![]() Author has written 4 stories for Naruto, Fate/stay night, My Hero Academia/僕のヒーローアカデミア, Prototype, and Cyberpunk 2077. Just some guy writing stories to improve his writing skills. I'm shit at updating things on schedule. Using my profile as a blog to write about my stories, since I don't like putting them in the chapters themselves. Another Heaven Sacrifice: This is easily the fanfiction I've been most inspired to write, and I didn't want to delay it any longer. I plan to delve into a lot of the teased but unused Type-Moon lore in this fic and hopefully flesh out a lot of the greater Moonlit World and build upon the various characters. The main Prisma Illya plotline will not be the focus, nor will it appear until much farther down the line. I have big plans for this story, and hopefully you all will enjoy the first three arcs, since they'll be mostly original, taking ideas mainly from some cut content of Heaven's Feel and some scrapped ideas for Tsukihime 2 (and Tsukihime characters will be making an appearance, if a minor one). Prisma Illya may be a lighthearted magical girl story, but it's still set in the Moonlit World, and it is a very dark place. Shirou may be stronger, but without any real allies, it'll be tough for him to save the people he loves. Ilya vs. Illya is deliberate, not a typo. Ilya denotes the Stay Night character, and Illya denotes the Kaleid Liner character. The Einzbern are destroyed entirely, other than Irisviel's family, and Rin hasn't heard of the Grail War, as in canon. She also does not recognize Shirou's magical awakening yet. Whether that changes...well, we'll see. Burning Questions: I'm surprised I got this chapter out this fast. Usually I only get one chapter out a month, but I've been incredibly productive lately. We've finally hit the beginning of the first arc of this story, and I hope you enjoy it. Without allies, without servants, and without major experience with his magic, Shirou's gonna have a lot to deal with. I do know how the arc ends already, this is my most planned-out story, and I actually think the magical methodology is really interesting. If anyone can predict it, I'll be surprised. As you now might have guessed, the main Kaleid/Liner story won't be taking place for quite a while. We've got quite a bit of original plot to get through, and believe me, I'm bringing a lot more of Type-Moon's world than just the Fate series into this. Hardcore fans will rejoice (if I write it well). I'm incredibly excited for this story, it will probably be my favorite one to write, along with the best-written one, just because of how well in advance I planned out the plot. None of my other stories are planned to this extent, so they will end up taking longer to update than this since I have to figure out where the hell I'm taking them. Shirou's personality is also incredibly difficult to write, since he's such a fake person. A machine desperately grasping for humanity, while rejecting the dreams of the human he admired most is a serious undertaking. Archer, on the other hand, is a lot easier to write, so Shirou will be borrowing Archer's mannerisms (both because they're technically the same origin, so Shirou has the potential to be Archer, and the suffusion of memories and traits from the arm transfer). I let him use some of Rin's tactics as well, given an amount of his personality is at least somewhat picked up and mimicked from those around him, but hopefully I can properly develop him into something more, as Fate/Stay Night did, though I'm nowhere near as good a writer as Nasu. Regardless, I plan to attempt to explore a lot more of Shirou's character through his developing experience, memories of Archer and expanding knowledge of the world. And he will be a very dangerous contender. Past and Future: I'm trying to use this to flesh out Shirou's character a bit more. I understand that some of his previous actions seemed out of character for him, so I'm trying to further establish the reasons for why he seems that way, and some of the actions he's actually taking, rather than the ones he's perceived to be taking. However, Shirou is someone willing to let the entire world die for the chance to save the girl he loves in Heaven's Feel, as well as becoming a paranoid strategist approaching the level of Kiritsugu, so I believe the dealings with the yakuza are more understandable, given he has shown proof that he is willing to sacrifice others for something he wants or needs badly enough, and having Archer's memories, and subsequently his personality filtering through to Shirou's mind through his circuits will also have an impact on his moral standings in the face of efficiently completing his goals. However, he is not entirely Archer, nor is he Kiritsugu, which is why he wanted to try and hammer out a fair deal with Fujimura, even while using blackmail as leverage. Leverage that he didn't truly have or plan to use, in fact. Shirou differs from Kiritsugu in that his plans incorporate a far greater level of personal risk, and could backfire heavily if something goes wrong, something he still has trouble accounting for due to his lack of self-worth. Hopefully I've fleshed out these points in this chapter, even if some of it is still just implied. The chapters beyond will bring this element of risky strategy and more paranoid planning to the forefront, once he figures out how to tackle Zouken, and his interactions with some of the other characters will hopefully cement his guilt complex and fundamentally warped character. Greetings: This was a rough chapter to edit. The tone felt like it swung back and forth, and I still don't feel like I nailed the bittersweet-to-tragic slide that I was aiming for, but without significant restructuring and significantly more time, I won't be able to make any major improvements, and I'd like to keep updating my fanfics on a somewhat steady schedule. This was definitely just a couple of long conversations, but I hope I really made some progress with the story with this. I plan for Shirou and Kirei to discuss plans and the Grail War, though I'm not sure if I want to have him brought on some vampire hunt. I might have some fleeing sealing designate hunted down, just to add a bit more action and help Shirou improve his abilities through combat, and maybe even have him train with Kirei, but it's always difficult trying to essentially fill time until a character has reached a point where they're strong enough to deal with the main obstacle. I always feel like I want to jump right to the next part, but then there's no build. I had the first couple chapters be a bit more fast-paced, since Shirou was trying to actively acclimate himself to the world, but his main goal isn't something that he can just go and complete like he's checking off a grocery list, so I need to add steps and include obstacles and character/relationship development to space out the time until he's ready. Hopefully I can make that build of tension and progression of power fairly believable. The other pacing issue the story has is how fast he gets in with the Yakuza, and I think that was a plot-demanded-it kind of situation, and I can't really fix that without going back and restructuring the fic from chapter 2, which I'm admittedly not that willing to do, so I can only do my best to salvage it on the back end, like I tried to do with chapter three, and I'll be adding a few more Yakuza scenes here and there to try and turn their relationship from a tentatively fearful one to a loyal one. I'm also not really sure what to do about Hortensia, but I'm sure I'll figure out how much of her I'll write eventually. I just don't really know what to do with her at the moment. I'll think of something. Distrust: Another slow chapter, since I felt I needed to slow the pace to get the extension of time necessary to develop Shirou's magic, and further establish character relationships. I would love to jump straight into arc two, which is where I think this story will really become interesting, but I have to get through arc one first, and I don't want to just rush the whole thing without developing anything meaningful in these first chapters. If I don't build and develop the Prillya characters, there's no reason to care about what happens to any of them later. Luckily, as you might have guessed, the action starts next chapter. We have the setup mostly complete, there are only a few more characters and relationships that need to be developed before I can start on the real action stuff, but this will be the first big hurdle for Shirou. I don't have a ton of info to give the readers without spoiling anything, but I'm excited to finally be able to write some more action. It's been too long since I've gotten to write a big fight scene. Shirou might seem a bit more indecisive this chapter, and that was generally on purpose. He's made a choice to dedicate himself to one person, but he still tends to struggle with his nature, especially when others he cares about are involved. And any magical training he might be missing by spending time with his family and trying to put everything else out of his mind will be more than made up for in the next few chapters or so. I wanted to include a bit of that UBW-type struggle in his character, even if just a little, because Shirou's introspection in UBW is some of my favorite parts of Stay Night. Missing: This was a rough chapter for me to write, and I'm still not entirely happy with it. I was hoping to get on with the action, but I felt I still needed some setup done, and I wasn't sure where to end it, or how much of a mystery to make it (I decided to just cut most of the mystery aspects, since it felt too meandering, and the mystery of who took Ayako wasn't the main purpose of the arc, and I don't want to just use it as padding without adding some character development. Rin's section needed to be heavily reworked, and feels a little cheap, but having Shirou be the one to hunt down Atrum all on his own felt too much like I was only giving Shirou screen time, and the mystery would have been unsatisfying. Hopefully the pacing doesn't feel too abrupt or unnatural. That's my main concern. The action will be in the next chapter. The main mysteries will be how the fuck they deal with Atrum, who has some serious firepower behind him, and I plan to really ramp up his power with curses. I figure if Gandr, a sickness curse, can be strengthened to become a bullet, then there's some nasty shit that curses can do, especially when they're boosted by mana crystals made via human sacrifice. I'm really excited to see what kind of spells I can come up with. Usually, power design and the technical aspects are my specialty, in my opinion. However, I might need to take a bit longer to properly write out the next couple chapters, so expect a small delay with the next two. As a side note, Type Moon doesn't seem to say exactly where Fuyuki is placed, and various landmarks are incorporated from all across Japan, so I decided to set it in the Ooita province, since they have a river that runs out into the ocean, similar to the geography of Fuyuki. It's one of Japan's most southern islands. This isn't too important right now, and I can't really write it into a chapter naturally, so I'm stating it here. Maybe I'll be able to fit it in writing later on down the line. Mission: This was a huge chapter, and the next one might be just as large. I'm not really sure yet. I knew that I wanted this chapter to really delve more into the action, but there was still a lot of preparation to be done, and I didn't want to just upload another chapter of purely preparation. I felt it would have dulled the pacing too far, so the next couple chapters will be some of the first big set pieces of the story. Hopefully this first big fight will be as entertaining for you to read as it will be for me to write. I had initially only planned to have this fight be something small, more like an assassination mission where Galliasta was arrogant and unprepared for the dynamic duo, but I kept getting more ideas and building on it and building on it, and suddenly I have a massive Legend of Zelda dungeon boss that I want to write out. The mechanics will be explained further in the next chapter, of course, but needless to say, they'll pose quite a problem for Shirou and Kirei. Speaking of Kirei, how did you like his perspective? I tried to write him in a more significantly different style than Shirou to really show off his thought process and personality more, and it was a ton of fun to write. I don't plan to write too many of these separate perspective; the vast majority of this fic will be through Shirou's eyes, but there will be a few, mainly one each for other important characters so they can have some serious motive establishment. Sakura will obviously have one down the line, along with at least one or two other characters, but I won't spoil which ones. Regardless, Kirei was an incredibly fun character to write, and while I may not end up giving him another interlude (or I might, I don't know), I plan to keep him in the story through most of it. I really enjoy Shirou and Kirei working together, especially since they have such differing views on each other, so he won't be going anywhere for a while. For those of you unaware who Noel is, she's a new character from the new Melty Blood and Tsukihime Remake games. She's really just here as a cameo, but she is here nonetheless, so hopefully my intentions are stated fairly clearly. This is set within the greater type moon universe, and I plan to utilize many aspects of the world, both what has been fleshed out and what has not. Mainly what has not been, though, since that was actually one of the biggest driving forces behind my writing of this fanfiction. There's so much stuff in Nasu's world that we won't ever see because the Fate spinoffs make far too much money, and I plan to try my hand at fleshing out some of the greater Type-Moon lore, just as I'm doing with Atrum here. However, none of that will come into play all that much until Act 2, so we've got a lot of ground to cover, and I hope to make all of it entertaining. Monsoon: This is the longest chapter I've ever written. For anything. It took me a whole month to write this chapter, and two straight days to edit it. I fully expect there to be a couple of errors that I missed, but it's finally over with. This is the climax of the first act, and I wanted it to be grand, exploring Archer's arm, Shirou's strategies, some of the themes surrounding him and how Galliasta kind of parallels that, but I also didn't want him to hog the spotlight. Ayako got her moment of bravery, however brief, and Atrum showed himself to be a pretty legitimate threat himself, but I think I ended giving all the spotlight to Shirou in the end. I would have liked to have Kirei play an even larger role, but I felt like Atrum was a poor matchup for him, so he was more of a supporting role, I suppose. Oh, well. I reworked this fight so many times, trying to figure out how everything would happen and who would play what role, even had to research the best non-ferrous metals on the Rockwell hardness scale to incorporate into the fight, etc. I think that that was honestly my favorite part to write. Kirei's always a joy to write, even if his interactions were more limited this chapter, I feel like they've had a larger effect on Shirou, especially since he's gotten a couple of innocents killed personally and will have to deal with that as soon as he gets some downtime. He'll probably have some nightmares about that for a while, and I plan for it to affect some of his day-to-day interactions as well. Shirou's running high on stress and adrenaline right now, so he doesn't have the time to really take in anything he did, but we'll get there. Don't worry. I definitely had to force myself to write a good portion of this chapter, and I think that shows in the lower quality in the middle of the chapter, which is not up to my standards, but that's why I'm writing: so I can keep improving. I may not be entirely proud of this chapter, but I know where I failed, and I can use that to try to improve my writing quality. The next chapter shouldn't take a whole month to write, but it will be just as entertaining, and possibly more important than this one, so look forward to it. Sixth Stanza: As I said, I'll probably be updating my stories on a slower schedule. It's becoming more and more difficult to keep up the pace I once had, so you'll start seeing these chapters once every 15-20 days or so, rather than every 10 or 11 days. Yes, everything in the previous two chapters was essentially buildup to the new line for Unlimited Blade Works, and it was supposed to happen last chapter, but it became way too long, so I had to split it into another chapter. I know this chapter was overall pretty uneventful, but I think the pacing needed a break from nearly 12k words of action, and I hope the character development I added (then took away cruelly) really hit home. I had to rewrite the dialogue and restructure it a couple times before it was at a point I was even remotely happy with. It was definitely some of the most difficult dialogue I've written, so hopefully it's well-received. Shirou's not an easy character to write, there's so many nuances to his character that differ between the different routes that I'm probably not going to write any of my UBW Shirou ideas until I'm finished writing this story just so I don't start accidentally mixing up characters. Family Matters: Finally, we reach the end of arc 1, part 1. It's been a long time, and I don't have too much to say here. I'm thankful for all the feedback I've received up to this point, even if none of the really exciting stuff has happened, and I hope you all enjoy part 2 of arc 1, which will only further ramp up the intensity of the story. I might end up making some decisions for a couple characters that people will disagree with, similar to Ayako, but I hope that my story will be written well enough that people will still enjoy it regardless. Reconciliations: It's been a couple months, and I've been working on some of my other stories, but I'm back, and starting part 2 of arc 1. This chapter serves as somewhat of a soft reset point, a return to normalcy, where Shirou is finally accepting and beginning his new life, knowing now that Sella understands him and has his back. There will be a few of those points, each with more and more changing as the story progresses. I have 3 arcs planned out for this story thus far, so it'll definitely be ongoing for a long time. I took extra care to humanize Sella a bit more, this chapter. I was planning on doing so anyway, since I was trying to show more of her professional side last chapter, and hide some of her personal feelings, but people said I made her seem too inhuman, so I put some really heavy emphasis on her character development this chapter. She won't become a super prominent main character, and the next chapter or two won't be focusing on her, but she'll see a bit more prominence than before, now that Shirou will be filling her in on his plans and such. However, the next chapter or two won't be showing much of her, considering I just introduced the newest plot twist: Tohsaka Tokiomi hasn't actually been killed in this world. I know Prisma Illya shows Rin coming back from the Clock Tower, but the show doesn't answer whether her father is alive, or who the Second Owner of Fuyuki is, so I figured introducing him would be a great way to tie up those loose ends and introduce a new plot element at the same time. The next chapter will prominently feature him, obviously. I know some people really dislike him, as with Shinji, but I dislike character bashing in general, so I plan to do my best to improve both of their characters without making them out of character, if that makes sense. Tohsaka is arrogant, but has no way of knowing that Zouken is a monster, and truly believes he's doing the best for his child. Shinji isn't portrayed amazingly in the VN due to time constraints, or the anime, though Heaven's Feel gives him a bit of subtle character development, and I want to flesh out their characters more properly, make them more well-rounded than the fan perception of them, but without making them too out of character, at least for the situations that they're in. Hopefully I'm able to accomplish that, and people don't just dismiss my story decisions outright, even though I know I'm going to delve into a bit of controversial territory in the later chapters. Nonetheless, I hope you all keep enjoying the story. Tokiomi: I'm not gonna lie, this chapter kicked my ass. I was trying to have it out about five days ago, but I obviously failed there. This is one of the single longest scenes I've ever written without scene breaks. I hope it helps the overall pace of the story, given that the last chapter was very scene break-heavy, and the next one might be as well. I hope I characterized Tokiomi as well as I envisioned him: someone arrogant and self-assured, but whose heart is ultimately in the write place. He hates being wrong, and he hates admitting he's wrong even more, but will do everything he can to make it right. While I do believe him to be a competent magus, he honestly seemed to really care about his kids in Zero, and I think that like Rin, he's not quite entirely cold-hearted, no matter how much he tries to pretend he is. I don't know if one chapter was enough to fully develop his character, but I'm hoping I was able to deliver the emotion he's supposed to feel this chapter. Rin will likely be a similarly difficult character to write. Character studies aren't necessarily my specialty, in my opinion, and nearly all of the characters in Fate are incredibly complex and equally compelling, with few exceptions, so this is definitely a serious undertaking for me, but I'm doing my best, and I hope it's turning out well. Zouken is my main worry at this point. He's incredibly menacing in canon, and thus far I've been relying on that to build tension, but he will be incredibly difficult to really write, in my opinion. Villains are almost unequivocally the most difficult characters to write, and Fate is no different. Kirei was difficult enough, but Zouken is gonna be a whole different level. Having him actually show up and interact with the other characters is going to be a challenge, and I thought of just never introducing him until the squad rolls up to his house and kills him, but that would be uncompelling, in my opinion. For all the buildup I've giving him, I really need to make him a challenge. I've set the tension incredibly high, made him out to be the real big bad, but that means I have to deliver on that twice as much when he actually shows up, otherwise that will make him a huge disappointment in my eyes. I can only hope he'll be as menacing when I actually write him as he is in canon. Drawstring: This chapter kicked my ass. I took twice as long to write it, twice as long to edit it and I'm still not satisfied with it. Part of that is because I've been sick all last week, and I still am, but I still feel pretty iffy about this chapter. I wanted to do a more introspective chapter, re-establishing Shirou's link to kyudo in the way I don't ever remember the VN explicitly doing, revisiting Ayako to show the impacts that her storyline made and introducing Luvia and her Butler into the story (and it's pretty obvious who the butler's an expy of, assuming you play FGO. I barely even changed the name), but nonetheless, this chapter feels more like padding than anything. I just felt that bringing the next story beats in the upcoming would be awkward and rushed without this chapter, but in editing, I did significantly trim down a lot of the prose that I felt was awkward or too flowery (but in a very poor way). Morrison is a fun character to write, as is Luvia in her younger years, still all adventure and rough edges, with only the faintest surface polish of noble refinement, somewhat opposite to Tohsaka, in my opinion. Getting them together will be fun, once I actually can get around to it. Morrison will play a big role next chapter, but it will be a planning chapter again. It should also be the final planning chapter for a while, because things should be kicking into high gear soon. I get bored of writing the planning chapters as well, but this has always been a story about plans, and defeating foes greater than oneself by being smarter than them. Hopefully that comes through well, and hopefully all the characters in this chapter still feel human and believable. If not, I can only say that the next chapter will be better. However, it might be another month or so, because work has been getting busier lately. Thanks for reading. Unfriendly Allies: Sorry this took so long. I had to take a month-long work trip that seriously cut into my writing time, so there was a lot longer delay in getting out a new chapter than usual. I'll have another, shorter work trip coming up in a week or two, so after that, my writing schedule should resume as normal. This chapter was one of my favorite and least favorite chapters I've written thus far. Morrison's super fun to write, I love writing enigmatic, untrustworthy characters, and having a Moriarty expy really spices up the story, I think. Plus, Auguste did basically nothing in Prisma lllya, and there was no real explanation for his existence that I saw, so I decided that Kiritsugu needed a new foil, since Kirei is more Shirou's foil than Kiritsugu's in this story. I'm glad I got to fit in another fight, even if this one was shorter and not nearly as grand and complicated as the last one, but writing fight scenes is really fun. Things are progressing faster and faster, and things might actually be coming to a head fairly soon. Y'know, unless I decide to completely derail everything in the next couple of chapters or so. But I'd never do that :) An edit: some comments have pointed out that some of the things I've added were not canon, as I remember, but in fact strictly fanon. I was hoping not to include any fanon that I did not deliberately wish to add, so I have edited it out. My apologies. Double-Edged: My chapters have been getting a lot longer. Is this just what writing fanfiction does to you? I feel like I used to have to try and extend my chapters as long as possible to reach 4,000 words, and now I can't write a chapter under 5k to save my life. Regardless, a lot of feedback told me that last chapter felt especially pushed like there was too much plot happening all at once, so I made sure to spend a bit more time focusing on developing some of the side characters and addressing some of the points of criticism in the last chapters. I might've swung too far in the other direction, like I'm addressing the audience too directly and padding out the story for the sake of padding, but this was honestly one of the easiest chapters I've ever written. Everything just felt like it flowed out of my hands and onto the page really naturally, I didn't have to do a bunch of overthinking or rewriting as far as how the plot and conversations and introspection was all going to go. Hopefully that translates to a quality chapter, but it could also feel too demeaning, which I hope it isn't. Regardless, I'm glad this chapter's done, and I'm glad I wrote it, because it was one of the most fun chapters I've written since the Galliasta fight. The obvious plot setup is obvious, so we'll be seeing more of Morrison next chapter, which will hopefully go better than chapter 14. I hope that chapter hadn't put people of of him entirely, because I do plan to keep him around for the foreseeable future, I've got some plans for him, and by extension Luvia, which will hopefully bring her into the fold earlier than I originally intended, which was just when we finally got to canon. Considering the pacing of this story, and how long it's taking to write it (It's been a full year already, jeez), that would take basically forever, so this is the best way I could think of to bring her into the plot a little earlier. I know Luvia's a fan favorite, and she's one of mine as well, so I'm definitely excited to make her a more significant part of the story. Plus, I just like Moriarty, so I'm gonna wanna keep him in. Best-laid Plans: Sorry for the delay in getting this one out. Holidays and work have been pretty hectic for me these last couple months. Editing alone took me like five days. Part two of Morrison boogaloo. I kinda botched his opening scene, so I knew I wanted another confrontation with him both to further flesh out their plans and to give him a bit more depth of character than what little I'd given him their first meeting, as well as show that he isn't all-seeing and all-knowing. Also, to show that Shirou's starting to think things through a little more, now that he's more aware of his flaws. I know it doesn't seem like there's too much plot in this, but this is a necessary setup chapter for much later on, as you might've guessed. The more immediate plot should start kicking in next chapter, I've already got the plot hammered out for the near future, some of it involving the distrust his allies have garnered him, and what he plans to do about that. Everyone's got a different agenda, and keeping each of those balanced and relevant at the same time is extremely difficult. I might've written myself into a gambit pileup by introducing so many characters with all these different plans and designs, and it may only become even more complicated as they're fleshed out and the players start to actually make moves: The first of which should be next chapter. I feel like my story sits in a relative status quo, despite the additions to the character roster, where a new element is introduced and just added to the fold of the group, and then nothing presently changes, aside from the roster. The next chapter should change that, and start actually moving the plot forward again. Let me know your thoughts on how it went, and hopefully it's not so bad that I have to rewrite it again. Thanks for sticking with it. Motive: Surprise! I'm sure most of you are surprised to see an update to this one. I'd imagine a lot of you thought it was abandoned. And to be honest, it almost was. The previous two or three chapters, I felt like I was just circling the drain. I wasn't sure how to move the story forward, and so I started just writing some padding to keep an update schedule going. I've had an endgoal for what I consider to be "Book 1" of this fic, but I didn't exactly have much of a roadmap (which kinda explains some of the early installment weirdness of certain story beats like Shirou threatening the Fujimura group to get his manor back), but I felt like somewhere around the Kirei meeting, I was starting to figure things out. The story was progressing smoothly, the plot points flowed naturally, and I was building tension, character motives, upping stakes...and then found that I wasn't progressing towards my original goal. I was just kind of going off in my own direction, and was losing the original plot. So I went back to the drawing board, thought about how to get the story on track, and how to naturally develop a plan to kill Zouken cleanly and realistically, and managed to write a few more chapters where I thought I was doing decently well. Bioluminescence Crash: Song: Mokita ft. Charlotte Sands - Crash Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has already become one of my favorite shows. I've watched it twice over. And I've always wanted to write a Prototype fic, so this all came together for me like a bolt from the blue, and I'm so happy it did. I'd never found a medium to introduce Prototype to that I was particularly happy with, but given the resources and complete lack of morals that the corporations in Cyberpunk have, along with the various technological advancements, I don't think I could find a better setting to fuse with Prototype if I tried. Sweet Dreams: Song: Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams Two things, first and foremost: Kickstart My Heart: Song: Motley Crüe - Kickstart My Heart I really hope this chapter goes over well. This is probably the single most crucial chapter in my story, since if their meeting isn't convincingly in character while still following the plot ideas I have, the whole thing essentially falls apart. If it's not well-received, I'll either have to rewrite the entire chapter or just drop the story entirely, since everything after this will collapse if this ends up feeling forced. I'm obviously very biased and can't make any objective judgments, since I only just wrote and edited it, but I tried to make their interactions as in-character as I can think of. However, one or two crucial pieces of evidence have been withheld, and only hinted at, which I think will put Lucy's actions into better context if they didn't completely make sense in this chapter. Everything's still entirely from David's perspective, thus far, so he obviously is missing some things, or makes incorrect assumptions. I hope that also came through clearly in the writing. It's also for this reason that not all the cars and firearms are named: David doesn't know their names, even if I know exactly what firearms each the characters are using at any given moment. Tripwire: Song: YMIR - Tripwire This chapter seriously got away from me. I wasn't intending for it to be nearly this long, but I kept feeling like it would be too rushed if I didn't spend as much time on it as I did. Unfortunately, that extended the conversation out far longer than it probably should've been, to the point where the last section feels short and rushed by comparison, even though it probably wouldn't be were it at the end of any other chapter. Regardless, the intro section is done, and I can move onto the real meat and potatoes of the story, so expect a lot of action and intrigue in future chapters (that should be unsurprising, given the source materials I'm using). I'll keep trying to fit some character perspective into the fic, and I'll probably write from other perspectives in the future, but as with my Fate fic, the perspectives of other characters will be limited to only part of a chapter, and won't be appearing too often. The story is still David's story, so I don't want to overly focus on other characters to the point where it takes away from the main plot rather than adds to it. And I still have to build up the other half of the plot, so it'll probably be a bit before I get to writing some alternate perspectives. Also, what did you guys think of the twist on the cyberware? I've got a full explanation for exactly how it works (I have since before I started this), but now that it's starting to become a bit more apparent, I was wondering what people thought of it. I have more plans for Blacklight down the line, but this is the first major taste of how it does what it does, so I'm hoping you guys enjoy that. It'll also probably be a while before I upload chapter 5. I've got multiple other stories I've been neglecting because of this one, and I need to get back around to updating those before people start to think I'm abandoning them entirely. Luckily, when I do write chapter 5 of this, it should be a lot faster, since I already have the plot hammered out for it, so look forward to that. If I get far enough, we might even see another glimpse of those mystery mercenaries, so stay tuned. Chapter 5 will probably be out January 2023, so if I don't get around to updating this before then, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. Fast Lane: Bad Meets Evil - Fast Lane Enemies: Shinedown - Enemies Editing this took longer than I meant it to, but I expected that after editing the last chapter. I basically had to rewrite the majority of this chapter, since my rough draft was...well, a very rough draft. But it's out now, and we've finally gotten to the point where David's more monstrous abilities have revealed themselves, as well as his appetite. I wanted to try and build up his appetite a bit more in some of the previous chapters, but it was already pretty obvious that he had eaten three whole people only a week or so ago, and I also just couldn't find anywhere to fit the information into, with everything else going on. Edgerunners is a very dense show, so finding the right times to fit in new information can be difficult sometimes. Regardless, now that the intro's done, I can start spinning off into more of my own storyline. They leave a lot of David's early missions and interactions with the crew out between episodes 3 and 4, showing them only as a short montage, and I figure that's where I can start to really flesh out David's abilities and character arc, both how he develops them and learns more about what happened to him, and how he thinks his crew might react to him if they learn what he's become. I hope to incorporate more of the open-world aspect of Night City, using fixers, missions and characters from 2077, but I haven't played the game since it came out, and I'll have to go replay it or watch a playthrough of a bunch of side quests to refamiliarize myself. Between that, this adaptation of Blackwatch, and what I have in store for the various gangs, I should have a lot of material to fill out the story with, so it's more than just a highlight reel of story beats. I have plans for the story, but I need the space to build and execute those plans, that way they don't just feel shoehorned in because I felt like throwing something in. Monster: Literally too many artists to name - Monster Finally reached the end of arc one. Took me a lot longer than I meant it to, but now we can start getting to the fun stuff: the more original plotlines. I probably could have cut out a decent amount and sped the pacing up, but I enjoy the more introspective, slow pacing and planning that I've written (though hopefully it isn't too boring for everyone else, I just felt like there was a lot I had to introduce and have David reflect on before I could throw him in the deep end). The flashback was also kinda long, but I wanted to show how David experienced their his victims' entire lives upon consuming them. I won't be doing that for everyone he eats. Regardless, arc two should be faster paced and more action-packed. Got some plans to introduce elements form 2077 and other spin-off materials in the future, though I'm gonna need to refresh my memory on a lot of that beforehand, so chapters probably won't be coming out any faster. Money: Pink Floyd - Money Ain't no Rest for the Wicked: Cage the Elephant - Ain't No Rest for the Wicked As I've written more and more over the years, and my writing style has grown and developed, I've found writing good fight scenes to be more difficult than before. I'm not sure whether this has been caused by changes in my writing style, or if my fight scenes have always been subpar and I've only just noticed more recently. Regardless, I expect more criticism than usual for this chapter. I think my editing has made it far more legible, but it's still very difficult writing a fight scene between shapeshifting monsters that can basically resurrect themselves. I also expect some pushback on the new twist with Gloria, because I also labored over the decision of whether or not to include this story beat for the past few chapters, but I felt like it's one of the more sensible ways to take the story in regards to the cat-and-mouse game David and Blackwatch have going on, and I've been building up to it since nearly the beginning, so I couldn't just toss out the whole plotline and have all my groundwork be for nothing. I have further plans for it, and I hope to make it interesting enough without becoming so involved without detracting from the rest of the story. Unless, of course, it becomes more interesting to have her be more involved, but I think if I make her backstory too crazy, it defeats the purpose of Gloria's character, so it's not exceptionally likely I'll go that route. Also, as far as the name I chose, I literally just looked up a list of the most common Hispanic names from like 2010 and picked one at random. Lucy and David's relationship is steadily coming along, though they're still not quite friends yet. I'll probably focus on some of the other crew members' relationships with David in the chapter after the next, because the next chapter is gonna be another full dose of Detective Martinez with a hefty dose of violence, which is hopefully what you all signed up for when you started reading this story anyway, so look forward to that. It'll probably be a few months until that's uploaded, though, because I'm finally going to go back and update Another Heaven, but I'm still very excited to write this story's next chapter, because I've got some Plans for it. Blockbuster Night: Run the Jewels - Blockbuster Night Pt. 1 And with that, this arc comes to a close. Definitely a shorter chapter, but I felt this was the best spot to end it. I tried to keep the fight scene much cleaner and neater than my last couple, since those tended to drag on too long for my liking, but I might've still driveled on a little much with the thinking and monologuing. The freerunning scene was also a little too repetitive for my taste, and I did clean it up some, but I felt I had to establish a base of him slowly testing out new tricks and seeing if they work before just having him spider-manning all over the place. I've read too many stories lately where halfway through development, they just decided to throw a critical mass of powers at the main character or suddenly having them use what they've acquired like they'd been using it all their life, even if they'd only just acquired or learned it recently. It felt like it ruined the stakes and the sense of progression, and that's the biggest thing I'm hoping to avoid with this story. Curiosity: NAO - Curiosity The third chapter of "using the VDB gig as window-dressing while I address character perspectives and thematic questions." Had to rewrite a good chunk of it to get some of those themes in there, though. I started writing this story in a fit of inspiration, but I'd never been too good at the thematic aspects of storytelling, focusing on the personality of the story rather than the purpose. I stumbled across some advice from a buddy of mine, who pointed me towards a writing consultant and screenwriter to help me dial in the purpose and themes of this story, which I think has helped me massively, both for this story and for my writing as a whole. My works (and many fanfics, I've noticed) tend to start wandering, since they lack a real purpose or end goal beyond the first arc, and so many fall off and stop updating because they don't really have a direction. Some of my earlier chapters in this story definitely stank of that, as well, and I was primarily updating just to make people happy because they wanted to read it. But things have changed: I have my themes and questions in order, and I've figured out a plot and ending that will let me delve into those themes and build on the characters in a way that fits the purpose of the story, not just its personality. Give them proper arcs that align with the themes and help further the plot, allowing me to tie everything together. This chapter was just the start of that, so it's still a bit messy, but it's helping me bring the story back into realignment. Next chapter might take a bit longer to put out, but I'm confident my writing's quality going forward will be noticeably higher (especially from a macro perspective), and I'm really excited to workshop the rest of the act. Thanks for sticking with this story for so long, despite its overall lack of focus. That won't be the case for much longer. Red Strings Buried Stray thread: Happy Valentine's Day! Well, it's a few minutes past Valentine's, because I can't edit fast enough, but I tried. Lying Buried: I was planning on hiding Izuku's past a bit longer, originally, even keeping one of the main tags out of the story description, but I realized it was probably better for visibility if I added it, but that meant I had to bump up the Izuku plotline earlier into the story. Was planning on the story to be mainly Katsumi's perspective for a good few chapters before I ever swapped to Izuku, or if I did, I would barely even allude to Izuku's past, but oh well. This just means I can introduce more cool plot elements, and I'll just have to mete out what to reveal early and what to keep in reserve. I was going to have this chapter and the next few be mostly romcom situations with the 1A classmates trying to figure out what was going on with Katsumi while the main plot happened in the background, but it seems I'm going to have less of that in the upcoming chapters. Perhaps some will remain, but it will have to be different enough that I'm gonna have to remap at least some of the plotline. I have a few future subplot ideas with the quirk analysis stuff that I could go down, but I'm not entirely certain I want to tread that path again, since so many other fics have already done the "Izuku is Nezu's apprentice in quirk analysis" plotline, and I don't know how interesting I can make it by re-treading old ground. Perhaps I can try to put a spin on it, but I'm not sure how much I can really do with it in the first place. I might do something kind of similar, but ultimately different, but I'll have to see. I'm sure there's something I can make out of the subplot ideas bouncing around in my head. Nomenclature: Compared to some of my other works, I actually felt like I didn't need to edit too much of this chapter, which I tend to appreciate, since editing is by far my least favorite part of the writing process. However, I am tired, so that could just mean I think my writing's better than it is because I'm not paying enough attention to it. Regardless, I enjoy writing Katsumi's perspective, though some of my own linguistic style sometimes supersedes Katsumi's natural...disposition? dialect? And that occasionally bothers me, but they're in places that I can't think would be a better fit for Katsumi's linguistic style instead of my own, so I just tend to shrug and move on. It's a fun change of pace either way. The romance writing is also somewhat new to me, and I've had to tone it down in some areas because it didn't flow well or didn't fit, but it's fun to write Katsumi being very tsundere with her loving boyfriend. I feel like this is actually the least serious story I've written in a while, despite the dramatic plot hooks. It's nice. I'll be running two simultaneous plotlines for arc 1 of this story, with only one of them vaguely following canon. It's certainly harder to write this way, and I'll need to brush up on some of my bnha knowledge again, but I think this is better than waiting like 3 to 10 arcs for the characters to actually do anything unique, so I'm doing it. I've never done a dual-plotline arc before, so I hope it turns out well, but I'm sure I'll be making a lot of mistakes and learning at least that many lessons while I write it. I just hope the finished product isn't hot garbage. For now, though, indulging in relationship shenanigans and IzuKatsu fluff is the overall plotline and purpose of this fic, so enjoy! |