Aether : Calraem

Afterward

TO All THOSE who don't know:
most of the characters in this story are based on my friends. I took a feature that they were either proud of or embarrassed about and built the characters from there.

Kaizoku, Cortez, Samurai Sensei, Hikari, Sulvanath, Calico Jack, Silica/Emily, Lucifer and a few others like Prince Marshall, Howell and Arkis. The rest were characters that I wanted to include or characters that just naturally came to the story as it progressed.

This lead to a lot of surprise things happening (Mention the Queen's full name twice in the same chapter the story crashes? – I thought that was my coolest accident, to date), but, there were also a lot of unexpected turns (It just had be Gemini, huh? Why am I doing this? There were other characters that could've been sacrificed!).

I think it was because of the mixture of half-baked plans, improvisations and a little – no, a lot of procrastinating that this story became the way that it did. The longer I took, the more I changed and the more the story changed with me.

To be honest, I was little afraid of ending it. Chapter 56 is technically the end, but my self kept leaving it open like I wanted it to go on forever and ever. I wonder how many authors deal with conflicting interests like these as they write?

Even now, I have a hard time believing that I truly finished this book. Without a doubt, Aether will remain one of the most special books to me that I've ever written.

Thank you all.

If you took the time stick with me to the end, then I can't thank you enough. If you liked it, please let me know. If you didn't like it, then I praise your endurance skills.

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Q & A:

1. Who is actually the main character of the story?

There technically isn't one. It's all about who's got the wheel in that given moment. The most likely candidates are Kaizoku and Hikari since they get the most screen time. Then again, I'm very biased so my chosen main character is Eva.

2. How would you describe each Captain?

Kaizoku – character with the most villain-like qualities that isn't a villain.

Cortez – character with the most "Surprise Final Boss"-like qualities that isn't a "Surprise Final Boss".

Blackbeard – character with the most Eizen-like motives that isn't Eizen.

3. Who is your favourite character?

Eva!!

Also, as a side note, when I named her, I didn't know that her name meant "Life". So, literally, Eva is Life and Life is Eva.

4. Who is your least-favourite character?

Damon Roses. I honestly hated the more I learnt about him, but eventually, I just realised that he was a manifestation of qualities I didn't like about myself.

Doesn't mean I like him! But I understand him, even if I don't want to.

5. Who was the easiest character to write?

Lucifer, surprisingly. Any time I had a dark thought I felt like expressing, then he was the perfect candidate for that expression. He and Hikari are the most straightforward to understand for me.

6. Who was the most difficult to write?

Edward "Blackbeard" Teach. He was a character that's whole premise that you don't exactly have a clear understanding of him – something that's hard to pin down, even though he could pin down everyone else and use that his advantage. Like Dark Matter, we know and can prove he exists, be how exactly he operates and why he operates the way he does is a mystery.

As you can guess, that's quite the desire to write which left me anxious about the execution.

7. Were there any ideas that you had for the story, but were ultimately abandoned?

A couple actually, but I think that can said about any light novel, manga, comic etc. To give a few:

- Samurai Sensei was supposed to be an upright samurai with a strip club problem. He was one of the top five patrons in the world.

- Milliana was supposed to have a twin sister named Billiana.(Note: I later realised they were named Million and Billion, which I thought was dumb and instantly scratched it.)

- Sulvanath, Calico and Demon were supposed to be the final fight, since they're all the crew chefs. [Chapter Food: "Shokugeki no Aether"]

- The biggest would probably be that Cortez and his crew were suppose to arrive on Sagittarius Island and not the other around in Chapter 15, but I thought the story was moving too quickly and changed it – choosing to first fully develop the Black Pirates before starting to contrast with the Zaba Pirates.

8. What's your favourite scene?

When Sully is reprimanding Eva on disobeying Kaizoku and she confesses that she wants to be stronger. It revealed a part of their characters even to me who wrote it.

My second favourite is the confrontation between Elaine and Gemini. Third would be Damon and Draculla's flashback – Oh! There's also Kiiro's final conversation with Damon, Hikari being stuck with Lucy after Sully taught him how to fly, Queen Vor'Arlet— Fuuuuuuck! This is hard.

My favourite is still Sully and Eva, and the rest are all under but interchangeable.

9. What was the most challenging thing writing Aether?

The large number of characters! Sure, they are fun to write about and I do want to show everyone, but the number of plotlines are quite stressful!

Although, it was fun and quite the learning experience and I did enjoy it.

10. Anything you can say about the sequel?

Hm? What's this? It seems I've wasted all of my words answering other questions, how silly of me~

But you can still answe—

And that's all we have time for, folks! See ya!

—

I thank you all who have read and enjoyed this work! It took some time(lol) but eventually the ending finally came.

Don't forget to like, subscribe and hit that notification be— Ah, damn. Am I the only one who's gotten addicted to YouTube, lately?

Joking aside, don't hesitate to check out my other projects too. There could be a story just waiting for you to share an experience with it. Who knows?

Well, that's it from me.
For now.

- Ankh