Tiana will have to wait for Volume 5 to figure it out (I started the last afterword with essential this same statement!) This volume did indeed take up the rest of the arc that started in Volume 3, but at least it is done.
Once again, ’tis I, your storyteller Fushigi, Dear Readers! Volume 4 is complete with chapter 175. Thank you so much for sticking with me this far.
(Okay, I recycled that line, too. I’ll stop.)
This time I ended up with fifty one chapters. I could easily have made it fifty two; the last three chapters were long enough to divvy into four instead and still be of decent length.
Tiana’s worldview just grew considerably, but there are people not reading the advance chapters who may skip ahead and read this free afterword, so I will not say more. Suffice it to say, she’s going to need time to recover.
When I first designed the background of this story, I dreamed up a cute mythology to throw in for color. But as I planned out the story, the trinity in that mythology ended up invading the storyline and you now have seen the result.
I should mention, I came up with the idea of the goddesses of the land and sea fighting over their hubby, the god of the sky before I chose the names– actually, it was a random concept I came up with many years before I began writing Substitute Hero– but since I was already pulling things from Greek Mythology, the names were pretty easy to choose.
Oranos and Gaia are gods most people have at least heard of. Eurybia lost out to Poseidon early in Greek history. She was probably important early on, but, like Oranos, lost out to the younger gods. Except, Oranos got a planet named after him (His Latin name is Uranus) so he gets remembered. The male god who stole Eurybia’s position as the master of the sea got the planet (Neptune, Poseidon’s latin name), while she was mostly forgotten.
New clichés worked into the story… hm. Actually, I’ve slowed down on doing that, largely because I’ve already worked so many of them in. Although she’s no villainess, I did bring in a character badly prone to loud “Ohoho” laughter. I gave same character a “Koko wa makasete!” moment (the thing where the supporting character volunteers to pull a 300 to let the MC get away.) It isn’t always a death flag, you know. I don’t think naming the Fairy King ‘Oberon’ just like in Shakespeare qualifies, but it’s been done before (for example, in SAO.) And I gave Tiana a brief tentacles incident (or rather, tentacle vine), but of course this novel is not R18, so I made sure she got out of it without any actual ecchi. Snuck a few modernisms into a fantasy setting. But really, I made a commitment to only use clichés if they fit, which didn’t happen much, this time. I don’t actually expect it to happen as often from here on out either, since I’ve burned through so many already, but I probably never will entirely stop.
So what is the state of the overall plot outline? Still somewhat in shambles, but going somewhere. The arc we just completed is the result of blending the shambles of the original school arc with an arc that was supposed to come after it, but moving that part of the story ahead has left me with some interesting new possibilities. I have a pretty good idea what’s coming next, but after that there are still more than one way I can go, so I will have to figure it out in the course of the next arc.
Some big stuff happened near the end, but I won’t discuss it until the end of the next volume to avoid spoilers, since those chapters will still be advance chapters when I post this afterword, which I don’t lock.
We are going to start pulling several loose threads back together now. The next arc was not part of the original plan, but it is rather a complete replacement of two arcs. Basically, I’m working original details and plot points into a completely new order, with some of those items originally happening before the trip to Tëan Tír.
As for how much longer this story is going to go… since I’m still repairing the self-inflicted damage, I don’t actually know. At least Volume Eight is almost a certainty, but I’m beginning to wonder if it will be enough. My uncertainty in the past about whether I would get to chapter 300 are now beginning to seem laughable.
Well, we’ll just have to find out.
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Q & A session!
Several weeks back I asked readers to contribute questions. I also went back and mined the comments for some, to give them more carefully written responses.
I am willing to bet that the last few chapters generated a crap-ton of new questions that the readers want answered, but I won’t be answering any of those, to avoid spoilers.
Q: Why are the fairy lords getting away with hating on Tiana so much?
A: Here’s the scoop; the fairy lords of the dominant faction consider the Fairy King a rival, not a superior. It’s the commoners in their clans who revere the King. To the nobility, he’s the check on their power. The commoners mostly just want to play around in their own domains and enjoy life, and only turn to their lords when they need assistance. So basically, being a headache about Tiana is just one element in a larger game of keeping pressure on the King. They are also getting back at his favorite daughter, who happens to be Tiana’s mother.
Q: What’s the difference between the ‘fairy-touched’ condition and what Tiana’s grandmother did to the mortal back at her lake?
A: Ethically speaking, at the fundamental level, Lâra’s method isn’t that much better. Both methods are, at the end of the day, charming mortals into sexual relations. But her method does less harm. By taking pains to not to damage the mortal minds she influences, Lâra is causing herself a lot of extra work. While it is still under the effect of fairy charm, she has to coax the mortal into agreeing to ‘dance with her’, rather than just drugging her with the charm and using her. The benefit is, the mortal girls she touches are unharmed, and often even healed of emotional issues such as anxiety, depression or frigidity. (It didn’t make it into the text, but when I was doing the character sketch on her, I decided she even used her rather powerful healing powers to give them cosmetic touchups and heal actual health conditions.)
In contrast, “Fairy-touched” girls are the victims of fairies who don’t make any effort to protect the mortal and just forcably drug them into sex. The unluckier of the victims end up in a near-catatonic state, becoming dependent on further contact with fairies in order to function.
Q: Tenre seemed hostile to Tiana at first, but backed off. What’s going on?
A: Tenre’s position as “Lady of the Valley”, the chief administrator of Tëan Tír on the fairy side, requires her to be neutral. She couldn’t show Tiana any favor as a family member in front of the nobles. Not only that, the initial reports about Tiana’s recent behavior were coming from Tiana’s enemies. Then she began to get better information behind the scenes as things progressed. If you”ve read this far, you can probably guess who the better information was coming from.
Q: Do you have a pronunciation guide for the Fairy language somewhere?
A: In fact, I’ll be posting one right after I post this afterword.
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Again, feel free to go on Discord and DM me (you can find me at the Creative Novels server, https://discord.gg/Savbewm and ping @Fushigi!), or you can ping me in the #chapter-discussion channel there, or you can just go right ahead and write a comment here in the chapters. I do read and often answer comments, and I would love it if people posted a lot more of them.
I have a big favor to ask of anyone who has stuck with me all the way to the end of this afterword! Every week, Vote For Substitute Hero! to get our Tiana on the list at Top Web Fiction!
This Afterword has been posted without upsetting the schedule. The first chapter of Volume 4, will post on the normally scheduled time.
Thanks again for reading!
– Fushigi
