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I'm going to be honest, towards the beginning I had some idea that I needed magic other than the stone to be affecting things, but I had no idea what that was going to look like. Heck, I wasn't even sure I was going to address it. There is a mental draft in the back of my head where the ending of this story is just Jon and Sarah standing equidistant from Karyn and she just keeps flipping between her two personalities until something combusts and the realities merge.

But the more I started figuring out what I wanted this other magic to look like, the more I realized "this is the set-up for Bewitched." And for a while I was like "this is so stupid, I can't actually do this." But eventually that shifted to "this is so stupid, I have to do this."

Speaking of stupid... I thought of that Vivaldi joke somewhere around early March, in an entirely different context, and immediately realized that it's how this story needed to end. And more of this story than you would think was written with the aims of setting up that ending. Another mental draft had Endora saying something like "watching your grandfather weave magic was like watching Vivaldi compose music." But I ended up dropping a bunch of earlier exposition for the sake of flow, and it mostly wound up getting put back into the two wedding scenes.

Seriously, thank you so much for following along the whole time. This story isn't exactly the content that most people come to FB for, and I feel like I lost a lot of readers along the way, but knowing there were still folks appreciating it was what kept me writing. But that said... I'm not the best at showing appreciation. Like, if a compliment feels at all forced, it is physically painful for me to give it. So when I do give someone any praise, please trust that it is entirely warranted. And I eagerly await the day when I learn the end of Kameira's story, because it's also one of the best things on this website.

You know how when you say something unwarrantedly nice about the Kamiéra story, I say that it's particularly high praise, coming from you? This sort of thing is why. Your work is always intensely human: the small, intimate details reflecting and building to the whole; the sense of lives lived; and the subtle poetry of the prose.

You take the start of a story of a kid with a magic rock and tell the story of a life. You have a sense of everyone in the story not as a flat extra but as a human being in full, and you bring that out.

Nothing should be added beyond this point. There is neither need nor value to doing so. It is one of the best things written on here, one of the better things by far I've read in a lifetime of reading a lot, and that includes the fact that you dragged Bewitched into it. (Though granted, I love Bewitched.)

Take a bow. You deserve it.

This is the intended ending of this story. It's Fiction Branches, so anyone can come back and add more, but I'm not planning any more epilogues. For now, this is everything I have to say about this particular branch.

Thank you, everyone, for reading along. When I re-started this branch a few months ago, I had no idea it was going to become as important to me as it has. It feels strange to see it finished.

I tip my hat. You are entirely correct. And brilliantly done.

@AnonyMouse I hope that the addition I've just made mitigates some of the abruptness. There's still a little more to come :)

A wonderful ending -- emphasis on both of the last two words. Bravo. A bit abrupt in some ways but perfectly executed in the ways that count.

Beautiful ending. Yet, it could also be a new foundation for further stories, if anyone was interested. A more "adult" version of the characters.

A standing ovation erupts from the crowd

In a lot of my friend groups, I'm the one who reads the rules and teaches the others. It's thankless work, but it does let me control what my group plays, so that's nice?

So I've been writing a transformation card game, and when I was thinking about how I can test how it works in a story, I thought of our favorite protagonists. I'm randomly putting cards in their hands from my list and trying to play it like I think they'd play. Hit me up in the Discord if you want to learn more about the game, I guess?

Nice!

I went by Lynth back in the day.

....I have no memory of writing this.

Yes, that is the author name as listed.

I have decided to leave restarts where they lay, rather than appending them back to the start. We'll see if I regret this later.

I think it stopped being possible to just, not give any options, but uh. It sure was possible 119 eps in.

I will be doing my best. There's a ton of 'em

Oh I remember reading these, good work on archiving these

I am still around, and planning on returning to this very soon. Life has just hit me extra hard this year.

would love to see where this goes next!

Really enjoy the story so far love Sarah and John’s dynamic! Something wholesome and real and sweet about it. Rooting for them.

Also I thought, originally, they (Karyn and Sarah) were gonna slowly like swap or something along those lines but this twist was nice thanks for read

Do you have plans to continue this thread? I like it a lot.

Exactly ! All in good theming lol

It’s the year of the Horse after all.

I wonder how big of a ripple effect it would have if Jon swapped a clothing item that was more typically goth unto Sarah, Karyn or Jessi

Ok look, as long as it's the good Darrin and not the second one, I can handle this.

You probably could go around that by thinking of April as a template. For example Jon thinking of this specific April and then adding additional elements to it.
Also I think having just mem as a tag is fine. Can’t think of another that would fit

I can confirm that I have plans for a story where he'll be a different age.

He didn't completely turn into princess peach here. It's like when you see a person in cosplay, or one of those cartoons into real life images. This April was a person based on the concepts of peach, and wasn't actually cartoons/video game. In my mind at least

It's a pretty broad power. As long as Jon can imagine it as being aspected from april, it is an essentially unlimited reality rewrite ability.

However, well I don't have any specific limitations built in, I don't think he could do full customized reality. He needs that April anchor, and trying to hold a bunch of details in your head is tricky. I heard a concept ages ago of how many things you can focus on at once called "the magic number seven plus or minus two", so without it being a hard limit into the story, I don't think I'd try and do anything more than seven or so key elements

Imagine the possibilities of turning into fictional women and adapting how their personality/life would look like in the modern world or whenever this is set. Maybe even adjusting his own age

I wonder how far Jon/April can make changes when in the shower. Can he for example think about April being in a relationship with Karyn or to go crazier Sarah or a teacher even

What tags should this episode have? Zoe and the rest are unaware, but they haven't been transformed directly. April is a transformed Jon, but the actual action happened in the previous chapter. I wasn't sure what to put down for this short transitional episode.

Are we dealing with a dream brought on by their TV episode binging. Wrong show I know, but they could have moved on to Bewitched. Or is the wish still perculating?

:)

There's definitely more left in this story, but we have hit a turning point. Lots of loose ends still to tie up :)

Not sure if this is the end, and it's not my usual fare, but I do appreciate taking this old story down a new path.

Not my cup of tea, but well written regardless.

I'll keep it in mind. I have rough outlines for a week in world, and there's a new version of April most of those days. That's not really what the story is about, but I'm trying to write it in a way that someone can easily branch off into a new direction without having to deal with all of the emotional resonant stuff I'm going to be doing. Whenever I thought of this fantasy, it was more of being a different person, rather than anything extreme.

Can magical transformation be down to earth? idk.

Jon and Karyn will likely have some space on Tuesday Night that they play with the power. I might do something there

I love this concept it's got so many possibilities to see. It would definitely be cool to see some more "extreme" changes or just a lot of different bodies or something

Sounds like Sarah is finding her inner Karyn and Karyn her inner Sarah. Is Karyn going to push Sarah out and take her position?

This chapter brought me up to where I had planned from the start. I've got some other rough ideas that have yet to really crystallize. I won't say I'm completely done with it, but I've got no immediate plans.

Comments certainly help with keeping it in my mind though :p

I don't think I've got either of those in my plans. Maybe when we get to the weekend?

It sure fun concept to think about though

hoping this continues!

Fun!

loving where this is going - wondering how extreme sexuality and body changes might alter reality

This proves once again that FB people are my people. Years of looking for loopholes and strange wording make kin of us all.

About halfway done with the chapter where Jon learns about that :p

No idea if this is where you're going with it, but my mind immediately goes to - what happens when he uses a shower that turns itself off after a short time, at the school changing rooms, a swimming pool or the gym. If the shower switches itself off, how would Jon fulfil the 'I turn the shower off' bit to turn back.

FYI: For the remainder, I'm going to have Jon self-refer as April whenever female, with pronouns and all. Any time one of their forms is thinking about something they did as the other gender, it'll use those pronouns. That's the plan, at least. It is VERY easy to make mistakes with it.

Apparently, Jon picked up some secondhand trauma from Karyn's wish in the root. I was not expecting this to show up in this story that was supposed to be a light-hearted TF romp that I've been thinking about for 10 years, but I don't hate it.

Ooh this is interesting

I appreciate you. Without giving too much away, I do intend for this story to have a generally happy ending. Maybe not everything will be perfect, there will be some element of bittersweet. But I'm not going to leave anyone out in the cold on this story.

That said, I still have to drag our heroes through Mordor before they can toss the evil ring into the volcano. It will get better. But that doesn't mean bad things won't happen along the way.

Thank you for reading.

Justice for Karyn. She deserves better, and I really don’t want to see her hurt. I hope nothing else in the story ends up involving Biff—he’s consistently a jerk in every version, and the idea of him and Karyn together is something I absolutely can’t stand.

I also struggle when two characters who are deeply close get separated or lose each other for reasons outside their control; it triggers real anxiety for me. That’s why I’m so attached to Jon × Karyn and protective of their bond.

No offense meant—your story is great overall. Please keep going.