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I'll say the stone holder is doing a mixture of experimentation, getting a full handle on what the stone can do and how to use it, and setting up their larger plan. Minor spoilers: In this case the wish was less about making things better for Lily, and more about making things better for Jenni, giving her a devoted, loyal and longstanding partner instead of Benji, who she'd naturally ended up with based solely on the previous wishes.

lol

Indeed. That's the sort of unfortunate phrasing that makes for a character's tragic backstory. (And I've seen similar things happen in recent TV shows).

"I wish you'd (...) never come back."

Very poor choice of words.

dang it, italics didn't work

You have made a [i]huge[/i] mistake, buddy.

Well, we still don't know who's making these changes, and if they have some sort of goal in mind or are doing it just to mess with people. But long before the 'FLASH', we could pretty much eliminate Lily Vanderfield as a suspect, as the presence of the McMillan Triplets (prior to the FLASH) was actually messing things up for her. She had nothing to gain from creating the McMillan Triplets. And then the FLASH occured, with another change in reality. Perhaps whoever made the changes didn't intend for Lily to end up losing out due to Jenni's getting the position of class president instead of her, and made another wish to make things just a bit better for Lily. Or perhaps they're just messing around. Who knows?

Anyway, I think we can probably assume whoever is making the changes had some means of watching these people. The timing of each reality altering FLASH does seem to indicate they know where their targets are and what they're doing.

Thanks Gooose. I haven’t been on in a while but was happy to read your additions, they were all great. If you’re ever planning on adding more, would love to see what’s happening with Karyn and who else will get involved. Loving your other stories as well, especially the Triplets

I'm also hoping the story continues in this direction. So many times the author treats the magic as a flowing force that takes the aware individual and, either removes them from the story or melds them into the new reality removing the conflict.

Cute lesbs <3

And now I think I know what's going on here. Several branches have played with the idea that outside the range of the wishing stone, people aren't affected and therefore remember things the way they were before the wishing stone changed things, but very few have really played it up much. It seems here, we're seeing a branch from the viewpoint of someone who's been away from town for a while, and while he was gone, there were a LOT of changes made. And so far, everyone he's encountered is acting as if things were always the way they are now.

Arnold Leeson has no context whatsoever for this, as he's unaware of the existence of magical reality-altering artifacts with a range limitation. Let's see where things go from here.

@Zelo "episode two" (all lowercase) is the very first branch added to YAWYW and shows up first if you sort by oldest (which iirc is the default).

I find it amusing how the 4th most "popular" (at least in terms of "children") branch is simply called "episode two" in lowercase.

I find Sydney's literal single-minded twin situation quite interesting.

Ouch. Upvote for the feels.

My vote is for a giant snake for a cock. Talking 15 feet or something.

Madison as Linda's maiden name is somewhat common, though I've also seen Webster used at least twice. My split of the On the Set Branch had Jon Gibson's actress's name be Madison "Maddie" Merlin as a nod to the other common names.

In one branch, I had it stated that 'Madison' was Jon's mother's maiden name, while the father's last name was Gibson. Meanwhile, Jon's grandfather, due to his interest in magical artifacts, got the nickname 'Merlin' in the community of people with similar interests.

I loved this idea and your next branch, but I had a slightly different direction. Thanks for the inspiration!

What if Jo wishes that her grandfather placed her and her family under a magical comprehensive curse, charm, enchantment and transformation, with a rider for wishes and reality alterations? Jo could make a claim against the Sarah's wish as of the moment Jo makes her wish about the curse she's under, but she can opt not to make a claim about changing her gender/age. Have the law firm backing the insurance policy supernaturally competent, like lawyer devils or lawyer fae.

Actually, since the curse was on John and now she's Jo, it should have stopped working at that point. You didn't do that, but maybe you can reconsider something.

I can't wait to see the next chapter.

I think I've had a few long episode titles myself, and the title made me laugh out loud. It turned out there was a lot more to laugh about here, as this becomes a parody of the previously presented scenario, taking it to its logical and most ridiculous extremes. And then, in the best tradition of Monty Python classic sketches, it ends when it degenerates into hilarious nonsensical silliness.

Bruh moment

This has enough set up to go in lots of directions. As many directions as the root. And really Karyn and Jon dealing with the difference in their relationship to Sarah is a conflict. Conflicts in stories don't have to be actual conflicts.

I figured if I'm writing for fun now, I may as well turn off my brain and just post the stupidest idea I've had in a long time here, because why the hell not.

"oh yes and the “real” Paige is brought into existence too."
😄

oh yes and the “real” Paige is brought into existence too. With a magic rock, it’s pretty easy to flip the worst possible ending into the best, isn’t it? Still better story than 99% of hollywood movies I’d say though, not to toot my own horn too much, not that it’s a hard benchmark to achieve.

I don’t know Zelo. I haven’t decided to be the one to continue with it. There are a number of things on here I thought I might do, but it’s hard to put much into it when it’s met with such indifference. There are a number of ways this could go, I had one in mind and it’s actually drifting further from that because this version of Sarah may have shaped out to not be that evil. My original plan: Jon/Paige sees a grabber tool and a bucket in the garage and thinks nothing of it at first. She bides her time and eventually the opportunity comes with Sarah out of the house and she searches her room and finds the stone in the chest at the foot of her bed, but knowing she can’t touch it, gets the grabber and drops it in the bucket, and then brings it miles away on a bicycle and buries it in a field. She is uncertain what to do next because what if one of Sarah’s wishes is something like always knowing where the stone is or being able to summon it with the words “return to me” or something. On the other hand what if Paige actually can still use it? But she just buries it and returns and right before she gets back, gets a call on her cellphone from Sarah desperately asking her where the stone is and what she wished for with someone else’s help. Paige in triumph says “I didn’t wish for anything but it’s gone, you’ll never touch it again, cunt.” Then to Paige’s surprise Sarah tells her the rest of the McMillan family are held up as hostages at gunpoint and they’re going to execute them in front of her unless they are led to the stone. The leader of the criminals then is put on the phone and Paige asks how he knows about the stone and that Sarah had it, and he explains to Paige that they had found them because the stone only has a range of a few miles so it doesn’t affect public records and history outside that, so it’s actually pretty easy to track down just by looking for discrepancies between public records stored in one place and another, and he’s well aware that Paige isn’t supposed to exist so it led them right there. Jon tells him that he’ll never get the stone, and that she’d rather let her family be executed than let it fall into their hands, and ends the call. Of course she’s not broken up about it because it’s not her real family and is none too fond of the McMillans. Later Sarah finds her as the only survivor after they fled emptyhanded and is distrught furious with Paige and attacks her, but despite her smaller size, Paige incapacitates her and says “We’re even now Sarah. You took away my family, and I took away yours. I guess I’ll see you in hell.” And then like the Spider-Man origin story, because Jon Merlin also disappeared and the records of Jon Merlin existing in town don’t match the records from afar, the criminals then kill his family too in their search for the stone, and if Jon hadn’t been so indifferent to them, and Jon/Paige is left with that. Paige then contacts Susan her friend from school to tell her where the stone is buried and then the surprise twist is, Susan’s family are the criminals. But Susan is the one to go there, and figures out what Sarah wished for and compensate for it all manages to wish Jon’s and Sarah’s families back to life and restore Jon’s rightful place in his true family the Merlins. The story ends with Jon getting a letter from his grandfather who is alive and well and enjoying a regular tourist experience in South America, but also a letter from a young girl he doesn’t know named Susan, telling him that he doesn’t remember her, but that she knows him, and is grateful for something he did for her in another life, and will be his guardian angel who will look out for him and be there for him if he really needs her. The end. That was the plan at least. A very detailed and involved story unlike much you see on this website but it would really be a whole lot of trouble to write all that tbh.

"Was that a real reality before that had simply been accessed by the stone, or did the stone create it? Was the real Paige just a work of fiction, and Jon shouldn't worry about her loss?"
A fantastic question. Sometimes, in other branches, I have a hard time telling the difference.

Not sure if this is the most natural continuation of what came before, but it sure is interesting. Honestly, I'm not sure what to think of Sarah right now. We'll see how it goes, though after that speech Jon gave her, I fear what she might do.

The writing is a bit... strange at times (seriously what the F was that bit about The Ones Nobody Expects? You gotta be more tasteful with jokes like this), but overall this is a really interesting premise. I'm surprised I haven't stumbled upon such an idea sooner - the idea that even the original first chapter had already been retroactively altered. You'd think this would've been obvious in a story with a reality-altering artifact, but apparently not! (or I didn't look hard enough)

Here's why you're probably wrong. It needs conflict. You can't just give it a happy ending unless you're committed to that being the end of the story. And any good story does have an ending and there are so many of these that get no ending at all, they just go into hell of Sarah endlessly torturing others or something else with no resolution. But I don't think that it should end right here because so little has happened so far in the plot. So with Sarah written out of the role of villain, it needs a setup for conflict. It needs a villain. What other sources of conflict are there? An innocent wish gone wrong? We've already had that now. It would be too redundant to have it twice. And though I think there should be lots of nodes to continue the story from and so not too much should be crammed into any one chapter making it a package deal of things that the next writer would want and things that the next writer doesn't want, I think this is actually just the right amount.

After more than 10 years, I don't think the true author JaycieLane is coming back. I tried my very hardest to write it in the same style she did, to make it almost as if she had written it herself. I hope it is worthy. But it's one of the few stories I have found here that I truly thought deserved to be continued, and I thought it was maybe worthwhile to write a serious thing. After writing so many things with 2-headed catgirls and whatnot. Though the thing where Jon was Sarah's pet fox was actually kind of serious. But not this serious.

Interesting, but I don't think it really needs Miriam showing up at the end, that sort of narrows the directions someone could go with it from here. Without it we could just stick to Jon, Karyn, and Sarah, in future branches and explore a bit more what's going on with just them. With it, everyone has to have Miriam involved in some way.

Otherwise I like the idea a starting point!

@Goose I had some thoughts about Yuki Meishida in this thread.

What if Yuki, who is an honorary member of the Nerds (in the sense that the capital-N Nerds are all guys. There girl Nerds, but they are more V-tubers and cosplayers or gamer girls). I see Yuki figure skating, and through that making her own costumes and getting into cosplay and fashion design. I also see Yuki being slowly drawn into D&D, at first as a casual player, falling in love and eventually alternating with Jon as Gamemaster. Yuki gers to use her knowledge of Japanese spirits and ghost stories to make a novel non-European game.

When I said Yuki fell in love, it was a double entendre. Yuki learned to love her pop-culture loving self, but also fell in love with Jon. What if Yuki screwed-up her courage and asked Jon out? What if Sayaka was Yuki's very best friend before Yuki's family moved overseas? And they still coispond by email, Facebook and videocassette? Would Jon as Sayaka support Yuki, because Sayaka-proper would, enthusiastically.

Jon as Sayaka should notice that she responds to she/her pronouns. If some knowledge was retained, then Jon as Sayaka should notice that she acts in a way that preserves social harmony, even if it's a bother for herself. She would likely find hygiene natural (thankfully many Japanese high-school have a moratorium on makeup). I think that Jon will find herself acting a bit more formal and polite, a bit more socially aware, inline with what a classical Japanese well-raised young beauty should. To be casual seems to now feel insulting, to buck the rules just because feels bad. In this way Jon as Sayaka has oddly become the Japanese equivalent of Sarah.

Awwww this is a super cute branch, hope to see more :)

but what he did to her was for like 30 seconds and she just ruined his life

just make it not painful or life threatening or traumatic for Jon to give birth, isn’t that much easier?

Well, this episode is one that's designed to set up the next part of the story. And we get to check in on some people we haven't seen in this branch in a while.

Meagan Graison, Ashley Thompson, and Brooke Stevenson were in early branches as Sarah's cheerleading teammates, but they failed to make it into the quasi-canon. Tiffany Sanders, Melissa Smith, Amber Levine, Allison Wright, and Erika Weber ended up becoming more widely seen, and some of them even got to do more than just be 'clique filler'. I've brought back Meagan, Ashley, and Brooke as cheerleaders for Lake Point's rival school, Forestville High. FB is just a big series of alternate universes, so it made sense to me that in some realities, these characters still exist, but just go to a different school.

Penny Pegany is a new to Fiction Branches character who makes her first appearance here after being previously mentioned as Peggy Pegany's daughter.

As for the Cheerleader Gun, the one that was in Mr. Matheson's box and which Jay turned in to the principal is currently (as of this episode) in Principal Davison's safe. The news reports are talking about the many, many, others that have been discovered all over the world. And of course there's at least one in the upper levels of MTI HQ, as Samantha has reported. As long as I'm here using this comment section for Author's Notes, I decided to clear up some confusion.

Still more to come. Sarah's going to be really upset at what I have planned later on. :)

No problem

Except if it worked that way, wishing the branch would be red would have worked in the introductory chapter.

That's the exact one! Thank you so much :)

That's the exact one! Thank you so much :)

https://fictionbranches.net/fb/story/15404

I assume this is what your talking about.

What, so he wishes to fix Karyn’s bloody nose but not to restore his sister’s body’s virginity? She’s probably pregnant with Biff’s dog-limbed child now ffs. Should have also made Sarah only able to make dog sounds when within 20 feet of the stone or when she tries to tell anyone else about it while they’re at it (and to prevent her from telling anyone by other means such as typing), to be sure she can never steal the stone and use it.

"Jon realized with a start that the room's large window was dark, before putting together she'd crossed several timezones. If she was in Japan, as she seemed to be, it would be like 2-3 am, no wonder there weren't students around."
Nice attention to detail!

More of what I can spit out on a bored Thursday: just buildup for now.

In my defence, i did write this episode a long time ago, i wasn't as good a writer as i am now, i'd change a fair few things given the chance if i was to revisit this story, but the real issue is, is it appropriate to pretend something never happened or leave it up as a learning experience?

Practically speaking if memory serves, I was trying to make Karyn the snarky friend closer to a Willow/Buffy type than actively malicious, but obviously didn't convey it very well back then.

He refers to his legs as "his legs"? So he talks about himself in the 3rd person?

Giving another reminder of “why the hell are Jon and Karyn even friends in the first place”. Why would he be friends with a girl that is constantly spouting off sexist crap about boys right in front of him and why would she be friends with one of those boys that she has such contempt for and thinks only is motivated by one thing? This doesn’t seem to be something that is commonly being considered. I keep coming back to the same thought that there are things that must have happened before the initial story, that they weren’t friends to begin with but only are now because of a wish gone wrong.