Fortune-telling is always a fun gambit in stories...tarot especially, with its endless symbolism and advantage that even an amateur can actually do it irl and "feel" the effects. Props really help sell it! (And I must confess that the title Seven of Suitors made me immediately think of tarot and other numerology/kabbalah hooks coming up.)
I'm reminded of the final movie in the Garden of Sinners franchise, which interrogates the philosophical implications of predicting the future. Maybe it really is all smoke and mirrors, but fortunte still favours the bold anyway...people really do change their behaviour in response to fortunes, tarot, prophecy, tea leaves, whatever. So it's a useful topic to address in fiction, where one is allowed to make it "actually work" - because even when it doesn't irl, it still alters fates anyway. Sympathetic magic is fun, or at least I believe so.
I'm honestly a little intimidated and impressed to find someone else thinking through this all so deeply, I'm greatly appreciating hearing all of your thoughts as you go.
Good writing is worth engaging with! I did notice you're currenly pausing while negotiating a possible sale...ebooks aren't my thing, but if you ever released the rest in another paid format, like "paid subscribers to my Substack and/or Patreon" or something, I'd pony up.
It also took a minute to realize you'd introduced *two* Chekhov books in the original story (I guess this comment is about Chapter 3, but). Very curious to see how that goes; I wonder if Semote <s>Evans-Verres<s/> Verent has noticed the coincidence yet.
That's interesting feedback, would a physical release make you feel any differently?
I'm interested in what you're referring to as the two Chekhov books in the original library story and if it's what I would think of for that description. The Evans-Verres title is also interesting as I would have thought of some points in deliberate contrast to that (which may be clearer long-term), while understanding the connection.
Yes, I'm one of those weird anachronistic troglodytes that's much happier reading meatspace books about X, for most values of X. Electronic text is just hard on the eyes, and a lot less portable. (Reading on phones is an insult to the material, except for maybe comics.) Plus physical books make much better presents!
[I actually boneheadedly didn't consider subscribing, will do so after posting this comment. Derp.]
Chekhov gun, or in this case book: it's a library, there are thousands of titles. A certain threshold of fleshing out is mandatory to establish setting - here's a book on X, there's a tome on Y. But any books that get more than such cursory glances - especially ones where you bother to give them titles, or otherwise elucidate the contents - that greatly increases the probability-mass of such books being Plot-Relevant later on. Even if it's only as McGuffins. Obviously, one of those is the Tenebrous Codex - it'd be extremely weird if that somehow didn't come up again, or Semote actually had a *different* "any book I want, no questions asked" in mind. But one of the other books so described was...?
...Not sure I'm comfortable explicating further, unless you're comfortable with possible spoilers in the public comments? (Maybe such guesswork is encouraged, and you weren't joking about making a spreadsheet?)
Verent <-> HPJEV was mostly just a silly pun, I do those a lot as a nervous tic. They aren't much alike, Semote is a lot less...self-congratulatory, willing to back down in conflicts. Even if he's still a smartass kid. But definitely much wiser by the time we meet him later, too. Harry stubbornly stuck with INT as his primary stat all the way through, Semote's got a more balanced build. Clearly some investment in CHA, no penalty to CON or STR.
Fortune-telling is always a fun gambit in stories...tarot especially, with its endless symbolism and advantage that even an amateur can actually do it irl and "feel" the effects. Props really help sell it! (And I must confess that the title Seven of Suitors made me immediately think of tarot and other numerology/kabbalah hooks coming up.)
I'm reminded of the final movie in the Garden of Sinners franchise, which interrogates the philosophical implications of predicting the future. Maybe it really is all smoke and mirrors, but fortunte still favours the bold anyway...people really do change their behaviour in response to fortunes, tarot, prophecy, tea leaves, whatever. So it's a useful topic to address in fiction, where one is allowed to make it "actually work" - because even when it doesn't irl, it still alters fates anyway. Sympathetic magic is fun, or at least I believe so.
I'm honestly a little intimidated and impressed to find someone else thinking through this all so deeply, I'm greatly appreciating hearing all of your thoughts as you go.
Good writing is worth engaging with! I did notice you're currenly pausing while negotiating a possible sale...ebooks aren't my thing, but if you ever released the rest in another paid format, like "paid subscribers to my Substack and/or Patreon" or something, I'd pony up.
It also took a minute to realize you'd introduced *two* Chekhov books in the original story (I guess this comment is about Chapter 3, but). Very curious to see how that goes; I wonder if Semote <s>Evans-Verres<s/> Verent has noticed the coincidence yet.
That's interesting feedback, would a physical release make you feel any differently?
I'm interested in what you're referring to as the two Chekhov books in the original library story and if it's what I would think of for that description. The Evans-Verres title is also interesting as I would have thought of some points in deliberate contrast to that (which may be clearer long-term), while understanding the connection.
Yes, I'm one of those weird anachronistic troglodytes that's much happier reading meatspace books about X, for most values of X. Electronic text is just hard on the eyes, and a lot less portable. (Reading on phones is an insult to the material, except for maybe comics.) Plus physical books make much better presents!
[I actually boneheadedly didn't consider subscribing, will do so after posting this comment. Derp.]
Chekhov gun, or in this case book: it's a library, there are thousands of titles. A certain threshold of fleshing out is mandatory to establish setting - here's a book on X, there's a tome on Y. But any books that get more than such cursory glances - especially ones where you bother to give them titles, or otherwise elucidate the contents - that greatly increases the probability-mass of such books being Plot-Relevant later on. Even if it's only as McGuffins. Obviously, one of those is the Tenebrous Codex - it'd be extremely weird if that somehow didn't come up again, or Semote actually had a *different* "any book I want, no questions asked" in mind. But one of the other books so described was...?
...Not sure I'm comfortable explicating further, unless you're comfortable with possible spoilers in the public comments? (Maybe such guesswork is encouraged, and you weren't joking about making a spreadsheet?)
Verent <-> HPJEV was mostly just a silly pun, I do those a lot as a nervous tic. They aren't much alike, Semote is a lot less...self-congratulatory, willing to back down in conflicts. Even if he's still a smartass kid. But definitely much wiser by the time we meet him later, too. Harry stubbornly stuck with INT as his primary stat all the way through, Semote's got a more balanced build. Clearly some investment in CHA, no penalty to CON or STR.
A rather ambitious story you've set out to tell. Great job so far. I do like a good Tarot reading.
Thanks so much! I hope for both our sakes I'm up to the challenge