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Richard was also semi-inspired by the character of Henry Higgins, the arrogant and abusive-ish linguistics professor from the play Pygmalion and its musical adaptation My Fair Lady. I say semi-inspired because I didn't actually see My Fair Lady until several years after Redux debuted, but I noted the purely conceptual resemblance in my pre-quest notes, and I also used the likeness of Leslie Howard (who played Henry Higgins in the 1936 Pygmalion) to depict Richard in early threads. I was extremely pleased to watch the play and discover that, indeed, Richard ended up startlingly similar. I guess I'm psychic. The use of marble as a recurring motif for Charlotte is a weird sideways reference to this, actually referencing the myth of Pygmalion, who sculpts the stone* Galatea. Charlotte being unknowingly "sculpted" by Richard... Charlotte eventually throwing off his yoke and "coming to life" by her merits... you guys get it, right?
Also, Richard, before he was a lizard person starting Thread 2, was according to my notes a direct emissary (son?) of the Wyrm. The snake was his natural form, the human was an illusion. I'm glad I cut that.
*Apparently alabaster, not marble, because I didn't do my research
- What would they be doing?: My early plans for the plot of Redux were addressed previously in various places! I have nothing more to add.
and:
- How would Redux follow on from the OG?: In some ways the biggest question of all. Having flaked on the original Drowned already, I was determined to preserve as much of it as possible. Unfortunately, the original Drowned also sucked, so it was challenging to adapt. Fortunately, I had given myself an out: Ellery gets dumped into an alternate timeline between OG and Redux, meaning I could freely cut and fudge things without decanonizing the original altogether. It all still happened the way it happened... just, you know, elsewhere. In a timeline that doesn't matter.
I then had like 500 words minimum following on from this paragraph, completely written, which apparently got deleted in my copy/paste somehow. I have no backups. The Curse is permanent. My suffering is eternal. (I'll be back tomorrow.)
