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It's clear that Sturm_DragonLord was trying to give Sarah more depth than just being a psychopath and actually foster a more meaningful relationship with Jon but merely have it with a rocky start. And then other writers had to come along and ruin it. Well, the "who will make the wish" branch was headed in that direction, but I didn't feel comfortable with continuing that one because I just didn't feel like I had a grip on the situation or the characters or how to reasonably continue.

Such a pity that this such better writing than the usual froth on here that gets multiple upvotes.

I'm seeing this is getting a lot of views, I was planning to make this longer and write up to a central event that would happen later as a whole entry. However, I feel like this more snappy segmentation of it works better for me personally. I have a lot of cool ideas for this kinda thread so I feel that whenever I write for FB it will focus on this one. Anyways thanks for reading, and any feedback, specially on writing style is appreciated!

I guess the purple man ended up being a chaotic neutral sort of Dr. Manhattan. Strangely that wasn’t what I was aiming for, it just went that way somehow. Probably in part just because he’s almost all-powerful and purple, which isn’t far off from blue, so I couldn’t help but be reminded of him.

Bud, I don't know how to tell you this, but this episode was written 23 years ago.

“Jon wondered how 25 year-old Sarah was going to explain this to her parents, or at school tomorrow.” - but this one is written by Zach, the writer of part 1? He has forgotten his own rules? No one but Jon and Sarah will know things weren’t always this way, her parents will think they have a 25 year old daughter still living at home, and she won’t be expected at school. Jon should know this.

These names and this atmosphere. Seriously, wtf. Trevor, Damien, classic vampire/demon names. At least if South Park and Strong Bad e-mails have taught me anything. Mr. Fithyn? Now there's a name fitting for Hogwarts staff if ever I heard one. And meeting in an abandoned bell tower? Is that something normally found on the premises of a high school?

ewwwwww.... I thoroughly regret going to that image location. I thought it was just going to be an anime style drawing. Now I've got eye cancer, thanks a bunch.

This writer is either an actual psycho or is just trying so hard to be edgy and offensive, he overshot it and ended up making something boring. There's no plot or story here, he's just doing terrible things to everyone around him for no particular reason, and it doesn't seem to be leading into any sort of conflict. It's just, oh, Jon can do anything to anyone, watch as he does so.

Eh, I debated it hard but meh, she is a completely different character ;) there's a third squirrel somewhere that I havn't really worked on yet...

If i had a niquel for every time i saw a two tailed squirrel in your works I'd have two nickels. Wich isn't much but it's funny that it happened twice.

Oh, the stone has attitude in this version.

You been watching too many loony tunes if you think it's their tails that stink

Oh no, not his disk! His 3.5 inch floppy disk?

Author's notes:

This episode was starting to get long, so I decided most of the Restoration Gun discussion could wait for the next episode.

Some episodes pick up directly from where the previous one left off, such as this one. In this case, it was necessary, as the last one ended on a cliffhanger that needed to be addressed right away.

But sometimes, an episode will pick up some minutes after the end of a previous episode, such as between Episode 99 on this path (where Coakley volunteers for the Restoration Gun session) and Episode 100 (the incident at the office where Coakley's Restoration goes wrong). There's a number of minutes between the end of that discussion, and the beginning of the sequence in the office, during which Samantha and Arnie could indeed have told Ryann (who was Ryan at the time) about the previous incidents with Peggy Pegany. Sometimes, to keep a story moving, it might be best to say a few conversations happened offscreen.

Since Peggy's start on the road to redemption took up a large portion of the episode, I'm saving the further discussion of what to do about the Restoration Gun situation for the next episode. Working on that now as I type this.

This branch didn't have many of the usual cast of characters, but I couldn't resist bringing Tiffany Sanders in since she would be just the sort of person to pick up the Lover Girl Lipstick not knowing what it was, and possibly kiss someone with it. You're right, though, that in this scenario according to the rules given in the lipstick, Karyn would SUSPECT that some unsuspecting straight girl might be kissing boys with the Lover Girl Lipstick and thus increasing the local lesbian population. Maye if she were in the right place at the right time to see something happen, she might suspect something. But she wouldn't be able to have her suspicions confirmed unless she made the right wish with the wishing stone or something like that.

But if that doesn't happen, then you're right that in this scenario, it's hard for there to be an 'Oh my God, what have I done?' moment given what the note states about how everyone's memories but the one are affected.

As for Tiffany, in most branches she's mostly attracted to the jocks so she's probably likely to kiss a Jock before she and Jon were to cross paths.

Challenge to all comers, continue the story from here, if you dare. Your task won't be quite as hard as Karyn's.

It's gotta be Jon that Tiffany goes after. But I don't like the rules of this lip gloss. Particularly the "everyone but you will believe he has always been female" part if a male is kissed. That means that the victim is just replaced with someone else and the whole world changes, and only the one wearing the lip gloss will know anything is different. No drama can occur if it's only that. The victim needs to know he's a victim. Which is especially frustrating since truly with these extensive mental changes, it's just straight up murder, and there's no opportunity for a "oh god what have I done, and how can I try to fix it" moment for Karyn. Unless the "you" in the note explaining the lip gloss's rules was referring not to the wearer of the lip gloss, but Karyn as the wisher. In other words, Tiffany kisses Jon, and both Jon and Tiffany are unaware that Jon was male and someone else, Tiffany is just confused why she would kiss a girl, and then Karyn discovers that some girl she's never met has now replaced Jon and knows something is horribly wrong and asks the stone for information and faces the truth of what she caused.

Well the first one's in 2000 so canonically any story could be set any time from then until now. I thought about writing one with some stupid joke where someone runs into a character not seen since a 2000 chapter is run into again, and the response is "It seems like so long since I saw you. Like, at least 3 US presidents have entered and left office since I last saw you." Leading to maybe "what are you talking about, we're in high school, we couldn't possibly be that old."

For those closely following the story, the barker, princess, fast food worker, and butler forms were not previously mentioned. They were the 'and many others' spoken of back in the Transformation Guns episode 'Transformation mania! Things spiral out of control!'. The female headbanger, the kindly old grandmother, and the scary guy with a hockey mask, however, were all mentioned in that episode. And the masked fellow was mentioned again during Coakley's session two episodes ago, so the dark twist that brings about this episode's cliffhanger doesn't come out of nowhere. I hope it was set up properly.

Initially, it was just going to be a one-off, but once I started thinking about how Ryan and the others were going to want to try using the Restoration Guns on the Board members, I began thinking of the possible consequences, and this scenario came to mind.

This will conclude the patient sessions. What I have planned next is where all this setup will pay off. There will be some new twists to come in the coming episodes I have in mind. Hopefully, the patient sessions weren't too long or tedious. I tried my best to make them different from each other, and give different insights.

The style of this one is different. Too much like a summary of a story. Anyone that likes the idea, feel free to rewrite it with more details. But honestly after reading through all the branches that are the root of this from a depth of 5 or 6, between Jon being turned into a horse and then a mountain lion and a female were-leopard and then this and all of them having dreadful directions if they had any direction at all, the part I did just seemed like the most promising part to continue from.

Been thinking of adding my own continuation to this one. My guess is that it'll probably take one or two more of 'the right wishes' (meaning 'gendered' wishes) before they realize just what's up with the stone.

Thanks, I had this idea for almost a year, it's kinda intended to be a more lighthearted almost slice of life-ish thing. Not to say this couldn't be taken to any other legths, just well, kinda wanted to push towards a more, considerate protagonist with this one. More a wholesome "flight of fancy" than a "power fantasy" if that makes sense. Anyways I don't think I am continuing this anytime soon so anyone is welcome to write their iwn stuff from here.

This looks amazing! Surely nothing can go wrong :D

this is like the ending of that terrible penn and teller movie where everyone stumbles upon the ever increasing heap of dead bodies and commits suicide because they just can’t handle seeing a bunch of dead bodies

Leave it to a new writer to come in and ruin it. Honestly it was already ruined though, because Jon was supposed to be able to talk again as soon as she was done with the pregnancy, she was only supposed to be stuck raising the babies until they no longer needed a mother, not stuck unable to talk for all that time. But this just ruins it totally.

Too much inconsistency, none of these writers understands that everyone including Jon and Karyn are supposed to not know Jon was originally male.

@lifesmainantagonist The wonderful thing about Fiction Branches is, if you don't like the way one author wrote a story... you can write that same story in a different way. There is no need to disparage writing that doesn't fit your tastes, you can just write a branch that does fit your tastes instead. We want to encourage writers, not put them down, even if they haven't been on this website in ten years :)

@lifesmainantagonist You're implying some kind of foul play, which feels a lot like a complaint, especially in conjunction with some of the other posts you've been making. While there isn't a good way to find a complete answer to your query, much more likely is that the date in question represents one of the several times that Fiction Branches had a re-launch, which, especially in the days when it was closely associated with Sapphire's Place, will bring simultaneous attention to multiple past users. Another possibility is that, during one of the several times that Fiction Branches had a re-launch, some data was lost in the transfer representing a particular 7-year period. Heck, if my fuzzy recollections serve me right, in 2008 there wasn't even a username system yet. Anyone could just title any branch under whatever username they wanted, no password required. It was a simpler time.

Like I said, there isn't a good way to find the true answer here, but just in general, I'd advise some cooling of jets. Nobody is using Fiction Branches for some strange ulterior motive. We're just here to write stories. If you're curious about the history of the website, I strongly recommend joining the Discord server, although I know you've stated reservations about it in the past. Posting comment replies to old threads like this doesn't give the impression of curiosity, it gives the impression of complaint, even if that might not be your intention.

well first of all it’s not a complaint, but it’s a mystery why a bunch of users disappeared for 7 years and then reappeared at the same time. I just found another one. WTBPA. Add that to Katra and Bruce_Leach and Daniel_Cougar. 3 of the 4 of them reappeared on June 2 or 3 of 2008. Pretty big coincidence, 3 users disappear for 7 years and all come back on the same day? So are they all the same person?

Just a pair of double quotes huh. I think WTBPA intended to put something in those quotes for what the sign said and forgot.

Interesting premise, Who is Xia? Are her parents important? So many questions !

It’s hard to tell when this is supposed to be taking place. 2000? The date the most recent chapter was written? Some time in between? Youtube started in 2004 or 2005 and Rebecca Black’s Friday was in 2011, but that’s fitting since the previous chapter was from the end of 2011 when it was recent.

Weak. The vengeance loses all meaning if you wipe his memory, then he’s just torturing a mental invalid with amnesia and what’s the point. It’s better for the sake of a story if it’s a victory with a cost too. I think the writer was just too upset by the earlier parts of the story to approach it reasonably, this page seethes with rage, a pity that almost none of these things get a satisfactory resolution if they get one at all.

well that’s a copout. The more obvious action is Jon sacrificing himself by making a wish that makes his/her life a little harder but that absolutely stops Mark in his tracks. Like wishing that both (s)he and Mark would get stricken by a disease that would affect Mark much more strongly and cause Jon to get sick for a day but cause Mark’s limbs to fall off and for him to lose his voice permanently, then Mark would lose his fem-master powers, as that required the use of his hands, and he could never use the stone again if he can’t speak.

@lifesmainantagonist you're complaining about things that happened 15 years ago

They already covered why this is reversible in part 2 of this thread. They can easily do exactly the same thing that was explained in detail and already used to undo Karyn’s first wish, namely giving it a time limit retroactively, saying they wish Jon would be female for just 10 minutes longer (no reason for the 10 minutes either, might as well make it immediate). The really confounding thing is, part 2 was also written by spotty, the same writer. Did he forgot what he himself wrote earlier?

you’ve just made it way too confusing

thisisnota no reread the first chapter, she was saying all guys are mindless simpletons that just are motivated by boobs, this is consistent with her character without any much needed benefit of the doubt.

Gaslighting and shaming. Oh yeah Karyn makes a real strong case here that he should be treating women as peers. Gonna do some virtue signaling and then start crying while you’re at it, bring out the whole arsenal of stereotypical female “debate” tactics? Was hoping that she would try to be the bigger person and just try to make friends with him but she only ended up proving him right.

Nice contradictions of incompatible opposites. "A Jon liked girls and was straight. A Noj liked boys but also was a lesbian." Did we also mention that Noj is made out of antimatter instead of matter but also out of energy instead of matter, is a plant instead of an animal, is an invertebrate instead of a vertebrate, is a fish instead of a mammal, is a reptile instead of a mammal, is a bird instead of a mammal, is inanimate instead of living, and despite not being living, is immortal?

So many users, I look up their history, and they were gone from 2000 or 2001 until 2008 and then they come back just to write one or two more things in 2008 and are gone again. What's that about? Katra and Bruce_Leach being the other 2 I have run into in the last few days.

Wow. They say karma's a bitch. Looks like karma hit this version of Sarah like a bitch all right. She did a foolish wish that undid herself. Ultimately she humiliated herself to the very ones she wanted to gloat over, by making them aware of her incompetence that undid herself.