Reaver’s Song

I wanted to take this week’s pre-re-release post to answer some questions and address some concerns from readers or, more to the point, former readers.

The main criticism I’ve received in regard to the book has been Minji’s lack of agency. Or, to put it more succinctly, she acts like a doormat. Not an unfair criticism, to be honest and one I feel like I need to address in some sort of “official” capacity.

Although I tend to organize my novels loosely based on outlines, in many cases I allow the characters to grow or evolve on their own within the framework of the story. It is a strange and chaotic way of doing things to be certain. With Minji, I looked at several factors as the story has evolved. Firstly, though she is what some would consider an “out” lesbian, the term is not strictly true. The only person who really knows she’s a lesbian is her friend Eun-Ha. After all, an out lesbian history teacher at a prestigious girls’ school in Korea would have a job about as long as I would if I were to get hired by JPL. (Hint: not long at all)

As all of my characters are, in some ways, extensions pf myself, I tried very hard to put myself in Minji’s mind and body. How would I react to suddenly being thrown into a world I did not know; with people I did not know? How would I react to the strangeness of a new body so alien from my own with abilities I couldn’t even begin to fathom? Personally, I would be afraid, timid, and desperately clinging to any hope of getting back home I could.

While I respect people’s concerns about Minji’s inability in many cases, to take control of her own life and seem like she is getting carried along on other people’s tides, I believe Minji is simply doing what she has to do to achieve her end goal, which is to get home. In a very real way Minji is using others to achieve her goal just as much if not more than they are using her.

My evidence for this is born out, I think, by her reality. If she could use her power to get herself home, would she even know how? What powers does she possess to achieve that goal on her own? None as far as she’s aware. Carrisyn is the only person who appears to know what’s going on. Yes, Carrisyn has her own agenda and has roped Minji into carrying that out, but Minji has begun to realize that gives her just as much power over Carrisyn as the countess has over her. She does not want to stay in the other world. She wants to go back to her apartment (which is going to be an unfortunate shock for her) and back to her life and, maybe, have sex for the first time in the process. To do that she is willing to do what it takes. I don’t feel that makes her a doormat. I think it makes her a realist. She’s not a superhero. She’s just a history teacher who wants to go back home and overspend at Comiket.

In conclusion, while I appreciate the opinions about Minji’s lack of control over her life, I respectfully disagree. I feel we have seen her grow over the course of her adventures, though, in reality, it’s only been about two weeks since she appeared there and while extreme circumstances require extreme solutions, change does not happen overnight.

Way back when in March of 2021 as I was wrapping up My World and You, I had a couple of projects I’d been playing around with. The first was a superhero science fiction fantasy story I’d begun to flesh out called Disasters’ Daughters. It irked me that, even in the era of Marvel, female superheroes were generally framed in the context of being part of a bigger world with the male of the species being dominant while the females took up more of a supporting role. Even in Wonder Woman, Diana had that male love interest to push her forward. So, looking across the spectrum of superheroes I saw a vast wasteland of spoiled opportunity for women to take up a prominent role. I thought Disasters’ Daughters would fill that niche. Unfortunately, it has proven a slow write so I moved on to other projects, one of which happened to be an Isekai novel called Reaver’s Song.

I wanted to explore what happened to the person who’s body was co-opted, and I also wanted to write an Isekai story that didn’t have some weird sci fi ‘look at your stats’ or ‘use x ability’. I wanted a story which was gritty but also very much human. Thus I began to write about Minji. I knew when I put her into Hiroshima in My World and You that I was going to use her, I simply didn’t know in what capacity. Similarly, I knew I wanted to see Ayumi again from Kunoichi since I enjoyed writing her. Some basic detective work through Kunoichi will find the real identity of Carrisyn Thorne pretty quickly (or at least what she is, maybe not her name.)

Next week I will dive into Disasters’ Daughters and give you some more background including some backstory to hopefully make the info dump make more sense! Until then, thank you for reading!

Katsu