Category: CeleKing1

Feb 25 2024

WIP Update – 24 Feb 24

I had a busy day. Not only was I implementing all those edits I’d been collecting over the week for TG, JJ1 and JJ2, but I also decided to actually make use of my word processor’s custom dictionary (a practice I fell out of because I got tired of starting the process all over again every time I had to migrate to a new machine). In this process, I caught some typos that would’ve slipped past me otherwise, not just in the three stories above but also in CeleKing1-3, EM1-3 and NagaTen. Just dealing with the Cross Arc was enough to keep me occupied for the time being, but I’ll deal with the other Arcs in the near future.

While I was doing that, I made a significant change. Well, it’s significant behind the scenes but only required one or two changes in the stories themselves. You see, back when I was writing CeleKing3, I decided that it would be simplest to use the year of adoption for the designation of Imperial weapons, i.e. the P777 was adopted in NE 777. However, CeleKing3 originally took place in NE 723. Yes, I could’ve just changed the designations of all the Imperial weapons, but instead I decided to shift the whole series one hundred years into the future. This might seem like a drastic step, but it actually made sense with the wider lore of the Cross Arc. You notice how there’s no mention of the Hybrids in the CeleKing series? Well, if I set the series after NagaTen (NE 745) and EM3 (NE 767), you can imagine a very good reason for that. Since there’s no mention of Hybrids in even later storied like JJ2 (NE 968) and TG (NE 1032), it starts to paint a bit of a picture. That being said, instead of changing a few weapon names in a couple chapters of CeleKing3, I had to go into the peripheral materials and change all the citations in the encyclopedia, timeline, genealogies, etc. Most of it was just applying a 100-year adjustment to the dates. I didn’t add any new members to the Imperial Family, though. Now the Yuanguang Emperor reigns for a whopping 167 years, but with juvenation therapy, it’s not all that wild. He dies at the age of 266, but Wuzong (who Yasuko killed in CeleKing2) was still rather peppy at 231 (though Erdi’s juvenation therapy had improved by then, so that makes a difference). Another significant change is that Princess Anmei (wife of the Yuanguang Emperor’s brother) wasn’t killed during the purge of the Sun Faction but instead in an assassination attempt on the future Emperor Wude. (She still gets posthumously honored as Empress Bian when Wude takes the throne, and it prompted me to add a whole thing where Wude’s successor Wuzheng was the son of a concubine and all the mess that led to. Fun times.)

I think I may start doing sweeps in the Space and Tellus Arcs and see what that brings up. I’ll then try to gear myself to focusing on TWH next week. Hopefully there won’t be any more head trauma cramping my style. Stay tuned.

Feb 04 2024

WIP Update – 03 Feb 24

I put the finishing touches on Chapter 18 of TWH and spent most of my day correcting those errors in the CeleKing series. Loads of fun. I’d like to write more on TWH, but I need to be switching gears to EM3. Stay tuned.

Feb 03 2024

WIP Update – 01-02 Feb 24

Two days with a good bit of time on my hands proved to be enough to mostly finish Chapter 18 of TWH. Not only that, but I was going over CeleKing1, 2 and 3 to catch typos. It started with me just rereading random chapters and just happening the occasional error, but I went on to do a more methodical scan through the three novels to catch things that had slipped by me in the past. Afterward, I’d have to make those corrections to the original manuscript, the offline HTML file and of course the chapters on the website. Loads of fun.

Anyway, I might try doing a little more on TWH before switching over. Stay tuned.

Nov 12 2023

Character Spotlight: Masako Suzuki

Today we’ll be looking at Lady Masako, the third member of our less than happy little family from the CeleKing series. Masako’s origins lie with the original concept that would be fleshed out to form the basis of Erdi society. You have Celestials above and Infernals below, but then a Celestial is cast down. What then? I was starting to develop the idea of the Imperial court and its intrigues, which made for an easy setup. We take a militarily accomplished and politically influential nobleman (married to an Imperial princess, no less) from a hated minority group and the plot practically writes itself. From his limited screentime, we see Masako’s father Lord Kunihiko as a reserved sort of parent who only grants his daughter an indulgence like a portion of his beloved bonsai garden as a reward for having proven herself discerning enough to be a worthy steward of it, not as a free gift. Unfortunately, the story didn’t lend itself to featuring Masako’s mother, Princess Feifang, but you can get some idea of the sort of parent she was based on how Masako herself acts as a mother in Volumes 2 and 3. Masako was raised to be stoic and duty-bound, but due to her age and circumstances in Volume 1, we see more of a different side of her. She is very much a sheltered 17-year-old girl who is ill-equipped for the situation she finds herself in. Her pride is her shield, but that shield isn’t enough to protect her. For much of Volume 1, there is very little she can do but rely on Batista, but we she her start to rise to the challenge as Batista finds himself unable to shoulder all of the load by himself. The experience changes her, of course. She learns a little humility and gains a bit of grit as she spends time among the people she never paid a second thought to in her years at the Capital and Liuyiyuan. Then there’s the matter of the love that blooms between her and Batista, which shapes her fate for good and for ill in the years to follow. Let’s look at a few of the most significant relationships in her life and how they affect her.

1. From the start, Batista had a knock for drawing out conflicting emotions in Masako. She was of course grateful to him for saving her and dependent on him for protecting her afterward, but a rough man like him who pays little heed for rank flew in the face of all her social conditioning. Because she couldn’t play the role of the spoiled, pampered princess around him, she had to toughen up sooner than she would have otherwise. Their initially belligerent relationship giving way to romance is pretty common, but in light of how she would act later in life makes it a bit ironic that she was willing to forsake her duty and responsibilities to be with him. As you know, they eventually came to the compromise of him becoming her knight, allowing for a less disadvantageous marriage, yet one that still would have led to the extinction of the main line of House Suzuki as far as the norms of the court were concerned. The birth of Yasuko brought them closer still, but it was after the assassination attempt that drove Batista to place Yasuko in the care of Tío Jorge that their relationship broke. It could not be help as Batista was reassigned to the Expeditionary Forces and both of their efforts to remain in touch with each other were blocked. Physical separation led to emotional separation and even when Batista was allowed to return to the Capital, they had precious few opportunities to reconnect. Had they been allowed more than a handful of meetings, they might have managed something, but Batista’s jealousy over her marriage to Prince Sturla and longstanding arguments would have made it difficult. In the end, though, he was the man she loved first and best, so his loss hit her the hardest.

2. Next up is Yasuko. It might have been interesting to have seen a few episodes of Masako as a mother to Yasuko when she was younger. I see Masako as having been more of a doting mother than her own mother was, not being so cold and distant as you see when mother and daughter are reunited. It was actually a fine bit of acting on Masako’s part, but suppressing the emotions welling up inside of her was hard on her. She had to fall back on the example of her own mother for Yasuko’s protection. Although she did not have a complete grasp on Yasuko’s plot against the Celestials, she knew that it was imperative for her to mask Yasuko’s Infernal side and get her integrated into Celestial society as soon as possible. Things moved too quickly after that for her to ever get close to her daughter, though you do have the one episode in Volume 2 after Yasuko’s fight with Hongxia, which is the one scene of intimacy they were granted. While Masako wanted Yasuko to be happy, she wanted her to be safe first, and if that meant sacrificing a close relationship with her daughter, it was a price she was willing to pay. Now, it was bad enough that Masako thought she lost her daughter once, but the second time nearly did her in, hence her somewhat desperate ploy to impregnate herself with a clone of Yasuko, knowing that it wouldn’t be the same person. It was her clumsy way of trying to do it right the second time. Then you have Yasuko come back from the dead as a traitor to all Erdi with the blood of not only Sturla but also Batista on her hands. While Yasuko dismissed any possibility of mending the relationship with her mother after what she had done, she was selling her mother short. Masako wouldn’t easily overcome the gulf that had opened up between them, but I believe she would have tried. However, since Yasuko went off on her own, Masako made the painful decision to stay away, thinking she was respecting Yasuko’s wishes. Ultimately, it was a case of mother and daughter thinking on similar terms, that one wouldn’t forgive the other and so neither one tried to patch things up. It’s a shame, but Yasuko rejected the possibility of any healthy relationships, considering herself unworthy of them, and Masako couldn’t muster the force of will to drag her back kicking and screaming if she had to to show her otherwise.

3. Prince Sturla came along at a time when Masako was at her most vulnerable since the death of her father. Although she didn’t flaunt her marriage to an Infernal, it was widely known and normally no one of Sturla’s standing would consider such a match, but once he made it clear that his offer of marriage was genuine, she made what she thought was the best move for herself and her family. Her original idea in marrying Sturla was that it would give her the security to call Yasuko back from the surface, but by that time, Tío Jorge had been killed and Yasuko had begun her wanderings. If you look at how Sturla treated Yasuko, you might think Masako went through something similar, but that wasn’t really the case. We’ll be covering his perspective on their marriage later, but after an initial phase of testing the waters a bit, Sturla became a rather distant husband. Theirs was a political marriage, so Masako wasn’t expecting much more than that. As she intimated to Yasuko, she found him charming and physically attractive yet emotionally unfulfilling. However, she was raised to regard marriage as a duty, so it only took her a little time to adjust her mindset away from the aberration that was her marriage to Batista. She knew Sturla was using her for his own ends, so she did so in turn, focusing her attention on raising their son to meet his potential.

4. Speaking of Masako and Sturla’s son, Snorri was doted on even more than Yasuko when she was young. Part of it is the “little emperor syndrome” and part of it was Masako overcompensating for the loss of Batista and Yasuko and the emotional distance between her and Sturla. Fortunately, Snorri was quite unlike his father in terms of personality and wasn’t on track to become a little Joffrey Baratheon, though you could easily see him going down that route. He’s a case of being spoiled sweet instead of spoiled rotten. As you might imagine, he became quite the mama’s boy as a result. Masako rightly feared him being corrupted by his father, but it was a small mercy on Sturla’s part that he allowed Masako the time to spoil their child and Snorri the time to be spoiled until he was to be shaped into Sturla’s proper heir. We may visit this in a later story, but Snorri would grow up devoted to Masako and supporting her amid her bereavement and the challenges of adjusting to the new authority in the Empire. He actually becomes a doctor, and him turning out as such a decent person is almost entirely due to Masako’s influence. Even more so after the fall of their Empire, Masako focuses on not making the same mistakes with Snorri that she made with Yasuko and the two of them enjoy a much healthier relationship for it. Being freed of the expectations of becoming the next Emperor removes a massive load from both their shoulders and gives her the opportunity to be just a mother.

Since I’ve given you a peek into Snorri’s future, I’ll tell you a bit about what happens to Masako as well. Of course she has to renounce her title as Empress and Countess of House Suzuki when the New Earth Empire takes control of Erdi, but she does manage to secure a place in the transitional authority, which secures a role for her in planetary politics. Much as she had done at other points in her life, she takes the option she sees as best for her family, and indeed her cooperation is what keeps herself, Snorri and Eiko (the clone of Yasuko she gives birth to after the events of CeleKing3) from being purged as threats to the new order. It’s ironic that Yasuko allows herself to be reviled by her fellow paisanos for collaborating with the Empire when she rejected the benefits of doing so, while Masako, for all her pride, takes what she can get, but Masako’s pragmatism is one thing her daughter never inherited. Think what you will of her, but Masako always seeks to play the field to her advantage, which is what you had to do to survive in Celestial society. As much of a survivor as Yasuko was, her own pride consistently made her life more difficult for her. Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree.

Anyway, that will do it for our look at Masako. Next time, we’ll be turning our attention to Prince Sturla. Stay tuned.

Oct 24 2023

Character Spotlight: Batista Rodrigues

I’ve commented elsewhere that the older and more cynical I get, my protagonists become less and less moral paragons. Now, there’s a time and a place for more innocent and upstanding leads, but sometimes you need to get down in the dirt with someone who’s got some grime stuck to him. The general idea for Batista’s look (and the origin of his surname) is Jetstream Sam from Metal Gear Rising. He first appeared in the dream that would become Chapter 1 of CeleKing2. Interestingly enough, I was building a backstory for the character as the dream was ongoing. He was a centurion in the Imperial Guard from a common background who had won his place among the elite through his skill as a warrior. I would later go back and dig up an old idea I had about a society divided between Infernals and Celestials and a fallen Celestial taken in by an Infernal, which would be developed into CeleKing1. I decided that I wanted to introduce Yasuko’s parents and their story before she would take center stage, hence the structure of the CeleKing trilogy being what it is.

We get bits and pieces of Batista’s backstory throughout the trilogy, with an obvious focus in CeleKing1. He was the son of Zacarias Rodrigues, a restaurateur who was a former conscript, one who didn’t fall into banditry after being demobilized like so many others. Zacarias met Batista’s mother Isabella through her brother Jorge Avilar (Tío Jorge), who was in the same unit of conscripts. They settled not too far from where Zacarias was demobilized and Zacarias set up shop in the dusty little town of Ciruela. Taking on the family business was never in the cards for Batista, who was kicked out of the mission school for delinquency and frequently ran away from home. During this time, he’d commit a number of petty crimes and strained the law’s leniency toward minor offenders to its limits in several counties. He had a brief period of stability after Tío Jorge was discharged from the Regulars. He admired his uncle’s military service and started to apprentice in Tío Jorge’s tinker shop. However, there was a bone of contention in the form of Tío Jorge’s pretty young wife Nayeli. What started as an adolescent crush eventually got out of hand and led to a major falling out between Batista and Tío Jorge. Not long thereafter, Batista got his conscription orders. The main reason why he didn’t become a draft dodger was because he was seeking something different for himself far away from both home and his uncle. Though far from a model soldier, he proved to have a high aptitude as a fighter. He wasn’t eligible for enlistment in the Regulars due to his numerous disciplinary infractions, so instead he became a mercenary in the Regimiento de Rionegro. Most of his career as a mercenary was spent fighting in Viet Tay (Xiyue), and his record was a bit of a checkered one. War is never a pretty thing, but some make a dirtier business of it than others. There were few lines he wouldn’t cross and for those that he wouldn’t, he looked the other way while others did on more than one occasion. Although he was mostly aimless, going from one battefield to the next and enjoying what pleasures he could in between, there was a vague sense of planning for his future, even if he didn’t know what that would be. Many soldiers live paycheck to paycheck, but Batista was putting a fair bit back, savings that would be confiscated once he deserted. It was precisely his lack of direction which made it so easy Capitán Trieu to convince him to reup and take the promotion to sargento at the start of CeleKing1. Had Fate not had other plans for him, he would’ve continued on that path until he was either killed in action or too old to keep on fighting.

We’ve established that Batista was hardly hero material when he is introduced and while we later learn that his particular susceptibility to the Mandate of Heaven is a big part of why he rescued Masako from Coronel Obrado, there was also an element of pent-up guilt over all the times he’d turned a blind eye to unpleasant goings-on in the past to make for something of a perfect storm spurring him to action. From there, we have the adventure as you know it, with him struggling to keep both himself and Masako alive and out of enemy hands while trying to ward off the growing attachment to the young princess. Could he have made a clean break from her? It’s unlikely. Despite what his head is telling him, his heart is directed elsewhere, and tied to how the Mandate of Heaven has bound him to Masako, his efforts to maintain his distance most likely would have failed even without the ever increasing extremity of their circumstances. After the events of CeleKing1, he wasn’t able to maintain his professional separation from Masako for long. Due to their difference in station, despite being married, Batista was essentially the male equivalent of a concubine in the eyes of Imperial law. Although Imperial society on Erdi leans toward old-school patriarchy, most women of rank enjoy their gallants just as their male counterparts have their concubines, mistresses and whatnot. Had Masako remained exclusive to Batista, she would have been seen as more of an oddity and their children would have a difficult time inheriting House Suzuki.

Speaking of children, things changed significantly for them after Yasuko was born. An assassination attempt on Masako by remnants of Lord Feng’s faction led to Batista putting Yasuko in Tío Jorge’s care, something Masako was very reluctant to agree to. It drove a bit of a wedge between them, and before it could be resolved, Batista found himself assigned to Prince Wusheng out on the frontier. He could neither lead the hunt for Masako’s enemies, nor go fetch Yasuko once the coast was clear. Part of the reason Batista rose to prominence in the Imperial Guard, rising to centurion and earning the title of “Jiansheng” (“剣聖”, or basically “sword saint”) was because he was trying to earn his ticket back to the Capital. It was quite the stroke of Fate that he would finally return to the Capital at the same time Yasuko launched her infiltration. (You could just blame the contrivance of the author, to which the author might suggest that a certain scheming antagonist may have taken the opportunity to guide the pieces on the board according to his plan.) Naturally, Batista is thrown into confusion by the circumstances of Yasuko’s return and Masako’s new marital situation. However, much as before, he’s given the runaround by his duties to prevent him from taking a more active role in the situation. (Sturla obviously wouldn’t want him too deeply involved while he’s busy grooming Yasuko.) While his relationship with his wife and daughter is left strained and distant, he finds Prince Sturla moving in instead. He resents Sturla for taking his wife but is mindful of not just his political power but also his skill as a swordsman. Sturla being as familiar and flippant as he is only makes things more uncomfortable for Batista. This culminates with Sturla naming him his personal bodyguard after being crowned Emperor. Batista knows he’s being manipulated throughout, but he isn’t really in a position to do anything else but obey… until Yasuko defects to the New Earth Empire, that is.

Naturally, Batista wasn’t acting out of loyalty to Sturla or the Empire when he faced down his daughter. His intention was to stop her before she could attempt a fight she had no chance of winning, and, if possible, get to safety with her mother. He ended up pulling his punches, though, and he underestimated Yasuko’s new enhancements. From there, as you know, he had the choice of letting Sigma stabilize his wounds to give him a chance at survival or make one last effort to save his daughter from her archnemesis. For someone who had often strayed far from the path of a hero in his life, his own flesh and blood being on the line made the decision easy for him. Did he resort to a cheap sneak attack? You bet your buttons he did, because anything else would have almost certainly failed. His training as a knight of the Imperial Guard didn’t change his essential nature as a mercenary who fights to win. He accomplished what he meant to, which isn’t a bad way to go out.

What more is there to say about our boy Batista? He loved and lost, bled and bloodied. Quite a ride for some street punk who didn’t seem like he’d ever amount to anything. Next time, we’ll take a look at his progeny, who inherited a lot of his bad habits. Stay tuned.

Nov 01 2020

WIP Update – 26-28 Oct 20

I managed to mostly finish Chapter 30 of JJ2, then on a whim, I started rereading Tzipi’s Garden and went through catching typos and such. I then gave CeleKing1 the same treatment. Didn’t get anything much done beyond that other than some review writing. I need to hop back on KniTwi. We’ll see what I get done. Stay tuned.

Nov 19 2017

WIP Update – 19 Nov 17

While I did put the finishing touches on Chapter 1 of CeleKing1 and add some odds and ends while reviewing what I’d written so far, my main accomplishment was doing the HTML conversions for the appendices of CeleKing1 in preparation for the end of its serial run on Thursday.

Although the need is greater for more work on TBP, I’m going to stick to the schedule and work on TG this week. I may end up trying to make some headway in TBP as well. I really need to finish it and get working on building some lead time for the next story. We’ll see what I can accomplish. Stay tuned.

Oct 01 2017

WIP Update – 30 Sep 17

Well, I’m not exactly going to be meeting my goal when I only get 100 words written, but so it goes. I made a little progress on Chapter 22 of CeleKing2, but depending on how tomorrow goes, I may just have to push the goal of finishing the book to the next cycle. It’ll still be sooner than I was expecting.  Well, we’ll see what I can get done. Stay tuned.

Apr 23 2017

WIP Update – 23 Apr 17

Well, I’m calling it. I put the finishing touches on the epilogue of CeleKing1 and that’s that. My 14th novel is complete. It all feels like it went by really quickly, but I guess that’s not necessarily a bad thing given all the projects in my cue.

I promptly went on to do a little work in the prologue of CeleKing2, but the real work won’t begin until next cycle. I’ve already got about 10K written on that book, so if its predecessor is any indication, that means about 50K more to go. (Honestly, I don’t even have the thing fully plotted yet, so that’s work to be done.)

Anyway, now it’s back to TSoA1. We’ll see how far I can get this week. Because I have Friday off, my schedule’s been compressed a bit, so I won’t have quite as much time for writing as usual. I should still be able to make decent headway, though. Stay tuned.

Apr 23 2017

WIP Update – 22 Apr 17

I spent most of the day just transcribing all my handwritten work, so I didn’t get much new writing done, though I did finish the dialog for the epilogue of CeleKing1. I just need to fill in a little of the narrative and I’ll be done. There will be some additional polish and revisions added later, but the work will be mostly done. I won’t quite announce the deal’s done yet, but we’re close. Stay tuned.