Changes: The KidVegeta Anthology/Final Thoughts

Latest revision as of 06:36, 29 November 2023

This page, The KidVegeta Anthology/Final Thoughts, is property of KidVegeta.

My final thoughts on all of my fan fictions will go here. Most of these sections will not be completed until all of my stories have been anthologized.

Writing Process

Development of One-shot Collections

So when I first began writing stories on this site, one-shots never crossed my mind. I was writing about The Forgotten, and a bit later, In Requiem, and the thought was always that I wanted to develop these vast, expansive journey stories. Two major turning points occurred soon after I came to this wiki: the first was me writing In Requiem - while that story was of course multi-chaptered, my realization that I could focus on the emotional journey of Kid Buu, as well as his physical one, made me look at fanon with a new perspective, and gave me the building blocks, mentally and stylistically, to later pursue one-shot collections; the development of Dragon Ball Legacies also worked towards this goal, for my first three completed stories on this site were essentially chapters of Legacies. Legacies was a precursor to one-shot collections, and was technically one itself. I didn't see it as one, and it was more of a community project as well. But the idea that each "chapter" would be about a different person, a different story, was an organic idea that evolved simply as a way for multiple users to collaborate. That project eventually failed, but I did write three "one-shots" for it, which began to whet my appetite for shorter stories. Again, I should mention that before I joined this wiki, I had no concept of "one-shots" or desire to write them. It was through my joining and the process of writing IR and Legacies that got me on this path. Interestingly enough, I think that TF had very little to do with this development.

So after Legacies crashed and burned, I started to write the early stories in The Brady Patrick Collection, which I will talk about below. When I wrote the first two (Sixth and Slaved), I was not expecting them to be a part of a larger collection. They were, in essence, one-shots. And later than that, in 2011, I joined ExtremeSSJ4's collaborative story project, Dragon Ball What If.... This was much like Legacies, and it crashed and burned worse than my story collection. My stories in that collection were joke stories, mainly because I thought ExtremeSSJ4 was a terrible writer (something which, when looking back at it now, I know I was not wrong about) and his collaboration concept was equally terrible. The only good idea I got from his story collection, Bitterly Bothered Brother, I did not associate with ExtremeSSJ4, and instead made into its own standalone multi-chapter story.

After those, I wrote yet another one-shot, Derelict. This, along with Scourge, is a rare one-shot that is not part of a collection or larger story of some kind. This was mostly because I submitted it to a contest, and I didn't really have a concept of one-shot collections in 2011. Still, I am quite proud of that story, and it was a big indicator as to how my one-shots were developing. Because I began to focus on emotional, quiet, smaller stories about lesser-known characters (though not always), that idea lent itself to the concept of a one-shot collection. It should come as no surprise then that soon after, in 2012, I developed my first such collection, The Brady Patrick Collection; that collection was not finished until 2013, however.

And from there, as you will learn in the below sections, the one-shot collections, were born. Most of my one-shots from that point on were in specific one-shot collections (only Derelict and Scourge, to this day, remain true standalones). I will be mostly talking about Scourge in the "Things Were Better Then" section below, for at one time it was going to be a "bonus track" release for that album, but when I released it, I decided against doing that. But it should be known that like Derelict, that is a true standalone - a rarity for me. I wrote that as a standalone, knowing full well that I was trying to keep all of my one-shots in collections by that point (which is not what happened with Derelict - I didn't have any ideas about one-shot collections when I wrote that one); the reasons for this will be detailed below. Scourge's entire existence is influenced by my idea that all of my one-shots should be grouped together into collections, an idea that became reality in 2012, roughly two years after I joined this site (and it remained my philosophy for one-shots for the entire time I was on this wiki thereafter).

If one looks at all of my one-shot collections in sequential order, I think they will notice two things: most obviously, the design on the pages became more stylized and minimalistic with each successive one-shot collection. I began to treat these collections as highly expressive and thematic vehicles, similar to musical albums. Each one became thematically driven, and certain aesthetics were chosen for each collection to make them unique. I certainly see them as similar to album releases by musicians; this is basically how a writer like myself would release something like that. The second way in which my one-shot collections have grown is that, in my opinion, the writing has gotten tighter, more interesting, and cleaner. I think one could easily track my growth as a writer just by reading my one-shot collections in order.

I will be providing specific commentary on each of my one-shot collections below:

Dragon Ball: Legacies (December 26, 2010 - February 1, 2011)

Being the first collection, it should come as no surprise that Legacies is the roughest of my one-shot series. As I have mentioned above, this isn't really a one-shot collection per se, as several of the stories span multiple chapters (including one of my own). Still, there were enough actual one-shots in it that I decided to include it here. I think my weakest stories on the entire site are in this collection. Were It So Easy (Legacies Episode) and Ground Up (Legacies Episode) are two that I don't like much at all, although So Lonely At The Top (Legacies Episode) is one that I do. The latter is a precursor to how my one-shots would develop, with its emotional focus, complex and subtle plot, and use of a relatively minor character as a protagonist. Other than that, there isn't much to say here. The prose is pretty bad in these stories, for I hadn't yet really done much with In Requiem - once I began working on IR, my prose began to develop and get way better. I am glad that Legacies collapsed under its own weight relatively early on. I think things would have gone worse for me had I written more stories in this collection. Sure, my writing could have developed faster, but I don't think so.

What ultimately came of Legacies was 12 stories (a much smaller group of stories than the original concept), which is roughly a one-shot collection sized story. Several of the stories weren't fully completed, though. I do think Legacies serves to show as a good early glimpse into everyone's abilities. I don't think any of the stories aside from So Lonely At The Top are any good, but Destructivedisk's writing abilities can still be seen in the two one-shots he wrote for the collection, whereas for pretty much every other user, their lack of writing ability is starkly clear at this point. Basically, I think the potential in various users can be seen in how their work developed in this collection. Perhaps Princeofallsalads also showed some promise with his story.

The Brady Patrick Collection (March 29, 2011 - June 24, 2013)

Dragon Ball What If... (April 17, 2011 - April 28, 2011)

I joined Dragon Ball What If... because it was popular, and there was pressure for me to join it. I didn't like the idea of it, didn't like ExtremeSSJ4, and most of his writers were terrible. As can be expected, all of the stories in it were garbage (it should also be mentioned that months/years after DBWI failed and interest in it was lost, ExtremeSSJ4 returned and deleted most of the stories from the collection, leaving only a few on the page - still, the ones I wrote (and many that others wrote) were a part of this collection at one time or another, and I still consider them to be members of DBWI). By the time I joined this collection, I already saw the parallels between it and Legacies. I knew it would suffer a similar fate.

So, I wrote two stories for this collection: A Mother's Love (Dragon Ball What If...) and Womanhood (Dragon Ball What If...). As with Legacies, I also developed another story, Bitterly Bothered Brother, which was based on this series, but was not associated with it, because I wanted BBB to be its own multi-chapter thing. I don't particularly like either story, though at one time, Destructivedisk gave an absurdly over-the-top positive review for A Mother's Love that still makes me laugh to this day. No, A Mother's Love is not one of my best stories. Womanhood is more akin to my later drunken stories (which one of my last one-shot collections was comprised of), though it was more silly and naive in its approach.

I experimented with form in this collection, mainly because I didn't want to write a serious story. Womanhood is a comedy story that is a pure concept piece. A Mother's Love is also a concept piece, which, to this day, is still a unique story on the entire site. A Mother's Love isn't really a comedy, but it's not a serious story either - it's not one that could possibly be canon to my universe. The big take away from this collection is that I was starting to mess around with form, trying to find unique and compelling stories to tell that were unlike anything else on the site, both in appearance and in meaning. Such ideas would carry over to later one-shot collections of mine, most notably "Things Were Better Then" and "The Heels of the Unknown".

The Black and White Collection (April 6, 2014 - July 25, 2014)

Things Were Better Then (February 22, 2015 - June 1, 2015)

Baby You're a Rich Man (June 27, 2015 - February 28, 2017)

The Heels of the Unknown (April 10, 2016 - June 19, 2016)

A Short-Lived Dream (October 9, 2016 - February 26, 2017)

Ikigai (December 22, 2016 - June 11, 2017)

Starchasers: Origins (November 1, 2017 - December 20, 2018)

Vöntun (February 13, 2018 - March 25, 2018)

A Trifling Matter (July 2, 2018 - October 24, 2018)

Ka Mua (February 4, 2019 - February 27, 2019)

I Wouldn't Want to Be a Fish Right Now (November 15, 2019 - October 22, 2020)

Somewhere Between The Ocean and The Bottom of This Glass (November 25, 2020 - February 23, 2022)

Influences

"Notice [in Things Fall Apart] for example how Achebe edges in the observation "He had no patience with unsuccessful men" in a most unobtrusive way, as if it does not matter at all, while in fact it is one of the key statements about Okonkwo's character. A less competent writer would spend many more words trying to make the same point and make it stand out. Achebe's absolute economy of words used with great skill accounts to an unusually high degree for the impression of remarkable concentration and power which one gets from reading Things Fall Apart."
— Emmanuel Obiechina

Story Completion by Year

128 one-shots completed, 30 multi-chapter stories completed: 158 total stories completed

2010

0 TOTAL STORIES

0 one-shots
0 multi-chapter stories

2011

10 TOTAL STORIES

8 one-shots
2 multi-chapter stories
- Dragon Ball Z: In Requiem
- Dragonball KC

2012

5 TOTAL STORIES

2 one-shots
- Speedball
- Second-best
3 multi-chapter stories

2013

13 TOTAL STORIES

8 one-shots
- Strength
- Separator
- Skulk
- Soup
- Scelerat
- Serial
- Slick
- Sovereign
5 multi-chapter stories

2014

15 TOTAL STORIES

7 one-shots
- Bluestreaker
- Lionheart
- Tyrant
- Brave
- Yellow
- Sleep
- The Watcher
8 multi-chapter stories

2015

16 TOTAL STORIES

13 one-shots
3 multi-chapter stories

2016

24 TOTAL STORIES

23 one-shots
1 multi-chapter story
- Nowhere to Go

2017

26 TOTAL STORIES

2018