#she is merely calling me out on my mediocre ability to name fighters

[seyaryminamoto]

I haven’t started reading yet but what made you decide to write 200 chapters instead of splitting it in parts? Like a sequel etc etc

Well, there’s a few reasons...

While it was always clear the story would be the longest thing I ever wrote, the plotting has been a gradual thing. Therefore, while eventually I settled for splitting the story, in my head, in 3 very distinct parts, when I started out it wasn’t quite that simple, and it honestly never really crossed my mind to split it back in the day because it felt unnecessary.

I suck at coming up with story titles :’D Gladiator has been in fact a rather useful, versatile title because it basically works for every single one of Gladiator’s three parts! It may be difficult to understand how it works in Part 3, once we get there... but I promise it’ll make sense eventually x’D

Fanfiction has a perk that published fiction and novels don’t: there’s no actual need to split up a story over wordcount. People who split their stories into different ones might sometimes do it because they think the wordcount is getting out of control, but in my experience, it’s usually done when each element of a series has a specific identity of its own. I can even use my other works as an example: I didn’t put The Reason’s timeline all together in the same story because, beyond it being impossible, logistically speaking, it didn’t make sense to do that. The Reason is how Sokka and Azula get together, Origins of Pro-Bending is how Azula finds a new place for herself within Team Avatar now that she’s with Sokka, How They All Reacted is a compilation of chapters about people reacting to Sokka and Azula’s relationship, Break In is about Sokka and Azula’s first time. Each installment is its own thing because it makes sense that way: in contrast, Gladiator, to me, has only ever made sense all together.

Continuing with that thought... wordcount in fanfiction is allowed to be as vast as it pleases to be because it’s something you read online. Unless a reader decides they want to print out the fic, which would definitely be an investment in this case, the story is meant to be read digitally, on whichever device you feel like reading it on... there’s no need to split the story into sections because it’s not an editorial product that people should be able to hold in their hands: a 10,000 page book is basically unmanageable xD but a fic? Just click “next chapter” and it’s no skin off anyone’s back :’D

Also worth noting: splitting Gladiator into “manageable” parts wouldn’t make it any shorter x’D someone who wants to know how this story turns out would still need to read the +2M words I’ve written, whether they’re distributed differently or gathered together in the same place. Using The Reason’s timeline again as a reference, someone could easily read Break In and, while there are occasional callbacks to the previous installments of the series in it, it’s a story that can stand on its own. Meanwhile, if you just wanted to read Sokkla already in a fullblown relationship in Gladiator’s timeline, you would think you’re better off picking up Gladiator Part 2... only, there’s a TON of references to Part 1 throughout Part 2. There’s a lot of worldbuilding, character development and dynamics, even foreshadowing that would likely fall flat if you haven’t read Part 1 first. You really can’t just pick up this presumable “second entry” and have the same understanding of the story as someone who has read the entire thing.

And if, perhaps, Gladiator were split into MORE pieces than just those three parts I tend to split it into? It’s even worse! :’D there’s whole arcs that are completely interconnected. If I basically split the whole story into arcs rather than parts? And someone, again, picks up a later one because of whatever reason (be it “the plot sounds more intense here!” or “she says there’s so much smut here!” or “my favorite character is listed as very important in this one!”, whatever it may be), there’s going to be full situations and storylines that won’t make as much sense if a reader reaches them without understanding WHERE they came from.

All of this means... Gladiator is insanely interconnected. Stuff that happened forever ago comes back years later. Azula first sensed Seethus in chapter 87, then sensed him again in chapter 136, and still didn’t face him directly until chapter 162, all of which takes place in three completely different story arcs. And that’s just one example of many possible ones of interconnected events across story parts that make more sense if they’re all in the same place.

In conclusion...! While no doubt a wordcount as big as Gladiator’s definitely scares people (it’d scare me if I weren’t the weirdo writing it :’D), and not everyone’s ready to take tons of time out of their lives to read such a big story, I don’t think Gladiator would work as well as it does if it were genuinely split into parts. There’s also no serious gain for readers, as far as I can tell? If you think you’ll get lost in the story, you can bookmark it on AO3 to remember what you last read, or just look at your history to find out which was the last chapter you opened. Nowadays I also have chapter names that specify which arcs each chapter belongs in, so it should be reasonably easier to keep up with the story than it was before I did that.

Ultimately, Gladiator has a very specific identity, and while all three parts have their own identities too, they’re completely interconnected: can’t have Part 2 without 1, can’t have 3 without 2. Separating the story doesn’t feel necessary to me: if I continue writing stories set in Gladiator’s timeline after the main story is finished, those won’t be published as other Gladiator chapters, but as stories of their own. But for as long as the main storyline verses around Sokka, Azula, and how they’re changing the world through their ever-strengthening bond as gladiator and sponsor, it only makes sense to me that the story remains as a single entry :)