Soooooooo... this was very long, so much Tumblr told me it won't post it :'DDDD so go ahead and read over at either of the sites linked above, it's out of my hands xD excuse me for being as longwinded as always. I'll just post the author's note, I guess, for anyone who wants to see a bit more substance from me here...
That I somehow managed to write this entire story in 3 months is kind of a miracle. That's not to say I won't change/improve any elements in it whenever I get around doing a proper, thorough rewrite for it in the future… I suspect many things required extra context, there are probably scenes that would have been cathartic to expand on, and we had a lot of chaos going on in the final chapter so maybe it's worse and harder to follow than I realize!
… That being said.
This ridiculously big mess, written over this year's Sokkla Saturdays, is the introduction and stage setting, so to speak, for my hopefully-soon-to-be-written original project. Much as this story was VERY different from everything I'd done thus far, including my first unhappy ending EVER, the big original project is going to push me in directions and past boundaries I've never really crossed before, in a myriad of ways. In itself, sci-fi has never been my forte, which is why I've spent almost a year nursing these ideas, developing them gradually and building up ALL the world around it before jumping in to write, no matter how tempted I am to do so.
Azula and Sokka's characters will be part of the original project under different names. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out who they are when we get there, but they're not going to be the leading duo by then. As was probably quite obvious due to her fluctuating importance and how often she was featured here, our future main character is actually Atsuko Takei, who will take up another name too (one that SOME PEOPLE have already seen because I made one hell of a blunder when I posted chapter 7. Woopsies), and we'll have one more protagonist aside from her, one that was hinted at veeeeery briefly in this chapter.
Dark as this scenario is, fucked up as it appears in many ways… the project I'm working on has brought me an onslaught of inspiration unlike anything I've experienced since Gladiator. It most likely WON'T take me 12-13 years to write, at least I hope not, but I will say it's almost fully plotted at this stage, barring a few elements in the final climax of the entire saga :'D we're going to have many crazy things going on in our upcoming story: a journey to restore Earth! More clashing with authority! A very unsettling and deceptive AI entity! Time traveling and multiple timelines! Another messed up father-and-daughter relationship! Lots of poking the nest wasp of the foundation of human religion! Exploration of what it MEANS to be human! Two people developing and nurturing a bond so profound that it TRANSCENDS AND BREAKS TIME!
I am very excited about getting around to writing this, and I hope you guys will be looking forward to it as well. If you'd like to know more about 7KLYA (that's our new story's codename :)? Feel free to reach out to me on my other social media accounts for more information on it, where I'll be posting gradually in the days to come!
In the mean time… Gladiator's coming back in two weeks! Look forward to that! We're getting closer to the end of the line there, as is obvious, so… I really hope you guys will enjoy our final arcs!
As ever, thank you for reading this story and thank you for all your support!
