Cerise :3

Did you know in the initial first run of planning for tlh, near the end of Act 2 there was a fight scene involving Cadence being confronted in some way by her surviving, failed sibilings?

In the "throwing ideas against the wall" phase of the process, this event would have taken place after Ery had dismantled the group's morale, leaving everyone disconnected, and Cadence would be further from them than ever as she continued to look down on them as disadvantaged products of survival machines. The point of a crisis like this was to kill as many birds as possible. The outworlders had to reconciliate, they had to find a way to get Cadence to trust them before the third act, and Cadences trauma had to be placed directly in between her and The Outworlders in order to challenge her beliefs.

What was initially planned of the chapter is that due to a continued argument following the groups collapsing morale, Cadence continues marching forward, uncomfortable watching what seems like the logical end for The Outworlders: they cannot resolve their tension and proceed to split up, which causes them to die. Through out act one and two, it is an understated idea that Cadence doesnt need The Outworlders at all, and are instead dragging them along as sociality is still an essential part of her biology that she has lacked for years. As such, she is constantly fearful that they will actually leave and she will return to living a life of a lonely machine.

This separates her from The Outworlders, who upon searching for her again, find her incapacitated, surrounded by a group of her sibilings (referred to as the "Hollowed", creative name i know. Very subtle). She is paralyzed at the sight of them, being forced to look in a mirror of her own biology, and suffering severe deep seeded survivors guilt.

This is how the chapter developed over time in the planning phase:

The Outworlders essentially beat the fuck out of the Hollowed, forced to work together to save Cadence, and successfully do.

The Outworlders threaten the Hollowed away with pack mentality.

The Hollowed are incredibly strong and scary creatures. The Outworlders initially go back into their coping mechanisms before they are forced to confront the idea that they cannot brute force their way through it, and have to work intentionally to escort Cadence away from them, scaring them with pack mentality.

???

The chapter is removed entirely.

At some point i likely realized that this idea was such a jarring tonal shift. Nature, flora and fauna were never meant to be the villains. I just couldn't have a creature like that in the book.

The Outworlders and Cadence had to be truly alone.

{ tlh } is a book about surviving the self. After cutting this portion of the book, I dedicated the rest of my thematic writing to spitting in the face of every fantasy and sci-fi trope we're used to.

Usually, dropping characters into a new world you expect the hero's journey. Magic, lore, or some hidden power that makes beings special. I wanted to do the opposite: strip away as much power until all that was left was physical and mental vulnerability.

In the standard fantasy, Minty being a taur or Ery having wings world be a superpower. In { tlh }, their biology is another way for the world to hurt them. Minty is a girl who can't find traction on the slippery ceramic floors. Ery's wings are draped loosely across the snow or used as a shivering cocoon because she's freezing to death.

These characters, including "Supersoldier" Cadence, are continuously burdened by their non-human traits. The idea is to prevent the reader from looking at them like creatures and to start looking at them as people. Their otherness only exists to show hoe much they can suffer, which ironically makes them feel more human than a standard protagonist.

She spends the whole book talking about survival probability and dismissing emotional connection. But, her magic is just a trauma response. The climax of her arc is breaking down and admitting that she's just a 12 year old girl who doesn’t want to be alone.

The biggest middle finger I could possibly offer to genre tropes is Cadence. Usually the native guide is a wise, mysterious mentor. Cadence is pretty mysterious, sure, but the reality of her existence is that she is a child brainwashed into thinking shes hardware.