Holy mother of god. To think that I published the first chapter of this fanfic all the way back in 2021.
Honestly, that's ridiculous to think about.
Five years.
Five years, with long and unannounced hiatuses between updates as well.
My bad on that. But it was an important lesson.
If you start a story, you really SHOULD just grind it through to the end.
Granted, I'm also a completely different person now than the person who started writing this fanfic.
As apparent from the early chapters, I was desperately clinging to the canon as a crutch. While I reworked a bit, the overall flow and developments were absolutely the same.
I used 'causality' as an excuse for it, but honestly it's just the me at that time being afraid of not knowing what to do without the source material or being afraid to contradict it.
I'm older now, obviously, and I frankly don't give a damn anymore.
Time tends to have that effect on you...
But anyway.
Lots of things that could be addressed. There was a clear rushed ending, OBVIOUSLY. Deus ex machina was absolutely used here.
But at the same time, I think it's a proper ending. Considering how things went and were set up, the only way of lengthening to story would be to just add filler, which isn't very good.
Now, would I have changed things if I started over?
Yes.
First of all, Jihu x Flone and that's it. Decisively. The story would have been a lot tighter, cleaner, and structured. The main flaw here was trying to pull everyone in.
And while that's a good intention to have in a fanfic by respecting all the characters... it's not a good way to write a story.
I've learned now from writing all these years (a lot in private) that the best flow for me is when there's only two or three characters in a scene, or it's one character monologuing.
Trying to juggle like ten characters on screen is pretty much pure chaos. It works every now and then, but when you make EVERYONE a part of the main cast...
Yeah, hell on Earth.
Anyway, thank you for sticking around and reading this. Sorry not sorry if you expected this to end another way. The person who started writing this story and the me who's written this ending is definitely not the same person.
It's basically like an assistant having to tie things up after the original author died... Not to say the original author literally died. But the 'me' who existed and who started this story is absolutely not the me who's writing this afterward right now. Our ways of thinking and priorities in life are fundamentally misaligned now.
I think the me from five years ago who started this also wouldn't believe that I ended up this way too...
Kind of like an EMIYA and Shirou thing, you know?
Which is ironic considering how much those two played a role in my formative years...
It really IS like looking at a distorted mirror, haha.
Anyway, I'll leave this here.
There is definitely room for side stories, but I have other things I want to write. And 'an' ending is better than an infinite 'what if...'
So just imagine it in my stead.
Whatever you think reasonably happened from this point out did. Everything is canon.
You're the reader, after all. And when the story ends, you decide what happens next.
That's it from me.
Enjoy your life, live well, and may blessings follow your every step.
-HappyVainGlory