I've been ruminating a bit on the title of the whole piece. Though I really try my best not to title until after I'm done, I don't think I have that luxury. I honestly intend for this to be episodic, with periodic releases. Say, three chapters a month. So that means that having the title is crucial before I've written the majority of it. Ideally, I'd "launch" with three chapters already, and then put out the next batch the following month (for a couple bucks, of course). But before I get that far, I'd like to have three batches worth ready to go - give myself some leeway. Plus it'll give me more time to figure out how much time each chapter will take to create, once I get in the swing of things.
Anyway, onto the title. I'm typically a minimalist when it comes to titles and I find that single word titles are optimal. Though, getting there isn't always the case. I'd like this to be a single-word title if possible, as that allows for more flexibility with the arc and chapter titles. Right now, I'm thinking of the word Scion.
It's interesting in a number of ways - the most obvious being its literal definitions. According to the dictionary, a Scion is a descendant of high status, like an heir. This is important to the plot because the main character in an isekai is typically also the most powerful. This image fits as by the very end, they should be at the top of their game.
It also stands for that snipped portion of a plant that's grafted to another plant. There are two sides to this narrative: the first is that everything is hyper-natural and organic, while the other is "computerized". I'll go into the two in a later post, but for now let's focus on the "organic" portion of things. The idea and image of plant grafting is actually pretty powerful, and has a place as one of the main characters' conflict points.
There's also the onomatopoeia that the word produces - it sounds like psion, which is a pretty standard sci fi term. I've been trying to avoid using it specifically because the word is completely generic and overused. I'll admit that I was using it here and there already, but am trying to catch myself and correct where I can find it. Anyway, hinting at it like this at least feels clever, so I'll stick with it. I'm using it relatively sparingly in the beginning, but will be used more often as the story progresses. Regardless, I'll try to hang back from saturating the piece with it.
Oh, and I'm thinking of making it the fifth and final rank for psychic power users. Previously, I was using the word Apex, but it doesn't sound quite right. I'm still working on the rank titles, and I'll go more into them in a later post as well.
A huge negative to this is, of course, the fucking car. There will always be an association with the thing, simply because of how popular it was. I'm sure there will be jokes and memes at some point. Hopefully some will be pretty good.
