Zuko-Always-Lies

I've mentioned before that I never truly imagined that Avatar: the Last Airbender would change my life in any significant way when I first started watching it. It was fun, sure, and it was better than anything else I'd watched for several months at that point. Was it the perfect TV show? I wouldn't say that, especially about Book 1. But it was entertaining enough...

... And then, everything changed when Azula attacked.

I don't think Sokka would take offense if I say that I liked him fairly well but his potential didn't fully crystallize for me right away. It was Azula who cast a spell on my head from the moment she turned up onscreen. I'd never once heard ANYONE mention this character even though I was already active online back when the show aired, and I knew several people who were big Avatar fans. Everyone always gushed on and on about Zuko, they were all over him, rambling about how much they loved him, and at most? Some people had brought up Toph and said she was the best character in the show. Which, yay for her! But... nobody said anything to me about Azula before she showed up. I had no idea what to expect.

Cue the absolutely mindblowing experience of finding a character so absolutely appealing, so fascinating, that I just KNEW she would be defeated by the end of the show, but I didn't care: she caught my interest. She was the strongest tether I had with Avatar. As soon as I saw her in the preview, I'd be giddy with joy in the hopes that she'd show up in the full episode too!

But when I reached the ending... as predictable as it was that she would not win, I admit, I never imagined her downfall would be so painful. I never thought that a show I was enjoying so much would send me to bed that night feeling so entirely uneasy, so uncomfortable, with a very different emptiness from what you usually experience when you finish a show you loved: I had grown to relate to Azula in so many ways, and I genuinely felt like the story was chastising me for it. Was I wrong to assume that there was some kind of moral judgment in there, righteous or no? I couldn't be sure. But the more I looked into Azula's future, post-canon, the more discouraged I felt: how could there be absolutely no hope for a character like her, in a setting like that one? At that point, her only post-canon appearance was The Promise's ending, and while I hoped it meant her future would start to improve, there were obvious signs from the get-go that this would not be the case. I tried to ignore them. Tried to cling to hope...

... And that was, of course, the mistake of a rookie Seyary who hadn't quite understood how the Avatarverse worked.

But this is not the story of how canon let me down. That's something I've long made my peace with, and it barely even fazes me anymore.

Shortly after finishing the show, I started talking with other fans of the show on Facebook, of all places (questionable life choices, 0/10, I do not recommend), and struck an unlikely friendship with a guy who was a major canon glazer. He was very keen on saying the show was perfect as it was and the only things that could possibly be written as fanfic were sequels, because anything that changed canon was guaranteed to be inferior. Ironically, I agreed at first out of the assumption that anything produced with that level of professionalism was guaranteed to be better than whatever an amateur could do... and yet a little voice inside me, ever growing louder and larger, demanded that I contested that claim somehow.

One day, I did. The exact story of why I started writing ATLA fanfiction is probably still to be found in the author's notes of the final chapter of The Reason: where Origins of Pro-Bending was my questionable first foray into ATLA, The Reason was definitely the first proper Sokkla fic I wrote and it was the starting point that changed my life completely...! (And, for anyone remotely curious about that guy, things eventually went downhill in that friendship, and while I cherish certain things that came of it, including how he pushed me to start writing fanfiction at all, I don't ever want to touch that can of worms again :'D)

But let's backtrack to a story I've told many times before, and the one to which I owe my current fandom situation to, completely.

As fan content was the only place where I might find any satisfactory outcomes for Azula, I drifted off to FF.net (this was 2012, I didn't even HAVE an AO3 account, life was very different in the dark ages (?)) and to Deviantart (... I still hate how useful it was and how useless it is now...) to find any Azula fan content that actually appealed to me. Anything to placate the awful aftertaste of her outcome in the show.

That's where I found the artwork that sealed my fate:

Secret kiss by saniika

This singular artwork caught me off guard. Obviously, yes, the characters were older, but... I had no clue what was going on at all. Sokka, dressed in RED? Could it be anyone else if not him...?!

... And of course, it was him. And I was sooooooooooooo confused. How? Who thought of this combination and why? It was so perplexing, probably the ship I was most surprised by out of all the ones I'd seen for Azula until then. The others? I saw the logic, lacked the passion for them though. I couldn't find any stories that felt particularly interesting about them, couldn't really enjoy the fanart much, but then I bumped into Secret kiss... and I just needed to understand. After a while, I concluded that they could be pretty hilarious together, if they interacted more... it wasn't such a bad idea!

And then I made the choice nobody should make when faced with a crack ship:

I said I'd ship it as a joke.

HA.

JOKE WAS ON ME.

When I decided to feature Sokkla in my first fic, it was primarily done so that I'd have an excuse to make Azula a predominant character in a story where she didn't HAVE to be all that important, because how the hell was I going to write a fic about Avatar and not make my favorite character the center of it all? Absolutely unthinkable.

... So, she started dating Sokka for no perceivable reason, the other characters made a fuss about, it was hilarious at times, dramatic at others, chaotic almost always! But as I took advantage of that story to try and salvage and build bonds for Azula and other characters... I also started to pick up on something that I did NOT expect at all.

The first romantic scene I wrote between Sokka and Azula featured him making her laugh earnestly, properly, and I was floored by the realization that nobody had ever given her a reason to smile properly in the entirety of canon.

Suddenly, my brain fog faded, and this gigantic display of neon lights was revealed:

SOKKLA WAS THE ANSWER. IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I HAD BEEN LOOKING FOR SINCE THE MOMENT I FINISHED THE SHOW.

All the connections I've gushed about between these two characters for thirteen years hit me in that sudden instant of clarity. It was this insane rollercoaster, a crazy waterfall, whatever impactful image you want to choose...! Point is, my brain kind of blew up when the possibilities, the potential, became completely tangible. My realization of Sokka's actual potential as a character, too, exploded at this point. Suddenly this was no joke: it was the reason why I was part of this fandom. If not for Azula, and if not for the incredible potential of her canonically non-existent relationship with Sokka? I assure you... none of you would be reading me here now. I don't know where the hell I'd be if that moment hadn't fully altered the direction of my life. I guess I would have moved on with, into who knows what other fandoms...

And so many things would have never happened. Things I now treasure and wouldn't change for anything in the world.

Obsessed with Sokkla as I was, letting it consume my life completely, I ended up combing through the entirety of Deviantart's Sokkla tag and mourning how dry it had been for the past months. Tumblr? No better. I needed MORE. I checked AMVs on Youtube...! (And yes, since this is Avatar, I can call them Avatar Music Videos, hahahaha, acronym still works) Eventually, I decided to make some of those myself. I used to have plenty of fun editing nonsensical videos, so why not do so now?

I have a few of those old videos up still, whenever copyright infringement didn't try to murder me in cold blood. Trust Viacom to be remarkably stupid and self-defeating when it comes to free advertisement of their shows :') whatever the case, though, I was so excited about the first of those videos that I just went and shared it in this Deviantart Sokkla community... and I assumed, rather dejectedly, that it might get no answer, since it appeared that the place was as good as deserted. So why would anyone react to my post at all?

... I got an answer, alright.

From the mysterious lady who commissioned Secret Kiss, no less.

My secret superpower as a Sokkla fan across the past thirteen years is the fact that I dared respond to this person I admired and whose efforts for Sokkla I would have LOVED to so much as measure to...! And she responded again. And then she read one of my fics (though she went and picked the WRONG one to start with, but what can you do...!). And she liked it. And then she read my first smut fic, Break In. And she declared herself my fan, and I quote, "in saecula saeculorum".

You cannot imagine what this meant to me. Hell, I don't even think she has the slightest clue of how happy that made me, even now. Even after thirteen years of calling this woman my best friend and the best thing that's ever happened to me. She changed my life well before we even exchanged a word, and to this moment she remains one of the pillars of my life, no matter how far she ran from Avatar after she got burned out too much by the fandom to stick around for any longer.

A very miserable part of me feared that my work, my efforts for Sokkla hadn't been enough to keep her around once she seemed too sick and tired of Avatar to continue. She was constantly busier, too, and it honestly felt like a miracle that she made ANY time at all for me. I felt guilty for wanting her to stay, for chaining her on when she clearly had moved on in maaaany ways. The last thing I ever wanted to be was a burden... so I decided that, while preserving that friendship as best I could anyhow, I wouldn't have any expectations from her when it came to anything Avatar anymore.

Fast forward many, many years since I made that decision... last year, I actually had the chance to hug this unbelievable human being for real, at long damn last. It only took us twelve years. She's still part of my life now, and if I can have my way, she always will be. Up to her if she agrees, of course :'D I love her to bits, and I hope life allows our paths to converge in reality once more in the future, long-term, if possible. For now... I wait, and I carry on to my own new horizons. In a sense, just as I decided to stop holding her to Avatar when she really needed to get out... I feel like this moment isn't a full goodbye for me with this fandom, and yet I know I'll drift away from it, further than I've ever gone in thirteen years. But hey, in my defense? I left you guys with the longest fic in the history of Avatar's fandom :'D if you ever miss me, you know what to reread (?)

A certain mysterious reader, whom I've thanked and mentioned many, many times as my greatest instigator, showed up in my DM's after reading The Reason. He m,entioned, so very casually, a story concept that he didn't think he'd make much of: Sokka fighting as a gladiator, under Azula's command, in a setting where the Fire Nation either had won or was winning the war.

I was still deep in writing stuff for The Reason's timeline at the time (pretty sure I was working on Break In?). I read that concept and stashed it away, assuming I wasn't very likely to write it, but hey, who knows? Could've come in handy after I ran out of ideas with The Reason! Might as well have a few potential concepts to weigh and consider for the future!" And mind you, I DID have one story concept already, basically a chaotic soap opera, ngl, that at this point I'm just never likely to write :'D but you guys were spared that nonsense... because of this clever guy.

Because one night, as I tried to fall asleep, I started pondering how the heck this gladiatorial Sokkla story could work...

... And suddenly it clicked.

From trying to fall asleep, I wound up WIDE AWAKE as ideas started to converge and I suddenly realized this idea was a GOLD MINE. It was BRILLIANT! I could have Sokka and Azula developing a full relationship on their terms, no Team Avatar, Toph could be Sokka's biggest rival, she could be sponsored by Iroh, who would be Azula's own big rival...!

And I wanted COMBUSTION MAN to be the big bad to defeat. Because of course, that's the guy Sokka kills in the show, he's nasty and scary and it made perfect sense! :D I had very little clue how any of these things would come together, but I did know I wanted ALL of this, and these scenes and situations were, no joke, the main goals I worked towards from the beginning: Sokka and Azula getting together dramatically after Sokka is defeated by Toph, Sokka and Azula's relationship discovered by Iroh by mistake AFTER Sokka beats Toph, and then his fight vs. Combustion Man as the be-all-end-all of the Gladiator League.

Two days later, I messaged this reader again: are you SURE you're not gonna do this yourself? Are you SURE you wouldn't mind leaving this idea to me? And he told me to knock myself out, in short! Our friendship didn't really leave the DMs of FF.net, so it never really got as tight as others I developed (worse yet due to my absolutely terrible track record at answering DMs as of late), but I'll always cherish this reader far more than I can say.

... Needless to say, I spent thirteen years makng the most of that opportunity and I regret veeeeery little of that decision.

My epic friend heard the story concept next and basically demanded that I started writing it IMMEDIATELY. As the spineless hyped idiot I was, I just obeyed at once. When the coolest person you know tells you to do something, you do it! Easy as that! :'D

And so, I started writing Gladiator.

Now, though, these two weren't the only ones who had a massive influence on me and my story: there was another friend who I fortunately reconnected with recently, though has yet again gone dark. She was, famously, the person who heard my pitch for Gladiator's gazillion story arcs, the absolute INSANITY it was growing into, and told me: "You're gonna be writing this thing for ten years."

And I told her "... Sure."

And she told me "You know not everyone's going to stick around for that, right?"

And I said: "I'll keep going anyway."

She was right (well, wrong about the years, it was thirteen rather than ten). So was I.

This particular person will be veeeery obvious to those who know a thing or two about Zuki's history: she was one of their most outspoken fans and she absolutely insisted that I needed to make her ship happen in my story. While I wasn't 100% sold right away, she was rather convincing and eventually succeeded at swaying me, fortunately early enough for Suki and Zuko's romance to be seeded as soon as arc 2. So much of their story (including their HUGE family) was her idea, and I mainly tweaked it based on whatever I needed to do here or there. Sometimes her ideas lined up neatly with something else I'd thought about...!

And then we'd have lots of brainstorming sessions on what kinds of dynamics the next gen would have, too. She had some... I guess controversial plans for that, especially once the kids were older and crazy dynamics started to happen here and there. While I had ideas of my own... I certainly skewed cuter and sillier, she liked ANGST a little much :'D and after everything I knew I'd put Sokka and Azula through, across these thirteen years, I didn't feel like inflicting any bigger drama upon my characters, soooo... that whole concept stays up in the air! If she comes back someday and writes what she wanted to write about the next gen, I'll let you guys know and you can go check it out :'D

The third big friend I can't help but mention is the first reader who dropped a compliment so damn unbelievable to me on a DM that I just... stopped the presses, immediately.

This funny guy suddenly shows up in my DMs in FF.net to tell me that he had found my stories so riveting that he had stopped reading the final book of one of my favorite fantasy book series (Artemis Fowl and the Last Guardian) to read MY STUFF instead.

... I could not believe my eyes.

Don't ask me what possessed him to do something so questionable but he did. If he hadn't, well, it's likely that he could've been just a casual, random reader I talked with a few times and that was that! But nope. He went and said that, and my response was "OKAY BUT HOW ABOUT WE TALK ABOUT ARTEMIS FOWL THO?!!?!" and then we became good friends too :>

These three were the close friends who were here from the earliest stages of my storytelling career... and they're people I'll always cherish deeply. While life has largely taken us through different paths, I know that the minute any of them comes knocking, I'll be ready for absolutely anything they ask of me. Some bonds are just lifelong that way.

Another person I can't help but bring up as I stroll down memory lane is my dear Greedy Chicken. I have no idea if you're still out there reading my nonsense, but if you are, I'm forever grateful for you and your absolute, non-stop enthusiasm for everything I worked on, your constant questions, your curiosity about all the things...! It's people like you that keep people like me fueled to create more, revamping our energy and making us feel like every step forward is worth it. If you're still around, and you happen to read this... my door's always open, buddy. Never forgot you, never will!

So, yeah. As proven by everything I've shared so far, lots of people have come and gone. There were some really intense readers back in FF.net, some who even shipped MERCH to me, there was trouble in the post office because they'd shipped it with my penname instead of asking me for my REAL name and I was too dumb to think of that detail on time...! Alas, I eventually got my stuff and it was really funny, regardless.

There have been crazy enthusiastic people who made art, wrote stories inspired by Gladiator, spent time asking me questions, suggesting music, building THEORIES on whatever I was up to with the story, or whatever I might do later, creating reader events, sending asks, commissioning art for me and my story...! Each one of you was a wonderful blessing, whether you're still around or not. I'm forever grateful that our paths crossed long enough for our art, our words, to influence each other as they did.

More friends came about later, some who grew closer than others, some who also moved on even if they left their mark on me as well. After enough time, I learned to accept the ebb and flow of this sort of thing: I was the only constant, and I knew people couldn't be expected to be as crazy as I was about a singular idea for as long as I had been. I won't lie and pretend that people's loss of interest, and moving on, didn't bother me: of course it hurt, of course I felt unreasonable guilt about it... but I'd say that's one of the most important lessons I've learned.

As a fic writer, and as a writer, altogether, I'm here to share my worlds, my stories, my takes on characters, all such ideas with whoever wants to join in on the fun... but all I can control is what I make. The only thing in my power is my own relationship with my work. Slowly, Gladiator had become my lifeline, the main source of stability in my life, and it was evolving well beyond just a fanfic and into something that even spoke of my reality. Of the helplessness in the face of evil that seems never-ending and insurmountable, of the corruption of power, of my deepset beliefs in what a true partnership looks and feels like. I've been told by a few readers that Gladiator somehow taught them what to look for in a partner, that has been amusing and flattering (I mean, it has NOT worked out for me so far lol but who knows! Maybe I still will meet the partner of my dreams some day and it'll be as crazy fun as Sokka and Azula's relationship was!). But ultimately, how people react to this story, positively or negatively, is beyond me. Whether they love or hate it, whether they're entertained or bored, it's not up to me to decide any of that. All I could do was create the best version of this story that I could envision, build something that resonated with me, something I KNEW had value because I could see it... and maybe, eventually, someone else would share that vision and feel as strongly about it as I did.

And as far as I can tell, it has happened after all: my mind is always blown when a reader says that Gladiator has changed their life, even SAVED it, somehow. While I do not know the circumstances in which many people say such words, since I frankly don't feel like it's my place to inquire (we all have our battles, our demons, and I certainly faced many across the writing of my behemoth of a fic), I've always seen this as proof of how meaningful stories can be. This is what we make art for. This is why it matters.

To every single reader, every single person, who ever took their time to read this crazy story and share how much it meant to them, thank you. To those who have been coming and going, who have been around in silence for years, those who have been less silent and very passionate and outspoken...

Every last one of you chose this journey, just as much as I did. You gave me your trust, and while I won't pretend I always did everything as best I could have, I do hope, deep down, that you feel like every invested effort was worth it. I want to believe it was, too. I want to look back on this journey with pride, knowing I achieved something that, frankly, very few people can say they did.

I was reasoning with the fact that I somehow finished this story before ASOIAF ever drew to a close, before One Piece ended, too...! Crazy, huh? :'D Wordcount-wise, the fact that I got to the very brink of 6 million words (well, in AO3, FF.net counts the author's notes so it did break past 6 million over there, woops) is no small feat, let alone while still telling as much of a coherent story as I could. And yes, of course, there ARE slip-ups everywhere, there will be gaps in logic, mistakes, repetitive dialogues that I might not have noticed had already happened... I apologize if anything of the sort pops out in the future, but you do have to admit it's kinda hard for someone with VERY weak memory such as myself to remember wtf she wrote if she's not rereading it all the time :> ... but my point is that the size of this project was frankly insane, and I reeeeeally doubt I'll ever tell a story of this magnitude, length-wise, ever again. As much as 7KLYA is driving me crazy in the BEST ways, I do think it will be objectively shorter, no matter if the scope is a lot crazier and more ambitious than Gladiator's could have been due to the obvious constraints of the Avatarverse.

Of course, little by little, a community for Sokkla started to come together as the years passed by. Where I'd jumped aboard this journey while daunted by the idea of trying to resurrect a ship that was taking a long nap, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people who had their own ideas and stories and plans going on. While I tried to be supportive as best I could, I admit it eventually reached a point where it felt like I was working ten times as hard as many people, reading their stories and writing reviews while trying to juggle my own work... and the majority wouldn't even bother trying to reciprocate. Of course, fandom is not meant to be a fully reciprocal and perfect experience where everyone gives as good as they get and so on and so forth, in an ideal circle of energy and happiness...! But I admit, I got very, very tired of going out of my way for people who didn't respond to my enthusiasm with any kind of respect. Hell, I even remember one time when I was shown screenshots (I think) of a group of people who talked about me and my closer friends in the Sokkla community as the "titans that the Olympians would dethrone", in the sense that THEY would be writing the next best stuff and we would go forgotten soon enough. I still have no idea if those people wrote or posted a single story. I, at least, never saw them being active here or elsewhere.

I could certainly credit this attitude to the general, horrible ways in which fandom has evolved in the past years. It's all about farming engagement, all about getting reactions... so little about actually loving what you do. This is why arguing about ships is still so popular: it's prime engagement bait and so many people fall for it immediately. So... personally, when I started to feel drained by the changes, by the entitlement, the way some people just took my work for granted? I withdrew. I try not to be confrontational (key word: try), so I did my best to not lash out at anyone who was talking about me or my friends in the Sokkla Community that way... but it definitely took a toll on my willingness to engage with whoever wasn't engaging in good faith with my own stuff.

So, if you're a newer Sokkla artist or writer and thought "wow that bitch is so entitled, she just ignores my stuff", look... it was basically a choice made for self-preservation. My mental health has been a rollercoaster in many ways across the years, for a LOT of reasons, and sometimes you just close ranks even when nobody means any harm, just to stay on the safe side. So I'm very sorry for not giving you the opportunities you may have hoped for... but hey, if you ever did feel unfairly ignored by me at any point in the last, I dunno, 8 years?? :'))) You're always welcome to drop by and say hello. Now that Gladiator's done, I may have a bit more headspace for other Sokkla iterations. Can't promise I'll have tons of time! But if I can read good stories, I'll happily do so in the coming years.

All this to say, though, that I absolutely built a little community that feels very comfortable, even after all this time. So many people in it have moved on, but they still reached out in joy that I'd achieved what I had, and they know how much this means to me. I'm very grateful for them, serving as such a great support network, for myself and each other. That's what fandom and community is supposed to be about <3 thank you, always.

But of course, connected with the aforementioned isolation I chose over the last years, the further I powered onwards, the more it felt like I was carrying this behemoth alone even if it wasn't entirely the case. A part of me, undeniably, felt bitterness at times over how hard the going could get, most of all whenever I came across insensitive and incredibly cruel comments, be it here or on any of the platforms where I came across such opinions of my work. Yes, I know, you can't please everyone and that's not going to change anytime soon... although it was rather telling thing it came from certain people, especially those who tried to act respectful or even friendly to my face only to be remarkably bitter about my story when they thought I wouldn't learn of it. Whether they envied what I'd achieved, whether they just didn't care for the attention it had gotten, whether they just GENUINELY had no respect for me as a writer...! Beats me what the problem was.

Whatever the case... this is one goes to those people: I hope one day you'll find the writer I couldn't be for you. Maybe you always had the ability to tell a perfect story, whereas I didn't...! And yes, maybe some of Gladiator's unexpected popularity and attention felt out of place, when so many good writers in the fandom were working hard as well. I'd dare say... support the people you believe in. Take a stand for what you actually love. Trite as it may sound, yes, be the change you want to see in the world :') in the end, your insensitivity was but a brief bump along the road... and after picking myself up, and learning whatever I stood to learn from it, I kept going and your unpleasantness achieved absolutely nothing. I hope one day you'll realize that finding value in yourself, your own work, is its own reward, and that other people can do so with their own creations, no matter how unpalatable you may find them. And if you take your time to build up others whose potential you actually can glimpse? You'll be achieving so much more than you do by taking figurative dumps on someone you dislike.

And yes, sure, this probably sounds rich coming from someone who scrutinized ATLA's canon to a point where she felt she was going nuts...! But see, that's exactly why I slowed down the non-stop analysis and meta production and focused on writing stories instead. Critical thinking is great, it absolutely makes you a better storyteller! But it's up to you to decide whether you want to build something up or tear it down. Many of you chose the latter... and you failed. I made it all the way here in the end. Feel free to flex all your critical thinking now, and take your time to rewrite my story your way, if that's your wish :') no one's going to stop you. ATLA frustrated me and I wrote fic about it... feel free to do the same thing. It sincerely couldn't matter less to me at this point. I wrote this story because I wanted to do it. I write for myself, I write the stories I want to read, I write things that excite me and that I can revisit with a smile each time I return. This is basically my creed as a writer, and I intend to live by it forever: no cruel remarks, no mean-spirited comments, could ever be strong enough to undo it.

Alright. Now comes the acknowledgement that is most awkward and endearing alike:

My mother found out about my fanfic adventures. I actually made a post about it here. Her immediate reaction was "I WANNA READ IT!" and I said "ABSOLUTELY NOT" and she was very silly about how she totally wanted to support my creative endeavors. How did she learn about it? Why, my annoying ass BROTHER (the root of many of my problems with Zuko, why lie...? :'D) caught me updating Gladiator one time, probably saw the header of Fanfiction.net and realized what it was, and as any tattle-tale sibling would (see what I mean??), he decides to go parroting all over our tiny apartment, to ANYONE who might hear, that I was writing fanfiction. At the time, my mom had no idea wtf that was but my sisters certainly did. One of my sisters actually read all the way up to the Emerald Rockman's arc, and her boyfriend actually started reading Gladiator later? I have no idea how far he got...

... In short, I experienced a fic writer's WORST NIGHTMARE :'D your hilarious family finding your passion project and being total trolls about it, but not entirely? (Okay, my brother was fully a troll about it, no lie there).

But then my dear mother decides to go the extra mile, years later, and confesses one funny day that she found my story (she knew my username) and she had read the first chapter. She liked it! :>

... My response to that was downloading all of Anne of Green Gables' books off Project Gutenberg and handing them over to her on her Kindle. She LOVED Anne of Green Gables as a kid and never had read the full thing! :'D so I just told her to read that. Haha. So very subtle, wasn't I?

... It worked until it didn't. My mother always claims she's not good at English but she finished those books in English, THE ENTIRE SERIES, in less than a year... and then started reading Gladiator again.

I HAD NOWHERE TO HIDE :') there was nothing to be done. She started asking questions about stuff she didn't remember from the show, how they correlated to the story, I TRIED my best to be nice and not panic because she totally was gonna get to scenes I didn't want her to read...!

... and she did. And then she read past them. And she kept going.

And then she was asking me why tf had she run out ouf chapters and where was the rest of it.

Lo and behold, my mother ended up being one of the craziest Gladiator readers of all time. When I told her I was going to post the final chapter she actually howled like a wolf in pain. She hasn't finished reading it yet, but kept saying that once it was over she'd read the full thing again. I know she's my mom, which means she's crazy and supportive and has no common sense when it comes to being nice to her kids... but it still blows my mind that she enjoyed it to that extent. I know she would not have stuck with it for this long otherwise. I'm never going to get over how absolutely SURREAL this whole situation was... let alone the fact that it worked out as well as it did, because I genuinely, earnestly, enjoyed talking about this story with her and explaining things and seeing her squeal for joy at happy things... and then scolding me for tormenting my characters. In fact, she coined the nickname "Azulita" (Spanish for Little Azula) and became an unlikely Azula fan who would berate me for putting her through the wringer throughout Gladiator's darkest days :'D

So... Mom, you're the best. I hope you know it. I also know you're VERY likely to read this entire post eventually, ergo why I address you directly: I love you, and you're crazy. Thank you for being the best mother ever.

Ah. What a ride Gladiator has been... but in the end, the passion that burned so powerfully absolutely dwindled the closer I got to the end. I won't lie about that because it'd be extremely dishonest: it doesn't mean I don't love my dorks anymore! Of course I do! But as my life started going through WILD changes, I couldn't quite give Gladiator my everything the same way I used to. I've gotten a full university education, including a masters' degree at this point, over the course of Gladiator's writing. I had a nightmare job during 9 months, back in 2018-2019, that completely slogged down Gladiator's production... and now I have ANOTHER job that I honestly despise and wish I could quit, but so far, no better offers have come along and it's all I've got :') real life is rude and cruel that way.

The secret to my successful, permanent writing for Gladiator was always looking forward to the next big scene. It worked as an incentive for me to write like crazy! But the further ahead I got, of course, the less of those scenes I'd have to be excited about. So... the recipe for success started to loosen up, and with real life kicking my ass as it did, Gladiator's production rate slowed down vastly in the final two years of its writing.

Across that final year, at some point back in January 2025, a certain horrific tragedy led my current landlady to say the most INSENSITIVE thing I've ever heard that lady say. She's usually a very nice person, but... she's a bit too religious. And in my experience, people who are like that tend to lose all perspective when it comes to defending what they believe in. She basically blurted out that God retaliates against a common, basic human being's insult by slaughtering tons of innocents, so that they learn to fear/respect him again?? I guess?? ... I just couldn't shake off the absolute horror such a statement produced in my heart.

For years, I'd been toying with the story concept of playing with some traditional tropes of your average fantasy tale. From my youngest years, I've had it OUT for Chosen Ones, especially those who are absolutely nothing special as characters, boring, even, and yet become the center of their fictional universe and nobody even questions it (or, if they do, questioning it makes that character EVIL!!!). Thus, I had this vague idea of a heroic character, the unquestionable good boi™️who was fated to save the world and then gets completely blindsided by his best frenemy, the infinitely more interesting deuteragonist/anti-hero, who decides to take matters into his own hands and proves fate wrong by achieving what his buddy was supposed to, no prophecies involved, no crazy worship to do with it!

... In a sense, I channeled a lot of that idea into Gladiator. Sokka and Azula are, unquestionably, usurping Aang's role as world leaders and instigators of change in the Avatarverse, bringing back balance and harmony, saving the world that way! I always wanted that to happen in this story and I made it a reality, so I thought that itch was kinda scratched...

... And then my landlady said what she did.

This devious little seed was planted in my head in consequence: I took her words, mixed it with my plans for this duo of hero and antihero, and after letting myself dip my toes into the idea of sci-fi, rather than the fantasy I had initially assumed I'd write... 7KLYA came to life. :) The story of two no-longer-as-tropey heroines (they became GIRLS! sorry not sorry, they're a thousand times more interesting this way :>) contending with harrowing challenges for humanity's sake, and dealing with the question of if a god is worth following blindly when his M.O. is to retaliate with violence and disproportionate punishments against anyone who dares offend him...!

Aaaand that's about all I'll say for now :'D if you're interested in learning more about the plot you can click the link I put in this post, aaaaall the way back at the start, right below the artwork!

This story is going to be an entirely different beast, but one that will absolutely benefit from many lessons Gladiator taught me. Among many things, these guys get drawn by a less mediocre artist this time, all thanks to Gladiator, which provided me with many excuses and reasons to work on art, on and on, until I actually got SOMEWHAT good :'D I still am not delusional about how good I am, but I can be proud of my work regardless. 7KLYA also will benefit from the new knowledge I gained from both my degree and masters' degree...! I've put into practice a lot of what I learned from the latter into this concept, which means I'm letting ideas simmer for muuuch longer and I'm reasoning with the deeper intent of this story in ways I never had before.

Worth noting that 7KLYA started out as a far simpler thing. But, much like Azula took me for a spin and turned my life upside down, a certain wicked lady, Eden, took in the events on the original script for 7KLYA's first iteration and told me: "Nope. You're gonna do better than that. Get cracking, my story does NOT end THERE." And frankly? It's no joke that the direction I was pushed towards, by this character, is the ENTIRE reason why 7KLYA is going to be more than a casual foray into sci-fi for me. I could have resisted the urge, refused to obey her demands, of course I could have...!

But this is one of many lessons Gladiator taught me: when inspiration is coming, when ideas are pouring in, you let go of your firm structure and you just flow into whatever this new road might be. Is it scary? Sure! But those strokes of inspiration are the actual magic, what gives LIFE to any kind of art. I honestly believe this story has the potential to rival Gladiator, or even outdo it, quality-wise, and it's only because I let myself follow the call of inspiration, rather than conforming to my far inferior original intent. 7KLYA has big, dark, complex ideas to convey about the fragility of mortality and the actual meaning of being human... and I look forward to showing you guys how it's shaping up so far!

... But you guys will have to wait a while to see it, just as much as I did:

I refused to write a single official word for 7KLYA until Gladiator was complete.

This was probably the weirdest year of my life, I'm not gonna lie. While great things happened (got to meet TWO online friends in person! Finished my masters' project! Wrote a bunch of fun things! Met lots of new people! Got a shitty job...! Oh wait that one's not good...), it was a very curious transition from constantly plotting Gladiator to suddenly plotting something else entirely. I've spent as good as every waking moment since January 2025 building up 7KLYA, developing ideas, characters, sketching scenes while I work, I'm pretty sure there are some things I STILL have to change and improve...!

But while the impulse to write was there, I narratively edged myself until I made sure the very last of Gladiator's chapters was complete before I wrote a single word for 7KLYA.

It doesn't matter if 7KLYA is my new baby, shiny and ensnaring my attention... because I swore to myself, from the very start, that Gladiator remained the priority. It would be completed. It HAD to be. This story changed my life, saved it in many, many ways... and I owed it too much to set it aside until I was actually done with eveything I needed to develop for it.

I wrote the final chapters of Gladiator almost in a manner of trance... in a strange place between one story and the next. I guess a part of me wishes I'd still been the same wide-eyed loser who thought she'd be lucky if anyone at all clicked her stories, and who worried about not being good enough to publish anything online... because the excitement I felt over my first fics, way back when, was so very fresh, so wild, and I've been feeling it all over again over something different now. But even still, as I got ready to write that finale, as I got ready to put together those scenes with Hotaru, Shun and Yuuna, I wound up reckoning with the truth...

I'd done it.

I fulfilled my own vow, my decision to see Gladiator through to the end.

I am ready to jump into the next adventure (why lie, in many ways I already have... 300K worth of writing speaks for itself :'D), but that doesn't mean the one I'm leaving behind matters any less. Gladiator was a godsend, a miracle in so many ways. It fulfilled unthinkable dreams for me, letting people from all over the world read my work. I imagined that possibility when I was starting to want a future as a writer... of course, I thought of it in the format of traditional publishing, because that's the typical idea one has for this career path. But the thought of doing it through fanfiction didn't really sink in until I first opened the now defunct story stats page in FF.net, and first noticed that it gathered data that showed where people were reading you from.

I saw labels from just about every corner of the world. I couldn't believe how lucky I was. It was a dream come true, absolutely... and for as long as I may live, Gladiator will always be a major highlight of my writing career. Maybe 7KLYA will take me to greater heights...!

But even if it doesn't work out? If life decides that I've had it too good and I can't keep getting away with this (?), then I can find peace in knowing that I did my very best for Gladiator. It was an incredible privilege, seriously, to create this story day by day, to build it up, plot the scenes I most looked forward to, and develop and flesh out a world that a fair few readers have said feels so real that they sometimes don't remember some characters or situations aren't canon. In all honesty, I was so drunk on my Kool-Aid that at one point I forgot canon was actually ATLA, my cousin started watching the first episode and my idiot brain instinctively said "but that's not what happened because Sokka didn't go fishing with Katara that day and...!"

... that's when it sank in that I was a little too far gone over Gladiator :>

I truly learned what it means to be absolutely devoted to a story, I learned what a literary calling looked like, thanks to Gladiator. I'll always be proud to call myself this crazy story's writer... and while I don't exactly advertise it all over the place, IRL, knowing that this behemoth on the Internet is my doing will always be one of the biggest achievements of my life, no matter where the winds blow me to next.

So... thank you to everyone who was part of this process. Thank you for joining in, whether from the get-go, or later on... it was a dream come true to share my heart's stories with you. Thank you to all those who allowed me to touch your lives in whatever way I did. It's been my privilege, the greatest of them all, to call myself Gladiator's author.

Alright, then. This was my journey, personally, across this story. But if you were looking forward to the behind-the-scenes, arc-by-arc...?