Chapter notes:
Chapter 1:
"Room 16..."
I wanted to be as specific as possible, so I couldn't have just made the location "Artemis's Room". How did I get the number 16, then? Well, it's just Artemis's initials - the numeric values of A and F are 1 and 6, and together they make 16.
"...legs folded up in the lotus position as Butler had once taught him."
The Eternity Code mentions that Artemis meditates in the lotus position, so all I added was that Butler taught him it.
"...completed with a ridiculously ornate bookshelf..."
The Last Guardian mentions that Argon "had a taste for the grandiose", so I expanded on that.
"...he was vaguely aware of colors"..."
I literally looked up "colors of horror", "colors of despair", etc. to use. Of course, when I started revealing that the colors were meant to represent Holly they changed from emotional representations to physical representations.
"Absurd, thought Artemis..."
Eoin Colfer has a slightly strange way (in my opinion) of representing thoughts. Sometimes they're straight words, for when a character is simply thinking, and sometimes they're italicized for when a character is talking to him/herself. A lot of the time these two are hard to distinguish from each other, and that made representing thoughts much more difficult.
"Holly Short looked into the face of her archenemy."
The first two segments of the story were meant to be similar to the opening of The Last Guardian, where Artemis is frustrated with something and Holly is with Nopal.
"'I don't see why you even bother.'"
I wanted to explain how Nopal got her name. This seemed like the best way to do so, because in The Last Guardian the techies reportedly stayed away from the clone, it would have been difficult for Holly to have heard the "Nopal" idea, unless she was there when it was formed.
"Somewhere, he imagined a fanfare, gloriously adding a soundtrack to his emotional adventure."
I used the line from the first book: "Artemis imagined that somewhere the 1812 Overture was playing."
"...sound of tinkling bells..."
Somewhere (I can't remember if it was a canon thing or a fanon thing) someone described Holly's laughter as analogous to tinkling bells.
"...the soft aroma of grass and citrus..."
The Last Guardian reveals that elves have signature odors, and that Holly's is grass and citrus. Here I wanted to reference it, but keep it so that Artemis would not make the connection until he is about to sacrifice himself.
"...he once could not crack himself..."
A reference to The Arctic Incident, when Foaly was locked in his Ops Booth by Opal.
Chapter 2:
"Anything more than simple professionalism was frowned upon, and emotional outbursts were seen as a display of weakness."
Technically not true, since Angeline and Artemis Senior were very affectionate towards each other, but whatever.
"Foaly was on the ground with his hands on his side, legs kicking in a gallop while he gasped for breath."
An exact wording from Chapter 1. It was used in the books, where Colfer says that something might happen, then goes ahead and say it did happen, using the exact wording.
"...and then: I could have given Julius a run for his money."
Colfer also uses a lot of "and then" as a sort of random insert of dry humor. Halfway through writing this chapter I realized I hadn't included it at all, so I specifically looked for a place where I could.
"...and it literally ended in a bang."
NOT a sexual innuendo. This is a reference to the end of The Atlantis Complex, when Turnball and Leonor die together in an explosion.
"In fact, you've been basically stuffed in a pickle jar, locked in a barrel, and set afloat in the Atlantic."
Centaurs are not known for their analogies.
"'...what if we were to get Butler in on this?'"
In The Artemis Fowl Files, Butler gives an interview. One of the questions is "What is your favorite book?" and Butler answers with "I do enjoy a good romance story." He also mentions how his preferred film genre is romcom.
Chapter 3:
"Apartment 819, Haven Housing, Southeastern Residential District..."
As I did with Artemis's room in the clinic, I just took the numeric values of Holly's initials (8 and 19) and mashed them together. Also, in the original draft I wrote it as the West District, because "Southeastern Residential District" was too long to fit the width of the page. I just remembered that has a much wider page, so I made back into "Southeastern Residential District".
"'...a complicated love problem that would have made Chix Verbil asexual...'
Nobody likes Chix Verbil.
"Wow, this is so much better than The Notebook."
Poking fun at a military-trained, Eurasian giant is a lot of fun.
"...which she had let grow into a pageboy..."
Holly had already let her hair grow into a fringe by The Atlantis Complex, and I wanted her to grow her hair out a little more. I went to Wikipedia for this (shut up :P), and decided that a pageboy would be best for her, especially if you can imagine her with less pronounced bangs and slightly wilder hair.
Chapter 4:
"Room 42..."
Yep, you guessed it; "Domovoi Butler" becomes "42".
"...had a taste for the grandiose."
As I said before, I like referencing the source material. This includes taking lines from other books.
"He didn't like it."
A reference to The Arctic Incident, when Julius Root is stuck on the wall of the chute without a piton cord.
"He once brought three rifles to a stakeout..."
A reference to FPSRussia's UTS-15 video, where his first two shotguns malfunctioned in-video.
"'However, feel free to declare her late in five minutes.'"
A reference to A Christmas Incident (an AF fanfiction written by Annie-morphs), which is one of my favorite AF fanfictions of all time, despite its portrayal of the characters (you will never see Julius Root smiling, vacationing, or doing anything of the sort) and somewhat cheesy scenes. I dunno - despite my typical male interests in shooter games, shooter movies, and guns in general, I'm somewhat of a hopeless romantic.
"My brain is wired for G2..."
Probably not scientifically correct. As a brass player, I know that band and strings instruments naturally produce a series of overtones (in fact, rock and metal guitarists use this concept to make pinch harmonics), but I was not certain about vocalists. In retrospect, it makes sense that vocalists also produce overtones, but whatever. In addition, I'm not sure brains can be wired for a certain pitch (let alone activated by a certain frequency). I just wanted to have a Legend of Korra-esque scene where Artemis is talking to his mirror image and realizing a certain truth.
Update October 8, 2014:
You can totally produce audible overtones with your voice! Yesterday, I saw a video (link 1 below) of a woman who had insane control over her voice. She kept her fundamental note constant, and had amazing control and response with the harmonics (also known as the overtone scale). I recommend you check it out; it's really something.
"...memories were seen as disembodied replays..."
This is a scene from one of the Generation IV Pokémon movies. I want to say Giratina and the Sky Warrior, but I can't quite remember. The rest of this scene is partially based on that, and partially based on the original Assassin's Creed animus scenes when you assassinate someone and click a button to activate the alternate scene.
"Simetra gave a vampire smile..."
Simetra (which, by the way is simply "Artemis" backwards) was designed as Artemis' (grammar note: if an object or somebody's name ends with "s", I like to leave the apostrophe as it is in this sentence; however, Colfer likes to add another "s" after the apostrophe, so of course I copied that) foundation, which is why he is so like Artemis from the first book.
"'He generally stays close to the memories of the romance novels you have read and written.'"
Artemis has apparently written romance novels under the pseudonym "Violet Tsirblou" ("violets are blue").
Chapter 5:
"Frond's Vegetarium..."
It sounds like the name of a diner, but it's actually meant to be a proper restaurant.
"...Oki Insalata Spectaculaire..."
This literally means "large, spectacular salad". I had trouble translating "large" into Japanese because I was uncertain of Japanese rules, but translating into Italian and French was no problem because they're both alphabet-based languages.
"...including pencil drawing and playing the flute..."
Once again I'm taking from A Christmas Incident, where Artemis draws a perfect, lifelike rendition of Holly. The flute playing I threw in because I always wanted to learn to play the flute, but never had the time with all the bands where I played trombone or euphonium.
"...an exoskeleton and a new type of interstellar spacecraft..."
Now I know a lot of the references I pointed out in these notes could be considered somewhat obvious, but this spacecraft one is less so. If you were to decode the Gnommish message in The Last Guardian, you would find it to be Artemis' will. In it, he gives Foaly designs for a spacecraft "so advanced, it makes his spacecraft look like hot air balloons." The exoskeleton part I threw in because I was watching a Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare trailer at the time.
"...and as a professional soldier..."
Technically Holly's also a soldier, but I had to let that slide to make the plot work.
Chapter 6:
"...the Sig Sauer."
As I said before, I'm a bit of a gun nerd. Not in the political and ethical uses - oh, no. I'd rather die than deal with those. I'm more interested in the practical uses by military, law enforcement, and civilian, and the physical workings of guns. Anyway, back to the Sig. When I first read the series, Colfer made it sound like the 9mm round was the most powerful handgun round in the world. Of course, that's completely false; there's 10mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP, .45 GAP, the Magnum series, .50 AE - you get the idea. For those wondering what Butler carries, I believe it to be a Sig P226 or something in that series. The caliber matches, the magazine capacity matches (I think it does; I seem to remember the gun having thirteen rounds, but I can't quite remember where), and the style of gun matches. With the P226 family so famous as it is (the P228 is the standard sidearm for the US Navy SEALs), and with the P228 a compact (and therefore more easily hidden pistol) variant with high capacity, it makes sense for Butler to select it. It is military-proved, civilian-legal (although this is Artemis Fowl and Butler we are talking about), and reliable. Anyway, it's just a theory, but it makes me feel at ease.
"'Twelve at seventy-five.'"
I didn't explain this in the story - at least not very well. What Butler is saying is that the target is located at 12 o'clock, at 75 meters.
"'Stepping off in five.'"
Not sure if that's a real military phrase, but it's used in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, so whatever.
"...fear taking place where calm should be."
A reference to The Guru from Avatar: The Last Airbender, when Guru Pathik is talking with Appa.
Epilogue:
"...she knew he felt what she felt."
Say that five times very quickly.
"It could be a week, a month, or a year, but it would come."
This means you know I'll be continuing this semi-canon writing - stay tuned (or is that only for TV...?)!
"He went to reciprocate, resting his head on hers."
A lot of their actions were based on what I remember doing with my girlfriend. We ended breaking up on not-so-good terms after four years, but I have no problem in using our actions as examples.
Phew, that's it. I've spent the last two, three hours revising and editing my story and copying lines I felt like had enough backstory or required explanations. I know for the two of you who are following and the three who have favorited this story (by the way, thank you very much - it honestly means a lot) will probably be somewhat disappointed by this latest addition since it has no relation to plot, but I feel like it is necessary. Besides, the alternative is actually working. Anyway, this is likely the last time I will be visiting this story, although I will do a similar process for each one of my pieces. If you've gotten this far, thanks for taking the time to read this. It's been a blast writing, rewriting, and revisiting this piece, and I look forward to doing more.
Other links:
Link 1 (voice control) (polyphonic overtone singing - Anna-Maria Hefele):
watch?v=vC9Qh709gas