It's my universe. Mine!
Occasionally I get feedback critizising a part of Chasing the Sunset as being "wrong", that is: incorrect. The reason it is wrong is nearly invariable "because it's not like that in xyz" where xyz is the author's universe of choise. For example some people say Ayne should be smaller than Leaf because she's female, others say elves are immortal or that Morgane is Arthur's sister etc etc.
This baffles me, because as long as I'm internally consistant (and I realise this is not always the case), how can I be wrong?
Now I don't mind people bringing up these things or comparing us to other universes, but people need to realize that Chasing the Sunset is set in its own universe and not an existing one. Our elves may resemble Tolkien's, but they are not the same: ours can die from age while Tolkien's cannot, for instance (yes I am aware that in some notes Tolkien alledged that they could, but as far as I'm concerned the Silmarillon, LotR and the hobbit are the only books that are canon). Likewise our Lady Morgane le Fey, though she shares a name and some aspects with her source of inspiration, is not Morrigen/Morgaine/Morgase/Morgane etc from the Arthurian cycle. Our trolls are not from Middle Earth, discworld or scandinvaia. Our dwarves do not fight horde in azeroth. Our females are not always smaller than our males.
Now I know it's partly my fault. I reuse existing names too much because I don't want to make people have to memorize new ones. Hence we have female warriors named amazons, even though they bear little relation with the amazons of greek mythology.
It is partly to this end that I wrote down some of the mythology of chasing the sunset and The World That Is. So people will realise it is not Middle Earth, mideaval europe, or any other previously defined universe.
It's my universe. Mine!
Comments
Since it's Alien that lets us *see* CtS I say its Alien's Universe :P