So this is the end of book 1.

There are many things I want to talk about and answer questions about. I think I'll start with Ryan.

I've said this elsewhere, but I liked Game of Thrones not because of the story, but because, in the end, it's a traditional story, it just didn't start where it traditionally should. instead of the start of the hero's journey, it started before the hero's journey.

Many stories start with "And horrible things befell the kingdom, and these are dark times." Then we cut to the hero. GoT started with the Kingdom and how it fell. It went through all the terrible things that happened, then it finally got to the hero... and then the writers botched the landing, but it's clear what SHOULD have happened. The trick with GoT is they told us the part we usually skip over.

Book one is the part other stories skip over.

Now, I could have done the "real" story, then come back and do book 1 as a prequel, but prequels suck. I will NEVER do a prequel. EVER. Everything is told in chronological order, from the beginning. PERIOD.

So book 2 is going to be where most other, more traditional stories start. So is it going to be a traditional story?

yup.

Look. Let's be blunt, GoT did something cool by telling the story from the VERY beginning, but then the writers got all full of themselves and said, "We need to subvert expectations!" So uh... I am going to learn from their mistakes.

Now, does that mean this will be predictable no, but I'm not going to suddenly kill Ryan/Reed and then continue the story with Fonz. Or "muhahaha! Lilith is actually the Demon Lord! Bet you didn't see that coming!"

Yeah. Because she ISN'T and sleight of hand shit like that is CHEATING.

I throw out clues and give hints all the time. I foreshadow the FUCK out of things. Hell, people guessed what was gonna happen with the Slave Collar like, the same chapter I revealed it.

And that's FINE.

It is okay to figure out what I'm gonna do before I do it because you'll never figure ALL of it out. And when you figure something out, this isn't a battle. it isn't you against me. We're not fighting. We're in this TOGETHER. If you figure out my tricks, well, I'll just have to write better in the future.

Not PUNISH YOU for being smart.

So, yes, some things you can predict, and the obvious stuff I'll talk about for books two and three, and that's GREAT. It means you are paying attention. I like that. I won't sabotage the story to trick you. I'll just have to make sure it's even more AMAZING when whatever you guess happens than you imagined it to be.

What is Ryan?

Ryan is the Main Character and protagonist. All I promise about him is that he will live to the end. LIVE. What condition he will be in, and if he will want to remain living, that's another story. But he will live to the end of this saga. All of it. All the books.

Did I mention I got like... 27 books planned?

Nobody else is safe. He's the one anchor in the eldritch verse and I have a final scene planned for him that is gonna happen. It's gonna take forever to get there, but I know how this all ends.

This book was about how he started.

Book 1 is about him becoming a hero. I think he has at this point. He was a jerk, then a Bully, then Holier Than Thou, then Humbled, Then finally gets it. By the end, he honestly has become a hero, in my opinion. Not a great one, but he honestly thinks like one, now.

And then I took away his mentor, the king, and gave him a sidekick, Reed.

So the next book is going to be where Ryan the hero, gets to be a hero. up until now, he's been a bit of a shit at being a hero. He's still got a lot to learn, mind you, but at least now he has the right mindset. He's got his problems, but he's finally going to reach that point where he's put enough of his baggage away and he can move forward.

Is Ryan still Broken?

Sort of. I like to think that he's reached the point where he can finally start to heal. He's moved past his selfishness and is able to think about some greater purpose and not a greater purpose to cover up his pain and hide from it, but to have something to believe in. If you didn't notice, I gave Ryan like... ALL the mental problems of a modern man who was abandoned and broken by society.

But, he's found his center. He's ready to move on.

Old saying in my line of work, We are strongest where we have been broken and healed. Scar tissue is the strongest tissue. Bones may be broken a second time, but they never break in the same spot twice.

Ryan is by far the strongest mutherfucker on the planet.

In terms of raw power, Omnilord has more, but he isn't stronger, at least in terms of willpower. I honestly have hit Ryan with everything and hit him in every weak spot and made him face his worst fears. So, while he's not 'fine' and still healing, he's built up so much scar tissue and still retained his humanity that I honestly don't think I could break him at this point. I guess it would be more accurate to say Ryan is 'tender', but no longer 'broken'.

And Ryan is gonna need it.

Oh yeah, I'm still gonna lay into him, but right about now, he is the goddamn determinator. You can knock him down, but nothing gonna keep him down. I would not stand between him and his objective because if Ryan puts his mind to something, it will get DONE. He has transcended his suffering and become the living embodiment of that which does not kill me makes me stronger.

I hope that is what you think as well.

Ryan is going to be the one who pushes the whole overall plot line along. Give Ryan a long enough pole and a place to stand and he will move the world. If you are going to believe that he can do this, I needed to show you, that he needed to suffer, survive, overcome, and most importantly, heal.

There will be more healing in book 2, but not just Ryan. You will notice that I don't just give you one thing, but many variations of a thing. Multiple third sons. Multiple heroes. Multiple villains. Multiple bullies. Each one is alike, but with a few key changes so you can compare and contrast.

What is Ryan to everyone else?

Well, The King is a hero, like Ryan, but one who has past his prime and is now the wise old mentor. Aldelmo is Ryan's Lancer, the hero who is most like Ryan, trying to be like Ryan, but ultimately is going to need to learn he's NOT Ryan and has to find his own strengths.

Lance is a hero but a dumb one, he gets more in book 2. Morgan is like Aldelmo, the king, and Reed, a third son, but he's an example of what happens if you are special in your own way, but are pushed into a mold you cannot fit into. And...

Arthur.

What is Arthur?

Arthur was WRITTEN as a hero by the original writer of the Otome game. (he will be coming up MUCH later, like, many books down the road) So Arthur was BORN good, innocent, virtuous, pure of heart, and the Hero. He was written to be perfect in every way.

That was his problem.

He was CREATED the hero. He never EARNED being the hero. He didn't have to work for it. It all just dropped into his lap. It's that old chestnut. Is it better to be born good, or be born evil and fight to overcome your nature?

Ryan is the latter, and Arthur is the former.

Because Arthur was "created" good, he had NO mental fortitude. For all of his heroic qualities and virtues, he learned them by rote. He was told to be good, so he acted good, but never learned WHY you should be good.

This was his weakness.

The Saintess was just a 9 yo girl who wound up in her favorite game and had no idea what she was doing. She thought Arthur was the hero. You trust the hero. So she told the hero everything.

This broke Arthur.

For the first time in his entire existence, he encountered TRUE conflict. The sheer existential horror of, "You are just a character written by the gods, and not the main character, either." Was too much to bear and he started to question everything. Because nobody taught him WHY good is good, the moment this started, he had no way to deal with the answers to those nagging questions.

Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
What is my meaning?

The Saintess, being a star-struck child stuck in the body of a 16-year-old, never thought about the consequences of her actions, just that she should play her part in the story.

Then the story started to change.

Suddenly she needed excuses. She needed to be perfect. So, not my fault! It's Reed's Fault! It's Lilith's Fault! I'm a good girl! They are the Baddies! Save Me, Hero Arthur!

Arthur ate it all up.

Every time the saintess lied and covered up her own mistakes only spiraled everything further out of control. The thing is, The King figured out, early on, that maybe the Saintess wasn't... well... perfect. He learned to ask her for her advice, but not to trust her blindly.

Arthur, on the other hand, desperate to hold onto SOMETHING to keep his ego from collapsing, hung on the Saintess' every word. And it didn't hurt she was hot, yet acted like she was the sweetest, most innocent woman on the planet.

Except she wasn't an innocent woman. She was an ignorant child.

And so, As Arthur's sanity spiraled away, he kept trying to square that circle. The Saintess is always right. She would never lie. She could be lied to, or deceived, but she is perfect in every way.

Until he found out she was from another world.

And then he completely lost his mind.

Arthur... is a tragedy. He did not need to fall from grace. He could have been a hero. He could have been saved. However, you will see I have a repeating theme.

DON'T GO IT ALONE.

Arthur is the one Hero in the story who is alone. He accepts no help. He does everything himself. He is the ONE HERO. He will be KING. He will be PERFECT. He will save the DAY. He cannot accept help from anyone. He might ask his friend Kyle for advice, but if it doesn't match up with what Arthur already believes, then any advice is rejected.

Arthur cannot accept being wrong. Arthur cannot accept Help. Arthur cannot accept losing.

So Arthur, with these three axioms for his character, was doomed from the start. He is a cautionary tale. He strove to be the very paragon of virtue and goodness he was created to be and told he was, but when he encountered reality and even the hint of failure, he broke.

This wouldn't have been his downfall if he had just wanted to be saved.

This brings up back to the theme of the story: suicide.

You have no idea how many people are lost to suicide, or self-destruction because they don't want to be saved. You might think that's a strange way to put it, but this is the fundamental problem with every suicidal person out there. They don't want to be saved.

What I mean is, they want to be saved, THEIR WAY. They want to be saved, CONDITIONALLY.

If I cannot admit I am wrong, part of the condition is you must accept I am right to save me. Well... objective reality might have a problem with that.

If I cannot admit I need help, part of the condition for saving me is doing it without helping me. That's rather impossible.

if I cannot admit I lost, how can I be saved, if I won't even accept I need to be saved AT ALL.

On the outside, Arthur had it all; wealth, power, fame, a wonderful father, beloved by his mother. What he didn't have were the tools to survive. And so you know, dear reader, suicide doesn't care about socio-economic conditions. The rich kill themselves just as much as the poor. You can have everything, like Arthur, and still, fuck your life up.

If Arthur was one to turn his anger inward, not outward, he would have ended his life at the end there, but he was always one to blame everyone else, and never himself. And so, he went off to end the life of the one who was to blame for everything: Ryan/Reed.

Could he have been saved?

Oh, sure. Every step of the way there was some way to save him, but like so often happens, it's hard to tell when someone else is in trouble, especially when they don't want to be saved, or even know they NEED to be saved. How does that happen?

When we go it alone.

There is a reason people feel lonely. We, as a species, evolved to feel lonely when we have no one else in our lives BECAUSE BEING ALONE KILLS YOU. Feeling lonely is SELF-PRESERVATION. We need other people to watch over us, correct us, help us, protect us, and so, we feel the drive to be with others. The problem is, it's easy to fool this feeling.

It's easy to feel like you aren't alone, when you have fame, or lots of followers, or are popular. Arthur was alone, even when he was the Crown Prince of a COUNTRY. Not because people weren't around him, but because he failed to communicate with people. Communication is a two-way street. You have to do more than talk to people. You have to listen as well. You have to accept the possibility you are WRONG to listen.

Arthur talked AT people. He never talked TO people. He got information from people. He never LISTENED to people.

So in his head, he was the hero, who could do no wrong, trying to save his kingdom from evil. His only anchor was the Saintess, who in the end he lost his faith in, and so he lost all connection with the society around him.

Is Arthur going to die?

Well, having just explained all that, if Arthur survives, clearly there is room for a redemption arc right? I mean... he's actually a good man, he's just wrong.

Oh yeah. He's dead. Dead as a doornail. No way he's walking out of this one. I'm not gonna lie to you and subvert your expectations or Disney this story. he pulled the trigger and the question isn't if he dies, but if they're gonna find anything left of his body to BURY. Nope. Charity and Monique will both be right there as his body becomes a charred puff of vaporizing ash being blasted away to the four corners of the earth.

I've wanted to kill so many characters, but they keep dodging me, the bastards. which brings me to... Iago Machiavelli

Why him?

Well, one, I actually left it up to random everyone but Ryan/reed was on the chopping block. And Iago came up. However, no matter who got picked, there was a reason for everyone.

I'll spoil it now.

Iago Machiavelli was originally a villain in a redemption arc.

The original author of Twice The Princess wrote Iago to be a villain, but the author planned on Iago would later be redeemed. In his redemption, he becomes a pivotal character in defeating the original Demon Lord. Omnilord knew this and simply figured, Well, I'm gonna kill someone if I can trip Charity up, might as well be the biggest threat in the room.

The Saintess will bring this up later and then the unfulfilled redemption arc becomes a serious plot point later on.

Imagine if, in The Disney Star Wars Trilogy, someone shot Finn before he even had a chance to have his moment where he flipped sides. What would happen to the story without Finn?

Yeah. It'll be like that.

Is this going to be a series?

OH HELL YEAH.

I love Ryan. I love torturing him in the most unholy of ways. He's my favorite chew toy. There will be two more books, then the Dark Earth Trilogy where all my Main Characters for all my stories come together to form the Five Man Band that saves the COSMOS! So there will be the three books where they stop the giant inter-dimensional war between the Demons and the Angels...

Then there will be the three books AFTER THAT when The Dark Earth figures out their place in the universe.

Imagine the real world, but then everyone finds out that there is a multiverse, and if you leave Earth, or anywhere else in the multiverse, you are basically Superman

A planet with eight billion Kryptonians discovers they get superpowers under a yellow sun and oh, by the way, there are gods, kings, wizards, and whatnot BEGGING to summon you so you can BE SUPERMAN if you just help them out with their tiny little problem of... well... whatever BS they are dealing with.

I mean, yeah...

I have two more books planned after this. Like... This was just the setup. The next book is the fallout, the Machinations of the Omnilord, the war with Eirin, and the Dwarven Kingdoms coming to terms with the fact their chosen one is a FILTHY HALFLING.

The third one is going to be a lot about Ryan/Reed's counterattack and the attempt to infiltrate the demon lands to figure out what's the Omnilord's weakness, other fallout I won't spoil, and the climatic epic final battle where everything comes together.

But all this is just SET UP. This is the world-building. The foundation. The example setting up the final story where all my other stories come together. Because after they deal with the Demon-Angel war, The real world becomes a power in its own right, and then... and then...

Ooo...

Well, that one I won't spoil. Well, actually. I already have. I've already told you what the FINAL FINAL battle is. (You're clever. You'll figure it out) And that's the end of the saga. And it has an end. Once I get to that point, it's over. No more sequels, no prequels, no side stories, nothing.

Well... maybe some side stories. Who knows? Never say never.

But there won't be another HUGE Plot. No infinities. Things are finite. Everything has a beginning and an end. That is what gives things value. If I make this Saga open-ended, it has no value. So, there is an end. I know when, how, and why. It's already baked into the saga's DNA.

And it's gonna be so COOL.

But anyways...

That about sums up my thoughts and answers the questions people have asked me.

If you have any other questions, put them at the bottom, and I'll answer them.

Otherwise...

Onto FTS.