When I asked what Cute's last name might be, she blushed and gave me a troubled look. Apparently she had never thought to assign herself one, since she'd never belonged to a family before. Ultimately she leaned close and whispered her true name into my ear, with a look on her face communicating that she was somehow baring more of her soul to me than she ever did on our wedding night, so I went with that as our family name from here on out.
My editing also took care of another plot hole, a really tricky one at that, which is basically the question 'why would anyone not think they were fictional characters once presented with the work of fiction depicting their lives?' Not only did Haruka Haruno doubt Christopher's word, so did Kagome all those years later, and presumably other waifus did too. Was there any reason to doubt? Or did I just forget what was going on and write these lines down like an idiot?
Well the truth is there is reason to doubt, even when confronted with the source works. This is because Cute-sama could've planted those source works as fake evidence in order to lubricate Christopher's relations with his waifus as part of his initial wish. Alternatively, they could be non-fiction chronicles of their actually true lives which had been lived on different dimensions from Earth. Or recurring memories from a past big bang-big bust cycle where indeed they all did live out those lives. There's actually a lot of ways Christopher could have been lying to them and a lot of reasons to feel fishy about it.
So yes, there was reason to doubt Christopher's oh-so-convenient explanation, even if it wasn't reasonable to go on doubting him. The balance of the evidence may be in his favor, but it could still have been a nagging worry in the back of their skulls. Which is precisely what Kagome said:
"I'm your Creator, you all didn't exist except as storybook characters before me, so I'd like to know -- are you glad to be alive?" Cute-sama asked.
"Indubitably." Kagome responded with fierce affirmation. "All the more so now that I know Christopher wasn't just making that part up. In my memory my whole past life was real, so it was always jarring to wonder if he hadn't just abducted us all here, even given all the source work evidence."
The highlighted in bold section of her reply is the newly minted version after my 14th editing run-through. Before I just left it to the reader's imagination what Kagome was thinking, but now I make it explicitly clear that yes, she is aware of the source work anime and manga Inuyasha, she was just still doubting the situation anyway. There was no oversight on the part of Kagome or me, the writer. After all, her memory contains her entire life, even long portions that were never animated or written in the manga. She has a complete person's memories from age 5 to 18, and the portions Cute-sama imagined up for her feel as alive to her as any of the ones covered in the anime. Why would she not feel like more than a work of fiction?
Hopefully with this extra half sentence, the plot hole is sufficiently addressed and everyone can move on.
Other middle names and nicknames were added because I felt they were iconic to the characters. Some awkwardly phrased sentences were reworded, and in general, the editing process is generating lots of additional value even outside the plot holes and name holes described. This 14th run-through is proving itself the most valuable addition yet.
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