@lilbluestem sent me some questions so I’m gonna drop ‘em here and answer ‘em:
I'm super curious about the World of Fae... How does it fit in with the rest of the Universe(s)? Are there characters we already know who also interact with it--apart from Celt/Berserker?
H’okay boys, girls, and others: buckle up.
The “World of Fae” is a generic term. I’m usually throwing it around cuz it just ... encompasses everything you would traditionally find in our lore. From Griffin to Boggart, Kelpie to Oni - you’ll find it there somewhere.
This - “World” - exists as a pocket universe. It exists beside the standard universe we are accustomed to, with our fancy chronological time and boring humanoids. It can be accessed at multiple points, and within this pocket universe are other worlds. There are layers to this whole universe.
Celt and Berserker interact with but one layer of that universe. The traditionally interpreted Celtic layer. What we know now as Leprechauns and Faeries and etc. are directly drawn from the layer these two have the most experience with.
The Triplets interact with a alternate layers. They traverse several and can identify a few of the layers at will though they generally spend their time in our universe more often.
The World of the Fae is more like a cultural nod than a physical world. As huamns who have interpreted for eons, we can understand that Other creatures come from Elsewhere (this being The World of the Fae) but without experience we can’t say from WHERE in this ‘World’ (Universe) the creatures are from.
It’s like imagining an alien coming to Earth for the first time and meeting a white Russian man with a beard, a white Irish man with no beard, and a black Jamaican man. These men all appear similarly. Stature, limbs, general appearance like eyes and nose and mouth. But they are different shades, sound different, and have differing protrusions (hair). The alien would be able to say “You are different from me. You are different from each other. But all of you are from Earth.” That’s what the humans do to the Fae in my verse. Until they actually have training and can comprehend how Fae are different.
So yes, to some extent - EVERYONE will interact with the World of the Fae. It may not be explicit but they are all interacting with that other world.
Did you always have it planned that these universes would intersect and coexist, or is this more of a recent development?
No! This is a recent development and it stems a lot from my exploration of the “World of the Fae” as well as my secondary characters.
I’m a firm believer that your story is only as strong as your secondary characters can support it. Which means I really like to flesh out my secondary characters as well as my main characters.
Juliet became a project I explored with this and dove into her story, seeing what experiences she might have if she met similar characters to the main lot I already had.
She was originally intended to be an antagonist for the Triplets, but it morphed into an antagonist for Paelia, and then into an exploration of how different magic types could exist beside each other, until it came to the idea of religion/worship/magic and a connection to Akhba and Hestia.
Around the same time I was reading about Celtic and Norse mythos and women’s roles in both cultures. I began developing Celt and Berserker and they got sucked into the World of the Fae as well as connected to Hestia.
So I figured: If time and language barriers can’t separate these two, why should my understanding of multiple single universes? One large universe would be far more interesting to explore and play in.
And there we have it. Just a nice stringing along almost word association like development. :)
