#shapur

А без цветофильтра тройка выглядит так =)

You Could Set Fire to the World

As promised, here’s a short, mostly spoiler-free post about my current WIP.

Since I haven’t shared much about There Is One I Could Call King or my OC Leiya/Kaleiya before, I thought I’d take the chance to offer some insights that might help explain the origins of You Could Set Fire to the World.

@importantdestinydefender: I already thought about it – let’s settle on FttW!

When I first read or watched ArSen in 2015 (can’t remember which, tbh), my younger self was fascinated by the aspects the series mostly left untouched – medical care during wartime, how soldiers/characters spent their freetime, what foods they liked to eat, how families managed, and so on.

Back then, whenever I wrote fanfiction, I created my own characters out of fear that people might dislike my interpretation of the canon cast. That way, even if the canon characters felt out of character to them, no one could complain about my OCs.  It gave me a strange sense of security. (A fear I believe I’ve conquered – but creating OCs now just comes naturally and might have become my preferred way of writing fanfiction, though I'm open to almost anything.)

So when I got hooked on ArSen and started writing fanfiction for it – almost ten years ago now – Kaleiya was born.  

I absolutely love writing romance (as some of you may have noticed, often with an (un)healthy dose of angst, grief, and healing), so of course I needed a love interest. Shapur appealed to me immediately. I still have no words for how infuriating it was to see him introduced as what felt like a major, high-impact character, only to be killed literal seconds later. Since I wasn’t comfortable exploring that route back then, the idea was shelved. So yes — Daryun was only a second choice (sorry, Daryun!).

When I first envisioned Kaleiya, I wanted her to experience and represent all the aspects which would have interested me but weren’t explored enough. It wasn’t part of the original plan, but after I grew fond of Arslan and his camp, the story evolved so that she became part of it and eventually accompanied him on his journey, while writing/claiming her own.

I won’t go into detail about her backstory here – but it was clear she had one when she joined the camp. Exploring that background created far too many ‘deleted scenes’ that never made it into There Is One I Could Call King. There simply wasn’t room to include that many memories in a forward-moving story focused on character development and a growing romance. Once I admitted to myself that the story couldn’t move forward if I stayed in the past, those memories became another Word document in a folder never meant to be opened again.

Until very recently.

After persuading my printer to do his job, I sat on the kitchen floor (enduring the occasional side-eye of my partner, who seems convinced I was performing some kind of summoning ritual for whatever demons might heed the call) and organised the scenes into a coherent pre-canon timeline.

I don’t need to point out that Shapur was very much alive at that time.

Since I couldn’t integrate his POV in There Is One I Could Call King I wanted to write from his perspective for once. But having him tell someone else’s story felt like underselling him, like using him as a tool rather than truly exploring him.

So I decided to do the craziest thing I’ve done so far in fanfiction: a mirrored story told from two POVs.

And when I say mirrored, I mean two timelines — one moving forward, the other moving backward — with one scene of each per chapter. Not every scene mirrors perfectly; sometimes a moment mattered more to one than the other, or circumstances kept them apart. But I genuinely believe the story is stronger for it.

And because that still wasn’t enough “mirror” for me, the non-explicit mirrors now echo each other thematically through motifs. It helps the story feel like a living timeline, even though it’s chronological already. More on that another time. Or you see for yourself once it's online.

This mirrored structure is also why I planned the chapters beat-by-beat — something I usually avoid because it limits flexibility and the organic direction a story sometimes wants to take (later amendments to the final chapter number / macro-outline arcs; breathing space for the writing to decide on its own which path it wants to take).

You’ll find almost all the “deleted scenes,” plus some entirely new ones created just for this project.

The first draft had 39 chapters (and let me tell you, adding more was a pain), but after getting feedback and inspiration from a friend, it’s grown to 44. That wasn’t intentional, but I find the number oddly satisfying for a mirrored story.

Chapter length will vary depending on the weight of each moment. I’ve completed about seven chapters so far, going steady. The hardest part was definitely the demon summoning.

Unfortunately, this one won’t be beta-read (my friend called me crazy in her own loving way), so I’m counting on your feedback if anything doesn’t land as intended — and of course also if it does.

I’ve decided against a strict posting schedule to avoid extra pressure (a full-time job and an upcoming master’s thesis are already enough). Best case, it’ll be finished by the end of March and posted in one big update. More realistically, I’ll start posting chapters by the end of February whenever I need a break from scientific writing.

The AO3 post will include all applicable reading instructions, but for now, please accept the below poetic small teaser:

Depictions of Shapur’s victories over Rome were put up all over the Persian empire. A number of carved rock reliefs celebrating these victories survive. Perhaps the most famous is at Bishapur in southern Iran, where Shapur built a magnificent palace. In this image, Shapur is spendidly dressed and sits on a horse. Underneath the horse is the dead Gordian III. Behind is the captive Valerian clasped by Shapur’s right hand. The figure in front is the emperor Philip I (ruled 244–249 CE) who replaced Gordian. He is begging for the release of the defeated Roman army.

The new statue recently unveiled in Tehran appears to be a partial copy of a celebratory Sasanian rock relief at Naqsh-i Rustam. The kneeling figure is reported to be Valerian. If it is indeed modelled on the Naqsh-i Rustam relief, then the kneeling figure is usually identified as Philip I (as in the original relief Valerian is standing before Shapur). Nevertheless, official statements identify the kneeling figure as Valerian.

(Arslan Senki)