A Gamer's Guide to Reading A Gamer's Guide to Beating the Tutorial

Yo! It took two weeks, but I have now finished proofreading both books!! Yippie!!! I had originally intended for it to only be one book, but then it would've been way too long, so... yeah. Two books! And it only took two weeks of mind-melting labour!! To kill my procrastination, I also went straight from reading to writing the next floor, so I'll be publishing that sometime during the day. 

Until then, I've decided to make this little thing, which is basically just a list of what words and names have been replaced with what so you'll be able to follow the new chapters without issue. If you're wondering--no, the changes aren't too large. You'll be able to come along just fine only knowing the new name of the main character and the fact that he's now Swedish and in the Europe server rather than the asia one. Oh, and I'll also have an explanation of a few things at the bottom, if you're interested in the thoughts behind all this. Okay, that said, let's get into it!

The Tutorial is [Way] Too Hard = A Gamer's Guide to Beating the Tutorial

Lee Ho-Jae = Lo Fennrick

Knowledge of Time Before Babylon skill = All-Tongue

Guild of Representatives = Delegate Commission

Day of Grand Conference = Server Symposium

Asia = Europe

Europe = Asia

South Korea = Sweden

North Korea = Denmark

Etc

Seoul = Malmö

Seoul Providence (whatever it was called) = Skåne Län

And that's about it! Yup, all and all, very simple things. 

Lee Ho-Jae, or as I will henceforth call him, Lo Fennrick, is now Swedish and from the southernmost part of Sweden, which is Skåne. Specifically, he's in the city of Malmö. Wack place. 

To explain his name, well... I want to say that it "just felt right" but I honestly spent several hours and way too many sanity points on trying to come up with a name for him. It had to be Swedish. It had to be kind of weird but still sort of ordinary. I wanted it to replicate the beats of the original name. It had to be goofy while still being capable of having some malicious qualities. I went through a lot of names and ideas, going through almanacs and checking the name days to try to find something suitable. I eventually decided on the last-name Hellsvik, but my beta-reader vetoed it for being too "on the nose." Understandable. I considered the first name "Hjalmar" and a number of similar first names, but here's the problem: I know a Hjalmar. And he's super nice! How can I possibly meet his gaze and tell him "oh yeah the insane murderous baby-eater of a main character i have in my book also has that name" I would die. Not doable.

So, I tried a bunch of other first names. None of them felt right. I know someone with that name, and that one's too ordinary, and that doesn't feel right, and... And then, I discussed it in the discord server, and someone asked about possible animal names. I don't remember exactly how it went--we were talking about the name "ulf" and how it means wolf--but someone made me bring up the name "Lo," which is a swedish name I've basically only seen in girls but is apparently also a unisex name? Either way, it means bobcat, or wildcat. The swedish name for bobcat is "lodjur," or lo + animal. The suggestion didn't click right away. At this point, I was still mixing and matching together Swedish last-name parts because I was so set on having an H for the last name. But I guess the "Lo" was the last part I needed, because with it, I also came up with his last name. Fennrick. Now, to be completely frank, Fennrick isn't a real name. If you check the swedish name database, it isn't there. 

However, it DOES sound like a name that could exist. Fennrick sounds an awful lot like Fänrik, which is a swedish military title for the lowest ranked officer. In other words, if you want to pull this name apart, you could find a story of someone getting a military last name (very common here), going out of the country, anglo-fying the name or otherwise altering it so the locals could pronounce it, returning to sweden, not bothering to change it back... Yeah. It works. 

And there it was. Lo Fennrick. Everyone calls him Fennrick, though, and that's also how he introduces himself. Calling someone their last name is pretty uncommon here in sweden, but it does happen. And for a guy with such a weird last name and a kind of girly first-name, you could imagine that he either chose that for himself or got called that so he wouldn't be mixed up with a girl in class. Who knows? I'm just happy I finally found a name that fits the bastard!

Part of what made it so hard to find a name was that it had to be pronouncable/readable in English. So no å, ä or ö or any other sounds that wouldn't fit an anglo-saxan palette. Fennrick would be pronounced almost the same in English and Swedish, with only the R being different. As for Lo? Well, in English, people would probably pronounce it the same as "Lo and behold," when the actual Swedish pronunciation is the same as for "going to the Loo." A bit of comedic irony, if you ask me. 

So, yeah.  My proofreaders still aren't finished with proofreading the two books, but once they're done, I'll post both here so you can check out the new and improved versions! In the meantime, I'll post the new chapters, and once my ipad is back from the repair shop and my wallet is much, much lighter, I'll post some art, hehe. 

PS: The titles of the books are as follow:

(floors 0-7)

A GAMER'S GU1DE TO BEAT1NG THE TUTOR1AL, Step 1: SUICIDE

(floors 8-15)

A GAMER'S GU1DE 2 BEAT1NG THE TUTOR1AL, Step 2: HOMICIDE

PPS: the next book, Amicicide, will span floors 16-34, so don't worry, this series won't be more than six books, hehe.

See ya!!