#not saying turn TLF into a human just saying let her live with them.

[eemoo1o-tfrmoo]

The creators should have been made to watch Brother Bear 2, actually. For the inspiration.

Will never forgive The Hidden World for what it stole from us

Toothless should've been at his best friend's wedding, he should've been the Best Man

[angel-of-reckoning]

Reflections and thoughts on the first 20 chapters + what’s in store

There may be spoilers beneath the cut, fair warning.

Finishing what is the first “book” of the story, as I guess it could be called, has made me want to take a look back and share some of my thoughts on what went into it and what will come going forward.

When I started writing The Angel of Reckoning, I had a few clear ideas in my mind that I wanted to build from. One was that I wanted the structure of the story to start off looking like a typical trainer journey fic and gradually mutate into darker, deconstruction territory, with the trainer journey framework taking a sort of back seat in terms of storylines. I think, with the conclusion of the storyline that was driven by Ghetsis, that’s coming true. The change in tone and style is one big reason behind the “Dream’s End” rebrand. Another of my ideas was that I wanted to have some homage to the science fiction/horror movies and tropes that inspired parts of it; an example of this is the opening scene where Azrael is born, which is meant to be an homage to The Fly II, which opens with a similar scene that sets up the same concept of a not-entirely-human child that will be a central figure in the plot and gets raised by scientists with, let’s say, varying levels of concern for them.

That’s what I think the story is going to evolve into in future chapters, something that, if not a straight supernatural horror story, then something with definite supernatural horror elements. I think, having now fully seen Nekou’s “other” self and what it’s capable of, most people who are reading this will realize that that’s a major source of the supernatural horror I’m talking about. Polaris’s leader and the organization’s true purpose will drive a lot of this as well. I don’t want to say too much, because what Polaris is really aiming for is going to be revealed in Chapter 21. As for their leader, that person’s very existence is something that I think becomes more horrifying the more it is considered. They are the main antagonist of the story but I think their situation makes them pitiable in a way. Their existence is something that may be a little difficult to understand at first glance but you’ll get what I mean about them once the true meaning of what they are sinks in.

Speaking of Polaris, let’s look towards characters, organizations and themes of the story. The three main forces clashing against each other and driving the plot are Polaris, Team Rocket and the Tenganist Liberation Front. Each of them, in their own ways, touches on the themes of different forms of family and the past versus the future. Both Team Rocket and the TLF are groups of people who had nowhere else to go and found a sort of “family” in people like them, banding together for survival; Team Rocket always had this subset of people within its membership but in its current state that’s all that remains, a group who pulled together for survival. The TLF reflects this theme in a more traditional sense, as the Prophet found other Tenganists who had, in many cases, had their families and homes taken away from them by Ghetsis’s genocide plan, and brought them into her own protection while they inhabit the Sinjoh Ruins until she can give them a real home again. Polaris, on the other hand, may be surprising to hear that about. In reality, Polaris is composed of people who, for their own individual reasons, rejected this world. They gathered together because of what this world had done to them, and formed an organization that would completely change everything. Obviously not everyone who joined did so for such reasons, but the majority did.

When it comes to the clash of past and future, the obvious use of that theme is in the three factions themselves. Both Team Rocket and the TLF are forces that are caught in the past, trying to cling onto and recover what they once had. This is, in fact, the actual motive the Prophet has, at least in her leadership of the TLF - bringing back the holy land that was destroyed nearly a century prior so her people can use it as a permanent home once again. Now, logically, Polaris represents the part that is moving to the future, because in many ways they are changing the world into something new - but in a somewhat ironic twist, it’s entirely because most of their members are consumed by their pasts. Ghetsis was someone who represented the past inside Polaris, a straightforward, evil villain out only for himself who embodied everything expected and tired about the world Polaris wants to change. That’s why his defeat and downfall is the line where the story tacks into a different direction.

As an aside, in the past I received comments on Ghetsis, Polaris and their political views. I did not intend for them to take a deliberately right-wing/left wing or conservative/liberal stance. What I intended was to have them taking a revolutionary position, one that rejects the existing system completely no matter what it is. There is no intended political position or message programmed into it, only what one draws based on their own interpretation.

The main characters... Matt, Nekou and Olivia, mainly. When I think about what kind of person Matt is, how he was in the beginning of the story and how he is now, I think part of him is changing while another is still stuck in what he’s always been. I see his life as being a rather sad and hollow one. He’s never truly lived for himself, that hollow part within him he’s always filled with throwing himself into trying to serve others. He did it with his sister, attempted to do it with Eleanor, Agenta and is still trying to do it for Olivia, and is increasingly doing it for Nekou now. The ironic thing is that Nekou is also the reason why he’s beginning to change, even in tiny increments. He sees the way she lives so freely and hasn’t totally given up on life because he doesn’t want to cause her to fall into the same hopeless state he’s in.

Nekou’s wild, erratic personality, what made her stand out so much early on, is now revealed to be a smokescreen. What you will see of her more and more going forward is what she struggles with, the crushing fears and horrible secrets she hides. She’s both changed and not changed since the beginning insofar as that her personality has evolved to be far less outgoing and confident, but she was already actually like that, just hiding it. Being forced to open up more to others, though, is going to actively change her. She will always be the Nekou people have come to known, but with a new side to her. Her existence is not going to get easier, though. She is actually very much like Matt is - her life is actually very sad and hollow, except instead of obsessively serving others she fills this with self-absorbed pleasure seeking. Because of this they kind of draw the other to themselves, although their reliance on each other in this way is not entirely healthy.

Olivia is sort of like a combination of both Matt and Nekou when it comes to this. She wants to move on with her life and make something of herself independently of her father’s shadow, but she struggles with overcoming the wounds of her losing him and all too often succumbs back into the temporary and regressive “comfort” obssessing about the past provides her. It is an ongoing battle for her and one that she may very well not be winning. At the core of this is a deep sense of self-loathing and a need for approval and love from others to validate her existence. She was spoiled by her parents and understands why it was wrong, but cannot consistently put that lesson into action, leading to her becoming upset and ultimately self-destructing when something causes her to get frustrated. That self-destruction makes her retreat into the comforting shell the memories of her past provide her, inevitably leading to more self-loathing which in turn makes her crave more spoiling to solve these negative emotions, perpetuating the cycle.