91...Well, I owe an apology.
Yup, its an update. And unfortunately, its not a new chapter.
I think this probably breaks the rules (having a whole chapter dedicated to an author's note), but I mean, what else am I supposed to do? Write a whole chapter to end it? I can't really do that.
If you aren't aware, I did something similar to this way back in early 2021. I posted an author's note very similar to this one. I thought I was done. But then a little later, I somehow got my motivation back and ended up writing a new chapter, as well as finishing the rewrites. Well, sorta. Then I moved my focus to my other stories.
And now here we are again. I posted my feelings for this story on my author's profile, but I never actually mentioned that I would be providing updates there anywhere here. So I'm sure many of you suspect that I vanished off the face of the earth.
Similar to the last time I did this, I'm going to post the remainder of what I had planned for this story, the very original draft for this story, and my thoughts on WOF at the moment. The first two are likely going to be copy and pasted from that original note, since they aren't really that different. I'll also include my own thoughts on the story (if you wonder what that means, just keep reading).
Ok, let's get into it.
The Skeleton Plot (Remainder of the plot)
PINEWOOD - I had zero plans for how to move forward in Pinewood. When I got to that part, I needed a way to transition from Post-Sea Kingdom to what came after Pinewood. Thus, I made a town where our two main characters met. I honestly liked the idea of Pinewood itself, but it was made on the fly and overall, it wasn't my best work. But if you enjoyed it, I'm glad you did!
JADE MOUNTAIN - Now onto the future! Harvey, Cyclone and Winter (and maybe Calcite, but idk) would fly out of Pinewood. They would evade Darkstalker's forces and go to Jade Mountain. At the same time, Moon and Qibli are also there. They would do various things, including managing to reverse the spell (the specifics on how were not decided) and getting everyone on their side. They would then gang up and take the battle to Darkstalker himself, back in the Night Kingdom.
BATTLE OF THE NIGHT KINGDOM - At the Night Kingdom, a battle between the dragons of the Night Kingdom and Jade Mountain would occur. Thanks to Turtle, Qilbi and Anemone, they're able to fight back. Using magic, they prevent any deaths occurring, but Darkstalker is still a thing. They try many different things, but none of them work.
While everyone is worrying about what to do, Harvey comes to the conclusion that if they cannot win physically, they had to win mentally. Thus, using the moon rock, Harvey again enters the mindscape. Then, by using Moon's mind reading powers and Darkstalker's magic as a guide, he's able to enter Darkstalker's mind.
BATTLE OF THE MINDSCAPE - Honestly, this would have been extremely exciting to have wrote about. It would have been a battle of wits, memories, mental stability and actual punches. But... well, you know.
In the end, Harvey wins, but only barely. They would have a very touching conversation at the end on a night kingdom beach. Harvey realizes that villains are not black and white, but are rather... human. Or dragon. It would have been a big character development moment for Harvey. As Darkstalker fades however, he reveals that, if he ever died, then animus magic would forever disappear. In addition, all of his spells would be reversed. Harvey panics and only barely gets out of the mindscape before it is utterly destroyed.
ENDING - The moon rock gets destroyed due to the stress of the mindscape. Darkstalker in the physical world dies and the brainwashing disappears. However, remember that all of his spells would be reversed. Guess what the majority of the Night Kingdom uses?
Yeah, the entire Night Kingdom collapses since Darkstalker used magic to take rocks from the ocean. Many buildings also had assistance from magic as well. Across Pyrrhia, many of the reconstruction projects fall apart, including a large part of Coral's new palace. Qibli is no longer an animus, while Turtle and Anenome realize they cannot use magic anymore.
But Harvey is there too. He emphasizes that "Humans never had to use bullshit cheats to build a society. So screw magic. Rebuild again, using pure labor and work!" He declares that he will assist everyone in rebuilding and will share the secrets of machines. At the same time, some dragons bring back the remains of the Galactic Exploratory Vehicle. Using these, Harvey will try to create a way back to Earth, while also helping the dragons.
And that's how The Ultimate Reality 1 would end. Eh? 1? Yeah that's right. I planned for this entire series to be a 3 part series.
The Ultimate Reality 2 would have focused on what the hell was going on in Pantala. Here's what I had planned:
PANTALA - Books 11-13 would have happened as normal, only except at the end of book 13, things take a turn for the worse. Since Turtle and Tsunami do not arrive, the dragons don't get the idea to search the Book of Clearsight. Thus, they are captured by Wasp and everything just goes terrible.
It is revealed that Darkstalker knew about Pantala, but did not want to worry about it, so he casted a spell to protect Pyrrhia from the matters of Pantala. But he died, so that barrier disappears.
Wasp learned about this barrier while she sent dragons out to the sea, so she sends patrols every week to check on the barrier (In this ending, the revolution is crushed pretty quickly thanks to Sundew). On the next patrol, Wasp realizes the barrier is gone. She becomes curious and decides to explore beyond the barrier. She finds some islands and... well you can guess what happens next.
THE START - A month after the end of TUR 1, Harvey is with some dragons building a boat. A sturdy boat with a motor of course. While doing this, he offhandedly mentions the other continent he observed whilst in orbit around the planet, causing questions.
THE REST - That's really as far as I had it planned. I know at some point, planes would have gotten involved and it would have been kind of wild and wack. Of course, Wasp loses and dies at the end.
Ok, cool. What about The Ultimate Reality 3?
TUR 3 - I had little to no ideas on the plot for this. It would have likely started 4-5 months after the end of TUR 2. It would have involved the return of Squadron 47 and the chaos that Harvey's disappearance caused for the GSA. It would have concluded the series and Harvey would have returned to Earth, but not without promises to visit the dragon planet. That's all I had.
And that's the end of The Ultimate Reality! Either you're thinking "Damn, we really missed out on a really cool idea" or "Thank god you did not write this, it sounds terrible". Somewhere in there, I also wanted to include the Dragonslayer characters, but I didn't really decide where. It probably would be in TUR 2 though.
So, let's move on to the original- huh? You want to know relationships? Uhh... I really didn't plan those out. Pearl and Calcite were supposed to be romantic interests for Cyclone, but I had zero idea what the endgame for that was. Harvey, of course, gets no one. (In the rewrite, I planned to change up the whole thing with Aster developing feelings for Harvey and instead change it to something else. It wouldn't have changed things very much).
Ok, with that out of the way, NOW its time for the original draft.
The Original Draft (2018): Harvey and the Series of Books
The beginning is honestly not that different from the beginning of TUR. Just far less fleshed out. For one: It was only Harvey, Xavier and someone named John in the first chapter. Second: the main motivation for finding new planets wasn't some aspiration to find good aliens, but to simply beat out a company known as Galaxy Explore. Also, Gordon from the prologue is named Timothy instead.
The first major difference comes from the fact that Harvey was not alone. Instead, he had a robot partner that I called Brobot.
Now the differences start appearing quickly. Pearl manages to solve Cyclone's bullying issue while also inviting him to the Moon Festival. In TUR, Cyclone has a crush, while Pearl mostly sees him as a friend. In this version though, she has feelings for Cyclone.
Instead of 3 months, it takes 6 weeks to get to the dragon planet from Earth. And instead of SAP-1, it was called ERC-4 (I just put a bunch of random letters together). And finally, instead of staying in orbit, the ship immediately dives into the planet.
This is one of the biggest changes in the story: The ship remains entirely intact throughout the entire story. I changed this because any problems that arise could just be solved by "lol fast spaceship goes brrr". Which is what happens in this draft. In addition, instead of crashing in the Night Kingdom, the ship lands in the Sea Kingdom during the moon festival.
Why so? Well, because of the biggest change of the story: No Darkstalker. Who's the villain instead then? You'll see.
Harvey sets up base below Jade Mountain. Cyclone no longer gets bullied because he is now friends with Pearl. Less Angst for Cyclone's life. Also suddenly a 2 month timeskip.
Suddenly, earrings start spreading around that end up mind-controlling any dragon who puts it on. It turns out they were made by the villain of the story: Dr. Brainium, a human who somehow snuck onto the spaceship and did not get caught for 6 weeks. There's a whole ass backstory where it's revealed that he tried to mind control a bunch of people, but did not get very far before being caught. Yeah, no idea how that happened.
The dragons at Jade Mountain are ensnared and Harvey tries to stop them, but fails. So he flies away.
Meanwhile, everyone except Cyclone has an earring in the sea kingdom. On one random day, everyone suddenly chases Cyclone for 2 hours in order to force an earring on, but he somehow is able to fly for that long without getting caught. Right as he gives up, Harvey comes in clutch and grabs him using some big ass bubble thing, before speeding away.
They land on an island. While Harvey is looking around, he finds a mysterious gem that, quite literally, is just a Chaos Emerald from Sonic. It's just an infinite energy source, making the spaceship even more overpowered. They fly away before dragons arrive and they go to Pantala. Harvey reveals that he edited one of the earrings he got from Jade Mountain so that he would control Cyclone. However, he only monitors thoughts, not movements.
After he explores with Harvey watching from his eyes, they realize bad dragons have already arrived. When Cyclone tries going back to the ship though, they get attacked by Sundew, Blue and Cricket, thinking they are going to attack the hives. As they do that, the bad dragons arrive and force an earring on Cyclone. Harvey is forced to escape on his own.
Back on Earth, they realize that Brainium boarded the ship with Harvey. Meanwhile, Harvey flies by Possibility, when their telescope spots something. He walks through the town doing his best to not get caught. After nearly being caught, he finds Cyclone. At the same time, Brainium is using a dragon to relay a message. Somehow, Harvey is able to take Cyclone away and take off the earring without getting caught.
Now comes the original basis for the Mindscape chapters in TUR: the mindscape theory. It was a theory made by Barry Jones and it, quote, "if one had a device with a massive amount of energy and a Controlled Laser on it, they could hypothetically enter another user's mind". (Controlled laser was a weapon introduced earlier.)
Harvey uses a plan to trick the dragon being controlled into revealing the "Galactic Glaser", which I honestly don't remember what it was for. After this reveal, however, the GEV, being controlled by an AI, appears out of nowhere and shoots down the Glaser. It causes a distraction and Harvey enters the mind of the dragon. Unlike the mindscape in TUR, this one is literally inside a brain.
Doing some epic hacking skills, Harvey is able to find the location of where the mind-controlling is coming from and leaves. The ship flies by and Harvey hops on while Cyclone follows behind. The other dragons do not follow because they still think Cyclone is being controlled. Once they escape, Harvey reveals that the mind controller is in the Rainforest.
Cyclone has a bad dream with him being executed by "Master". After that, they go to the rainforest, where they find a small building. They enter and subdue Dr. Brainium. Except, IT'S NOT HIM! It's actually a robot version of him, who reveals that he was built by the original and forced the original to be his slave. He reveals that the whole continent is coming and they are doomed.
But that doesn't happen! Instead, the chaos emerald glows and then teleports Harvey, Cyclone and Brobot over to the mountains. It totally makes sense!
They search for the original Dr. Brainum, before realizing he's right below them after a night of sleep. They rescue him and he reveals that he will join them in beating the robot. He also vows to not mind control anymore. After they return to the surface, the dragons are nearby, so Cyclone does a distraction while Harvey and Brainium go a different way.
...That's as far as the original draft went. It was filled with so many Ex-Machinas that I don't know how it even makes sense. At the time, I also watched The Incredibles 2, so the original version of this draft of this one had goggles instead of earrings. Not quite sure how that would even work.
Looking at this from 2022, I can't believe I ever thought these were a good idea. Jeez.
But wait, THERE'S MORE! I wrote a sequel to this, where Darkstalker is the villain. Why he does not appear in the original, I have no idea. It was called "Harvey and the Dark Prophecy". It was better written and I do like some of the ideas I had.
I won't explain much, but it involved a lot about the ancient humans on Pyrrhia. I headcanon that ancient humans were just like on Earth, until The Scorching happened and they got wiped out. Also for some reason, Harvey can have visions now. There was also a bunch of things about clocks. I do not know why. Prophecy's and stuff. But it was kind of cool.
And that's it for the original draft! In 2020, TUR started out with rewriting the original draft. But then I realized how different the stories would be, so I made a new doc and left the original draft to dust. Now, onto my thoughts of TUR.
As this was my first ever fanfiction, I didn't quite fully grasp good storytelling. Hell, I still haven't really grasped it. But wow, I do not like these plot points that I had.
For one, I inisted on using a lot of s p a c e. While it certainly could work, the way I went about it was not great. I also don't like how Harvey somehow knows all of these things. And, while this is mostly TUR 2, the idea of including planes to me that quickly sucks. Lol.
TUR is a story that exists.
And yet, despite my massive issues with it, I'm proud of it. Why? Well, its the first time I ever posted any writing to the public. I liked getting reviews from people. I liked seeing that favorites and follows counter go up. I liked it all. It began my journey as a writer. If I had an opportunity to begin this story from zero, with my massive obsession with WOF, I'd take it. Its a story I wish I could have finished. But I can't.
I don't like abandoning stories. Another story in this same fandom by the name of "The Dragonets Aren't Coming" is a story that broke me (not literally lol). It was 2020 and I just figured out that is a website that exists. I ended up reading that story and really liked it. But then I get to the last chapter where the author says that he wants to update it. I think, great! Then I look at the date.
August 13, 2017.
3 Years Ago. At this point, that story was not getting updated. Ain't no way. I swore that, if I ever posted a story, I would never abandon it like that.
...Well, at least I'm making it clear that its all over.
Then again, its very possible I'll randomly get motivation to write this again after not having any motivation since April 2022. Very very possible. And if that happens... well, oops.
Ok, lastly, my thoughts on WOF.
Ima be honest, I don't really have any.
I never ended up reading Flames Of Hope. That's how dead my interest is in this series. I have read a summary of the book, but that's not the same as reading it.
WOF will always hold a special place in my heart, but I've read so many better stories that its not really the same anymore. Its a kid series, so I guess it makes sense.
Anyways, Arc 1 was pretty good. My favorite book in that arc was The Hidden Kingdom. Arc 2 was pretty good too, but the ending was... pretty not good. Winter Turning was my favorite in that arc and could be my favorite WOF book overall. Its a shame Winter kinda got screwed over after this one. Arc 3... well, I have no idea. I didn't finish it lol. The first 3 books were great, The Dangerous Gift wasn't as great. Really liked The Lost Continent though (I was surprised that others apparently didn't like it as much).
What about Legends? My opinion is that both legends books are very good! Well, it has been like 2 years since I last read them, so I may have changed my mind now. But for now, I really like both of them.
Beyond that... I mean, that's it. I typed this in a single night so I didn't proofread anything.
Now, this is where I bid you all goodbye. Well, goodbye to the WOF fandom. I'm still here though. Check out my profile, as I still do updates there! And I'm still updating some of my other stories. And, don't worry, I will let you all know on the profile if I do regain motivation once again. It would be pretty funny if that happens honestly. But who knows.
One last thing. The reason I decided to write this is because a reviewer asked if I was ever returning to this story. And unless I change my mind,
The answer is no.
Anyways, I resign. See you around.