names in fantasy | Stephanie Flint

Many years ago, while Isaac and I were enjoying Applebee’s 25 cent wing special (do they do that anymore?) and getting some studying done, we had the joy of running into someone who had read one of our books and seen us at the local comic con.

(*Squee! Recognition!*) ☺️

Anyway, that was awesome.

But during our conversation, one of the things the reader mentioned was wondering a bit more about the gamemaster guy and the sea monster he threw at the protagonists toward the end of Distant Horizon, and whether or not there’d be more about him in the next book.

(Spoiler… there is. His name is Spectator, and he plays the role of a minor antagonist in Fractured Skies, and gets a couple mentions in Starless Night. He also makes a brief appearance in Initiated.)

The conversation got me thinking more about that character and his role in the Distant Horizon universe. Isaac and I have gone back and forth into how much of a role he should play (with me usually wanting to give Spectator a bigger role and Isaac wanting to scale him back… mostly because Spectator has a tendency to interfere with overarching plot points or become deus ex machina. His scenes have gone through a lot of revisions).

Granted, part of the deus ex machina problem might be because that was his original role in the game.

See… I had a tendency to make some not-great decisions for Jenna in the role-play game Isaac and I were playing, and I’d kinda-maybe-sorta gotten her captured by the bad guys with no explainable hope of escape in what was supposed to be a one-shot campaign.

That I very much wanted to see continue because I had questions and I wanted answers.

So Isaac snagged a character from one of my previous campaigns in the same world (but modern day), upgraded that character to Spectator status, and decided this newfound “Spectator” was going to make sure the game continued (see “fourthwalling,” below).

So Spectator does a bit of timey-wimey/alternate reality manipulation to make sure certain events can now happen, and the last scene of the one shot campaign got a teensy update.

And Jenna’s team is now able to come to her rescue.

(And we did a ton of work in the novels to make sure his involvement makes sense and doesn’t read quite so deus ex machina-y.)

And once we’d done a bit more work, we determined that Spectator is kind of like the “Q” of the Distant Horizon Universe (Q from Star Trek, for those not familiar). Spectator is not quite omnipotent but close, well aware of things he shouldn’t be, and mischievous. He can put just about any character who knows who he is on edge. He’s a reality bender, capable of changing the world around him to suit his whims, at least to an extent, and he’s also a fourthwaller, meaning he believes he’s part of game world of sorts, and thanks to his insight, he can break through the walls of that world.

Within the Distant Horizon universe there is a cult of fourthwallers who believe their world is controlled by two gamemasters, and that, in order to maintain their existence, they must be as interesting as possible to hold the attention of those gamemasters. Unfortunately, this means that if they lock in on somebody they think is a “player character,” they’ll cause them worlds of trouble in an attempt to stay in the gamemaster’s focus.

That’s all fairly meta, though, and most of the characters simply try to avoid fourthwallers when possible, dismissing them as crazy. Jenna, having come from the Community, has no idea these people exist until Spectator shows up. The rest of the rebels, once they realize he’s a fourthwaller and getting involved, are quick to research everything they can about him… all while trying to keep mysterious artifacts (the ones that lead to the sea monster showing up during Distant Horizon— it actually wasn’t Spectator’s fault) out of the hands of their rivals.

Spectator’s role in the story is explained more in Fractured Skies, so I’m going to avoid delving too much into that since that would be spoilers. But I hope you find him as interesting as I do.😁

Eventually, more will be revealed about the role of reality benders and fourthwallers, a trope I have readily enjoyed both in shows like Star Trek, involving Q, and in superhero stories, like X-Men.

Long story short, Isaac and I are both fans of Star Trek (For me, Voyager was long my favorite, though my first experience came from Next Generation, but Lower Decks now might be my favorite among the series, followed pretty close by Strange New Worlds).

Next Generation, however, introduced me to one of my favorite Star Trek characters: Q.

He’s such a fun character, especially paired against straight-laced Jean Luc Picard. It also helps that the actor who plays Q, John de Lancie, is pretty cool, too. (At least from what I’ve seen of him).

Fun fact, if you ever watch the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series (which has some surprisingly great nods to science fiction, fantasy, and various social themes you might not expect), Discord (a chaotic character of that series) is played by John de Lancie. The show’s writers wanted to get someone who could pull off a Q-like character. The people in charge of casting decided, why not ask the original actor, just in case? According to one of his interviews, he was a bit surprised, but went ahead and agreed to the role… meaning that a few iconic references to Q from Star Trek landed in MLP.

Also, the actor was one of my favorite panelists at a Star Trek convention I went to when I was in high school, and he was really friendly at answering my teen self’s questions about acting and directing. Plus, he can direct a pretty good radio play (I had the fortune of seeing that in college).

All righty… I digress.

Point is, I think Q is a cool character, so of course that made its way into characters I enjoy writing.

* * *

See how the meddlesome Spectator gets involved in the Distant Horizon universe…

Book Cover for Distant Horizon, with a gold title. A young woman faces a sterile white hallway with faces in the doors. She has vines around her arms.

* * *

Happy reading and writing!

When Isaac and I first created the Distant Horizon universe, we made it as a homebrew role-play game, sort of a cross between the 90s cartoon X-Men, and The Giver. (Dystopian world with superheroes). There were a lot more superhero references in the game…

And in the names.

Especially for the villains.

For example, Lord Black (the founder of the Community), was usually called “Jellyman” or “Lord Gelatinous” due to his natural form looking something like jelly.

*Cough.*

We eventually decided he probably wouldn’t call himself that, and he definitely wouldn’t have encouraged the people in the Community to call him that (especially since they’re very particular about maintaining appearances and hiding the existence of super powers). But the rebels, particularly those who had a grudge against him, might.

I found a stray reference in an early draft of Starless Night where a character grumbles “Son of Gelatinous!” in frustration. Lord Black’s son was something of a rebel, and therefore a source of frustration to his father. Needless to say, that line got reworked, since it no longer made sense.

Another example was Lady Winters, who was first referenced as Brainmaster. She had a couple name changes, actually. First was Brainmaster, then we changed that to Lady Bridget. But that was too easily confused with Lady Black when reading, so we changed it yet again to Lady Winters.

Long story short, we decided there was no way she would call herself Brainmaster, and most of her underlings would know better than to call her that, too. And they try not to think it either, in case she’s reading their mind. That said, due to her cruelty, the Brainmaster moniker has stuck around for both the Camaraderie and rebel faction if she’s not within earshot or mind-reading range.

And then there’s “The Camaraderie of Evil.”

That name actually got to stay. In Whispers in the Code, Commander Rick explains why they kept the name.

“You will be challenged by much of what we do,” he continues. “In the Community, your tasks were simple: program basic systems, keep everything running smoothly… This job is not so simple. We call ourselves the Camaraderie of Evil because we are willing to take steps others wouldn’t dare consider. That’s the only way we can accomplish security and efficiency. I don’t personally believe we are evil, but the name stuck around from our earlier days, and they were… an interesting bunch.”

What the commander doesn’t mention is that they got the name because the founders were a group of young, ambitious (and variably “evil”) people with powers getting frustrated with their uptight “mad scientist” of the group and deciding they would call themselves that to taunt him.

They didn’t expect it to stick and, nowadays, the COE typically just calls themselves the Camaraderie… or if they’re in the Community, “The Community of E-Leadership.”

Other names were changed for ease of reading. Janice became Gwen because we had so many “J” names already and that was the easiest one to swap and keep the others.

Overall, I think the changes were for the better, though they did change the flavor a bit from role-play game to reading.

* * *

Most of the names got updated. Even so, characters leaving the Community for the outside world still have a few superhero/supervillain surprises in store…