Disclaimer: The following section contains spoilers for Queen Marie. Please proceed with caution. |

The Discord Live: Reading Escapade - Queen Marie was a Discord text stream hosted by the official Time Princess Discord on January 26th, 2022. For this text stream, the author of Queen Marie, Rabbit, was invited to share with the players about the behind-the-scenes of the story's development, as well as answer several of the community's questions towards the end.
For the sake of brevity, this archive will exclude the introduction of the stream, as well as the Game Time segment that followed after the author's sharing.
Please note that the following content contains spoilers for the entire book, and readers are advised to proceed at their own risk.
A compilation of all the Reading Escapades streams conducted thus far can also be found in a single document here.
Overview[]
Rabbit: Let me start off this session by sharing a short brief overview of the story of Queen Marie.
Rabbit: Queen Marie is Time Princess' first story book. It can be considered the start of the Time Princess journey. In this story, we travel to France before the revolution through the magical story desk, becoming Marie Antoinette, queen of Louis XVI, the last ruler of the House of Bourbon. To avoid a certain tragedy, she decides to change her fate. With the help of Gabrielle, Fersen, Lafayette, d'Eon and friends, she does all she can to save the country.
Rabbit: We were originally inspired by Queen Marie due to our desire to write about famous women in history. We also hope to rethink history through different and complex people. Queen Marie matches the direction we want to work in, and the Rococo style she's representative of also fits a dress-up game's material requirements. That all led to the birth of Time Princess' first book.
Behind-the-Scenes[]
Rabbit: Now, I will be sharing some ideas that did not make the final cut.
Rabbit: History may sometimes appear to be dry and boring, so we tried to use interesting micro perspectives to show how the Revolution went. For example, we read in an article that the bread at the time was hard. During the Revolution, bakery owners once rushed the Bastille with baguettes. Thus one of our team members suggested that we switch to a baker's point-of-view during a stage to show Bastille's decline.
Rabbit: Another idea we had was to add surprise cameos by Madame Roland, Robespierre, Mirabeau, and even Napoleon during the Revolution, or in the endings!
Rabbit: In the end, however, due to the presentation, story length, and universal values among many other considerations, we did not include the above content in the final story.
Rabbit: Here’s a little tidbit on our setting of Louis’ personality. We think he is a simple and direct man, who is also straightforward in his work. He's not great with words, but takes the most direct action he can to express his love for the protagonist. He has little experience with relationships, so he's often unable to understand the lady's thoughts.
Rabbit: Here’s a shocker for everyone. Originally Louis was not a love option!
Rabbit: We hope it’s been an interesting share for everyone thus far. Next up, I will be sharing some initial design drafts we had that did not make the cut!
Design Drafts[]
Rabbit: This is actually the first ever outfit we have designed for Queen Marie!

Rabbit: The resulting model looks like this.

Rabbit: Here are some of the earlier outfit drafts we had for this story. Not all made the cut too. Do you spot any designs you’re interested in? There’s some familiar designs here and there~

Rabbit: I saw some of you asking about Gabrielle earlier...
Rabbit: Here’s an exclusive sneak peek into Gabrielle’s initial character design!

Rabbit: We felt that the resulting model didn’t turn out too well and the color scheme was too vibrant. As such, we decided against it.

Rabbit: The design of Gabrielle as you know now was actually meant for another character in the story, but after drafting the design, the team felt that the overall vibe is a better fit for Gabrielle!

Rabbit: Next up, we have one of our favorite characters, Fersen! This is his very first design draft. It took multiple versions before we have the Fersen everyone knows and loves.

Rabbit: Initially our background designs had small animal motifs all around as our designer loved cute animals! After some revisions though, some of these motifs were removed from the final versions. Can you spot what changed?

Rabbit: It was really fun revisiting our story design process and finding easter eggs to share with everyone. I hope everyone enjoys them!
Rabbit: I wish to ask everyone on behalf of the Queen Marie team, what are your thoughts on our story? Please let us know your feedback and share with us some takeaways you had after reading this story.
Rabbit: Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts with us! 🥰
Rabbit: The PR team tells me that I should inform everyone we are having a 5 minute slow mode now before we move on to the next section of the stream.
Rabbit: I promised to have a Q&A session with everyone. Do you have any questions about the story of Queen Marie for me? I will be looking through your questions and writing up my answers. I will start answering in a couple minutes so please take your time to ask me your questions.
Q&A Segment[]
Rabbit: Thanks for all your questions. I will start answering shortly.
Rabbit: Let’s begin with the Q&A session now, shall we?
Q: Which character did we spend the most time on?
Rabbit: Lafayette. In the earliest draft, he was not a main character or love interest at all. He was just Fersen's superior—a righteous military officer full of aspirations. But after Lafayette's original drawing was completed, everyone was so taken by his charms that we thought it'd be a waste for him to be just a supporting character. Hence the story was revised, and he became one of the most important characters.
Q: Some of you were asking how many locks does Louis have
Rabbit: This is an interesting question! When the story was being drafted, we did consider writing more about Louis XVI's fondness for locks, and add a touch of comedy to the story. But due to the length limitation and tone of the story, we abandoned the idea. Honestly, we didn't count how many locks Louis XVI had, but I think "innumerable" is the word that would reflect his passion best.
Q: What is my favorite ending in Queen Marie?
Rabbit: I will say the ending with Gabrielle is my favorite as I personally prefer the warm tone in this route.🥰
Q: Which historical person is the inspiration for Blaisdell's character?
Rabbit: The idea behind Blaisdell's character creation is 80% original, with the other 20% of it being inspired from Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau who is a politician in history.
Q: Many of you asked about my favorite companion in Queen Marie
Rabbit: Louis is my favorite companion in this story. He is kind, humble, and he makes my heart ache a little whenever I read his lines.
Q: How long does it take to complete a story from idea to in-game release?
Rabbit: 8 months for a two chapter story. The entire process involves script writing, art designing, 3D modelling, adding all the assets into the game and quality assurance.
Q: Will Blasidell and d'Eon have side stories?
Rabbit: Currently, Queen Marie's side stories make up the majority, which is why we've been working on side stories for other popular stories recently. Your passionate voices are our greatest motivation. If everyone hopes to see a Blasidell or d'Eon side story, we'll arrange for them too. We welcome your fun and exciting ideas for side stories, and hope to see your ideas appear on Time Princess' bookshelf in the near future.
Q: What is the most challenging part about writing this Story?
Rabbit: The most challenging part was probably determining how to present the era without sounding boring or preachy, such as showing the citizens' hardships and the palace's internal conflicts. We want to provide different views of history, to encourage critical thinking, but we don't want to be too subjective or biased towards any side.
Q: How long did it take us to write Queen Marie?
Rabbit As Time Princess' first book, Queen Marie has gone through a longer period of drafting and discussion. In fact, there were 3 versions of this story. The first version was a solemn historical storyline, while the second was more casual and humorous. They each have their pros and cons. After some discussion and edits within the team, we finally decided on a more balanced version between history and romance. This led to the version which you are reading now! This version took about 6 months to write inclusive of massive research, drafting and finalizing.
Q: How do you balance historical accuracy and overall historical details with the creative liberties of writing your own story etc?
Rabbit: Our principle is to respect history, and to interpret and reflect from multiple views from the perspective of contemporary people.
From a creative point of view, we will develop ideas on the details of the characters and events, making sure we do not change the objective facts of history. For example: What would happen if Marie bought the necklace? How can Marie turn things around in the meeting?
These are based on reading and analyzing a large number of historical materials so as to avoid characters having lines and actions that do not fit their identities, or be illogical in the context of their times.
Closing[]
Rabbit: Thank you everyone for showing your love for the Queen Marie story today! We will continue writing more stories for everyone to enjoy!
Rabbit: Now, I’ll be handing it back to the PR team to kickstart the next segment.
TP: Thank you Rabbit for sharing with us so many interesting behind the scenes details about the creation of Queen Marie’s story! This is only the first of the reading escapades series! We’re looking forward to knowing more about the process for all the other stories~
TP: Before we bid farewell to Rabbit, we’ve mentioned at the start of the stream that there will be an opportunity for you all to share your fan made works to Rabbit, and that time is now!
TP: Be it story ideas, fanfics, fanarts or more, feel free to share them all with Rabbit now!
TP: For those of you who do not have any fan works with you at this time, why don’t you let Rabbit know your favorite quote from the story? Or perhaps a particular character’s line that you love?
TP: Feel free to share your fanart in the fanart channel. We will be sure to get Rabbit to check it out!
TP: Once again, let’s thank Rabbit for joining us today! 🥰👏