Part 1 Afterword

I should preface this by saying that the following brings nothing of particular value to the story and should not be treated as a story chapter. It may or may not also contain spoilers to some lesser known movies/series/games/books.

BGM if you wish to listen to what I listened to whilst writing this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_V9JIMBgRw (Side note: "Orb: On the Movements of the Earth" is literally the best anime ever made. Extremely thought-provoking and subverting the expectations. And thaumazein is the best song from it. Tonight's sky is definitely beautiful.)

...

This feels strange.

I've already written so much and done this in my head multiple times, and I still can't pick any words to relay what I want to say. There is just too much to be said.

Well. Allow me to begin with: Hello! This is 'MH-0' MeedrowH! Thank you for joining in and taking a while to read this!

A question might stir, why make an afterword when the story is hardly finished? Frankly, I'm not entirely sure myself. It just felt fitting, given how much the story's initial idea has changed to arrive at what it is right now. Maybe I will do it again in the future.

It's been quite the ride, huh? I kind of can't believe it. This project I started 2.5 years ago as a 'side-project' to regain my wits to continue Travis's branch, now stands as its equal. 288k words. Can you believe that? I certainly didn't. My initial reaction at the tally was a frantic fright. 'What? How? When? Why?' I just couldn't understand how it grew. Just like Grandma in Celeste said, "It's hard to believe it's over, isn't it? Funny how we get attached to the struggle."

My, how the things have changed over the time. Lucas's story went through several iterations before we arrived where we are now.

The story's origins begin in July of 2023. Having returned from field studies and encountered significant challenges in advancing Travis's storyline beyond his return to Silvana with Aria, I decided, as I usually do, to go on a walk to take my mind off things a little.

Well... as long as you can call 'swinging a scythe' a walk, and 'incessant thoughts about the story' taking my mind off things. Either way, works for me.

Somewhere along the way, I had a thought. The thought went something along the lines of 'What if Redion was not a god, but a demon who gave Travis not a godly psionics class, but a nefarious/underhanded version of psionic magic'? Along those thoughts were also things like 'Damn I wish I had used Overgeared's stat system for Travis's branch instead of blindly believing Solo Leveling had a good system'. Seriously, while neither system is in any capacity perfect, Overgeared was so much better than SL.

Anyway.

That initial thought quickly transformed into a concept of a man getting an underhanded class working on a more subconscious aspect of the psyche, and slowly working his way through his family and surroundings as people started suspecting something was wrong about him, but nobody could prove what. Kind of like James Doakes suspecting Dexter Morgan of being the Bay Harbor Butcher, but having no concrete evidence.

And that idea very quickly gave birth to...

Eamon.

Yes. You read that correctly. Eamon was supposed to be the main hero all along.

The idea flowed in my head for a couple of days. The initial presence was supposed to be a demon who just hung around in Eamon's mind, speaking to him to slowly guide him toward corruption. It would also make horrible jokes.

Eventually, I didn't do it. I'm not entirely sure why, but it felt, for some reason, unfitting. And I'm saying this as if anything I've ever written felt fitting.

A couple more days passed, and I finally set my mind to simply write it out. Now would be a good idea to say, why exactly did I decide to do this? I mean, trying to bounce myself back into writing Travis's branch was certainly ONE idea, but not what pushed me to do it. And the grand reason was... I just wanted to make a story where the main character actually uses the mind-control he's given to, you know, actually get the pole in the goal.

...

Let that sink in for a second.

...

Now, let me make a quick comparison.

Travis Salliv was using mind control as early as he got it. Granted, it was far more necessity than desire to do so, given his situation with Aria, then Leavalja, but still. By chapter 15, he had had two sexual encounters, and you could argue that both were mind-controlled. By chapter 35, he and Leaf were openly banging. Granted, one of those two initial encounters was removed in the rewrite, but my point stands.

Now compare this to Lucas. His branch's first actual 18+ scene was Nimue, alone, in chapter 11. The next one was... softcore, if anything, with Lucas fondling Ophelia's tits, all the way in chapter 38. And while the first real sex scene happened relatively shortly after with Nimue, I think the issue I'm hinting at is kind of obvious.

Well... I suppose that's just the curse of how I write things.

Speaking of how I write things, allow me to share a little secret with you: I hate knowing what's going to happen. What I mean by that is very simple, and also the reason why I like Travis's branch more than Lucas's. Allow me to explain.

When I started Travis's branch, I had precisely zero idea on what, where, and how would happen. Writing chapter 2, 3, 5, 10, I had little to no clue what I'd like to write about in chapter 25, 50, and so on. Beatrice appearing in the story was a whim I had at the moment, which turned to her being a pivotal character in that story and supplying a massive part of the lore of the past. And everything came to me naturally, and I discovered the story as I wrote it. This also came with some very fun and incredibly lucky interactions. For example, Travis getting the crab's pearl on day 21, when he was locked up by Chris, was fully unintentional. I had written some of Rulebreaker's Piece in advance, without the care for the story, and it just happened to align, no changes necessary.

Compared to that, Lucas's branch was mostly planned. By chapter 4 or 5, I already knew most of the events that I wanted to include, when I wanted to include them, and more or less how to do so. Of course, nothing is set in stone, and plenty of things still had changed because they didn't fit in with their initial destination, but the sentiment remains. From the get-go, I knew I wanted to have Lucas be possessed by his older self, through to Lucas fighting with Illan, to him being cast away from his family at the end.

Of course, that doesn't mean everything went perfectly in-line with the plan. Future Lucas was supposed to survive to become a dark nemesis to Lucas, serving as the kind of 'corrupted hero' who enslaves hundreds in the name of greater purpose. I kind of envisioned the type of confrontation you have in Celeste chapter 6 between Madeline and Badeline/part of Madeline. Instead, he ended up sacrificing himself to allow Nimue's life. And honestly? I'm all in for that. The 'dark Lucas' archetype (or Luucas, for those who know a bit of Star Wars lore) was a rough concept, and while I could see it working, it always felt a bit rudimentary. After all, the only reason future Lucas agreed to go back was to see Nimue and have a chance at saving her. Though, it doesn't mean we won't get something similar in part 2 onward. It will simply be a different character being the 'corrupted hero'.

Granted, several things also did not make it into the story as it went. The Academy ****, in particular, was held down a lot because I simultaneously wanted to keep it as 4 chapters in total because of the naming convention, and I didn't want each of those four chapters to be 15k words long. Plenty of scenes I had had planned for that were scrapped because of that, including Sienna discovering what had happened to Elaine after Illan blew up the corridor, Ester accidentally using freeform magic to hide herself from the aggressors, Alisha and Ophelia talking in 'Monsters and humans' which would give the latter an even stronger incentive to tell Lucas she doesn't really hate him.

Speaking of naming convention, did you enjoy it? It was... pretty fun, albeit the annoying fun, to do it. 'X and Y' style of naming came to my mind somewhere around chapter 4 or 5, and I decided it might be a nice idea to implement, if only in this story. Those who had seen the original version of chapter 3 might remember its name as 'Research' instead of 'Research and theory'.

Beatrice's cameo in chapter 17 was... a bit of a mixed bag between me wanting to make a reference and deciding whether or not the two stories should intersect at any point. I have plans for them to intersect once more in the future, but I think that'll be it.

My whole point is, since the beginning, I knew Lucas, Seraphina, and others would be in Weydan at Friday. The idea of how changed drastically - the initial one was Minerva doing a sniping mission with a musket and then making a run for it - but the whole idea, and its effects, remained the same. Minerva lost an arm, Seraphina lost an eye, Nimue lost her life.

Maybe I'm just being nitpicky. Travis was going to get to Autir one way or another, and he was going to make his way back to Silvana as well. He was going to meet Isolde, even if the initial idea was set much later. Maybe it's all about perspective.

To be completely honest, much as I grew to dislike Lucas's branch along the way, it's really grown on me, especially in the more recent chapters. It has stretched several things plenty, I will give it that. Lucas vs Illan was initially planned for around chapter 23, for one. I wanted to finish this whole part in 30 chapters, and we ended up with double that amount. Oh well. Part 1 was a strange journey. I'm glad it's over, and I'm already looking forward to making part 2.

Well...

...

Should I give a few words about the characters? I suppose I should. It's only fitting, right?

Between the sheer number of characters and their purposes in the story, there are always going to be some that we like more and some that we wish were never introduced.

One character of the first kind for me is Nimue. From the first chapter, I knew exactly the type of a person she was. Before we hit chapter 4, I already had had plans for her backstory and how it would tie into the overarching story. And best of all, I knew precisely the type of personality she would have, and how it ties into everything. The result was a character that I sincerely had a lot of fun writing, be it in solitary scenes, ponders, actions she does, and most of all, scenes where she showcases her powers.

And on the other side of the spectrum, we have Ester Breshnaw. Did you enjoy her character? I know I didn't. I still don't know exactly why her character even came to be. A **** plot on Illan by Lucas? Having Lucas woo her right from under her brother's nose? I honestly can't remember what reasoning I held for her being, if any. At some point, I thought about making her a character that could discover freeform magic style on her own (via the aforementioned deleted scene), but now, I really don't know what to do with her. She is an enigma, in actions, mind, and personality alike. Not that it's a bad thing, in all honesty. I have a feeling playing around with her may be more fun than I foresee at the moment. Well, we will see. I hope, at least.

Aside from the main cast of Lucas, his family, Nimue, Egis, and Seraphina, a multitude of side characters came to be. And... at some point, I came to realize that there are simply too many of them to do their scenes fairly. This is also the reason why the story ended up being so long, and why I believe Travis's story is vastly superior in this regard.

But not all side characters were bad. In fact, I'd say almost all of them were rather decent, and those who weren't only appeared once or twice and had little agency anyway. Alisha, Arand, and Dorothea were a trio that I especially liked writing. Dorothea's explosiveness with Arand taking her on, and Alisha who was essentially like a mother/older sibling to them. I feel their balance was pretty good.

...

Well, I suppose I should wrap this up. There is a lot I still hasn't said that I wanted, and the things I had said perhaps I shouldn't have.

Whichever the case, the question remains: What next?

Frankly, this is a bit of a dead-end question, if that makes sense. Continuing Lucas's branch is the obvious choice, but before I can do that, I wanted to do some actual art of some characters, especially Ophelia, Nimue, Tessa, Thines, and a secret character who will be introduced in part 2 and will be a pivotal character in there. How long will this take? I frankly can't tell. I wish I could say I will have them done by next week, but I can't promise that. I will certainly try though.

The second choice is going back to Travis's branch. With how part 3 ended and part 4 began, we are looking at quite some events that can and will happen. Side story 3 will be all about Isolde and how she comes back. Then, we have a long way to go, but I suspect we will make a round trip to Poiri by the end of part 4 or maybe somewhere in part 5. It really depends on things I cannot predict as I'm writing this. (And thinking about this, if I can draw characters from Lucas's branch well, I will certainly give it a go in Travis's branch as well)

The third choice is the third project I recently started to work on. It will be a relatively short story (I foresee maybe 40-50 chapters total, but you know, I foresaw only 30 for Lucas's part 1, and you know how far in that we are now) about a young man inheriting a vintage pocket watch from his deceased grandfather, which, as it turns out, can hypnotize people. A rough version of the story was posted way back in April during Faye's Official CHYOA Story Contest 2025, available here. I plan it to be more of a slowburn in the actual posted story here, but the sentiment remains more or less the same. A guy hypnotizing and fucking his sister, mother, and... some more. Yeah, I can make it fit in 40ish chapters.

(And there is also a fourth option, which would be to go back to my very first story on CHYOA and re-write it from the ground up. I've been meaning to do it for a while, but... well, the ending of 2024 came. Not really the best time to be alive, if you ask me. Putting that aside, f things go well going forward, I will certainly try to tackle that.)

You can vote on the story I should focus on via my Patreon! The story that wins the monthly poll will be given the most attention going forward!

...

Well, I suppose this concludes the afterword, and the plans forward. As always, feel absolutely free to give me each and every thought you have.

...

Lastly, I would like to extend my most sincere gratitude to everyone.

Thanks to LLation, who even approved both of these stories in the first place. Without you, these stories would do nothing but collect dust in my head. I would not have had the bravery back then to post either of them on my own.

Thanks to ScarletRabbit for great help in writing chapters 7-24 of Lucas's branch. Without the discussions we've had on the branch, it would not be what it is at all. Thank you for the support on the way!

Massive thanks to my Patrons for giving me the kind words and support! Without you, I don't know if I would've had the bravery or motivation to keep going.

And most of all, huge thanks to You. This project, both of those projects, would not be possible without you, the Reader. Thank you for the kind words, the likes, the support, and for simply being there!

This has been 'MH-0' MeedrowH. I bow my head to all of you.

I hope everyone has a splendid time going forward!

Thanks for reading! Have Emma on the way!

Note: The above is Emma from 'Don't Worry, Dear NPC!' comic, as drawn by me. Here's a link to an epilogue MV where this exact scene appears at the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nHKI7aKqqE

The future drawings of the characters will be done in the same manner, with a pencil on paper and no color. Ophelia is already done on Patreon, but it will take a while before I post her here as well.