shirayuki were there and the main inspiration for the prompt. (Plus Mihaya was too rare a name to figure out a meaning for quickly). The title is also a reference to one of my favorite songs from childhood: “Smoky Mountain Rain”

Day 6 – The Love of Flowers for the Rain

This one was all Fujiko and Shigure because of the prompt.

Day 7 – Colors Reflected in the Raindrops

Orbia is a made-up word as far as I can tell. I decided to use the word “colors” to reference the seeds, since the color of the seeds was an important moment for Obi. With this title, I started the series with Obi’s and Shirayuki’s names and ended with the names of their two children.

And that’s that! This was very indulgent, but I hope somebody enjoys it.