The Salty Mageknight and the Sweet Dark Lord (book 7)
So… I didn’t plan any of this.
Okay, eventually I did. Let’s rewind.
In Lavender’s story, Solan was an antagonist of sorts, or at least an irritant, someone for her to bounce off of. I’d intended a growth arc for him centered around the idea of realizing that you’re not the protagonist of this entire isekai universe, you’re just a selfish dingus. So that happened in the background of Lavender’s story, and he went from an irritant to a grudging ally. Classic trope.
In order to kick off this arc, Solan meets a counterpart who seems to fit the role of the challenger Solan thought he wanted, but who thinks he’s in his own kind of story. Meanwhile, I had a separate character, the demiurge’s little brother, who was, in-universe, indirectly responsible for the story-world being LGBT+ friendly. See Therapist part 4 for more on that.
While I was outlining Therapist 4, the goofy idea popped into my head to combine those two people. Mind you, books 1 and 2 were already out in the world, including Drekar’s intro. This novella in some ways is an exercise in trying to fill out a character based on some disconnected details.
At that point, Solan’s story could stop with the forging of a new friendship with his former rival. That’s where Therapist 4 leaves off.
But in the process of editing book 4, the idea for a scene swallowed my brain: Solan climbing the stairs to Drekar’s tower, trying to convince himself that he doesn’t have a crush on his new friend. Some bits of that were spread out into other chapters, but by and large it’s now the first half of the “Return to the Bloodstone Tower” chapter. The rest evolved from there: not just this story, but the idea of writing a series of side stories about characters introduced in books 1-4.
After finishing this one, I wrote Berry’s story, then Hazel’s, and then went back to add epilogues to braid the three together (Solan + Hazel and Morel, Berry + Hazel, Solan + Berry). They were released in the order they take place in the story’s timeline, meaning that I had the longest time — nearly a year — to sit and stew over this one.
This is my first finished attempt at a romance-focused story. I like reading the genre at times, and it always sounded fun to try — not easy, mind you; a “real” genre romance takes a delicate balance of tropes and surprises, and a more encyclopedic knowledge of the genre than I have. Just fun, because there are so many character feelings involved, and I love delving into feelings. As one might guess. This book doesn’t quite qualify as A Romance Novel because of its story structure, which is why I call it a romantic comedy instead. (It does have a HEA. In case anyone was wondering.)
Maybe it worked and maybe it didn’t, but I had a good time. I hope you did too.
References, influences and shout-outs:
Zilyana’s update is kind of a trick question: all of the items tie into past happenings except one. The accord between the two nobles is only mentioned here and doesn’t tie into anything. It’s just an example of the sort of thing Drekar should know about.
“You don’t have, like, therapists or accountants” – this is an allusion to something that isn’t fully confirmed in canon, which is that Drekar was an accountant on Earth. Solan was an electrical engineer, which is alluded to in Therapist 4.
Faux media:
Also noted in the notes to Therapist 4 — references to media are intended as a means of not getting sued, and not as a sign that Solan and the other Visitors come from an alternate Earth. That said, they also aren’t one-to-one copies, as with the version of Star Wars in Therapist 4 where the space princess actually gets to do stuff.
All of which is to say that The Threefold Kingdom, which Solan reads in this book, is their analogue of The Lord of the Rings. Nightstorm is named after a horse in the book, i.e. Shadowfax. It’s briefly mentioned that Drekar is into a series called Chronicles of the Time Spiral, which is their Wheel of Time analogue.
Dark Lord as corporate overlord:
I am very tempted to do a book focusing on the Dread Army sometime. They ended up as such a weird, sweet mix of cult, found family and workplace comedy. I truly had none of that in mind before starting this book. They were just identical mooks in book 2.
“Dark Lord goes shopping” is one of those comedy bits I couldn’t resist. It’s not really necessary; we just needed a breather after all that angst.
The (still unnamed) golden retriever librarian first appeared in Therapist book 2. She deals with a lot, I think.
I keep using the blacksmith’s apprentice Lysanthir for bit parts as well. He shows up in Therapist 2 and 4 as well as the cover of the volumes 1-4 omnibus edition. It’s a small town, after all.
Berry’s joke about writing a book at a rich friend’s house is a reference to the story of how Frankenstein came about. Originally it was a longer riff comparing their group to the historical one, but the “get murdered or write a book” riff was less confusing. Now it’s Clue and/or Frankenstein, I guess.
Happy to give Samantha something to do here. Overall, putting Solan in therapy was deeply satisfying.
Playlist:
I really don’t know why, but I listened to Vampire Weekend’s Father of the Bride almost on loop while writing a lot of this story. Which is bonkers, because it doesn’t fit the tone at all. What can I say. Brains are weird.
“Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You)” by Bombay Bicycle Club
“I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers
“You’re My Best Friend” by Thumpasaurus
“Top of the World” by Carpenters (or Shonen Knife’s cover if you prefer)
Evil Overlord for Hire (Authenticity Not Guaranteed) (book 9)
I don’t entirely remember where this idea came from, but I think it developed from conversations with my spouse. Originally, I had thought the Dread Army should start up a news network of sorts – bringing updates to subscribers in person, the way they do with the Dark Lord. But this idea of the impersonation scheme came in from somewhere, and…well, here we are. Part “let’s put on a show,” part reverse heist, part farce.
In its own odd little way, this story is about stories and audiences and persona-building: what people want out of a story or a person, whether or not that has anything to do with what the story’s creator thinks it is or who the person actually is. It doesn’t matter that the Zil-Dark Lord isn’t the real thing. The nobles want a roller coaster, something “dangerous” but ultimately safe. There’s more for Drekar to do in terms of trusting more people with his real self while setting boundaries for his own privacy, but he’s not the narrator of this story. There’s also a bit of an homage to the age-old fandom tradition of falling in love with your RP partner through your characters. I see you out there.
I didn’t have much planned out for Zil ahead of time (“scout who delivers Drekar’s news updates”, as we see her in book 7) and reverse-engineered what sort of person might be fun to get embroiled in this sort of scheme. More than that, I wanted as much of this as possible to be her idea, because otherwise her nervous-Nellie nature would make her come off as too passive. She is a team player who’s thrust into a leadership role, after all. It was nice to have another female narrator, though.
Aspen was another cameo in book 7, one of the guards who follows Drekar on his shopping trip. I reverse engineered why he might be sent on that trip (works for the quartermaster) and why accompanying the Dark Lord into a porn shop would be especially traumatic (ahem). Originally, I put the quartermaster himself in this role, but I figured he would be too busy. This also lets us get to know Aspen a bit before he has his own turn as narrator.
Ultimately, Aspen does a little bit of a few different things in this story (prepared guy, critique from inside the team, costuming), but it amuses me that he ends up as the getaway driver: at the end of most of the fights, Zil is trying to escape unnoticed, and the mages are wiped. So Aspen runs to get the horses. A lot.
I floundered for a bit trying to define Felix; I needed a reason why he had trained in magic but then failed out of the Mage Guild. I didn’t want him to be an asshole or a danger, because he had to fit into the team, but there had to be a solid reason why he wasn’t accepted by the Guild. “Very specific, very offputting specialty” ended up being it. I enjoy a cheerful purveyor of horror. (I have some more details in my head about how his final exam went, but it ended up being outside the scope of this story.)
Magnus came about because a) I wanted to bring in more beastfolk, and b) when I think about what kind of sound mage would work as a roadie to a band of bards, a laid-back hippie type came immediately to mind. Hence the pipe smoking, the gentle demeanor, the love of snacks. Making him a raccoon seemed a bit too on the nose with his habit of stealing food, so he stayed an opossum.
Both of the mages also played into my overall goal for this story, which was “solve problem, cause other problem.” It’s a farce, after all; we want things to almost tip into chaos, even as the group overall learns to work together and get closer to their goals. So we get Felix’s overeager yes-anding and Magnus’s sticky fingers, and finally Zil continuing to fall for Tanathil.
Tanathil took a long path. Originally, she was the co-narrator of Aspen’s story. She worked for the Dread Army mess hall and got assigned to plan the new mess hall – basically Clive’s role. I wrote an entire draft of that version, which was supposed to happen before the fake Dark Lord story. Zil showed up as Tana’s crush/friend, and at the end recruited her into the impersonation scheme to roll into this story. But that draft felt flat to me for various reasons, and I took it back to the drawing board. That left Tanathil free to be a bigger part of Zil’s story, and ultimately I swapped the order of the two. Then more edits…it’s a process.
Specific notes:
Solan’s comment about “don’t bother with a back harness” is a shout-out to the fact that back harnesses basically don’t work IRL. He had it made because it looked cool, in-story. He’s Dollar Store Kirito, who is Dollar Store Guts in turn. You gotta have a big sword in a back harness + black armor to be a Stereotypical Shounen Sword Guy. So I’m going to pretend that in-universe, it has some kind of pivoting action or something to let him get his sword off his back, and also it’s a pain in the ass, so he warns Tanathil to just use a normal scabbard like a normal person.
Speaking of Solan, there is a tell in their performance that none of the team members would have known, including Zil: Solan’s magic use manifests a shadow self while he casts, which Lavender takes to be a demon in book 1 and that came up in books 4 and 7. Felix doesn’t know that, so he doesn’t copy it; Zil doesn’t know that, so she doesn’t comment. She would have known about it if Solan and Drekar hadn’t gotten embarrassed by their hot-and-botheredness and cut practice short. As it stands, Fake Solan only got one outing before being retired after all.
All the party hosts were made up on the spot, to frame the various ways the scheme goes to hell. I wanted the nobles to be a bit ridiculous – when/if I get to Francesca’s full origin story, we’ll really get into that – but I at least wanted them to be different from one another and present different challenges. It would be fun to bring some of them back in some form, probably as part of Francesca’s story.
Overall, this story was the most outwardly comedic one I’d written in a while, maybe ever. It was a blast. Sometimes the wheels fell off a bit, but I did my best.
Playlist:
Most of the writing music for this one was a mixture of OK Go and Two Door Cinema Club.
“Crash the Party”, OK Go (though Drekar was the one who crashed a party, Zil is trying to impress a girl)
I can’t help it, “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys stuck in my head more than once (especially at the first two parties)
As did “HandClap” by Fitz and the Tantrums, because there’s a lot about riling up a crowd in this one (look, I’m old and not on TikTok; in my mind this is a jock jam)
“The Nourishing Act” by TWRP at the obvious juncture
Jokingly, “The Greatest Song I Ever Heard” by OK Go, for the second half of the song – “we solved all our problems with bigger problems”.
On the Care and Feeding of an Evil Army (book 10)
Hello, I’m back in my comfort zone, writing about crabby introverts.
The writing of this one was more convoluted than most of the Therapist novellas so far. My first attempt aimed at cozy status: food theme, no dark backstories or strong feelings, conflict as mild as possible and quickly resolved whenever it arose. It took place before Evil Overlord for Hire and tried to set up that story along the way. On top of that, it had two narrators: Aspen and Tanathil, who in this draft took the place of Clive: working for Lillian in the kitchens, arguing for a culinary district.
It was, unfortunately, kind of a mess. Even without any major conflict, setting up two new narrators within the space of a novella was a challenge. (Let’s note that in Salty and Sweet, we’ve watched Solan’s arc since book 1, and Drekar has been a bit part since book 2.) There were elements I liked, but I wasn’t invested. To be clear, that’s a skill issue, not the genre’s fault.
Later, I came back to the story, flipped the order of Care and Feeding and For Hire, moved Tanathil to the other story, and gave Aspen the floor for this entire story. I also allowed him to be the full cranky bastard he hints at being during For Hire, which kicks us further out of the fluff zone. I felt self-conscious about this volume being dude-heavy, especially after making Clive a man (sort of; more below). I’m often worried about readers who come in on book 1 expecting nonstop lady-time, and soon find out that everyone is invited to the party. Oh well. That’s how I am, y’all. You can stop any time you want.
We knew Aspen from Zil’s story, and with him as the sole narrator, we had time to unpack his arc. Setting up Clive as a non-POV deuteragonist was a bit more tricky, but hopefully it got the job done.
If Clive’s defensiveness about his hair seems like egg behavior, well, let’s be honest, it is. Check out the newsletter bonus story where we get a lot further into his backstory. It’s a doozy. He does consider himself a man at this point, so I’ll continue to use those pronouns/name for him.
Actually, I waffled up to the last second about Clive’s gender in general, especially after replacing Tanathil. For a long time I considered making him nonbinary, which would have been fine, but went with the current situation in order to unnerve Aspen a little more with the parallels with his lost love. Plus, Aspen being an asshole to him doesn’t come off as gendered then. And also because at least one of the narrators in the next batch is going to be nonbinary. There’s no limit on nonbinary characters, but I was reserving my own “let’s get into gender stuff” energy for that one.
Plus, suggesting that Clive hasn’t worked through his own identity makes Haven feel more dystopian. Next time we encounter him, I want to give him some resolution both on the gender stuff and on his bad blood with Haven. Those threads are being woven in for a story down the road that I’m a little scared to write? It could end up being heavy. But we’re going there eventually.
Ironically, a story called “Care and Feeding” has more handicrafts than cooking in it, now that the kitchen-staff narrator has been changed to a supporting character. It was nice to finally be able to flex a little sewing knowledge. Aspen was already established as a former tailor so that he could make Zil’s disguise in For Hire, and I decided to give Lars knitting as a hobby so they could have a similar interest. (A kind-hearted himbo with a socially-constructed-as-feminine hobby? In my universes? What a surprise.)
Plus, this story is very wintry. They need warm gear constantly. It’s where we are in the timeline, it’s ***SYMBOLISM*** around Aspen as a defrosting-ice-king character, and it’s part of the theme of caretaking and caring exchange that runs through this story. Aspen lends Magnus his blanket as they play chess. Felix and Aspen trade books (Book Trading as Love Language, also on the bingo card). Aspen tells Clive about the shops in Crystalbrook. Lars gives Aspen a scarf both as flirtation and to keep him warm. Tana gives Clive hairstyling tips. Someday Clive will pay it forward, I’m sure. But it’s okay to need help in the meantime.
So, is Aspen going to move into the Tower next door to Lars? Probably. Who wins the competition? Haven’t decided, aside from the fact that the Dread Army really needs a tavern of their own. Maybe the rest will show up in a future book.
Some other minor notes:
- Freya is a female deer with antlers, so she’s either trans, a reindeer, or both. Both are fine. Just note that I did that on purpose thx, I come from a region where whitetail deer are very common. 😉
- I hope we’re all clear that Lars is not a substitute for the Dark Lord, although he is definitely going to have some fun with Aspen’s fixation (ahem). The fact that they resemble one another is intentional, but also works against the “Lars as rebound” effect: he looks like Drekar, but not the Dark Lord, who is the one Aspen has a crush on.
- The way Aspen anchors his thread repeatedly while fixing the duvet is not really necessary when doing that kind of repair, although the ladder stitch is a good one for repairing a stuffed object. Either he’s moving from place to place a lot (possible) or he’s just that overcautious (also possible).
- Tristan’s original name was Bastian, which I liked better, but changed in order to separate the name from Mage Sebastian, the light mage and son of theatrical goths in book 9. Mage Sebastian’s name just fit him too well to change.
Playlist:
Because of various circumstances, I didn’t end up soundtracking this one much. Large swaths of it were written with the backdrop of Songs of a Lost World by the Cure and Placebo’s best-of, Once More With… because, well, cranky introvert.
“When You Were Young”, the Killers
“Why Can’t I Be You?”, the Cure