[Meta] Q&A and Author Notes

This is a page specifically for readers to post any questions about the story in the comment section. It is also a place for authors to post notes about their stories, revealing behind the scenes choices and information that may help readers understand more about why certain things are set up the way they are. If you have not completed the storyline, there may be spoilers ahead, so treat this as an end of the DVD director's commentary and save it for the end!

Eagle_Bacon:

Hey there, so I decided to make this page to communicate with readers better! Since this is the first story I've written, I've been posting this story around looking for creative critique, comments, and feedback. I've decided to make this page not only for any curious readers, but also for my benefit. Finding out what my readers want to see has already changed the path of the story for the better in my opinion.

Speaking of the path of the story, here's a little behind the scenes info! I have a Google Doc that is currently 66 pages long for this story! First reason is because CHYOA.com's text editor is in light mode, and I don't know how to switch it to dark mode, even though that's how I have my reading settings. In the Google Doc, I use a black page background and white text to get a jank dark mode so that I can write more comfortably. Second reason I use it is to record notes. I have tons of notes! The main sections are story notes, character descriptions, objects of importance, spells and ritual mechanics, critique, and comments. I record a ton of stuff there, and with the Google Docs outline feature, I can jump to these sections quickly and jot down anything that I need to keep a track of. In the story notes section, I have plans for a bunch of different branches for the Rosalind/Earnest storyline, going all the way to a hopefully satisfying for multiple storylines. I wrote most of the story notes at the beginning, as I wanted an outline of an entire storyline to avoid getting stuck, and have added more and more to it as I have written more fully fleshed out chapters.

Here's another behind the scenes about the character Morgan Avanath! I originally had no plans for this character! I originally planned on the journal just being a McGuffin device to give the misfit boys the ability to possess people, but as I got to that point, I started writing about the contents of the journal more than I thought I would. After writing several paragraphs that contained more than just info on how to perform a possession spell, like experimental notes etc. I had the idea to have a signature page last. That's where Morgan Avanath came to be, as I wanted not only the journal to be more than just an object, and part of a greater storyline.

In case anyone is wondering, Morgan is intentionally given a unisex name, and referred to as "they" in their original body to keep their original sex ambiguous. Morgan could have started off as a mere human man or woman, but has used the possession spell to journey through bodies of all races and sexes, so Morgan's original sex isn't terribly important to the current state of the world. Readers can fill in Morgan's original sex as however they prefer honestly, since I know that there MtF, MtM, FtF, and FtM possession fans. Unfortunately, due to personal tastes, there may not be as much of a focus on MtM or FtM possession from me, but feel free to add chapters, alternate storylines, and original storylines as you please!

In general, I'll be using the sex pronouns of the body rather than the mind, hence why Morgan in Coltia is referred to as her.

In the Google Doc where I write the storylines, I write the characters with their default names Rosalind Shields and Earnest Pierce. After finishing a chapter, I copy the text to notepad and replace their names with the CHYOA customization names so that readers can change their names to anything they'd like.

I'd like to give a special thanks to HeinrichLo, who was the first author to add their own branches to this story. Thank you very much!

I'd like to also give thanks to commenters on CHYOA and off CHYOA that leave their impressions and suggestions! Even comments about spelling and grammar mistakes help!

One of the core principles I wanted to keep while going into this project was to avoid mechanical errors like spelling and grammar. I personally find them a little distracting when I'm getting into a story, so I wanted to avoid that as much as possible for readers, hence I go over each chapter to check not only for spelling and grammar errors, but also story consistency errors and sentences that should be reworded for improved readability. Because of this, chapter writing might be a little slower than it could be, but I want to put out a good quality story that people can really get into and enjoy.

In case anyone is wondering why my branch is written largely in past tense, that is a stylistic choice. One of the most common mistakes that I make when I write anything is accidentally changing the tense to past, so I decided to write this story in such a way, since it seems to be my default way of conveying information.

Yes the Coltia thing was weird for me to write, but I wanted to have a pleasure-seeking activity that was not only beyond the ability of mortals to experience, but also unique to the abilities of the body. I think it ended up in a satisfying enough way, but I was very unsure of it at the start.

Phew! Writing [Side Story] Rosalind's Day Off took a lot of consideration and rewriting. I'm not very experienced with describing mental changes, and one of the challenges that I ran into was using the right words. On the first draft, I found myself using sort of technical language to describe her feelings like "desynchronized" or "alienated" but these didn't fit the tone. There were alternative words, but they didn't quite fit either. Luckily, the solution presented itself pretty quickly, as I found it was much more effective to use metaphors and imagery to do the job. Describing her mental state as a river or like music allowed for a more consistent tone as well as vivid description. After describing how she felt about her general mental health, I moved onto more concrete examples of habits and behaviors, so I didn't need to describe abstract things anymore, and could instead focus on actions and events. By the end of a ton of revisions and edits, the chapter came out much better than I had hoped, so I hope you guys enjoy it too!

Oh yeah, in case anyone is wondering, the misfit boys are inspired by a titular trio that featured on a wacky American cartoon lol.

Special thanks to Jones.Jennifer who has not only added to the story, but also provided feedback and encouragement. Thank you very much, it's really appreciated!

Phew, "Any Port In A Storm" took a little longer than usual to write because of other busyness and distractions, but thankfully Jones.Jennifer has started a branch and has posted every day between! Thanks again! Also, I hope that readers are enjoying the branch! There are a bunch of interesting differences between the characterizations and focus of the plot, so if you haven't checked out "Despite the dangers, he says yes." if you want to see for yourself! Anyways, I've got some more free time coming up, so there may be more chapters coming soon, but no promises okay?

I'm gonna be honest, writing the sausage stuff in "Meeting The Ladies" almost had me laughing aloud at some points. Originally, I just wanted Alesia to be the awkward flirt, but the whole sausage thing came out of nowhere and I decided to run with it. I think I almost lost it specifically at the line, "She brought it in front of her, blushing for some reason, as she closed her eyes and put Earnest’s sausage to her lips." because it was so unsubtle and sudden. Anyways, I liked the idea so I also extended it to Morgan, who shows some personality in the way she ate hers. I was concerned that Earnest would come off like the thick-skulled harem anime protagonist when he didn't understand what was going on, but then again Alesia and Morgan really are weird AF compared to the people Earnest usually interacts with.

I noticed that I didn't set any cover art yet, so I went looking around for some. I thought about image rights, asking artist's explicit permission, or even commissioning something, but realized that I was overthinking it. I think it should be fine to use publicly posted (not leaked or private) images so long as I credit and link like its a college research paper. These can be found in the changelog and introduction. I also thought about which image would suit the story the best, and realized that a good solution might be to regularly change the cover image. I originally wanted to use some fan art of Casca from Berserk, but after asking for some opinions, I found that others' idea of Rosalind was different. I wanted to avoid restricting the reader's ability to fill in the gaps with their own preferences, so I avoided using images in chapters, so because of this, I have decided to change the cover image regularly to different characters or achetypes. I may create a character sheet in the future that includes reference images, but those will explicitly be labelled as how I view the characters as I am writing, and not necessarily how they should be read. I'm still considering commissioning something, but I've never done it before, so I'm putting it off lol.

8/24/2022: Phew, sorry for the little break I had to take there, some IRL stuff all come together in the last week and weekend that I had to prioritize lol. Anyways, I should be free to spend more time on this story, so expect chapters to resume very soon!

9/2/2022: Jones.Jennifer has completed the first ending of their branch! There isn't a good way to link a single "path" of chapters, but the end chapter is "A Series of (Un)fortunate Events [Ending 1]". I suppose you can either find your way with the story map or by using the "previous chapter" link to go all the way from the end to the beginning, then go back a page for each new chapter. idk lol, I just want to promote a branch that I am excited about! It doesn't end there though, as there are more endings to come!

I'm really glad that other writers have contributed the the Knight Possession story, especially those that bring their own preferences for the direction of the story and writing styles as well. Jones.Jennifer's branch is faster paced than those that I write, which is honestly a breath of fresh air lol. Sometimes I feel like my own chapters are a little too slow paced, but thankfully Jones.Jennifer's branch offers a faster pace to make up for this!

After Coltia/Morgan joined the party, I had to revise the outlined ending since it was written before Morgan was even created as a character while writing " His Worst Case Scenario" so long ago! During this rewrite, I was thinking of interesting solutions to Rosalind's mental alterations. I didn't want a hand-wavey magic spell to make her as good as new. I wanted every choice to have its own pros and cons. The black mind slime was originally imagined as a black slug. A slug fit the aesthetic of black magic better, but I changed it a slime so that it could take up the "headspace" inside its host and prevent others from possessing them. Hence the mind slimes were born, with a white version that doesn't do anything except block possession... at least that's what Coltia/Morgan tells the group.

Anyways, the climax of this branch is soon arriving, so please look forward to it!

11/20/2022: Wow! The last note was from so long ago, before I published "Three Versus Three"! Well after reading Ed20's comment on "Bath Buddies" I thought it was about time for another! I just found it so interesting to see what the readers were thinking while reading the story, thinking about why characters act the way they do, and why things are the way that they are presented. And I'm impressed to say that some of their ideas are better thought out and more in-depth than mine lol! I hope no one is too disappointed to hear, but the correct guess was the third one! Yes, that's just how Adeline is.

Originally, Adeline was an unnamed character who was just supposed to be in the Lindow church, but on a whim I gave her a name and some dialogue so that she wasn't just a wooden sign that told Earnest where to go next. On another whim, I had her join the church members heading for Knottori. At this point, I don't know what hit me, but I just wanted the character to be... more! And so I thought about what makes people interesting, and one of the things that I personally find interesting is when a character has hobbies, interests, and skills that are atypical for their profession's stereotype. For some reason, I thought that having the holy mother be a fitness enthusiast just felt right, in its own weird way. That was all thought up with the scene where she shows off at the table, and having Rosalind join her for a morning workout was another random idea that I wanted to pursue!

I actually had a bit of trouble writing "Workout Partner" at the start, and had to re-write it a little. Originally, Adeline was sort of aggressive and flirty with Rosalind, and Rosalind was kind of shocked into accepting her advances. However, it felt like Adeline was sort of... just a shallow lusty character for smut purposes or something? It just felt rushed and underdeveloped, so I rewrote all the aggressive flirtiness and ulterior motives out of Adeline, and made her more purely and genuinely excited to have a friend that was like her. Rosalind also became less of a character being swept up in Adeline's flow. However, I still wanted Adeline to go on the attack eventually, just not this soon, and not this strong. The perfect opportunity came with the bath scene.

At the start of having Rosalind and Adeline work out together, I just thought I would return to the main plot right after, but then another idea struck. They were both women, they were both in need of a bath, why not have a scene where they both go in together? This also turned out to be the perfect stage for their desires to be unleashed!

Anyways, back to Ed20's comment, I really liked the idea that so much can be attributed to Morgan's actions. I feel like Morgan's past has been left pretty blank, to a certain degree. There is a sort of overview that describes Morgan's origins, their journey through multiple bodies, and eventual ascent to godhood, but barely any specifics on what bodies were occupied. All that was mentioned was that Morgan climbed a ladder with each body being more "powerful" than the last, even in the more political form of "power". So yes, nobles, royals, people with "weak" bodies but other forms of power would also be involved in Morgan's journey! Maybe I'll look at writing some chapters dedicated to Morgan's past, but I'm focusing on finishing this storyline first. The other thing we know about Morgan is that they are cautious and meticulous by nature, which helped Morgan avoid detection when they entered a new host. Taking disciples and granting them power might be a bit against that personality type, but the idea that Morgan's traits have influenced the host after Morgan left is spot on! I definitely wanted to have Morgan's journey to leave little ripples in its wake, but again, I haven't had much opportunity to expand upon that. You might be asking, why is Morgan going against their cautious and meticulous nature with this whole misfit boys situation that she set up? Well of course, despite Morgan inhabiting the body of a goddess now, their mind is still only human! Morgan got bored and cocky, since she now has an immortal body, hence Morgan's choice to share the possession spell and watch the antics up close.

Anyways, it feels good to write some more notes and explain what's going on behind the scenes! I'll probably do more author notes, but no promises! Special thanks to Ed20, whose comment on "Bath Buddies" got me thinking enough to write this note, and whose comment on "Fallen Angel" was very encouraging. I love comments, so don't hesitate to type something out, no matter how small! Also, special thanks to HeinrichLo, whose new chapter I very much enjoyed! I could gush about it here, but I already condensed it down to a comment that I left on the chapter, so if you haven't read HeinrichLo's branch yet, I recommend it!

11/25/2022: Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate it! I was expecting more free time to write given the holiday, but it turns out the opposite happened! Since my friends had more free time, I ended up playing video games with them during the times that I usually write lol. Anyways, this is another one of those chapters that started getting too long and needed to be separated, hence it might feel a little bit like a transition between plot points, but again I didn't want it too get too long!

1/23/2023: Quick note on the dream sequence in the chapter "Sleeping Beauty", most of the start of the dream was inspired by the dream sequence in the movie "Brazil" so check it out if you want! Later on, the running part was partially inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia, but only loosely since I don't remember much of the details pertaining to the story. Quick note done!

3/12/2023: It just hit me that I haven't posted an author's note in a while, even after publishing the my first ending! Thanks again to Ed20 who gave a ton of constructive critique and encouragement in the comments, I'm always glad to see when readers care about the story! I thought I'd share some behind the scenes stuff!

For narrative consequences, the current story does seem light for each of the characters. The misfit boys get arrested and that's it? Earnest and Rosalind come out of this experience and just return to normal life? Alesia is just left alone in Lindow? What about Coltia? Did she just get a cooking maid and a show out of all of this? I only mentioned it in the changelog, but I'm currently planning 4 epilogues. The first will touch on the misfit girls, and their lives after being arrested and imprisoned. The second will be about Alesia, and a certain "deal with the devil" that she made. The third will be about Earnest and Rosalind after their marriage, The last will cover Morgan/Coltia, and that's all I'll say for now! As the story is now, there are very few narrative consequences for the characters, their actions, and the events that they go through. Hopefully these epilogues will provide exactly that!

In regards to having a "good end", the idea behind it was "if everything goes right, what would a happily ever after look like?". I agree that it somewhat lacks nuance, and make the plot move straight in one direction, but I wanted to knock out one side of the good to bad spectrum before moving on to different types, just to cover my bases for readers that wanted a good ending for Rosalind and Earnest. In the master document where I write out all the ideas, chapters, etc. I have a bunch of branches and endings planned out that are a bit more dynamic. Anyways, I hope that this little look behind the scenes indicates that there is more to come! I took a bit of a break after publishing the first ending since I thought it would be a good goal to hit before taking a rest, but now it's time to get into the epilogues!

As an aside, I'd like to thank RushAlias for publishing more chapters, namely "Ricard puts Rosalind to good use" and "Payback". Before these chapters, details on exactly how the misfits used Rosalind's body to their benefit were sparse, so I was very glad to see RushAlias create a scenario for Ricard.

5/10/2023: Another author note following the publishing of "[Epilogue] Ultimate Goal". I just wanted to answer a couple of questions that Ed20 has commented! Morgan, while being quite clever and scheming, is still an individual with a singular perspective and their own flaws. Before Morgan takes over Zymera's body, they focus much more on the merits of Zymera's body. Zymera as an individual is on the top rung of the divine ladder, hence she is the ultimate goal for Morgan's journey. After Morgan takes over Zymera, that's when they realize that even the pinnacle of individual power is still kept in check by the collective gods. There may also be some more emotional motivations for taking over Zymera. Morgan is really horny for Zymera's body and takes quite the pleasure in stealing it away from such an arrogant god. So yeah, becoming the new goddess of dark magic is the end goal of Morgan's original journey, but that doesn't mean things end there! Morgan is a magic nerd and now has more access to resources than ever, and perhaps a new goal in sight?

Moving on to Ed20's second comment on the second part, why did Morgan purge Zymera's mind? Well, first reason is that I wanted a really cool scene for Morgan's final ascension, something like a climax to Morgan's story. An ultimate spell to reach an ultimate goal, or something like that. Second reason is actually more mechanics based though! I may not have explained it too well since the mind link spell was newly introduced, but Zymera's consciousness is still inside her own head. With the mind link spell, think of it like grabbing some really long cables, and moving a computer's monitor, mouse, and keyboard to a different room while the computer tower itself stays. Then imagine locking the door to that room. Zymera is still conscious, just forcibly cut off. With the possession spell, the target's mind must be to be overlaid, or else it will be swapped instead.

Now, with Zymera's mind extracted, what then? Firstly Zymera is not killed by this process. Going back to the computer analogy, imagine taking out the storage from the computer case, and putting it into a raspberry pi. That's sort of like Zymera in her avatar. And the raspberry pi is in Morgan's hands, who can crush it whenever they want. But still, there's valuable data on that storage, and potentially ways to extract that data. And also Morgan can mess with the raspberry pi, taunting it from an untouchable position (maybe the power is making Morgan a bit less careful?). In regards to Coltia, her mind is still alive and will return to control her body, but of course she's captured by Morgan and subject to experiments. I may have some ideas for her in a potential follow up, but it won't be too much. In regards to "a pillar of order in the world effectively being removed" I view the role of the gods a bit differently. I view them somewhat like the gods from the manhua "Tales of Demons and Gods". They are not the source of these aspects of the world, nor necessarily the guardians. They are like the embodiment of an aspect of the world, and have a natural affinity to controlling and manipulating that aspect to a certain degree. So for example, if all the gods disappeared, the daily life of a forest animal wouldn't be affected. However, that's not to say that the gods don't do anything or affect the world. A bunch of them command worshippers or roam the lands, creating mythological stories in their wake, or something that that effect.

There was an idea for a branch where Morgan fails right at the last step. I may explore it, in fact now that I think about it I probably will. Should be a quick, fun "bad end" lol.

Oh, and while I'm writing a note, thanks to Ed20 for reaching out and providing a great idea for a new branch with the theme of Multi-possession. Thanks to RushAlias as well for immediately adding to that branch too! I'll be writing some more for this branch too. Long note done!

7/11/2023: Hey again! It's been a while! I've just published "[Neutral End] Triage" and read Ed20's comment, so I wanted to take this opportunity to answer some questions and show some behind-the-scenes stuff!

Oh yeah, this chapter was a long one! I was considering splitting it right where the "..." little time skip happens, but I wanted to keep it together for structure reasons. I wanted to give a little glimpse of Earnest/Rosalind/Alesia's daily life and new relationship, then go into the events that got them here... then some spicy stuff too. Ended up being pretty long as a result!

As for more expansion into the new lives of the Earnest/Rosalind/Alesia coupling, I did have an undeveloped idea of Coltia mailing them a gift for their marriage or anniversary. It would be an accessory to spice up the bedroom by allowing one of them to grow a dick. Not super sure if I want to do futa stuff yet, but I'm not against it and I'm always looking to write stuff that I haven't yet. That would probably be an epilogue with plenty of daily life plus spiciness.

In regards to the search being quite brief, I wanted to keep this chapter focused on more on the new Earnest/Rosalind/Alesia life, hence why the search is sort of skipped over, as well as the emotions that came with failing to recapture Earnest's original body. While those emotions could be interesting to write about, I found the relationship dynamic more interesting.

In regards to the church and knight members that presumably arrived to help and search, you question is totally valid! Why isn't wasn't there a need for an impersonation plan like in the other branch? In the other branch, Earnest needed to possess Rosalind to buy time for her mental recovery. This is technically an of dark magic, since he is using the possession spell to rob Rosalind of her body, even if it is with good intentions. From the church's perspective, Earnest should not use the spell to control Rosalind, and Rosalind should be placed in the church's hands to be healed with their methods. The church would also see Coltia's black mind slime as an unacceptable option as well, so Earnest's choice was to trust Coltia's solution over the church's. Now why is this branch different? Well since Ricard killed his original body, Earnest is stuck in Rosalind. In this case, Earnest is not possessing Rosalind by choice, since there is no alternative. Then the church can't really do anything with Earnest/Rosalind until they recapture Earnest's original body, hence why Earnest doesn't need to do any impersonation. It isn't explicitly said in the chapter, but in this branch both the church and knights are fully informed of what happened and the current situation. From the church's perspective, Earnest is just as much of a victim of Ricard's of dark magic as Rosalind is a victim. Hope that answers why significant differences exist! I probably should have flushed it out in the chapter itself, but for the reasons I mentioned earlier I kinda forgot to focus on it!

While this [neutral end] was quite quick compared to the branch that it's attached to, I'm thinking of having a bit more come from this path where Ricard escapes with Earnest's body. I was thinking of having a plot where Earnest/Rosalind leave the knights, since knights crossing the border into a rival kingdom and apprehending someone would be a political issue. They leave the knights and enter this country essentially as vigilantes, trying to track down Ricard and get Earnest back. There's probably a good opportunity for a bad end here, so we'll see how far it goes if I choose to pursue this.

Anyways, that was quite a long note! I hope readers enjoyed this chapter, and look forwards to more. Special thanks to Ed20 for asking interesting questions as always!