25 Comments
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Garen Marie's avatar

Great new episode, Tom! Loved Kivli’s vision at the end. So taut and action-packed but the dream state felt real. Real masterful stuff.

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Tom Schecter's avatar

Thank you so so much. Nothing like adding hard hallucinogenic drugs to an already volatile brain situation, am I right?

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Garen Marie's avatar

😆 seriously!

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Lyndsey Resnick's avatar

"The Goddess is right side up." I'm liking this!

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Tom Schecter's avatar

Thank you! Gotta have your shield facing the right way…

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Lyndsey Resnick's avatar

It's a great story, Tom. Looking forward to the next chapter!

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Tom Schecter's avatar

It’s up! May have gotten slightly lost in the shuffle this week haha

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Lyndsey Resnick's avatar

There is a lot going on and I’m a bit in the doldrums. I will catch up.

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Tom Schecter's avatar

Long week. You’re deeply appreciated and it’s not going anywhere.

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Jeannine's avatar

This is amazing...

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Tom Schecter's avatar

um YOU’RE amazing

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Jeannine's avatar

Heh, that is very sweet of you, but I'm just an old farm woman.

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Tom Schecter's avatar

Those two things have nothing to do with each other haha. Thank you so much for reading!

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Jeannine's avatar

You're very welcome! I'll be on tenterhooks until next week!

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M.P. Fitzgerald's avatar

The Gift Within the Wound sounds like a powerful drug, goddamn!

I am loving this so far.

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Tom Schecter's avatar

I am so glad. Writing Kivli was a fucking wild experience. And yeah I would not touch that one. I wanted it to feel like the gritty early Medieval version of Bojack Horseman taking all the drugs to try to write his memoir in season 1…

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Keith Long's avatar

Killing it

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Tom Schecter's avatar

So glad you dig it. See you tomorrow for Chapter 3…

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Zivah Avraham's avatar

Love this second chapter! Digging in deep to the lore and traditions is something I really enjoy about fantasy. How did you manage to come up with such a consistent naming convention for the characters, not to mention the language age?

Although - The Gift Within the Wound is a genius name for a drug. Hits harder because it’s not in the local language.

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Tom Schecter's avatar

I’m SO GLAD you like it.

The snippets of ‘old tongue’ come from a mashup of Finnish and Armenian, with some random extra letters thrown in or eliminated where it feels right. And the patronymic convention for the names is the product of too much Russian lit when I was a kid haha.

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Zivah Avraham's avatar

Excellent! This is why the naming conventions and language snippets feel real, because you’ve based them in reality. They remind me a little of Hebrew as well, in some respects.

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Tom Schecter's avatar

Yeah for sure—the setting is definitely a Middle East-based world. I didn’t want to use anything too close to “Ben” or “Ibn” so that it felt subtly similar but not obvious…

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Zivah Avraham's avatar

Yeah, that would have been on the nose. I remember reading a novel years ago with ‘ben’ and ‘ bat’ and it irked me so much, I couldn’t finish it.

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Leanne Shawler's avatar

Ooh this is so interesting! Ok, am hooked!

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Tom Schecter's avatar

I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! Thanks for reading 💜

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