We kick off our coverage of the leads of TTWC2 with the big man himself. First, let me talk about Liches in my canon. I was initially inspired by the Dark Lich of Secret of Mana (Seiken Densetsu 2), but it wasn’t until years later that I came to understand the conventional concept of what a Lich is in fantasy fiction. For the uninitiated, conventionally a Lich is a powerful mage who becomes undead as a means of immortality (usually by means of a phylactery, much like Voldemort’s Horcruxes). I would later apply this concept to what I term Demi-Liches. In my canon, a Lich is a male-only race of generative undead with great magical power. They are so powerful, in fact, that their power eventually consumes their physical bodies, so before that happens, they much transfer that power to a new generation. Liches will mate with a number of different species in an effort to give rise to a hybrid offspring with a physical form strong enough to contain the Lich’s great and growing power. Occasionally you’ll get a Lich who has a stronger sense of himself as an individual rather than as part of a continuum, which leads to problems. For instance, the ancient Black Lich caused the Lich line to go extinct for nearly five thousand years because he thought himself to be the perfection of the Dark Race. He did, however, realize his folly at the end and managed to seal up his power so that his line could be revived at some point in the future. The Monarch Lich very nearly terminated the second line for much the same reason.

Originally, the Monarch Lich had little motivation, particularly after Solon’s death. Much like Magnus Lee in Vampire Hunter D, a bored villain is rather, well, boring and so I knew something had to change. As I established the idea of the Copy Golem (think along the lines of the revived Kikyou from Inuyasha), I realized that death was no obstacle at all to the Monarch Lich’s torment of Solon and so his obsession is preserved. I found myself moving farther and farther away from the aloof overlord concept to making him much more hot-blooded, even petulant. One of the key themes with him is the conflict between his Lich and human natures. His ego and ambition are his undoing, but ultimately he does sacrifice the greater part of himself to continue his line.

I’d actually consider doing a prequel chronicling his conquest of the Darklands. It might be interesting to see him when he was young and brash, with all this power but little control. Perhaps I could even show his rise and Solon’s in parallel. That could be interesting. Anyway, that does it for now. Next time, we’ll give Arachne the Spider Queen some attention. Stay tuned.

I’ve been slacking off the past few days before setting out on my grand adventure. (Well, not entirely slacking off. Wednesday I was on the road for six hours for a 15-minute job interview.) While I spent most of my time en route to Japan sleeping, reading or watching movies, I did make some progress on Ophis Python’s Chapter 3 of TTWC2. I just need to add a little more narrative to finish it. I’m having to shed my nocturnal habits while here in Japan, but I should have time in the evenings to get some writing done. Don’t expect daily updates, though. In fact, it may be a good week before I’m online again. I’ll be sure to fill you in next time I have Internet access, though. Stay tuned.

I’m back in the saddle again, wrapping up Xorgoth’s epilogue and making some progress on his Chapters 2, 3 and 4. I think I’ll be stepping away from TTWC2 for a bit, though. It’s time for a change of pace. Maybe I’ll work on EM or JJ this week.

In other news, I’ve been playing around in the peripheral materials the past few days and of course writing more reviews. I’ve got quite a glut on the DVR, so I really need to work it down. I’d like to get back around 50% free before I head to Japan, but that may be asking a little much. Stay tuned.

I’ve almost got Xorgoth’s epilogue done and wrote a couple sentences on Medusa’s epilogue as well. (Writing when you’re starting to nod off isn’t recommended.) I didn’t post a progress update yesterday because I didn’t make any story progress, but I have continued to write reviews, which may or may not warrant a post. In fact, I have less than 20 items left to go in my queue of 174 movies. In the near future, I plan to start expanding the other sections as well. Stay tuned.

I pretty well finished Xorgoth’s Chapter 5 and just about finished his epilogue as well. You might be wondering why I’m doing latter chapters before the earlier ones. There’s really nothing particularly clever about it. You see, OpenOffice Writer’s word counter doesn’t always work like it should, so I have to select the entire document to get an accurate count. This leaves me at the very end, so when I’m scrolling back up to the chapters I need to write, the later ones come up first, so I tend to just start there. You see? Not clever at all. Actually a bit of a dumb reason. However, sometimes the beginning and the end are clearer than the middle, so that can have some influence as well. I guess this means Xorgoth’s section is the one I aim to finish this week. May be a bit of a tall order. I have three more chapters to go once the epilogue is finished. I’ll make a stab at it anyway. Stay tuned.

I made more progress on Xorgoth’s Chapter 5 in TTWC2. A little more of a push and I’ll be done with it. I’ve also written a number of reviews. I may actually have my backlog all knocked out in a few days at this rate. Now I’m trying to think of themed events to bundle them. Things to do, things to do. Stay tuned.

I wrote a little on Xorgoth’s Chapter 5 and epilogue of TTWC2 and penned a few more reviews. On the latter note, I was queuing up movies and I noticed that this new thing with the reviews was affecting my choice. Before, I was just looking for movies I hadn’t seen and thought might be interesting. Now I’m thinking more in terms of “This’ll make an interesting review.” I have to sometimes suppress my inner masochism and not choose movies I know will be terrible just so I might get a more acerbic review. That’s to say nothing about movies I’ve seen and hated but fall outside my six-month window. There’d have to be some sort of premium for that kind of service. Anyway, that’ll do it for now. Stay tuned.

With things settling down, I was finally able to get back on task and do some story-based writing. I made some progress on Ophis Python’s Chapter 3 and Xorgoth’s epilogue of TTWC2. My goal is to finish at least one of the three sections of TTWC2 I have left this week. I think I’ll push to finish TTWC2 before going back to work on TTWC3. I have 11 more chapters to go, most of them already partially written. I believe with some concerted effort, I can push through fairly quickly.

In other news, I was also writing quite a few reviews. I’m building up a rather comfortable buffer, but I need to pay some thought to rewatching some series and such to add some variety to my content. I am, after all, not just about movie reviews. We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.

I pretty well finished Ophis Python’s Chapter 2 of TTWC2 and did some work on his Chapter 3 as well. I also did a lot of work in the Cross Arc peripheral material, filling out more details of the Imperial family tree and so on. Also trying to hammer out the plot of the Aether War series. I whipped up the idea to serve as the flagship for the Cross Arc, but it’s really not like other flagships like KoG and Tico in that it wasn’t truly what launched the idea or what I’m leading with. My primary interest is in the era after the events of the Aether War, but I really should give the basis for it. Things to do. Stay tuned.

In my flurry of review writing, I was neglecting the writing that should be my primary focus. Though a little under quota, I did some writing on Simona’s epilogue of TTWC3 so I’d have something to report. As the reviews are just a side thing, saying I wrote 21 of them yesterday shouldn’t count as the sort of progress I report here. That puts me about a fifth of the way into the list I’ve drawn up. I’ll certainly have that buffer I was looking for. I suppose I might as well follow this obsession to its conclusion. I’ll just try to make time for my main writing while I’m at it. Stay tuned.