Do people do author afterwords on RoyalRoad? I wouldn’t really know, there’s a scant few stories I have time to read. All I can say for certain is that all of my LNs have one, so I’m doing one of my own.

With that out of the way: Hi! I’m the author! If you’re willing to subject yourself to it you should read some of my ramblings on Meaning’s first arc.

This story was a long time coming. I had worked up a story concept years ago about a rookie female officer and an errant mage and...it wasn’t very good. There was no real concept behind the story. No magic system, greater scope villains, themes, nothing. The only real inspiration behind the story was I really liked Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and wanted to write a character like that. As you can see, that desire was eroded due to eventually writing a more action focused story that needed Levi to be a touch more forceful than Newt.

I had two very loose plot ideas for this initial story. The first would involve an investigation into phenomena happening around town due to attempts to make a perpetual motion machine (a la The Crying of Lot 49) and the second would be about a young witch girl who eventually goes berserk and needs to be put down. Kind of thin concepts on their own, which is why I mashed them together for The Witches and the Stars.

After I dropped this story I came up with a fanfiction for an already existing property (maybe I’ll tell you what it is if you ask...maybe). The property in question had its own underutilized magic system which I wanted to drop another one based in real world mythology and occultism on top of. The new magic system is what is seen in Meaning, and it is blatantly inspired by A Certain Magical Index.

Anyways, I came up with a hell of a conflict for the fanfic, and between it and the magic system it all felt too good to spend on somebody else’s property. In the end I combined the idea with my original story idea to create the world of Meaning. While I got the first story’s small town mystery plot out of the way it will be quite awhile before we reach the portion of the plot stemming from the fanfic idea.

Focusing more on Meaning as it currently exists and the now concluded The Witches and the Stars arc, I’d like to suggest you listen to The Pretender by Jackson Brown as a credits theme of sorts.

The Pretender is about a man who has been caught in the trappings of day to day life. He wakes up, makes lunch, goes to work, and comes home. He may once have had greater aspirations but the reality of his life has crushed them flat. All that said, there’s still a hopeful undercurrent to the song. There’s still a chance for the titular character to achieve more, as long as he can bring himself to try.

Noelle and Levi are both people who have taken a routine upon themselves due to past events. Will the events of the arc inspire them to do more, or will they slip back into the routine? Only time will tell.

And the next arc of course.

I promise it’ll go by much more quickly than this one!

Thank you all, and please look forward to Arc II: Twilight Wonderland!