#but they will make it into a virtual slavery because what is plot ? xD

[whumpbby]

Oh, so now the fashionable anti-JC trope is that he forced Yanli to marry Jin Zixuan for *checks notes* money and political power. You know, because he must be a bad brother on top of being a *checks notes* bad sect leader and bad uncle.

I wonder how deep their asses are, to fit so many insane takes inside and pull them out as needed xD

[seyaryminamoto]

Did you outline the entirety of Gladiator or do you create new arcs as you go along?

Gladiator is by far the most complicated story I have ever plotted. I’m pretty sure it shows, but it’s been a large-scale mess that I’ve tried to put together to the best of my ability. So many threads to bring together, so much that needs to be addressed in a world where the Fire Nation has virtually won the war… so it’s been a very long process.

I’ve been working on this story for 6 years now. I think I can safely say, around this point in time, that I have all arcs and important plotlines planned out. And even then, I only finished planning out what the General of Ozai’s Imperial Guards has been doing behind Ozai’s back around a couple of weeks ago. 

I suppose it might sound insane, especially as I’ve always held on to some of my original ideas on where to take the story. I probably plotted the events from chapter 97 around two days into planning the story. I plotted the eventual Combustion Man confrontation since day 1, I believe? But as the scope of Gladiator is so big, it’s a whole complicated process of steering things along carefully towards the direction I want for the story.

It must have taken me over a year to know what was the actual route the story would take for Part 3. After a lot of input by a friend, which left me in a bit of a strange position briefly because, while I didn’t dislike the ideas, I didn’t know what to make of them right away either, I eventually glimpsed a better outcome than the ones I’d been toying with so far. Ever since I figured where we were headed, a lot of the worldbuilding and sideplots have been geared towards developing the world into what it will have to become for Part 3. Some things may feel irrelevant right now, I suppose, but ultimately they won’t be. Nearly all characters, new or old, canon or OCs, will have a part to play in the story’s future. I can only hope that Part 3 will indeed do the rest of the story justice, but I’m confident that it’s the best direction I could be choosing for Gladiator.

There were several arcs and storylines that I did come up with later down the line: for instance, Hahn’s involvement in the story has been a late-ish addition, even though he’s going to bring in an important element for Part 3 (and for Zhao’s motivations to conquer the north). There’s an arc in the navigator right now, the Gladiators and Sponsors Race event, and it’s also a relatively late addition to the story. Azula’s confirmation as Ozai’s heir was also a late addition, something I came up with probably a couple of months before writing the scene where Ozai tells Azula he wants to declare her his heir. Hell, this may even sound completely bonkers but Azula’s homeless people situation was something I came up with like… DAYS before writing it. That wasn’t planned beforehand AT ALL, even though it has become a pretty important wedge that drives Ozai and Azula apart (plus it gave me the excuse for Azula’s speech in the festivals and I am ever delighted I wrote that). As for Haru’s family’s arc, for a very long time I had planned for Tyro to be alive, but eventually I realized it might just make more sense if he wasn’t. It would hike up the stakes, and on top of that, it would give Azula the motivation to take action about slavery even if Ozai was going to shut her down. And what started in Haru’s family arc through Tyro’s death will have a huge impact on everything that will come in the Slave Riot arc, and everything that comes next.

So… it’s not a straightforward process. It’s more like going forward, then backtracking, then going further back and then modifying what’s ahead if the lead-up doesn’t fit…? There’s a lot of tinkering to do for plotlines to work, for characters to develop in the way they need to. It’s hard work… but I can’t deny I love tying up old arcs with new ones, showing that nearly nothing is inconsequential, and that as much as it’s a slow-going process, our two main leads are moving forward to change a world what direly needs people with their abilities and leadership to take a stand for what they truly believe in.

If you’re curious about what I’d been planning before my friend’s input helped me find a whole new direction for the entire story…

Sokka was going to become Ozai’s gladiator. Yeah. I have no idea how I went from “Ozai discovers them” to “Ozai hires the guy who destroyed his daughter’s virtue”, but I did indeed. And it made as little sense when I came up with it as it does now that I’m telling you about it.

Sokka and Azula weren’t going to have half as many romantic moments in Part 1 as they did. I actually had planned for the first chaotic kiss, and then they would stay perfectly professional and pining over each other hopelessly until 97. Haha. I sure overestimated my willpower AND theirs.

After 97, though, I didn’t use to have remotely as many plans as I do with Part 2 right now. I knew I didn’t want them to be caught right away, but I didn’t think I’d extend things as long as I have because I had virtually no idea of where we were headed and how to get there. I didn’t know what needed to be set up, and so, I didn’t know if there’d be any story to tell beyond “Ozai caught them”. So, I had assumed I would give them a few months of romantic bliss only to tear them apart shortly after.

Back when things were very nebulous and new, I wasn’t sure about aging up Aang despite I think my explanation for him being older isn’t all that absurd. So, initially he was going to be a little 12-year-old kid amongst a bunch of grown-ups. Even then, I wanted Zuko to go south but I had no idea HOW to get him there. At that point in time, Zutara was a possibility for the story. When I decided to age up Aang, and Suki became a larger player, I realized there was a much smoother possibility by pairing them up with different characters instead (and frankly, Zuko’s character development via Zuki has made me feel so much better about him that I am really, REALLY glad I picked the current storyline over this one).

Zuko was, at one point, going to become a gladiator. It’s something a lot of people asked for, so I, being the easily-swayed fool I was, thought it might be a good idea for him to be the Blue Spirit. I can’t remember who I came up with as a possible sponsor for him, maybe the fact that I couldn’t even come up with a sponsor is the true reason why I ditched this idea.

Katara was also going to be a gladiator: Azula’s. Yeah. After Ozai took Sokka, Katara was SOMEHOW going to end up in the Capital and Azula was going to hire her in some nonsensical bid to save Sokka from her father. Where’s the logic? I dunno, I’ve been wondering the same thing for the last 6 years.

I didn’t have any clue who was going to be Fire Lord, and I actually didn’t realize Azula was going to have every right and reason to be the one to inherit the throne until relatively later in the game. It sounds so dumb now, I’m sure, but for a time I had taken for granted Zuko would be Fire Lord (must be I subconsciously bought all his talk about his MANIFEST DESTINY…! until I didn’t :’DDD).

There really wasn’t going to be much of a war left to fight anymore. The White Lotus wasn’t going to have a particularly important role, and I had no intentions of bringing Ursa in until Yang’s story displeased me enough that I decided I had to tell my own take on Ursa’s disappearance, if just to put it out there. Anyhow, going back to the White Lotus subject, it meant that someone killing Ozai was going to be the only way to end the mess of the 100+ year war because I had zero confidence about writing big battle scenes (tbh I still don’t? but I’m still going to give it a shot).

Toph and Iroh were going to be largely irrelevant. I mean, now that I look back on it, their roles were merely going to be about antagonizing Sokka and Azula for as long as they could. I had no intentions to make them friends with Toph, and I didn’t really plan to feature Iroh in a particularly plot-relevant role until, well… :’D until the White Lotus attacked, oops.

Ultimately, everything was going to boil down to conflicts between the show’s core cast (and not even all of it, like I said Toph, Iroh and Suki weren’t particularly relevant all along), and OCs weren’t important in my plans at all. Poor Rui Shi only became relevant when I wrote chapter 7, I believe, and he first tried to defy Azula’s commands. Kino outright didn’t exist until… way past a year after I started the story. I literally came up with him after I went to bed and I forgot about him the next morning. I spent HOURS beating myself about remembering what I had come up with until he finally came to me again xD Side characters like Song, or even Shoji, were added mostly for the fun of bringing in familiar characters from the show at first. Eventually they gained relevance for reasons far more important than their brief appearances in the show, Song in particular.

My idea for Sokka and Azula getting back together in Part 3 was… probably a big reason why I didn’t feel comfortable with my general outlining back then. It’s not that it was TERRIBLE, but it didn’t make much sense for a dramatic reunion to take place when they would have, arguably, been living in the same Palace for a while if Ozai took Sokka as his gladiator :’D therefore, it was generally pretty anticlimactic, melodramatic, and I knew I needed something better than that.

I can’t remember much else of my early, scrapped plans. Virtually everything plot-related I’ve written up here is completley discarded now, which is why I feel free to disclose it all. Admittedly, this wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the reported original plans George R.R. Martin had for ASOIAF x’D but it’s not exactly good either. I’m glad that I allowed the outlining of the full plot to take as long as it had to until I had found the right direction for the story, else I would still be working with most this nonsense in mind and… Gladiator would be so much worse. I have no doubts it would be.