I’ve forgotten some of the details, even though I have been plagued by this story and its connections. Like how to spell Lukas’ name—surely, he’s not Lucas with a C that would be too matching—and what Lucy’s specialty had been—something to do with the science of dead bodies. I at first thought the skull rosary was blue, like the cat and the corpse arm of Izanami-no-Mikoto, Lucy’s divine parent, but in writing it I realized it can’t have been blue. It had to be a different color. Burgundy for now, because too bright of a red was not the vibe, and certain other colors were reserved for later divine items.
I have a folder on my laptop that contains files with some of these details. An entire folder dedicated to the multiple stories we told to each other. I deleted discord off my laptop and phone, but I wonder, if I were to log back in, would the thread of our direct messages contain the remaining details or did you delete your half of it? Or did discord decide a conversation so old did not need to take up space on their servers?
How much of my memories are dependent on the ephemeral, digital, easily deleted or removed? But that’s why I’m doing this, isn’t it?
—
Chapter Two: Prophecy Says Goodbye
There was a previous version of this chapter in which we follow Lukas and Lucy as they not-quite-argue but not-quite-collaborate on their next steps for the Quest. It portrayed Lukas in an unflattering light, though we would later learn why he was acting like a passive aggressive brat: technically the Quest was for Lucy, not both of them. He had arranged for a break from The Ranch in order to get away from Quests. Lucy’s mother didn’t actually SAY anything, had she, so maybe it wasn’t even a Quest at all.
Ultimately, despite his list of reasons to not be involved, Lukas is still a good boyfriend, or at least we hoped to convey to the readers, and is more experienced in the nature of divine Quests. We would then see as he goes from seemingly unemployed trophy boyfriend to leader of The Ranch, planning and investigating into next steps of the Quest, realizing that more resources would be needed, arranging for both of them to go to The Ranch where other divine scions could be consulted or recruited.
He reaches for his phone.
Boo, how boring, this previous version, let’s cut straight instead to the phone.
In a way, all of the above DID happen in the story, but it is just one of many potential timelines to the person calling Lukas’ phone. I’m not sure how cheeky I would want to be with the displayed contact name — is Lukas a serious, no nonsense, First Name Last Name kind of a person? Or is he an even more serious, but slightly nonsense, representative emojis, paranoid about having names written and accessible by phone companies who’d just as easily sell data as fail to properly protect their databases?
Chad Denny, or perhaps grape emoji plus an eye emoji — maybe specifically the evil eye emoji.
He calls Lukas before the passive aggressive argument and unflattering portrayal can happen. He calls Lukas because he has already seen that and knows it will end in his death. He knows that Lukas and Lucy accepting the quest, going to The Ranch, following the standard operating procedures—in as much as there can be any—for divine Quests will result in Chad dying.
Mostly because Chad Denny can see the future—potential futures—but only the ones that end in his death.
If Lukas and Lucy go to The Ranch, Chad ends up dead within the year. If Lukas and Lucy try to Quest on their own, Chad ends up dead within the month. If Lukas and Lucy drag Chad out of his mother’s basement, Chad ends up dead within the week.
“Well what are we supposed to do, then?”
The longest potential future before Chad’s inevitable death involves Lukas and Lucy going to an even stronger prophet. One who is, perhaps, even more familiar with the skull rosary that Lucy’s divine mother handed off to her. One who will need a lot of persuasion.
Back to that decade old photo, with teenaged Lukas and Lucy and those three adults in the picture with them.
Lukas and Lucy exchange a glance, then simultaneously, “The ‘Cock Farm.”
A splash page—perhaps these splash pages are also where the chapter titles are—this time of a peacock, its tail fanned out, multiple unblinking eyes, weirdly enough in shades of purple.
The ‘Cock Farm, is actually a peafowl farm in upstate New York. Acres of land absolutely filled and controlled by these loud feathery bastards. A few of them are purple, the largest peacock the most vivid, but otherwise the rest are in black and white.
Somewhere on the property is a house, where the only non peafowl residents should be. Should, because, as Lukas and Lucy approach the house, there appear to be another two invaders.
One, like them, is at the front door. Unlike them, he is dressed like a historically accurate viking. The other is on the roof, she appears to have set up a full campsite, tent and all. She spots Lukas and Lucy from a distance and waves, then turns her back to them and begins to film on her phone. Even when they get to the door, he does not pay them any mind, knocking on the door incessantly.
The largest, most vivid peacock also approaches them. It screams.
Lukas reaches out to push the button for the doorbell.
Before he can connect, the door opens, an older version of the man in that decade ago photograph, he is clearly displeased with the tableau in front of him.
“No,” he says, and closes the door again.
The viking reaches for the weapon on his back. The size and weight of it so great that the rooftop intruder has time to join them on the porch via a tidy backflip.
Lukas holds a hand out to stop the viking from smashing the door in. “I wouldn’t, cousin.” He says, in whichever Scandinavian language we decided this character was from.
The viking shakes off the hand, “You are no kin of mine.” He heaves his weapon up and smashes it into the door.
The viking is blown backwards, somewhat comically, landing amongst the flock of peafowl.
The rooftop intruder, now with a set of lock picks in hand, smiles and says, “Force doesn’t work? Let’s try finesse.”
This time, Lucy is the one to stop her, pointing at the marks above the door. “It’s warded. Lock picks won’t work either. You need an invitation or a key.”
The rooftop intruder hums in disappointment, but defers.
“I haven’t had an open invitation since three years ago,” Lukas admits. At the time, he hadn’t minded it, certain in his opinion, but with memories of his adolescence made fresh, it’s… well…
Lucy smiles a little guilty then reaches for the doorknob.
“Thursday, I have a question about my potential career!” she calls out, pulling the door open. Thursday, the prophet they have come to consult and also Lucy’s mentor in how to lead a mostly human life, freezes in place. “Mainly, how do I have a career if the gods of death have decided to send me on a Quest?”
We called it Successors. No, I called it Successors. I wanted a name for it. A nod to the original game we based it on, blatantly twisting the ending to suit our needs, to act as the prologue for the story we wanted to tell.
You continued to call it what it had been, only calling it Successors the more we fleshed it out together, once we had extracted all we wanted from the others before cutting them off. A behavior I am now familiar with from the wrong side. I didn’t notice. I only wanted to create, a sounding board that would echo back what I wanted to hear. But at least it was someone else’s voice and not my own for hours, performing a solo show weekly because no one else was stepping up.
Ungrateful and selfish. I am embarrassed, now. Don’t know how to reach out, now. Don’t even know if I need to, really, because to do so would mean confessing even more sins and secrets and I don’t think it was be wanted, much less appreciated. A different sort of performance for my own benefit.
Successors was a story made by the two of us, the basis of which was from four of us, and now here I am, once again halving the number of writers just so I can expel it from my mind. Half and half and half again. Zeno’s Paradox, where halving a distance between two points forever means a traveler can never truly reach the other point.
I couldn’t remember the name of it. My mind came up with Occam’s Razor instead, a less complicated concept and too apt for this situation. Because there is no beauty in this math, it is merely a situation of catharsis. I will reach zero. I hope.
—
Chapter One: Death Says Hello
There were two potential starts to this first chapter, depending on if we wanted to provide context for the world or jump straight into exposition. If the latter, the former could be saved as a flashback, perhaps, but given how narratively and visually significant we wanted to keep the flashbacks, it would be out of place as one.
I forget which side I was on, for this. Also, visually, because it was supposed to be a comic, though neither of us could particularly draw well. I at least had some laurels to my name for writing, black box community theater scripts, page to stage productions, but we were so it would be best as a comic — a graphic novel, rather — that I couldn’t imagine it as anything else.
Perhaps one day it will be that, but I’m not wasting my hope on that. Let it flow out however it wants, whatever form gets it to leave me.
The first start was a scene at night. Two attractive young adults, clearly a couple, celebrating something. Clinking of two glasses of something sparkling, the couple smiling brightly at each other, hopeful. She had recently graduated and had a job lined up in her chosen field, mortuary science or forensic pathology. He had arranged to get a week away from The Ranch.
In the background of their celebration, keen eyed readers would notice a group of men trying to chat up a pair of women at the bar. Their advances politely but firmly rejected. The women leave. A few panels later, so do the men.
A panel after that, so do our celebrating couple.
The next page, we see the pair of women walking down the street. We see them from a high vantage point. Watching from the rooftops.
One of the men steps in front of the women, stopping them in their tracks. They try to leave, one of them pulls out their phone. It is snatched from their hands by another one of the men.
No, not men, vampires.
The women run before they are surrounded, not quite realizing it is already too late. They are not escaping, they are being herded to a quiet, dead end.
But our mysterious couple are there to save the day. Him from above, silhouette framed in the round full moon, a handsome figure. Next panel, shifting. Next panel, grotesque. Her from below, cracks in the pavement, rattling debris, concrete and asphalt jutting up in protective shapes.
She guides the women back to well lit sidewalks, offers to walk them home or wherever they may feel safe enough. He stays back to make sure the vampires do not escape, do not find new victims of the night.
Something happens to her before they reunite, nothing scary, nothing noticeable really at the time. He has returned to his human shape by then, shirtless or near enough, the tatters of his former shirt barely hanging on.
Yet another group arrives, even more attractive young adults, to take custody of the incapacitated vampires. They will make sure the local coven deals with them, whatever, that is not the story we want to tell. Or, well, not at this time anyway.
The couple goes home, night not too terribly ruined, still in a fairly good mood with a tasteful fade to black.
The next day is the second option to start.
A close up of Lukas, for that is his name. A close up of a human skull, not a real one, but a pendant of one, in startling burgundy. So far, everything has been in black and white. Why is this pendant in color?
Close up of Lukas, standing dumfounded in the kitchen. Close up of the skull pendant, left on the table.
A black cat jumps in between, blocking his view. Or is it black? Maybe it is a very, very, dark blue.
Nonetheless, Lukas is perturbed.
“Babe?” he calls out, hoping his girlfriend will explain the situation.
She enters the kitchen, hair a mess, heading straight for the coffee maker, eyes barely open.
The very, very dark blue cat twines around her legs affectionately.
She drinks her coffee, cracks her eyes open, and belatedly responds, “Ah. Yeah.”
“Lucy,” says Lukas. How cute, their names match. Artifact from the original game, we didn’t want to change it. “Where did this come from?”
Lucy hums, waking up or pushing for time as she tries to come up with an explanation.
“I saw my mother last night.”
A tiny flashback to the night before, that “something” that happened to her after she escorted those women to a safer place but before she got back to Lukas: a splash page, it would be so expensive in print. A rotting, blue arm stretching out from the shadows, a beaded burgundy necklace dangling from boney, corpse like fingers. A twisted, gothic rosary, with a skull pendant instead of a cross. Prayer beads for a different god.
Lukas glances at a set of framed photographs in their living room. The first is of them and Lucy’s human parents at her graduation, that had been only a few days ago, Lucy’s mom and dad making the trip out for the ceremony, so proud of her.
Obviously, Lucy is not talking about her human mom.
And Lukas recognizes that burgundy skull. It is the same one in another framed photograph from over a decade ago, when Lucy and Lukas first met. The two of them teenagers in silly costumes, with three attractive young adults in varying levels of injury or dishevelment standing behind them. One of them has the same prayer beads coiled around her forearm, the skull resting naturally in the curve of her palm.
Now, Lukas can’t bear to look at the skull on the table in front of him.
“How did your mother get Rose—her—necklace? Why give it to you now?”
Why not sooner? Why not a decade ago, when Lukas would have given anything to have a remnant of her? Why now, when he’s finally feeling settled—no longer a teenager struggling to keep up, sick of being pushed to safety at the expense of those he considered both friends and mentors, an adult who can actually stand up for himself—why now?
Now it is Lucy who looks away in guilt.
“We’ve been given a Quest.”
So much for that relaxing week of freedom away from The Ranch.
My therapist says to write it down. Write it out. Write everything.
Supposedly I have PTSD, though I probably don’t remember the first trauma, I’ll likely have a tendency to be traumatized again. Like a broken bone that heals improperly. No, rather, it’s not that the traumas will accumulate because of the first, but that I just never developed the proper coping methods to deal with it. Insomnia. Shaky memory even for things that aren’t traumas.
I see an acupuncturist every two weeks, too. She says I carry too much tension in my shoulders. She’s never seen someone with shoulders so knotted. I’ve bent a few of her needles. She’s never seen that happen before either.
My therapist says writing will help. To keep track of which meds I’ve taken when and how they affect me. To articulate the things I’ve wanted to say but felt I couldn’t or lost the opportunity and timing to do so. To expel what haunts me, out with the old, in with the new. Let the mistakes of the past go, stop lingering, move on.
When I wrote, before, for fun, I was so prolific. Creativity not used at work, so I had more than enough to spare. Hundreds of words a day spilling forth at midnight, my improper typing posture, fingers at the wrong keys but flying anyway.
I hated my job then. I hated where I lived, too, though I only realize it in hindsight. Staying in my room, afraid to use the common areas. A single shelf in the fridge, a careful balancing act, a jigsaw of my food. I’d startle at noises outside my door, adrenaline spike in the middle of the night, too keyed up to go back to sleep. The rush stays with me for hours, I couldn’t calm down. The back of my hands itching, tingling, numb. Signs of an incoming panic attack, I’d later learn. A normal weekly occurrence, I thought.
Like the headaches creeping behind my left eye, crawling along my skull, back and back and back. If I was lucky, I’d catch it before it completed its journey, a jug of water and a desperate attempt to sleep. Unlucky were the days that I’d wake up with it still there, pulsing and angry.
Or the regular all nighters. At least once a month. Useful when I was a student, less so afterwards. A sobbing, frustrated fifty four hours without sleep with nothing to show for it. Useless, unproductive, inefficient.
Now, for the job I like much better, for the financial security that lets me like where I live, I see a therapist. I want the challenge of puzzling out details at work. I want to have freezer access, a place where I can put ice cream if I wanted to buy some, and not be forced to eat it all before I get home. Though I still don’t use the living room as much as I ought to, curled up in bed with my laptop, improper typing posture.
And so I write. Sleep medication not kicking in just yet. Maybe I’ll get a full eight, though likely a four that I try to stretch futilely into a five, a six, eyes stubbornly shut even as feel my mind starts its engine, racing, rumbling without my say.
If I write it out, transform it, from a bitter memory of a story once sweetly shared into rough sentences that no longer takes up precious space in my already crowded single fridge shelf. One less burden off these knotted, tensed up shoulders.
Goodbye, please. God be with ye, because I no longer am. Because who you were died months ago and who we had been was killed even longer before that. Goodbye, begone, may this catharsis work.
Fake Fic Summaries 35/?, the Schroedinger’s Lost Girl edition (2025-12-30)
Game of Catowls and Houndsnakes
Depending on who you ask, the leader of the Freedom Fighters supposedly died in Ba Sing Se, killed by the Exiled Prince Zuko in the caves far below the city. Sometimes, instead, the leader of the Freedom Fighters is captured instead, in a tortured limbo between dreading execution by the Fire Nation and hoping for reclamation by the Earth Kingdom. Others will say that the leader of the Freedom Fighters attempted to kill the former Fire Lord Ozai the night before Sozin’s Comet returned and died at the hands of the at-the-time Crown Princess Azula.
Depending on who you ask, they will not know who the Freedom Fighters even were, much less care about their leader or their fate, so who cares what anyone else says?
The truth is: there is some fact hidden within all of the rumors, and yet all of them are wrong.
~
I’ve made a fool of myself and because I haven’t properly written anything in years, much less actually finished Iron Will, even further less decided which version (Earth Kingdom!Tetsuki or Fire Nation!Tetsuki) is the real one, the story kind of lived in a nebulous state of — ah, I will get to the ending when I get to it, why would I think of the ending when I haven’t even properly gotten to the middle?
BUT THEN in preparation of the AtLA set coming out in Magic the Gathering (my somewhat new, worryingly expensive habit of choice) I got nostalgic for my Iron Will series and that tangentially led me to buy Stardew Valley and play as Gui on Lotus Haven Farm (as per these posts with loveelemental (https://jacksgreysays.tumblr.com/tagged/stardew%20valley/chrono)) and basically play my own epilogue recursive fanfiction of the fanfiction I haven’t yet even properly written much less finished.
Which in a sort of reverse engineering sort of way, made me figure out how Iron Will HAD to end in order for my interpretation of my Stardew Valley gameplay to make sense as a canonical epilogue.
BUT THEN BUT THEN, I actually purchased my AtLA MTG cards and really want to somehow build a deck that is Iron Will inspired and since I primarily play commander that does limit me which I will explain in a bit, but first:
Okay, so, obviously a Magic The Gathering commander deck is not a narrative game the way Stardew Valley even vaguely is, but for those of you unfamiliar with MTG commander, it’s basically a deck of 100 cards where every card (except for basic lands) has to be unique. The way these 100 cards are chosen/the deck is shaped is based on the commander who determines things like what types of mana you can use and the play style—then the remaining 99 cards generally fall in line/support the commander somehow. In terms of how it might even resemble a narrative is think of it like a dish a chef might make in those competitive cooking shows that are “deconstructed” because it’s just in disparate pieces on the plate, but all the key ingredients are there.
Like that. But sillier. So all the key characters would be the creatures you could cast (creatures here include humans), sorceries, enchantments, and instants could all correspond to certain interactions or scenes or dynamics.
I’m being vague because I haven’t quite started on deck building, but also because basically for an Iron Will inspired MTG commander deck, my options for the commander were basically:
1) June, Bounty Hunter (mono Black mana)
2) Jet, Freedom Fighter (Red and White mana)
3) Fire Lord Azula (Blue, Black, and Red mana)
And, like, don’t get me wrong. Obviously both June and Jet are significant to BOTH EK! AND FN! versions, whereas Azula is only significant to the FN! version. But Azula is WAAAAAAY MORE significant to the FN! version than either June or Jet are to the EK! version. And, like, let’s be honest, of the three, who would Tetsuki CONSIDER being her commander?
Tetsuki’s entire role as an OC in AtLA is based on the fact that she’ll push back against Jet because they have different philosophies for leading the Freedom Fighters. And so much of Iron Will is the absence of June, or the sisters just barely missing each other, or only interacting for a short time because they’re both devoted to their roles/lifestyles than they are to each other. And also, it’s kinda hard to play a mono color commander deck.
Okay, all that being said: in order for a Fire Lord Azula commander deck to make sense as a canonical epilogue, it basically contradicts what happens with Gui in HIS version of the Stardew Valley based epilogue. Which means, yet again, I’ve made TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS of the same NONEXISTENT FIC for extremely silly reasons.
Anyway, here are some vibes:
~
(Winter, Year 0)
Gui left home in the spring, as a boy with foolish ambitions of reckless vengeance, a thin veneer over his yawning, desperate grief.
He returned several winters later, wise enough to know that no amount of vengeance can fix something that grows without end.
The people of his village are surprised to see him alive, even more so with honors from the distant Earth King, the peacemaker Fire Lord, and the Avatar himself. They ask questions about his time away, unknowing or uncaring of how every inquiry just picks at a wound in need of rest.
He is in need of rest.
How convenient, then, that he has apparently inherited a farm from his estranged, deceased grandfather in the distant southern region of Seiro Valley.
…
Day 5 of Spring, Year 1
The farm is a mess. Gui isn’t sure what he was expecting.
Overgrown with weeds, stones everywhere, soil untilled. Thankfully his experience feeding the Freedom Fighters means his foraging skills can earn him some income because he will not be farming anything for a while. The bones of a greenhouse are there, but he doesn’t even have time or energy to think about that.
Perfect.
When he falls asleep at the end of the night, he is exhausted beyond belief, beyond grief.
…
Day 12 of Spring, Year 1
Amane, the woman who owns the ranch to the south, shows up one morning.
There is a familiar houndsnake in her arms.
There is a familiar ringing in Gui’s ears.
She asks Gui what he wants to name it, but he can’t, he can’t, he can’t, it already has a name.
Those black and green scales used to be wrapped around bony shoulders for warmth and affection, hiding in hair nearly as long and dark and sleek.
“Senpai.”
Another loyal creature left behind.
…
Day 17 of Summer, Year 1
He’s beginning to get the rhythm of farming life, maybe. Although, truth be told, fighting monsters in the mines sometimes feels more comfortable than being out in the sun coaxing green things to grow.
Every so often, he’ll try to fulfill a request from one of the members of Garan Village, but it’s hard, sometimes, to remember. He still feels empty, most days. As if It’s easier to just work away at the farm rather than reach out and make connections.
But he knows he has to try.
…
Day 3 of Fall, Year 1
He gets letters, sometimes. Some from members of the Earth King’s court, as if his time there was anything more than a means to an end that utterly failed. Some from his fellow former Freedom Fighters, as stilted on paper as he imagines they would be in person--each faction without their respective leaders and nothing much to unite them, what with the war over.
He much rather likes the letters from the people of Garan Village, bewildered as he is by them still.
He thinks he could make a home here.
…
Day 26 of Fall, Year 1
He has two chickens now.
He thinks she would laugh.
The thought of her doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it would have months ago
…
Day 28 of Winter, Year 1
A year has passed. The farm is still a work in progress—nowhere near to its former glory according to the elders of Garan Village—but its on its way.
He's using the starkness of the season to reorganize, restructure. It’s almost gratifying to have this window of emptiness to breathe, to plan, to think.
Almost.
That night Gui finds Senpai curled up on the other side of the bed. The first time since his arrival, even though the temperature dropped long ago. He is not in search of warmth, but rather solidarity.
And it hits Gui all over again that she’s really, truly gone, the grief overflowing, growing wild beyond what he can control.
He places a careful hand on Senpai’s head and goes to sleep.
He dreams of an unattainable spring day where she sits across from him in the haven he built on this sun-drenched, soil-rich farm.
~
Basically, in actually (finally!) playing the Stardew Valley, I realized that 1) I as a player am way less nice than Gui the character, so in order for his/my minimal interactions with the townspeople to make sense, he’s probably full on grieving Tetsuki, not just building a safe place for her to retreat to, and doesn’t have the empathy to spare to make new connections, at least early on.
BUT ALSO! It asks what your Favorite Thing is during character creation and I put Iron Will and whenever you eat the Stardrop it says things like “Your mind is filled with thoughts of [Favorite Thing]” and I just about wept. And it really was that scene of the last night of the first year with the dog because that ACTUALLY HAPPENED and it felt too real to not be true.
Now, there was the Gui / Stardew Valley based epilogue. Here’s the Azula / Magic the Gathering based epilogue:
~
“I should be Fire Lord,” said Azula.
Tetsuki agreed.
But, perhaps, a bit more clarification would have helped.
What Azula meant was: “I should be Fire Lord.” Not Zuko.
And, again, Tetsuki would have agreed to that as well.
But what Tetsuki heard—or maybe what Tetsuki hoped Azula meant—was: “I should be Fire Lord.” Not Ozai.
…
“Take her to the Boiling Rock,” said Azula.
The guards looked from the crown princess—no, she was the Fire Lord now, there were no other options—then looked at each other, then at the near corpse that remained of the former Fire Lord’s assassin.
It would be easier to put her out of her misery now than figure out the logistics of how to bring such a horrendously injured prisoner on such an arduous journey only for her to get hurt or infected along the way and inevitably die anyways. And even if she did get to the Boiling Rock in one piece, it wasn’t the Fire Nation’s most notorious prison for no reason.
“Alive,” said Azula, sensing their hesitation, an edge in her tone clearly denoting her displeasure.
The guards jumped to attention, grabbed the prisoner—ignoring her pained groans even in her unconscious state—and bowed.
“I’ll deal with her later,” said Azula, before the guards left.
The will of the Fire Lord be done.
…
Azula the Peacemaker.
How ironic.
Don’t be mistaken, the moniker wasn’t for altruistic reasons, merely practical:
Azula, as a mere teenaged princess, had done more for expanding the Fire Nation’s borders in her one year of travel than her father had in the entirety of his reign as Fire Lord. Then, when she had so dutifully handed over the new territories to his administration, he failed to keep hold of them.
Clearly, her first act as Fire Lord had to be to ever so graciously end the war—even though Sozin’s Comet would have made it all too easy for her to expand the Fire Nation further—and burn away the weakness and incompetence her father had let fester in his court.
And just because that’s the line that satisfied both the protesting rabbit-doves and the complaining dragon-hawks didn’t necessarily make it propaganda.
Yes, her brother accused her of always lying, but Azula knew the value of truth. Any tool to achieve victory, because Azula always wins.
…
Later took years.
In that time, Fire Lord Azula pardoned the former princes Iroh and Zuko for their acts of treason. Only Prince Zuko was reinstated into the Fire Nation royal family with the caveat that while he could never claim the throne of the Fire Lord, his descendants would be eligible heirs should Fire Lord Azula never bear any of her own. However, Iroh was exiled from the Fire Nation in its totality, the archipelago through to the demilitarized holdings in the northwest continent—he went on to run an extremely popular tea shop in the Earth Kingdom which seemed to make him happier anyway.
Then, with her more internationally tolerated, if not welcomed, brother acting as her ambassador, she achieved the following:
Signed a peace treaty with three of the lower Earth monarchs, and the upper Earth King — generous on her part considering, again, she had successfully infiltrated and toppled the government of Ba Sing Se as a mere side effect of an entirely different objective — and began the trade of prisoners of war.
Ceasefires with chiefs of the Northern and Southern Water Tribes with steps toward peace treaties once settlements were agreed upon. The back and forth was endless, but Fire Lord Azula had a lead that perhaps a certain former commander of the Sea Ravens who had committed excessive acts of violence would be of interest to Chief Hakoda.
Revoked the bounty on Avatar Aang, a cruel and foolish misstep by her predecessor of course, because was the Fire Nation not also part of the cycle? Was she not also a grandchild of Avatar Roku?
And as a way to emphasize the fresher, stronger, more unified direction of the Fire Nation, presided over the royal wedding between Prince Zuko and one of her dearest friends, Mai of the Yang family.
…
With the world distracted by the royal wedding, Azula discretely traveled to the Boiling Rock.
“Where is the prisoner who assassinated my father?” asked Azula.
“Dead,” answered the warden.
Later took too long.
“She died years ago, almost immediately after her arrival,” he continued, confused but obedient in the face of her displeased glare.
“Almost immediately,” repeated Azula in consideration.
“Maybe some kind of disease?” Scrambling, the warden pulled out a scroll journaling the year in question. “There were a lot of dead elephant rats found in that wing, and the only other prisoner in that wing also died the day after. Although that could have also been from old age.”
“What happened to the bodies?”
“We usually just—well, you know,” he glanced toward the vast ocean surrounding the prison. “And with a potential disease we probably didn’t want to risk an epidemic, so…”
“There seems to be quite a bit of uncertainty in your voice, warden,” said Azula, reproachfully, but her mind was already elsewhere, racing, turning over clues, on the hunt.
It couldn’t be too late, couldn’t be over, she knew Tetsuki better than that. A clever escape, with a decrepit criminal water bender’s help.
The several years head start would be tricky, but no matter: Azula always wins.
~
A/N: And then Azula goes on a life-changing field trip, potentially featuring Zuko who is—despite marital bliss—actually concerned about his little sister, the Fire Lord, until she makes his go back home to act as regent with Mai because she can’t have him slowing her down. And then if we go by my MTG deck, she stumbles on Wan Shi Tong’s library, MAYBE ends up in the spirit world, MAYBE finds “the other side of the world” which isn’t empty ocean OR a wasteland, but in fact a land full of magic some of whom are wizards and VERY willing to help this pyromancer out for a price.
Is Tetsuki actually alive or is Azula experiencing a break from reality? I’m not sure, actually. There’s very likely some Foggy Swamp vision nonsense and if Azula DOES end up in the spirit world there’s probably some Koh the Face Stealer shenanigans which does not help the matter.
Anyway, happy end of 2025 to everyone. Best of luck to us all in 2026 :D
Hey, I'm going through your character stat charts for DoS characters - mainly to see where my own OCs would fall in comparison - and wondered what category is "Special". In the databooks and narutopedia that slot is for Handseals which is fairly straight forward but Special is a bit more vague. Is it character/clan specific techniques (sharingan, sealing, kyuubi, healing) or something else?
Those were a lot of fun to make for sure, so I'm glad they're still relevant!
Yes, when I looked at the original narutopedia stats, I thought handseals was a weird thing to include because I feel like expertise at handseals doesn't necessarily make you a better shinobi? Because you've either mastered the jutsu to the point where you don't need handseals (ie, going off the theory that handseals and yelling the name is a focusing technique for less experienced shinobi) or you're doing techniques that don't need any at all--as you said--either sealing, or a bloodline limit, or a jinchuuriki thing, or a partnership with either summons or Inuzuka ninken or the Aburame kikaichu.
For something like healing I think I largely split the load of that across intelligence and ninjutsu, unless it was something extremely rare or near impossible to do to the point where it is in excess of intelligence or ninjutsu -- so some of Tsunade's or Kabuto's medical abilities I would translate as points in Special instead.
I've uploaded my original .xlsx file if you wanted to download and modify it for your own use.
My roommate is rewatching so they understand what’s happening in the last two episodes and they are on the gold beard crew episode and I need a rowdyheart pocket watch baby I had the thought when I first watched and my roommate reminded me while they watched
Pocket watch AND the bell that resonates with the hibernating Aganti Zernai that through the befrumplements of time made it specifically into Maxwell Gotch's hands?
Fake Fic Summaries 34/?, the Nostalgia Fusion edition (2025-10-13)
(hopes and dreams and the shadowed things beneath)
If Darby ever slows down enough to think about it, she would have to admit that their mother probably didn’t mean to endanger their lives out of greed. It wasn’t ambition, or a lack of shame, or even stupidity that led to the situation. Unfortunately it may have been due to sentimentality, of all things, which Darby almost considers even more frustrating.
Because their mother, despite her profession, had been educated enough to name her twins Deer and Nobility — as blatant a declaration of Baratheon bastards as could be — but she had lacked the foresight to know that doing so would spell Darby and Gendry’s doom.
And if Darby slows down even further, lets herself acknowledge the shadowy part of her mind, then she’d have to admit its a little bit funny how she has been reborn as the a secondary character’s twin sister named deer girl not just once, but twice.
~
Kinda long for summary, mostly because I was rereading some of my old stuff in a sort of narcissistic / nostalgic fit because I don’t understand how I was so prolific before and I yearn to write again. So I attempted to write a thing for Minor Miracles (my A Song of Ice and Fire SI!OC anthology) and then realized that, oh no, I accidentally just copy and pasted Shikako Nara. BUT THEN I realized that, well, technically, this also could meet the criteria for an addition to Hail To The Queen (my Shikako becomes Hokage or the real power behind Hokage or sometimes literally queen?) since if I just leaned into Darby being Shikako again, then her being one of Robert Baratheon’s bastards would put her PRETTY CLOSE to the action in the, you know, titular game of thrones.
Unfortunately, once I had the realization I could do that, I then got paralyzed in the TOO MANY paths this premise could take. Like, how powerful would I want her to be? Does she only have memories or does she have any holdovers from the Naruto world whether that be chakra or Gelel-given abilities or the Westeros nearest equivalent. And then there’s the whole Lord of Light / Brotherhood of Banners things and given the whole Nara shadows thing, does that put her at odds with them?
Or are Darby and Gendry, like the Starks, split up for the majority of the timeline and trying to get back to each other / fearing the other has already been killed and grieving before reuniting after being thoroughly but separately traumatized?
Anyway, I mostly wanted to get at least this much of a brainstorm typed out so that I can refer back to it in the future.
Some backstory info/your inspiration/or what drove you to writing Mountain To No One?
Also, why that title specifically?
Gimme some TNE crumbs here.
I have been really patient in waiting for chapter 3 y'know... 🥲
okokok I have been WAITING for an ask like this
warnings!!! Spoilers! For the end of The Novel's extra and stuff under the cut! also i yap. SOOOOO much. (+bonus drawings to beg for ur forgiveness TT)
so backstory? I finished the novel and lost my fucking mind at the ending. I was GUTTED that such a small group of people remembered Hajin and that Suho wasn't one of them despite LITERALLY FINDING OUT HIS WORLD IS A NOVEL AND HAJIN IS GOD !!! like that is canon! and yet! he doesn't get to remember him! i felt wronged.
My inspiration hit me in the middle of the night in which i wrote two simple sentences before falling asleep.
There's a number on his smartwatch that leads to nowhere. Suho's gotten in the habit of texting it throughout his day.
Today, it texted back.
"k1ng, isn't that just the description of MTN?" why yes, yes it is. because i was NOT gonna make a new summary when the original inspiration worked so well
And for what drove me to actually continue writing it when I had (literally) a dozen other ideas for TNE fanfics?
Not sure, actually. I just kinda got inspired, wrote another hundred words and it sort of grew from there. Then i had to make a outline for what I wanted from the story and the ORIGINAL plan was for 2-3 chapters in total of a quick, sweet reunion.
Then I wrote 7k words for the first chapter and 14k for the second. You can see where that went down the drain.
So, to summarize, 1) Finished the novel, hated the ending. 2) Wrote a prompt I ended up liking. 3) Got WAY too deep into it to stop
The title... the title... well originally the title was Mountain to Nowhere. Super similar to Mountain to No One, right? WRONG. Mountain to Nowhere was just a name that sounded nice, felt vaguely interesting and was easy to remember (it's also why i shorthand it to MtN instead of MtNO, it's what i called it in the drafting phase).
Mountain to No One, though, that's different. It doesn't roll off the tongue as easily, implies something FAR different than 'nowhere' and honestly felt more meaningful to me.
I might sound pretentious (if I haven't already) but when I write 'No One', I think of it like the myth of Odysseus. He used the name Outis (Nobody or No One) so i just kinda nabbed it, figuring someone might make the connection one day. I fr thought, "Oh i am COOKING" because i did basic comparisons between two morally ambiguous heroes with hidden identities and (questionably) good intentions. Kim Hajin and Odysseus. but i mean, i wasn't wrong. i was kinda cooking with that one
So 'No One' refers to Kim Hajin. The title essentially means 'Mountain to Kim Hajin' which is why it felt more meaningful than 'mountain to nowhere' which did NOT have that background when i thought it up
IM SO SORRY IT'S BEEN 7 MONTHS. i know, i know. seven months! IM SORRY. im also sorry for yapping. but im offering a few drawings as repayment and this week im officially posting teasers for the new chapter (which should go out by halloween! (hopefully)) so i hope u forgive me anon
Oooh! I love the explanation of the title being Odysseus' No One.
I thought it was a reference to that one "If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain" quote combined with Kim Hajin being "No One" since he basically got censored/erased from the world.
But Kim Hajin being Odysseus -- one of the few Greek heroes whose trait wasn't about physical prowess or being the son of whatever god related -- is VERY fascinating to me :D
some additional lighter(-ish) additions to the bleak!primadonna AU (but still with some politics sprinkled in), mostly based on this post
~
Primadonna Girl (fills the void up with celluloid)
~
Shikadai is excited to go to the Fire Temple with Uncle Kino, he is. He has been looking forward to this trip for weeks, he swears. He really, really does want to meet Kako Heijo for no particular reason, honest.
“Are you okay?” says Kaji-senpai, pale eyes doing a cursory sweep of the area then a closer once over of Shikadai’s person.
Shikadai’s face is on fire.
“There’s nothing to be worried about.”
Chouchou is never going to let him live this down.
“Is this your first time outside of Konoha?”
Shikadai shakes himself internally—he can’t let Kaji-senpai think he’s some kind of scared loser who’s never left the village before!—and barely pushes out, “Ah, no, I’ve been to some of the outer Nara farms but not, I mean, never to the Fire Temple? I’m mostly wondering, uh, what are you doing here, senpai?”
“Escort mission,” Kaji-senpai answers simply, blinking … his eyelashes are so long.
Shikadai laughs nervously before getting a grip. Escort mission, duh, Shikadai is so dumb. Shikadai’s face is beyond fire, it’s lava. He is going to earth walk into the molten center of the planet. Chouchou can never find out
Further ahead in the caravan, Mimi-senpai and her ninken Momomaru turn to look back, heads tilted in curiosity.
“Oh, is this, like, a regular mission for you--and your team, of course--I mean, obviously, your team is specialized for these kinds of missions, but, um, this specific escort mission? Does your team usually get assigned this one regularly?”
Even from their distance, Mimi-senpai and Momomaru share a look; Chouchou’s definitely going to find out.
Kaji-senpai’s expression doesn’t say that he thinks Shikadai is dumb, but that could just be part of Hyuuga clan training. How to maintain an aura of grace when confronted with a clumsy idiot.
“Not this one, no. The journey between Konoha and the Fire Temple doesn’t usually need an additional escort, but this time there’s a VIP,” he says, before dipping his head.
Intrigued, Shikadai looks around them at the other members of the caravan. It’s mostly civilians, but there are a few other shinobi—mostly genin and chuunin who specialize in administration, some from the Medic Corps; one of them is from the Akimichi clan who waves at the attention to which Shikadai politely nods back—including Ori-senpai, setting up his gear on one of the vehicles, and their jounin-sensei chatting with Uncle Kino. As acting clan head, Uncle Kino is important, but he goes on this trip all the time and he’s a jounin himself. Shikadai doesn’t see anyone else who would be so important as to require adding a jounin led team to an otherwise normal journey.
“Who is it?” Maybe they’re in disguise?
The corner of Kaji-senpai’s mouth—not that Shikadai is paying special attention to his mouth or anything!—twitches upward, before smoothing back down. He blinks, again, and answers simply, again.
“It’s you.”
Shikadai is going to launch himself into the sun. Chouchou will hold this over his head for the rest of their lives.
—
Mimi and Momo, in addition to being the cutest members of the Inuzuka clan, also have the sharpest ears. They can hear everything around them: things that are aimed at them, things that aren’t, and things that haven’t been said at all. The last is, perhaps, the most important.
Because it’s very interesting how often Chiyako-sensei and acting clan head Kinokawa Nara talk during the trip from Konoha to the Fire Temple. They have at least one conversation for each day of their travels which could easily be attributed to the fact that technically Team Nine only has this mission because Shikadai Nara is his heir and not yet graduated from the Academy, and so, in a way, Kinokawa Nara is their client. Except the contents of their conversations have nothing to do with the mission. They may as well be what’s in Momo’s grooming brush: useless fluff that can’t do any harm.
Except, in the other direction, if this mission were so unimportant, why would Chiyako-sensei have specifically requested it?
A/N: I’m desktop “spring cleaning” of sorts so this isn’t as complete as I imagine I was originally going for but it’s been months (possibly over a year?) since I started this ficlet and while I did make a few notes for myself (see under the cut) on what I was supposed to be aiming for I largely forgot the details/vibe I was going to go with.
Notes about what I was trying to do with this, honestly maybe I’ll come back to it at some point?
Largely based on this particular brainstorm post
Team Nine (Chiyako-sensei, Mimi Inuzuka, Kaji Hyuuga, and Ori Kurama) escorting Kinokawa and Shikadai to the Fire Temple for the first meeting.
Getting into the clan politics of the Aburame, Inuzuka, and Branch vs Main Hyuuga.
Plus bonus Ori getting into minor clan’s POV of the situation? If he bothers to focus.
… because Shikadai doesn’t necessarily have to become clan head. Kinokawa is running it just fine and is young enough that he won’t have to hand it over for a while. If Shikadai goes directly to Hokage before he becomes clan head, then it may very well exclude him from being clan head (until he retires) or he may abdicate and so Kinokawa’s line becomes the “new” clan head line.
Unless the Nara are also weirdly primogeniture and want Shikako to donate genetic material so that technically as she was also born first (twins with Shikamaru) her first child will be the clan heir… type of thing… I don’t know anymore
(Although speaking of the external conception/gestation machines. I’ve decided that the Hana and Kaori’s kids are, in this order: Manako (previously mentioned meaning eyeball, from the first batch of HaraNaru children, eldest daughter, clan heiress, did not join a jounin-led team), then Kyou (meaning cheek/jaw, middle child, training to be a vet medic, did not join a jounin-led team), then Mimi (meaning ear, youngest child, wants to be Hokage and so put on Team Chiyako))
A/N: OKAY BUT WHAT IF INSTEAD OF WHAT I RAMBLED ON ABOUT IN THIS POST, I DID THIS INSTEAD.
Suho bites back a yawn, managing to disguise it as a clenched jaw and a heavy breath through his nose. He keeps his eyes open, but just barely, the duration of his blinks stretching longer and longer.
This meeting is so boring. There’s a reason why he keeps pushing back against Seungah-ssi’s recommendation to become Vice Captain of the guild. He’d rather be out in the field where he can do the most good, where his talents are actually useful, than trapped indoors listening to people debate about resource allocation and personnel management.
Suho thinks he’s managed to hide his sleepiness entirely, almost impressed with himself, until he feels a sharp kick under the table from Yeonghan.
“… what do you think, Suho?” asks Seungah, a layer of impatience woven into her tone such that even Suho can realize she’s annoyed: she must have already asked him this, and only Yeonghan’s intervention has allowed him to save even this much face.
Unfortunately, Suho has no idea what she is asking him.
“What do I think?” he says, to buy time, to search his mind at all if any part of him subconsciously listened to what was being said and what she may want to hear from him. Is this about past mission? A future mission? Was this even about any mission? For all he knows this might be about a networking event or this year’s Cube interns or, hell, it could be about what’s for lunch today.
He has nothing.
“Whatever Seungah-ssi thinks is best,” he defers instead, because he doesn’t want to admit he wasn’t paying attention.
It’s vague enough to satisfy her, or at least she doesn’t call him out on it, and the conversation moves away from whatever that was, most eyes off him.
Except for Yeonghan who watches him all the way until the end.
Their fellow guild members disperse quickly enough, even Seungah-ssi dashing off to her next meeting, until it’s only Suho and Yeonghan left in the conference room.
Yeonghan elbows him companionably, a familiar gesture reflective of their long friendship. Even with Yeonghan’s strength developed beyond what it was as a Cube cadet, Suho should have been fine.
But he is so tired.
Suho stumbles face first into the wall.
“Whoa! Suho! Are you okay?” Yeonghan immediately goes to help him, but Suho waves him off.
“I’m good, Yeonghan, no worries. I’m not hurt.”
That mild reassurance does not work, Yeonghan’s expression clearly one of confusion and concern. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Suho says, until he is interrupted by another yawn—because it is Yeonghan, he doesn’t try to disguise it, only politely hides it behind his hand until it’s done—his jaw cracks, a tear has gathered in the corner of each eye, and it takes him a while to shake it off enough to confess.
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
—
Normally, Suho doesn’t remember his dreams.
He assumes he has them, like everyone does. He knows he has nightmares, at least—occasionally he’ll startle awake with a gasp or in a cold sweat—but even those fearful thoughts dissipate quickly from his conscious mind.
Usually when he sleeps it’s just a peaceful void, and he wakes rested and ready to take on the day.
Just not lately.
His dreams, if that is what they are, start in the same way: nearly indistinguishable from real life. He is in his apartment, it is dark and quiet but not too much that he cannot still see or hear, his senses so sharp. He thinks he is getting up—maybe to get a drink of water from the kitchen?—except he notices another presence in his apartment. And then he sees him:
Himself, far younger, the age of a first year Cube cadet. In the beginning, the younger version of himself is simply neutral, looking around the space in curiosity.
Suho, even within this dream, is still somehow too tired to bother with much more than just watching.
His default expression has always been a slight smile, so Suho knows something is wrong when it fades on his younger self then entirely disappears once he makes a full circuit of the apartment. His exploration towards the end less casual, more desperate.
“Where are they?”
Before he can respond to his younger self’s question, he wakes up.
What was he searching for?
A/N: Also, lol, not me writing something for the first time in forever because the manhwa has really been giving me absolutely nothing to the point where I may have to drop canon entirely and only live in the FoA (Flowers of Agápē by DescendedGaia) fanon the way I do with DoS (Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen) versus Naruto canon.
Also, I know it says Prologue but I honestly don't know if I'm going to go any further with this
Have you seen one of these dipshits? If you post regularly on ao3, chances are YES, but more likely you didn't notice nor suspect it was a bot. Sometimes they start off nice, or even praise you before getting nasty out of nowhere, like so:
But much like Grok, their newest obsession is nazism.
I don't know where they come from, or what purpose this could possibly serve other than suicidebaiting random people in the internet, I guess; but apparently they've started parroting names from real users to send these comments and shifting their general length to go by undetected. Maybe those are scrappers trying to train 'reviewbots' to be sold as part of some scam service promising to give feedback for newbie writers, who the fuck knows.
Here are more examples of the tone and backhanded compliments you can find in these:
If you regularly post on AO3 or interact with writers in it, please pass this along so they don't feel insane receiving bombs in their inbox. This is ridiculous.
This, along with preventing generative AI from using my work without my permission, is part of the reason why I have my fic as viewable only by registered users.
You can also -- if you're concerned about limiting your audience too much -- make it so that only registered users can comment so that guests can still read your fic but not comment.
What would be the most crack crossover for Dreaming of Sunshine?
I mean, our disbelief is well and truly suspended on the mystical action and magic jutsu part. (I mean, it's Naruto. Talking pet animals, secret underground fighting ring, having radios but somehow still traveling largely by cart across unfinished roads.) Shikako could probably do just about anything with the power of math and seals, (i.e. Shikabane-hime and all the situations we've put her in.) DOS also does slice of life/contemporary fiction really well. (i.e. the Kunoichi club, workplace comedy in Intel with Aoba, realistic family drama with the Naras.)
One of the great things DOS does is explain why things are the way that they are. We see Shikako learn and struggle alongside her peers. She feels like a real person, with real problems. (Have to get myself and my friends strong enough to fight Madara and the Akatsuki when they come for the Tailed Beasts. Can't let Danzo find out. Not strong enough or smart enough to figure out the perfect plan to save the Uchihas by myself.)
Literally anywhere you pop the cast of DOS in, they either find the good in the world and beat the stuffing out of the bad guys, or they make friends through the power of kindness, blowing people's minds, and being insane.
So what would be the most crack crossover to yeet Shikako and co. into?
Like an actual crossover as in they are the same people with the same background and abilities or would they adapt into the universe if it were a fusion style?
Because if taken as is, I imagine the most crack crossover would be, like, The Bear or Abbott Elementary where their extremely powerful abilities/fighting prowess doesn't really matter? Something set in our extremely mundane world, but in a hyper niche industry/part of it.
It's about as fish out of water as you can put specifically Shikako in, since I imagine she's the reason they're in the other universe to begin with.
Fake Fic Summaries 33/?, the Enter Author Number Four edition
Okay, okay, okay, yes it HAS been over a year since I’ve written and this is still not a fic so much as yet another rambling outline-y not!fic that I’ll probably never write properly due to my crippling perfectionism, BUT!!! This particular plot bunny has turned into one of those massive Flemish Giant rabbits that it’s preventing me from thinking about anything else, so thus I present:
plum blossoms pressed between poetry
Within their newly made family of three, no one has lied…
… and yet misunderstandings abound.
Or, in which Evandel earnestly struggles with verb tenses and differentiating between dreams and memories; Hajin honestly tries to balance how much logic and loneliness rule his life; and Suho legitimately thinks his future self might be a neglectful, absentee, workaholic father and husband (if even that lucky!)
Hello, it’s recursive fic (or rather, extremely long outline for a fic) for Flowers of Agápē by DescendedGaia (@descendedgaia) a fanfiction of the Korean webnovel The Novel’s Extra (although I have currently only read the manhwa)
Brace yourselves, this is a long one and I'm rusty so you know I've gone off track multiple times.
I love this fic so much, it is so sweet but also does address a lot of the issues in the original canon that makes it better without being entirely salt (although a little salt is good because GODDAMN CHAE NAYUN has been getting shoved in the manhwa readers’ faces as a love interest and it’s just like… there are SO MANY other characters I would rather have 1) end up with Kim Hajin and even 2) get that “screen time” instead of CHAE NAYUN?!??!!)
But I digress.
The main difference in Flowers of Agápē (will be referred to as FoA onwards) from canon is that Kim Hajin isn’t as emotionally detached so which is SO LOVELY (and honestly, it would only make sense that canon Kim Hajin has from the start disassociated to such a degree just to mentally protect himself from what he knows is death or at least 10 years of danger and violence because the Kim Hajin that we see acting in the world of the novel does not match up to the IRL Kim Hajin who as an adult cried in public and was comforted by his parents. DOES NOT MATCH UNLESS SOMETHING IS SEVERELY WRONG)
I’M SORRY I KEEP DIGRESSING
Basically, Kim Hajin is more emotionally mature?—hm… maybe just emotional? … Emotive?—such that he is a much better father figure to Evandel (as opposed to the frequent out of sight out of mind “parenting style” that was shown in the manhwa)
And also, instead of Rachel’s blood, Kim Hajin used Kim Suho’s blood.
… I’m realizing how little of this will make sense unless you’ve read at least The Novel’s Extra (TNE) but also may still require FoA reading…
Let me try again, again:
Kim Hajin wrote but did not complete a novel in which his Protagonist Kim Suho is seemingly kind of perfect in the way that protagonists are when they have a lot of spotlight and pressure on them. Some entity called the Co-Author asks if they can remake/finish Kim Hajin’s novel to which he agrees because I think IRL he’s depressed and/or super stressed and does not have time to think about the novel that he wrote as a hobby/in his spare time.
In FoA there is also an entity called the Deviant Author who asks if they can write fanfiction based on his novel, to which Kim Hajin also agrees because why wouldn’t he?
(And then there’s me, Author Number Four, aka the Recursive Author so far removed from Kim Hajin but I found the idea funny enough that I named this post after it)
AH DIGRESSING!
Anyway, the Co-Author somehow pulls Kim Hajin into the world of the novel that he wrote so that he is 1) a teenager, 2) a student of the Cube which is an international (but mostly Korean) academy that essentially teaches super-powered youths to fight the supernatural threats in a typical dungeon break setting, and 3) makes things a LOT HARDER AND MORE DANGEROUS because it’s “more interesting.” In FoA the Deviant Author pushes back as much as they can—but it kind of seems like the Co-Author has more authority? Possibly based on the initial permissions Kim Hajin gave them in the set up chapter.
In both the original novel that Kim Hajin wrote and the actual The Novel’s Extra canon, there is a “monster” (ie non human being from a dungeon) named Evandel that is originally the “Witch of Despair/Curses” who, uh, yeah Kim Hajin does “kill” in order to “reset” her back to a seed. Then the seed needs blood and mana to grow back into a humanoid witch again. In canon, Kim Hajin does remark that ideally he would use EITHER Kim Suho OR Rachel’s (another student, super love what FoA does with her character) and goes with Rachel’s because it’s hard to get someone’s blood without being a creep and the opportunity is there because she’s injured and I think he lends her his handkerchief and then belatedly realizes, like, when he’s about to do laundry or something that oh shit he has the blood of one of the two candidates how convenient.
In FoA, a similar blood acquisition opportunity happens but this time with Kim Suho instead and so this Evandel looks like a HajinxSuho mix instead of a mini Rachel clone. And then also because Hajin is more emotive and talks to Evandel even in her seed form and because the Deviant Author is there and lovely she become the “Witch of Dreams” instead of the “Witch of Despair/Curses.” Kim Hajin thinks it’s because of Kim Suho’s Good Boy Protagonist Blood, it’s actually because of Kim Hajin’s Good Parenting. And because she’s the Witch of Dreams instead of the Witch of Curses (and because FoA is very good about expanding on characters who really did not get enough screentime) she could kind of dream the memories of both of her parents while she was growing from seed form.
In FoA, Kim Suho shows up almost immediately after Evandel first corporates her human form and then SHE immediately spills the beans about Hajin being “Appa” and Suho being “Papa” so then Hajin likewise has to come clean about, you know, this is sort of our daughter that I made with your blood without your consent sorry, my bad, uhhhhh. BUT because this is fanfic and because Kim Suho was already pretty infatuated with Kim Hajin instead of being, you know, freaked out or something rational like that, I’m guessing in Kim Suho’s brain it went sort of like “Kim Hajin baby trapped himself to me? I’m going to be the Best Father and Husband.” And then after that, in terms of domestic cohesion, pretty smooth sailing all things considered.
ALL OF THIS TO SAY! I just really can’t stop thinking about a divergence recursive of FoA starting from Chapter XXIX (or maybe even the end of Chapter XXVIII) in which things take just a SLIGHT turn from “we are all on the same page in regard to being a surprisingly wholesome family comprised of teen parents (not currently in a romantic relationship) and their witch daughter” to “we are all somehow in entirely different genres while still being a surprisingly wholesome family comprised of teen parents (not currently in a romantic relationship) and their witch daughter.”
For the most part Evandel’s experience is the same as FoA canon in that she is being cherished and cared for by her teen parents (not currently in a romantic relationship) but there are some conversations that she has with Kim Suho in which she is saying the truth as she understands it, but Kim Suho is interpreting SO HILARIOUSLY incorrectly. I will get to that in a bit.
Kim Hajin, in contrast, would need to be a LITTLE less communicative with Kim Suho—or, at least, less VERBALLY communicative—which I will attribute guilt/embarrassment (which still abides by FoA’s premise that Kim Hajin is more emotionally driven than TNE canon). So he doesn’t tell Kim Suho immediately that Evandel is a witch made out of Kim Hajin’s mana and Kim Suho’s blood, but he can’t exactly deny that they are her parents when she so blatantly calls them Appa and Papa so he says a lot of, hm, easily misinterpreted “reassurances.” Like, for example: “She’s my responsibility, you don’t need to be involved. You’re probably busy with other things anyway.” And also, timing wise, I think I would want him to have at least a few days of taking care of Evandel by himself before Kim Suho discovers her existence.
And then, where MY fun begins (because I LOVE silly convoluted pining) is that Kim Suho truly just misinterprets the situation based on not ENTIRELY wrong inferences about Kim Hajin’s abilities and Evandel’s description of her “early childhood” which only consists of a few days of Kim Hajin single parenting, but Kim Suho doesn’t know that.
Basically: Kim Suho thinks that Evandel is their actual daughter from the future. Because he knows that Kim Hajin’s abilities include knowing the future and also being able to do time shenanigans. And he’s not wrong, really—Bullet Time does freeze time, and Kim Hajin does know A VERSION of A FUTURE (ie the version that he originally wrote before the Co-Author and Deviant Author got involved)—but Kim Suho may think that future!Kim Hajin can do actual time travel at least enough to send their child from the future to the present and that through clairvoyance present!Kim Hajin knows enough about the future situation to have accepted responsibility.
And Kim Suho would LOVE to step up in a similar manner. But he’s up against Kim Hajin’s previously mentioned guilt/embarrassment as well as… hm… Evandel’s honest but not necessarily the most accurate statements. For example, as she was growing in seed form she saw both of her parents’ pasts. And in my slightly tweaked canon, she had a few days of single parenting from Kim Hajin before Kim Suho stumble onto the scene. All this to say, she may say things like “When Appa was bigger, he was sad a lot,” (Kim Hajin IRL was an adult with depression) or “It’s nice that Papa can join us now! Before it was just Appa and me,” or “Appa said that Papa is his favorite hero, the strongest in the world!” etc. etc.
All completely true statements from her point of view, but which may then convince Kim Suho that oh no, future!Kim Suho was clearly a neglectful, absentee, workaholic husband and father. So now present!Kim Suho is like—wait, I can do better. I’ll be such a good father and boyfriend (please please please) now and I won’t make the same mistakes as that other future version of me that’s an idiot, I can fix this.
And then if we want to add a dash more angst into this, we can have Kim Hajin saying something—again, similarly to Evandel’s statements, not entirely wrong but not necessarily applicable to this new version of the universe—in reference to the original novel’s canon in which Kim Suho ends up with Yun Seungah (which I’M still kinda ugh by, because as far as SHE knows, Kim Suho is a normal, if very powerful 16 year old boy and she’s fully an adult woman and leader of the strongest guild in Korea(/the world?) and then also his future boss? That's pretty fucked up Yun Seungah)
Anyway, that reference then sends Kim Suho into another tailspin because it’s like. NOT ONLY was future!Kim Suho a neglectful, absentee, workaholic husband and father, he CHEATED on Kim Hajin?!?!?!?!?! Present!Kim Suho is going to somehow jump into the future to kick future!Kim Suho’s ass. But also! No wonder why present!Kim Suho’s efforts to woo Kim Hajin into being his boyfriend (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) aren’t working if Kim Hajin’s had his heart broken before.
Then, if we need to ease off of Kim Suho’s self flagellation, we could have Kim Hajin (attempt to) clarify the situation by informing him that they were never together. That Evandel is only biologically Kim Suho’s. And more easily misconstrued but true statements from Kim Hajin like “even though it was a surprise to see you that night, you treated me well,” and that he’s “sorry for using that night as an opportunity” and "not asking for Kim Suho’s consent in contributing to Evandel," etc. etc.
Now, Kim Hajin is referring to Chapter XIV, aka when Kim Hajin and Kim Suho first encounter the djinn Yoon Hyun, but depending on how much we want to string Kim Suho along in his internal suffering he may interpret it as: they had a one night stand which somehow got Kim Hajin pregnant (maybe not actually, but here’s looking at DescendedGaia’s extremely sexy omegaverse mpreg series) and then future!Kim Suho FAILED TO FOLLOW UP? LET THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE DISAPPEAR? SETTLED FOR YUN SEUNGAH INSTEAD?
Basically, all of the same domestic cohesion and bliss of FoA but just add some Kim Suho internally suffering (but in a fun way?) due to him jumping to conclusions and imagining a bleak future because his imagined future self is an idiot or a scumbag or both.
… if I rally my mental fortitude, perhaps I will try my hand at actually writing this (or other TNE fic? I love the premise and the characters but given what’s been spoiled of the ending it does seem like one of those teeth gritting, just ignore the ending and live in fanon kind of media. RIP).
Anyway, thanks @descendedgaia for writing such a lovely fic that has taken over all of the free real estate in my brain :D
genuinely wild to me when I go to someone's house and we watch TV or listen to music or something and there are ads. I haven't seen an ad in my home since 2005. what do you mean you haven't set up multiple layers of digital infrastructure to banish corporate messaging to oblivion before it manifests? listen, this is important. this is the 21st century version of carving sigils on the wall to deny entry to demons or wearing bells to ward off the Unseelie. come on give me your router admin password and I'll show you how to cast a protective spell of Get Thee Tae Fuck, Capital
Okay, here we go! I'm gonna try and put this in order from least to most technical knowledge required. I'm not responsible if you accidentally create SkyNet etc.
Level 1: browser extensions
This one is basically impossible to get wrong, or at least to get wrong badly enough that it causes any problems.
Get Firefox, or a Firefox fork like Waterfox. If you use a fork, make sure it's one that will let you use add-ons. On a PC, pretty much any Firefox fork will take add-ons, but on mobile devices, many don't. Iceraven is one that does.
Get the add-ons uBlock Origin, YouTube Sponsorblock (if you use YouTube), and FBCleaner (if you use Facebook).
uBlock Origin comes with a built-in list of filters to block ads and trackers, but you can add your own filters to block any specific element of a website you don't like. You know those goddamn floating frames on fandom.com sites that block half the screen? Now you can zap 'em.
Sponsorblock uses crowdsourced timestamps to automatically skip sponsor spots and self-promotion in YouTube videos. Never listen to anyone say "hit like and subscribe" or "Raid Shadow Legends" again.
FBCleaner hides all content from your feed except posts from people, groups, and pages you've actually chosen to follow.
Level 2: leaving enshittified services
The software that's become standard over the years in a lot of fields is steadily selling more of your data, showing you more ads, and pushing you to buy more expensive subscriptions. Time to tell them to get fucked.
Dump Adobe apps for Affinity or Krita. Drop Microsoft for LibreOffice. Change your default search engine from Google to DuckDuckGo or Qwant. Use OpenStreetMaps instead of Google or Apple Maps.
Level 3: network-level DNS fuckery
DNS, or Domain Name Service, is the thing that tells your computer where www.website.com is actually located. By hacking your network's DNS you can force it to tell your devices that ad-hosting domains don't exist at all. Some of the steps on this one can get pretty technical, but because you're doing all the difficult stuff on a dedicated device, you can't really fuck up anything that seriously.
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi (a cheap older one like a model 3B will work just fine for this purpose), and follow a guide like this one to get it set up running AdGuard Home. AdGuard, like uBlock, has built-in filter lists, but you can also add your own if there are specific domains you want to block.
Once it's up and running, you'll need to change the DNS settings on your router to point to your AdGuard service. This is different for every router but will always start with logging into the admin panel with a password printed on a little sticker somewhere on the router.
With that done, every time a device on your home network looks for ads.website.com, it'll get back a message that says "sorry, can't find it", so it won't be able to load any ads.
Level 4: Android-specific DNS fuckery
Because AdGuard runs on your home network, it can't block ads on your phone when you're away from home - and what's worse, your phone will sometimes remember the addresses it got when you were out and about, and ads will get past your AdGuard wall even when you're home.
To avoid this, get AdAway for DNS-based ad-blocking directly on your phone. The easy, but less seamless, way of using AdAway is the "local VPN mode", which doesn't require you to do any mucking about with your phone's operating system.
Level 5: automated media piracy
The best way to stop seeing ads on all your streaming services is to stop using streaming services. There are loads of ways to do this, but the best ones involve setting up what's called an "arr stack" (Google that for setup guides) along with nzbget and a usenet account. Most of the time you'll want to set this stuff up on a dedicated device - an old laptop gathering dust in the closet is a great option, or you can grab something used from a charity shop or a local electronics recycler.
The great thing about usenet is that unlike with torrents, you don't have to do any sharing from your computer, so you're in a lot less legal jeopardy - legally speaking, distributing pirated content is waaayyy more serious than accessing it. I pay about £3 a month for a secure, high-bandwidth usenet service.
Once you start getting your own collection of media on your own computer, use the open-source media library manager Jellyfin to browse and play things from basically any device.
Oh, and don't be a dick. Pirate all you want from big corporations, but please pay independent small-time creators for their work.
Level 6: fucking with Android
Android phones are a lot more locked-down than they used to be, but depending on the device you own you can still do a lot of messing around under the hood. Note that if you get something wrong while doing this, there is always the possibility that it will turn your device into a paperweight.
Before you buy a device, check where it sits on the Bootloader Unlock Wall of Shame. Once you've bought it, check the xda-developer forums for guides on how to unlock it and "root" it (gain admin access) with Magisk.
Once Magisk is installed, you can add modules to do all sorts of cool stuff, including using AdAway in "root mode" which makes it basically invisible.
You can also install YouTube ReVanced, which will do all the ad- and sponsor blocking stuff we took care of in your Windows browser a few paragraphs ago. Be careful: there are a lot of fake sites out there pretending they're associated with the ReVanced project which might be injecting malware into their downloads. This Reddit post has the official instructions and links.
Also, try out the modded version of Facebook from APKmoddone, which will block most of the same shit as the FBcleaner add-on from earlier. There's always a possibility that modified apps like this are doing something dodgy, but I've never had any issues with this one personally.
Level 7: fucking with Windows
This one is scary because it can seriously fuck up your shit if something goes wrong, but some really cool people have actually made it very simple to strip all the bloat, ads, and spyware out of Windows. The tool I use is ReviOS. Start reading at https://www.revi.cc/docs. Basically, you'll need to download a tool called AME Wizard and the ReviOS "playbook" that tells AME what to do. Read the documentation before you do any of this.
Level 8: switching to Linux
I'm not going to pretend this is an option for everyone. Half the software I use on a weekly basis isn't available on Linux. But if you can switch? Do it. These days, Ubuntu - one of the most popular flavours of Linux - is built with people switching from Windows in mind, and a lot of things will be pretty intuitive. It also has great documentation and a huge community you can go to for help if you're confused about stuff.
And that, friends, is a comprehensive approach to banishing the demons of capitalism from your home!
Also, I cannot stress this enough, don't use devices like Roku or Amazon Fire which only allow you to use apps, if possible. All my friends my age and younger are using the apps which are much more difficult to block from advertising.
I went to a birthday party and there was a crafting area so I spent some time making these and wanted to share. The sheep and whale are just generally delightful. The Mentos one is a bit of an inside joke: but basically, a combination of Mentos' absolutely WILD 90's commercials and a Snickers-esque "you're not you when you're hungry"
I hope everyone has been staying as safe and sane as can be in this year.
