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NEWS AND UPDATES
August 11, 2025: I am SWAMPED at work! I'm attending/working Anime NYC in late August, but after that I'll have a nice break and continue writing in earnest. I'm aiming to update in September and will keep you posted with my progress. See you soon with LC 128!
It's such a funny feeling. Your art always makes me feel so nostalgic about Not Quite Keiko. I know I'm still in the middle of the story, technically, but... seeing this, I'm reminded of all the story that's come before, and I feel connected back to it, and I'm just so grateful you shared this with all of us. I love the colors and expressions; you always capture NQK so well, and the animated one at the end is so cute. (Oh, the pool scene!! A forever favorite!) And the visits from other characters are so much fun, too.
Thank you as always, my friend. This was such a wonderful treat today. You've spoiled me absolutely rotten!
So like, please let the WIPS escape the basement whenever you like, because seeing Hiruko after I've been away from the story for a while was really, really lovely, and I love your work, and this was so lovely to see today. <3 I love the expression he has here. You really capture him perfectly every time!
this has been sitting around for so long, i only just got around to finishing it and i somehow took my sweet time yet also very much rushed it lmao! you can tell when my patience ran out 😭
i have been daydreaming about these three the parasites fiend for canon mixing interacting for forever now and am glad to finally have this silly thing done!!! i have so much to say but my brain refuses to work right now—it is 2:07 rn and i really shouldn't be awake 😭 okok enough babbling baiiii @luckychild
I am HOWLING! This is absolutely perfect. Great dialogue and it's just too funny! Minato and NQK have such different reactions and of course they'd contradict each other like this—PERFECT!
And also you reminded me about one-shots I never finished, so thanks for that. They're now on my To Do List. Minato's infinite hair, Minato and Shizuru...
And HARUKA. Oooooooh my god, YESSSSS. I love her so much and the chaos of them meeting would be SO GOOD!
Bless you, my friend, for this. I feel an urge to write side-material, and I haven't felt that in ages. It's a gift to feel it again. Thank you so so much!
(Also, concept: If I met Haruka, I'd be a stammering wreck because she's the most attractive human who's ever lived. Imagine NQK becoming a stuttering wreck IN FRONT OF KURAMA...)
i'm thinking of your one piece si fic idea and having quite the blast thinking of all the parallels and character development i'd probably be able to draw out by comparing NQK and your avatar in one piece—speaking of! what name would your si go by? Star? I don't think you mentioned si-ing as a specific character so it'd make sense if you just go by your name but i can also see you come up with something else!
i'm so curious on what differences i'd be able to see between ur one piece si and nqk, seeing as you have changed quite a bit (as have your readers throughout the lc journey xD)!
it would be wonderful to see a character i hold so dearly be reborn in a different story; this is probably so odd for you to read hahaha
hope you're having a good one!
These are the same questions I've been asking myself as I tinker with my idea for a One Piece SI fic! It's definitely a bit odd to think about, but it's also quite fun.
(Long rant below. Enjoy!)
As of this moment, the story's outline features a self-insert avatar modeled after a version of myself rather than a reincarnated-into-a-character situation. This provides a point of meaningful difference between Lucky Child and my OPSI fic. I don't think we want to sit through another behemoth of a story that wrestles with the same conflicts and character choices, and staying away from "taking the place of a canon character" avoids redundancy between the two works.
(Because if any of us has to hear "OMG I stole [character's] life and I have anxiety about it!" one more fucking time... haha!)
Speaking of avoiding redundancy: I'm tinkering with creating a slightly fictionalized version of myself rather than using a 1:1 version of myself like I did in Lucky Child. I started writing LC at age 26, and I modeled Not Quite Keiko on who I was at that moment in time (not-yet-out-as-nonbinary, in a new relationship, at the start of a meaningful career). NQK is a time capsule of myself at that age. As you stated, though, I've changed a lot since then. 35-year-old me is nonbinary, has an established career, and has been in a long-term relationship for about a decade. It stands to reason that any SIOC I create today will share those traits.
However... while planning the story, I've realized some of the traits listed above are either repetitive with LC, or they don't really complement the story I want to tell. For reasons I won't share yet, using a 1:1 version of my 35-year-old self doesn't quite work for this story (and using the me-of-today as my SI avatar feels like another redundant chapter of the Lucky Child playbook, anyway).
Which brings me back to creating a slightly fictionalized version of myself. When writing creative nonfiction and personal essay, you have to learn to treat yourself as a character and tailor yourself into someone interesting on paper. I'd pull a page out of that playbook and craft a version of myself that has the truth of me at their core, but the facts would be arranged a little differently to make using that SI avatar more convenient. (Yes, this is how the nonfiction sausage gets made. It's not very glamorous!)
My SI avatar would probably end up going by "Star" since that's the name I go by now. (IRL as well as online at this point!) There's a chance my character might end up using some kind of alias or nickname, but I'm guessing not. I'd probably place them in their mid-20s, but they'd be out as nonbinary already, and maybe they'd already be established in the career I have now. (Or perhaps they wouldn't!) I would also make sure to not reuse anecdotes from my real life that I've used in Lucky Child if I decide to feature the true-stories-pulled-from-my-real-life flashbacks that pop up across LC. The themes of this story would be different, and therefore the anecdotes I choose to share would shift focus, too.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, by this SI fic would be an isekai situation rather than a "reborn into the world of One Piece as a baby" scenario, once more to distinguish it from LC. There would be an inciting incident that drags my avatar into the world of OP, where they'd encounter one of the canonical crews and get entangled in their affairs. Their knowledge of canon would of course play a role here, and I have some fun ideas about how to treat that knowledge in ways that make the narrative interesting without feeling like a rehash of LC.
Which brings me to this: Crucially, no matter their age or whatever creative edits I make to their history, my SI avatar would remember writing Lucky Child. They likely would have already completed the work back in their own world by the time they got roped into OP. I want my avatar to refer to LC often, perhaps saying things like "Oh, I'm not falling for that mistake in this story!" when referring back to choices NQK made that didn't work out so well for them. Lucky Child has a distinct meta aspect in which NQK constantly refers back to YYH canon, but in this OPSI work, I think NQK would reference OP canon as much as they would LC canon (and SI fanfiction in general). We're getting a few layers deep with this meta, baby!
Basically, my OPSI would view LC as a sort of "VR run" or "practice run" to getting isekai'd. Because they've written extensively about the anxiety of "keeping a story on track," they know better than to try and attempt such a thing in this new world. I know exactly how they'd approach their knowledge of the future, and it's remarkably different to NQK's approach. It would keep this story fresh and interesting, rather than feeling like LC with a new, OP-flavored skin.
I've ranted enough I think. Sorry this didn't directly answer how different my SI would be, but I hope it was interesting nonetheless! Thanks so much for the ask. <3
Ruminating a lot, lately, about the Not Quites, and more specifically about the themes of their individual stories. All of their stories' themes heavily overlap given their similar situations, but as I develop each Not Quite more behind the scenes, the differences become more apparent.
Not Quite Keiko deals heavily with identity and personal agency.
Not Quite Kagome will deal heavily with grief and grieving.
And Minato (Not Quite Minako) will grapple chiefly with emotional vulnerability.
All of them deal with grief, identity and vulnerability in their own ways, but I think each of them takes the lead on their respective topics... partly because by the time NQKeiko finishes their story, I think I'll have had enough of identity/agency. And if I ever write NQKagome I'll have had QUITE enough of grief/grieving by the time that's done. By the time Minato picks up, identity and grief will still be a factor in his tale, but I can't imagine a world in which I want to rehash all of that again!
Is there a chance you'll reattempt the one update a month challenge haha
That's something I'd like to do this year, yes.
I'm feeling pretty blue after my grandmother's death, but once I'm more centered, I'll do my best to resume updates. Watching her decline was very tough on me this year.
i wonder how nqk deals with bouts of longing for their old life/their loved ones. especially way before they had anyone who knew of their prior life. that is so heavy to carry, it must've felt so helpless and not to mention alienating! i feel like this isn't heavily mentioned in LC (perhaps i'm misremembering haha) but it makes sense why you wouldn't, can't have this hogging up the space when the plot needs to be plotting hahaha
as much qs i fantasize about reincarnation, i honestly don't see how i could make it a single day not crying for my brother! he's my literal anchor, couldn't imagine being in a world i don't have him :')) wouldn't be want to be in one without him!
my heart aches for nqk <\3
To be honest, I'm quite surprised to hear a reader say they don't feel there's a lot of focus on NQK's past or many scenes of them mourning their old life! I worried there was too much of it. But that goes to show we all read and perceive stories differently, which is pretty cool to see in action.
I think of my past as a crucial storytelling element in LC, particularly since there's a heavy use of my-real-life flashbacks interspersed throughout the story. Every time there's a relevant flashback, it's a nod to how much NQK still reflects on their old life and the people who populated it. Tom in particular gets referenced quite a bit (we have an entire multi-chapter arc that features him as a recurring character), as does my grandmother (who was featured heavily during the Genkai training arc, serving as a mental "safe space" when NQK was asked to build one). Whenever there's a flashback, I intend it to function as an indicator that NQK is reflecting on something in their old life. That might not involve tears or crying, but after 14 years, they've moved from tears to quieter forms of grief.
I remember being careful to write passages explaining NQK did most of their mourning while they were a little kid, too. Babies can scream and cry all they want without judgment; NQK took advantage of that and got most of their Big Feelings (lol) out as a baby, given they had years to do so with relative privacy. Now they have more emotional bandwidth, so to speak, to focus on their new reality as Keiko... but particularly in the "Homeward Bound" mini-arc, we get a window into their subconscious, which gives us an indication of how much they miss their old life.
It does bear mentioning I'm not close with my parents (as several scenes in LC have made clear), and I'm an only child. As far as people I'd mourn go, the list isn't too long. That might sound sad to some, but as I've aged, I've pared down my social circle and focused on developing real, long-lasting friendships. I've become more selective in who I spend my time with, and that selectivity has served me very well. Quality over quantity, so to speak. Some of my best friendships were developed after I started writing LC, so they haven't made it into the story or NQK's mourning.
Anyway. It's cool to know how different we view that part of NQK's character; thank you for sharing!
New Year's Eve was a special time for me, made so by the efforts of my grandmother. I wrote about how we used to spend the evening together in Lucky Child chapter 74, "Red vs White."
I love the New Year's Eve chapters of the story. I'm reflecting on them and my grandmother tonight. My wish for all of you is to drink some sparkling cider or champagne, sing "Auld Lang Syne," be safe, and hug your loved ones as we enter 2026.
I enter the year a little lonelier. But fireworks are going off in the street outside my window, and memories keep me warm.
In which Kei, acting on a hunch, consults an expert.
(Reposting because the previous got content flagged for absolutely no reason, and I'm not sure if it's the image or the chapter title. We'll see what happens.)
I'm putting together a "Master Reading Order" for the LC-verse, because there isn't one and there needs to be.
Currently assessing Children of Misfortune and adding in notes to help place the one-shots chronologically, and I'm reordering the chapters to reflect that order. I may add a chapter to the start that explains the reading order.
Next I'll have to assess all the prompt collections, which... yikes. They roughly correspond to whatever arc of LC I was writing when I made the prompt collections, so hopefully they'll slot in neatly.
Daughters of Destiny is fairly easy to place, thank my lucky stars.
Riot Child, A Good Cup of Foe, and Scooby Doo Where Are Yu-Yu? are all pretty AU and not part of the main chronology, so that's lucky.
Updates to come as I puzzle-piece all of this together!
I pinpointed exactly where DoD is best read within the overall LC narrative, and I likewise pinpointed where each chapter of Children of Misfortune can be read without spoiling LC.
I also narrowed down where in the timeline you can read Penned in Memory, Scribbled in Secret, and Written in Ink without spoiling LC, though I didn't do that chapter by chapter. Rather, I cross-referenced when the fics were written with the dates I posted each LC chapter, and I was able to pinpoint for what chapters spoilers could be included. I skimmed the works to verify my findings and was, for the most part, correct.
I might want to completely dissect and redo the prompt collections someday. Like put everything from NQK's childhood into one story, everything about the Not Quites in another, etc., and rearrange it based on story arc/characters/etc. It would make it easier to figure out the reading order for newbies and lessen the chance of spoilers mid-read.
My (messy)(incomplete)(but serviceable) notes:
Somehow I'd like to represent this visually/in a not-so-messy way. But that's a problem for tomorrow's me!
I'm going adding links into LC that direct readers to the other collections at appropriate points in the main story. Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone reading for the first time, or for anyone rereading.
I'm putting together a "Master Reading Order" for the LC-verse, because there isn't one and there needs to be.
Currently assessing Children of Misfortune and adding in notes to help place the one-shots chronologically, and I'm reordering the chapters to reflect that order. I may add a chapter to the start that explains the reading order.
Next I'll have to assess all the prompt collections, which... yikes. They roughly correspond to whatever arc of LC I was writing when I made the prompt collections, so hopefully they'll slot in neatly.
Daughters of Destiny is fairly easy to place, thank my lucky stars.
Riot Child, A Good Cup of Foe, and Scooby Doo Where Are Yu-Yu? are all pretty AU and not part of the main chronology, so that's lucky.
Updates to come as I puzzle-piece all of this together!
I pinpointed exactly where DoD is best read within the overall LC narrative, and I likewise pinpointed where each chapter of Children of Misfortune can be read without spoiling LC.
I also narrowed down where in the timeline you can read Penned in Memory, Scribbled in Secret, and Written in Ink without spoiling LC, though I didn't do that chapter by chapter. Rather, I cross-referenced when the fics were written with the dates I posted each LC chapter, and I was able to pinpoint for what chapters spoilers could be included. I skimmed the works to verify my findings and was, for the most part, correct.
I might want to completely dissect and redo the prompt collections someday. Like put everything from NQK's childhood into one story, everything about the Not Quites in another, etc., and rearrange it based on story arc/characters/etc. It would make it easier to figure out the reading order for newbies and lessen the chance of spoilers mid-read.
My (messy)(incomplete)(but serviceable) notes:
Somehow I'd like to represent this visually/in a not-so-messy way. But that's a problem for tomorrow's me!
I'm putting together a "Master Reading Order" for the LC-verse, because there isn't one and there needs to be.
Currently assessing Children of Misfortune and adding in notes to help place the one-shots chronologically, and I'm reordering the chapters to reflect that order. I may add a chapter to the start that explains the reading order.
Next I'll have to assess all the prompt collections, which... yikes. They roughly correspond to whatever arc of LC I was writing when I made the prompt collections, so hopefully they'll slot in neatly.
Daughters of Destiny is fairly easy to place, thank my lucky stars.
Riot Child, A Good Cup of Foe, and Scooby Doo Where Are Yu-Yu? are all pretty AU and not part of the main chronology, so that's lucky.
Updates to come as I puzzle-piece all of this together!
