My Kingkiller Cosplay Conundrum - Part 2: Demons, Draccus & Dance

My obsessive dance project inspired by Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind, Neil Gaiman's theory of unfinished series, and that purple draccus in the room

If you haven’t read Part 1, stuff in this post may not make sense:

If you’ve been following my Ko-Fi page or my old blog for some time, or if you know me personally, and especially if you’ve been to my house, you may have noticed the green-screen floor mats and backdrop in the dance studio. And the overstuffed costume rack in my bedroom. And the other one in the sewing room. And the mess of costume bits I’m currently hacking and building all over the floor and the sewing chair. And the sprawling-but-organized piles of jewelry atop my dresser. More jewelry bins on the floor. There also may be an inspiration altar up next to the dance studio specifically dedicated to this particular obsession that has overtaken my creative life and spawned the biggest dance project I have ever conceived.

I call it the KKC: The KingKiller Cosplay Dances.

And geez is this thing FUN!

Young road-Denna, Auri MoonFae, Demon Devi, Vashet (the Hammer), Glam-Denna

THE BOOK 3 PROLOGUE: CUE HYPERFIXATION MODE ON STEROIDS

Remember how I said that toward the end of 2021, a friend did something awesome and nefarious? Knowing of my obsession for Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle, this friend (and his cat named Kvothe) sent me the video of Pat reading a draft of the Book 3 Prologue.

Crap. Crappy-frosted crappioka pudding on a crap cracker.

You know what happened. I know you do. I had to dive back in and reread the darn books.¹

But—unexpected bonus—this shoved me ass-first through that final healing stage of my damaged brain’s ability to comprehend and retain things I’d previously read. For the first time in nine years, I was able to pleasure-read again.

Woot! Go me!

All over, I tore through Book 1 in three days. I tore through Book 2 in a few more. Book: at the dinner table. Book: on the couch. Book: with toothpicks propping up eyelids while cursing my sleep-depriving craic-dealer—I mean, favorite author.

Then I finally read The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh…I am so glad I waited to read the novella about Auri until I did. I dove into a-week-in-the-life of our darling MoonFae at the most perfect time imaginable. She was exactly what I needed that winter.

The Author’s Afterword of the novella was the final kicker. Those little insights into the creation of Slow Regard gave me much needed confirmation to stick to what I’m doing in my own arts, as well as showing me that, no, I’m not as alone as I feel.

That’s always what these characters do for me, which is the biggest reason why I become so depressed whenever I get to the end. It feels like I’ve just lost some of my closest friends.

So I closed the novella. I placed it atop my raggedy copy of Name of the Wind beside me on the couch, alongside my phone. (Wise Man’s Fear was still only on my Nook at that time. I had not yet ordered a semi-ratty, much loved “Acceptable” copy from Amazon. Just because.)

(Wut? It is the Way.)

(I required a matching set so that my paper copy of WMF would show the love that the Nook version has actually received. Well, this copy was more than acceptable. It is purrrfectly raggedy, the spine is creased and shows bottom-corner tears just like my copy of NotW. It is glorious. Eventually SRoST will show the same wear.)

THE DEMON DANCE PROJECT

So after tearing through both monster-sized novels as well as the novella, I exhaled. I slept. I woke. Unable to tolerate the sudden lack of Kvothing in my life, I fell into the standard mope whenever I read the final word of the cliffhanger that we’ve been waiting to resolve since 2011.

Alas. The once-proposed TV series or even a movie had never been created for these books, which means that there was no soundtrack to play in the kitchen, car and shower, so I created a playlist of songs that made me think of Kvothe’s music.

The playlist grew. And grew. And mutated. And grew. Naturally, it needed to be danced to.

And then…well, then the gates of heck broke open, spewing artistic demons all over my studio and my costume closet and my sewing room, making all sorts of unreasonable demands of me at all hours of day or night.

Seriously, if you are not the kind of artist I am, then you have no idea. These fuckers are insatiable.

Re.
Lent.
Less.

And they will not let you go—let you goooooo…

🎶 Beelzebub has a Devi put aside for meeeee…for meee…for meeeeeeeeee! 🎶

And now for you, too. Enjoy.²

This playlist and its voracious spawn, the Kingkiller Cosplay Dances, will require posts of their own. And copious Notes stuffed with costuming, makeup and hair trials, music, choreography triumphs and travails, greenscreen experiments, and etc.

Geeking out like this is one of the reasons why I made the Hyperfixator’s Haven Section to begin with, because if you need to opt out of my rabbit-hole info dumps about this stuff, I want you to be able to. (You have to be on the desktop version to personalize your settings under Subscriptions.)

Or if you are as obsessed with these things as I am, you can:

Okay. Before we get on with all the nerding about this project’s work-in-progress and creative process, we need to talk about…

THE PURPLE DRACCUS IN THE ROOM

(kinda like a pink elephant but bigger and breathes fire)

So no shit, there I was in 2021, up to my eyelashes with the most rabid dance obsession that I’ve experienced since my discovery of belly dancing in college. Yes, this sprawling dance project inspired by the female characters of the Kingkiller Chronicle even tops the rate at which I puked out dances the moment my tasseled tushie got unexpectedly drop-kicked onto the international stage.

Alas. A most unfortunate event in the Kvothingverse happened right at the height of my choreographic frenzy.

The reading of a chapter from the long awaited and rabidly anticipated Doors of Stone (Book 3) was promised as incentive to boost donations to the annual drive for Heifer International that Patrick Rothfuss’ nonprofit, WorldBuilders, raises every year. The goal was met. And then some. But the chapter was never delivered.

It is well over a year since it was promised, and we have radio silence about it.

Honestly, this has just broken my heart. Since 2011 when I started my wait for Book 3, I have always followed the Neil Gaiman approach when it comes to how long it’s been taking for Doors of Stone to be published:

#NotYerBitch³

I mean, come on. I have a crappy Book 3 draft of my own in my computer. The amount of changes I’ve made to my Gladiators Book 1 all had to be followed through for Book 2. Then those changes, along with all the natural changes made amidst editing of Book 2 have to be carried through into Book 3, so it is currently in shambles. It’s a nightmare mess and I’ve written other things in the meanwhile to let it bake. To let myself experience more life. To let it unfold naturally.

And my Book 1 & 2 haven’t even been friggin’ published, thus demanding that I adhere to the ending I’ve publicly promised. My fantasy world isn't remotely as complex and interwoven and complicated with a gazillion sneaky-deaky red herrings and Easter eggs and false trails and hidden gems as KKC. Patrick Rothfuss I am not, and the mind that created these books…⁴

Well, I’ve also had a taste of what it is to be betrayed and laid low by what happens between one’s ears as one attempts to keep producing the art that created a rabid following. The flack that Pat has taken for a decade now…some of it is inexcusably cruel and uncalled for, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s inspired him to grab his DoS draft and chuck it right in the trash on multiple occasions.

I hope he continues to pull it back out. I hope he remembers that he didn’t write Slow Regard for all Those People. I hope he wrote it for himself first, and then for people like me and another Hart.

“Fuck those people,” she said. “Those people have stories written for them all the time. What about me? Where’s the story written for me?”

~A quote from Vi Hart to Patrick Rothfuss
Afterword of The Slow Regard of Silent Things.

I hope something similar can happen with Doors of Stone, and any other gems he’s inspired to write.

LIKE HIS NEW NOVELLA ABOUT BAST!! (As I was editing these posts, he announced it.)⁵

But it’s really loud out there.

It’s really loud in here, too, and I’m having a conundrum amidst a slow and protracted regard of my enormous dance project. The lack of the promised chapter and the radio silence about that has taken some wind out of my sails.

It means that, when I get super excited and want to geek about what I’m creating where other people can hear about it, I have a hard time defending my favorite author against this particular grievance. I hope the book release won’t just be an “oooh, look at the birdie” to sweep this purple draccus under the rug, because I absolutely want to read the new novella, since I never did get my hands on the short story upon which it’s based.

I’m also still working on the KKCosplay Project. I will continue to work on it, and I’d really like to share that creative process with you.

But in order to feel okay about posting all the work-in-progress and geekery and excitement and nerding out, I needed to tell you about the difficulty I’m having with the Promised Chapter Incident, as well as my journey with these books, this author, these characters, this world, and the impact it’s all had on me.

One of my fellow KKC-obsessed compatriots who has made countless videos about these books and characters finally also spoke about his feelings on the Promised Chapter. He’s summed up my feelings quite brilliantly.

There you have it. That’s precisely how I feel, so I’m not going to chew up more words reiterating every point he makes.

What I need to do is get back to making the art that *I* have been promising to make, and that—yes—keeps getting derailed by my Life Happening.

Ultimately, the delays from my re-torn meniscus in the middle of choreographing one of Denna’s dances almost exactly a year ago have given me the time to sink all this music more deeply into my soul—crucial because I have so many problems with memorization after that year of chronic seizures.

The delay also gave me the inspiration to set up a greenscreen studio so that Auri can prance in the Underthing and on rooftops, and Devi can smirk before a shelf full of way more antique books than I could ever afford to buy.

The delay will ultimately be a positive one for the dances that I put out.

I hope the same can be true for Doors of Stone, and for one of my longest, most enduring muses and teachers, Patrick Rothfuss. This collection of characters, this fantasy world and its magic system have had such a profound impact on me as a person, as a writer, and now as a dancer.

This is separate from how I feel about the troublesome situation broiling between the creator, his fanbase and detractors, his publishing crew, his charity and products, the fantasy world at large, and those who were directly impacted by the Promised Chapter Incident.

I have to separate these things. Or else this entire dance project would need to come to a screeching halt and who knows if I would ever pick it back up. The Muse is finicky when you set Her aside.

I can’t do that to my dancing.

Music is a proud, temperamental mistress.
Give her the time and attention she deserves, and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you call and she will not answer.

~Kvothe, Chapter 52 - “Burning”
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss,

I have found this to be true of Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, as well.

So I approach this whole conundrum like MoonFae Auri tiptoeing across the tiles of a shadowy roof. I watch, I listen, I step lightly. I compartmentalize so I can make that which needs to be made—but always with one ear perked. I peruse the Reddit and YouTube for inspiration, I check out Pat’s website and vlog for official information, and I glance through search engines with a salt shaker in hand to keep appraised on developments. Then I retreat back down to my home in the Underthing.

Alone with only me, the music, the mirror and the Muses, I transform into a very different creature. Here I am more like Denna. I am more like Kvothe. I rehearse, tinker around, do techie trials, and nerd out. Yes, I obsess. I put my twinkly toes back on my new green mat, cue up the playlist and…

I was only dimly aware of the audience now, dimly aware of the sweat on my body. I was so deeply in the music that I couldn’t have told you where it stopped and my blood began….

~Kvothe, Chapter 54 - “A Place To Burn”
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Are you beginning to understand yet why the words in these books hold such a prominent place in my heart and soul? Let the geekery begin! Ermmm…continue. Let the sharing of this project begin here.

© 2023 Hartebeast

1. Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle and other geekery - seriously. Do NOT get attached to having your ending when you want it:

THE TALES:

• Book 1: The Name of the Wind

• Book 2: The Wise Man’s Fear

• The Slow Regard of Silent Things - a week in the life of darling Auri

• The Lightning Tree - a day in the life of beloved Bast, short story in an anthology called Rogues (which Bast 100% is.)

• Book 3: The Doors of Stone…

• Book 3 Prologue - A Silence of Three Parts

• Fancy-schmansy 10th Anniversary edition of Book 1 (I prefer my ratty original paperback, thank you very much. BUT the illustrations by Dan dos Santos in this special version are stunning! And I can’t help drooling over the red-edged pages.)

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE:

• Kingkiller Subreddit - you think I’m obsessed?! The amount of detail that some of these rabid readers know about this intricate world never ceases to stun me. Of course, we’ve had over a decade to scour the pages and come up with our crackpot theories of what we imagine Book 3 will entail, who the bad guys really are, who’s going to live and who’s going to get snuffed, what our intrepid anti-hero (villain in the making?) did to kill a king and break the world…you know, little things like that. Seriously. THIS is really Hyperfixator’s Haven for KKC.

• Captured In Words - My favorite YouTuber to take us down this and other rabbit holes

• And of course, the official word: Patrick Rothfuss and The Eolian, his YouTube

2. The ridiculata that is my main KKC Spotify playlist (I have others segregated by character, location or mood):

• Kvothe: Chasing the Name of the Wind - Opening with some Kvothing Kvintessentials, we progress to the blow-by-blow soundtrack in mah head. If you know these books like I do, can you pick out key moments and changes in location?

3. Neil Gaiman on why George R.R. Martin (and Patrick Rothfuss and Scott Lynch and everybody else we’ve been wetting our pants over) is not our bitch. AND why I deeply appreciate the fact that, when Life Happened and a promised story just…died inside him, he made an apology, then let it go so everybody else could too.

4. Pat’s tangled box of revision spools - he recently uploaded this archive from 2011.

5. Official announcement about Pat’s new book!