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I'd love it if you did read the whole thing, but I understand that not every story is for every reader, and that's fine. But that said, "how the heck did we get there from this" is simultaneously now one of my favorite compliments I've ever received, and also a genuinely good question, even though I'm assuming you meant it rhetorically.

Spoilers to follow, for any future readers arriving on this chapter for the first time:

I think it's about little moments that bend expectations along the way. Each one (if I've done my job right) makes sense in the context of everything that came before, and sets up the next little bend to make sense as well. Like, after the first few chapters, it doesn't make sense for Sarah to show up at Jon's house and give him a makeover. But then Jon pops up in Sarah's bedroom, and he and Karyn manage to calm her down, and after that scene it's at least believable for Sarah to want to begrudgingly help Jon. Again, if I've done my job right. String enough of these moments together, and the narrative can make a complete U-turn without ever feeling jarring.

The other thing, and I'm only realizing this now, is that in this iteration I don't think I ever actually have Sarah do anything bad. The first thing she does is help Karyn, or at least the version of Karyn that she remembers. She's antagonistic to Jon, but only because she perceives him as a threat to her friend. Her motivation is to protect her friend, it's not any inherent malice towards Jon. This is a Sarah who will absolutely pick sides, and is not afraid of a fight, but also one that genuinely tries to be a good person. And the more we see of her, the clearer that becomes.

Anyway. Thank you for your comments, for sparking me to think a little more deeply on my own writing, and for reading however much of my story as you feel like reading. It means a lot.

You know, a few days ago I stumbled upon people giving (presumebly well-deserved) praise to the recent finale of this story. I skimmed through it to try to understand why it's being given such high praise, then acknowledged that it's high-quality prose that I cannot yet understand due to lack of context. To find my answers, I went here, to the beginning, and while I might not really understand what I read in the finale, all I can think of now is:

[How the heck did we get there from this?]

I doubt I'll read it to the end (in fact, typing this out pretty much sealed my fate in that regard), but nonetheless I am left intrigued.

Sarah becoming Karyn?? This seems good

This is a really fun idea. I love these sort of life-swap stories so I hope this gets more updates!

Thanks! I have a hard time keeping up with writing, but I'll try to kick myself into continuing it

wondering if john will notice, or karyn, or sarah, since 'technically' none heard a wish

That's a good catch! This is suddenly a very interesting branch

Exactly: Kamiera is, on one view, a sponge: S/he absorbs whatever is directed or instructed or modeled around him (sometimes her). But I don't want to leave it there, because Kamiera is still a human being, a young man (woman?) growing into the adult Kamiera will eventually be, and so it's not a simple matter, as the story progresses, of input + blank slate = blank slate with input; it's [formerly blank slate who has internalized several inputs and has grown characteristics arising from them organically as a result] + input = [formerly blank slate who has internalized several inputs and has grown characteristics arising from them organically as a result and synthetically integrates the new input into a new characteristic in combination with the others]. I've tried to show this as, for example, Kamiera becomes an obsessive risk-taker on the battlefield -- never, ever something he was told to do, but something stemming from the leadership directive he received and early combat experience, which then combined with his natural (unlocked) love of learning and confidence in his sisters and their prowess ... which then has to be tempered because unmoderated risk-taking is another way of saying "a lot of people will inevitably be killed." The person who arises from /that/ in turn has to deal with the fact that the healing arts are attractive in their own way, and align with the (sometimes subtle and sometimes more directed) inputs to family, hearth, and home; and then all of that has to be reconciled with the battlefield commander.

I do not know if I'm doing this well. This chapter was rewritten three times and I struggled with it; and then I suddenly realized how to write it and it took me about thirty minutes, allowing for (incomplete) proofreading. But I'm feeling reasonably good about it so far.

At the outset of this story, when Kamiera was still mostly Jon, he was given the following instruction: "Your old squabbles mean nothing to you. Your old interests are nothing compared to what lies before you. So long as you are at this Academy, this is home. The girls with you today are now your sisters as surely as if they were your own blood. You will learn and cry and laugh and grow and train together. You will stand at each others' wedding days and at your Oaths, regardless of which Path you take. You will become the Witchspears you are here to learn to be, and you will take everything you learn here as truth and a truth well-learned. You will dedicate yourself to the Will and the Wind, for the Academy, for your sisters, for your Houses, for the Empire, and for yourselves."

Due to happenstance, this instruction effectively defined, and continues to define, who Kamiera is as a person. "You will take everything you learn here as truth and a truth well-learned." Everything. Not just those things on the Path of War. Not just those things that directly relate to a Path. Everything he learns at the Academy will be taken as truth and a truth well-learned. And some of the most important lessons don't come from a curriculum at all.

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?

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