19 Names Changed:

I wanted to get rid of all my remaining composer names in '100 Waifus' so that I could have a consistent policy of naming the children only after fictional characters, thus finally having a true fictional character hall of fame embedded within the book.

To do this I had to compromise on another front -- By removing the requirement for only the names of heroes and adding in the names of villains, I could scrounge up another 19 interesting characters from fiction.  Thus a lot of character names that were in my initial draft before I decided to restrict myself to heroes, like Leonard, Sub-Zero and Scorpion were all suddenly back again, while the composers were all shown the door.

It was impossible to find 1,000 heroic names for the children, but 1,000 cool character names was just barely possible.

The 19 new names scattered across the book are Sephiroth and Golbez (Final Fantasy), Sorsha (Willow), Leonard (Full Metal Panic!), Sub-Zero and Scorpion (Mortal Kombat), Orochimaru and Kabuto (Naruto), Shishio (Rurouni Kenshin), Boa, Perona and Rob Lucci (One Piece), Aizen (Bleach), Teru (Saki), Ashram and Pirotess (Record of Lodoss War), Griffith (Berserk), Soo-Won (Akatsuki no Yona), and Lucius i.e. Askeladd (Vinland Saga)

I also had to make a variety of changes that cascaded down from these changes, like moving the names of other children around to more suitable mothers and changing some scenes that involved the now defunct names to suit the new reality.  It also changed some of the arithmetic at the end in terms of doubled up names.  A side benefit to these name changes is that there are now more unique names than before.  Unique names banzai!

Nothing major, but a real headache to catch every detail and make sure it lines up.  Hopefully I did.

How much does this improve the book?  I think a lot.  Removing one of the biggest inconsistencies in the novel is like closing a plot hole.  If real life composer names are allowed, why not real life movie directors or video game creators or athletes or. . .the Pandora's Box opens.  By restricting all the names to the same field of fictional characters no one in the real world can claim they were 'dissed' by being left out.  It's all fair and square again.

On the flip side, I think getting to add in iconic characters like Teletha's twin brother Leonard as a child of Teletha, or Sephiroth as a child of Tifa, is really cool.  It helps characterize the main heroines as much as it helps out the average quality of the children's names.  You can learn a lot about a waifu by the types of children she has.

Each name change is invisibly subtle but together it all adds up.  Especially when we're talking 19 name changes all at once.

Tales of Arise has been delayed to at least 2021, so I still don't have the perfect fictional character hall of fame.  But at least the obvious gaping wounds have been sewed up now.  All future name changes to the book can focus on creating more unique name opportunities or culling the weakest entries.

With this big a change I've justified re-reading the book for a 23rd time to see how the edits fare.  Yay!  I was starting to miss the book already.