I did some writing on Chapter 3 and 4 of BroPen. I’m a little behind the power curve, but I’ve got a lot of work to get done, so I may fall further behind. So it goes. These dodgily translated medical dialogs with an even dodgier grasp of medical accuracy aren’t going to check themselves. Stay tuned.

I wrote some dialog for Chapter 3 of BroPen. The project I was talking about earlier is still going on strong, but I may have a little more time for writing if I stay on top of things. That is, of course, if I don’t use the time to play Suiko2 instead. ^_^; Stay tuned.

All I did was work on the character glossary for BroPen, but as that’s one of the appendices, I’m going to count it toward quota. I have a huge project that’s come in, so I really don’t have much time for anything else in the near future, but I’m going to try to at least get the minimum quota done. We’ll see how it goes. Stay tuned.

I realized that because I have the chapter structure all laid out for BroPen, it would be appropriate for me to note which chapters I’ve been working on. Most of the work was done on Chapter 1, but I also added a little dialog to Chapter 9. I think I’ll be sticking with this story for a while. Look for more to come. Stay tuned.

After missing my quota Saturday, I picked BroPen back up and made a little progress. I made the questionable choice of watching the third through fifth entries in the Hellraiser series last night. In retrospect, it would’ve been better to have devoted the entire time to writing. I imagine I’m in for much worse when I watch 6-8. I wonder if I should do movie reviews as a side gig. Maybe it’d be a source of some amusement. Stay tuned.

Mixing things up a bit, I did some work on The Brothers Pendragon. I may play around in this story a while to get myself caught up on that nagging quota shortfall. Stay tuned.

In one of my more standard quest-type stories, Ionathas would likely be the main character. Indeed, there are a lot of his exploits that don’t get chronicled in the story proper that would probably be part of the central plot otherwise. Whether the current setup is a good thing or not, I’ll leave that to the reader.

Besides being the typical hero, Ionathas is important as a representative of Notians sympathetic with the Zephyrians. It’d obviously be a different story if he wasn’t brought up from nothing by the Duke’s patronage, but it was important for him to have a foot in both worlds, as it were. He makes a good counterpoint to Prince Carpos, who betrayed Zephyr to join the Promethean Alliance for his own selfish ends. Also, making him a free knight gives him greater flexibility that a regular member of the legions would have, which is one of the keys to his success when he takes up the Duke’s mantle.

While Prince Carpos is more of an antitype, Sir Caligo is more of a direct analogue. They’re both lowborn men raised to prominence by their military exploits with an elite cadre of close followers who are ultimately betrayed by the very people they fought for. Too bad (or not) for Ionathas not getting the chance to turn into a vampire to exact his revenge. Honestly, I don’t think Ionathas would’ve done what Caligo did even given the opportunity. Therein lies the key difference between the two men. As wrathful as Ionathas was toward the Church for turning on the Crown, he didn’t surrender himself to that wrath, but as a result he was killed for it.

Regarding Ionathas’ relationship with Corona, I think I’ll save that discussion for Corona’s entry. And I believe that’ll do it for now. Ionathas is a fairly straightforward character, so there really aren’t many twists and turns to his characterization. Next up is Lord Xenomachos (once his section is complete). Stay tuned.

In the earliest stage of conception of what would become The Trident Chronicles, I didn’t have much to Daphne’s character besides a princess who could communicate with angels and fairies. I believe it had some relation to the Princess character class in Ogre Battle (which at the time I hadn’t played but only read Nintendo Power articles about). She may have been called Daphne at that point. If so, that’s about the only aspect of her original character profile that survived.

When the story was revived in its current incarnation, Daphne began to take shape as we know her now, the sheltered Half Elf daughter of Solon and Xanthe thrust into the role of regent in her parents’ absence due to her brother’s treachery. Her character arc is all about going from the bird in the gilded cage to a proper leader of her people. I like to think that her development really comes through when you compare her encounter with Carpos in her prologue with the one in Chapter 3, then on to her negotiations with Rowland in Chapter 5.

Of course, we can’t talk about Daphne without bringing up Uriel. Pairing the princess and the rogue is a classic trope, but I think we all know that I’m not one to shy away from playing with well-worn tropes. I should probably have a spotlight for Uriel himself, but perhaps I should save that one for a later date. Anyway, focusing on the relationship with Uriel from Daphne’s perspective, there are a lot of elements at work. The element of gratitude for saving her life comes first, then there’s a bit of a girlish crush that forms that later blossoms into a deeper form of companionship. Part of it is to replace her brother and another part is romantic bond. (I’m going to note that Carpos’ incestuous ways are almost entirely one-sided, so there’s not really much cross-pollination going on here with Daphne.) Uriel’s presence goes a long way to building her into the stronger person she becomes, but it’s also no small part of what leads to her downfall. He becomes a blindspot for her. It’s not that she’s unaware of how his presence is compromising to her, but she doesn’t go far enough to keep her distance because she can’t. She needs him too much and it’s used as ammunition against her.

I like playing with the dilemma of balancing the desires of your heart with the duties of your station and I certainly wouldn’t mind exploring that more with Daphne. There may be a short or two in the future for it. Anyway, next up is Ionathas. Stay tuned.

I went ahead and mostly wrapped up Orguz’s Chapter 2 of TTWC2 and then went on to more or less finish Chapter 15 of Tico4. Not a bad bit of work if I say so myself. You’ll understand what I mean when we get to the chapter in question, but I found it quite the pain to adequately portray synchronous audio and visuals, particularly when the latter is changing in the middle of the former. I may wind up doing some rewriting to streamline it further, but that’s a task for another day. Stay tuned.

I got close to finishing Orguz’s Chapter 2 of TTWC2, but I starting nodding off before I could get it done. So it goes. I may still go on to do the finishing touches before switching to Tico4, though. We’ll see. Stay tuned.