Recent comments

Interesting take here. There are several possibilities as to why Kyla seems to remember who she was before the wish even though she doesn't appear to have heard the wish. Let's assume for the moment that it's the regular wishing stone being used, with the rules we're familiar with.

Possibility one: Kyla somehow got some charm that protects her memories without knowing it. Maybe Athena lost such a thing, Kyla picked it up not knowing what it was (much like how we assume the wisher discovered the stone before making a wish and realizing it was a magic stone that granted wishes), and had it on her when the wish was made.

Two: The wisher wanted Kyla to remember.

Three: Kyla seeing them mouthing something was enough to count as 'hearing the wish' for some reason.

But my guess is Two, that the wisher wanted Kyla to be aware of the change. They were looking Kyla right in the eye after all from across the room. It makes more sense that my third possibility (if seeing someone mouth a wish counted as hearing it, then anyone who happened to be looking in the wisher's direction at the time would also be aware of the changes). So my guess is the wisher wanted at least one person to be aware of the changes. Perhaps they felt they were doing the nerd crowd a favor and wanted to be sure at least one of them knew about it.

Wow! There's a LOT to unpack here. The first part explains why the wisher created the McMillan Triplets, but then we get the reveal of the wisher's identity, and that whole confrontation in Richard McMillan's office.

Stephanie Wright's a character that often isn't developed that much. This might be the first branch I've seen in where she plays a much bigger role than just being 'clique filler'. I too honestly can't blame her for what she did, even if her actions are questionable. Guys in positions of power tend not to even notice the little people who get crushed by their actions, let alone care.

I could write a whole essay about this episode if I wanted to. In any case, it's a great one. All the important characters have believable motivations. People like this episode's version of Richard McMillan certainly exist in real life, as do people like Esme and of course people like Stephanie and her family whose lives were ruined by the actions of rich people in higher places. Having a true to life situation to start with, but adding a powerful magical reality warping artifact to the mix, works beautifully. A wonderful combination of 'realistic' and 'fantastic' elements.

It's interesting to see two branches of a "whodunit" (or "whodoinit", I guess) story. Matisguy's branch takes great care in making the Wisher's identity ambigious (besides presumebly being a student), while in yours we've just found out who she is. (this was going to be longer as I was writing as I was reading, but then I got to the part where Stephanie reveals herself). Honestly, while what she did here was cruel, I can't exactly blame her. I'm not saying this was entirely deserved and she might just become the very thing she hated, but I fond what she did believable.

"Who are you?"
"You took over my parents' company."
"Do you have the slightest idea how little that narrows it down?" xD

If I were boob-Jenny I would turn the high beams on and leave them on all day just to annoy Sarah.
And I wonder if since Sarah's boobs are controlled by another sentient being, could Jenny start making milk that would leak all over Sarah's chest?

I like your split! I wonder if there are new nerds now to fill their old niche, perhaps the former swim team? I'm also curious to see if you're wisher will end up being the same person as who it is in my branch. Nice work!

An experiment about keeping pre-change memories, perhaps? There's no way she could've heard what The Wisher said from across the entire lunchroom (and if she did, the others would've noticed something's wrong too).

Also: hooray for productivity!

Some mixed results here. I'd say the first flash resulted in a fairer version of Ms. Huang, who's willing to let Athena go to the nurse's office if she really is feeling unwell, though isn't going to allow Zoe to accompany her. The second flash, however, resulted in a Ms. Huang whose good looks might be too much of a distraction. There's no question the original Ms. Huang had some issues and it wasn't fair to take them out on her students, but this might create a different set of problems.

This isn’t a new chapter, I just broke the previous one into 2 pieces (with the last paragraph duplicated at the start here) because too many things happened in a single chapter and it shouldn’t all be a package deal.

Something very different happened today and I was able to write a good chunk of this during my shift at work. Hooray for productivity?

What is that guy's plan? What are they trying to accomplish (besides maybe some more experimentation regarding the stone's capabilities)? And, most importantly, who could they be? 🤔

find out next time on dragon ball z

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.

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.

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.

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.