#than 'innovate' with nonsensical fiction just to get drunk on my 'I'm different' Kool-Aid

[seyaryminamoto]

I just thought about this, but have you ever thought about turning this masterpiece of a fanfic of yours into a book when it’s finally completed? Because it’s definitely worthy of becoming a published book.

Aaah, that's so flattering! Thank you for saying that, Anon! <3

Unfortunately, I think I would need to take a loooooooong time to figure out how to ever file off the serial numbers with a fic as intricately connected to canon as Gladiator is with ATLA. There's even outright references to ATLA in the story... there's a lot of things that are just too deeply intertwined with canon's lore to just yank them out of there and still keep their meaning intact. It's really not as easy as changing the name of bending for something else, switching all character and location names... I do have a few AUs that are disconnected enough from ATLA that they could very well become original stories of their own, but ironically, my biggest and most ambitious fic isn't one of them.

As it is... my sole hope to ever have Gladiator published officially on any capacity would be for me to become a major hit in the publishing industry sometime in the next 30+ years (???), to the point where Bryke find out one day that I wrote the longest ATLA fic to date and they decide to make the most out of that? But let's be real, one look at my blog and my criticism of their content and they'll ragequit on me at once x'D still, I really think that's about the sole way something like this could come about.

Now then, I don't really know if I'd feel comfortable just filing off the serial numbers to begin with. If Gladiator ever became a published book series or so, it'd mean I'd have to take it down from the Internet altogether and... that just feels like a very mean thing to do x'D so, in the end, I guess it is what it is. While making a living is very important... I think one of Gladiator's strengths is found in its connection to canon and how it repurposes so many of canon's ideas, mixes them with my own ideas... and then becomes something kind of cool x'D if the day comes when making a full-blown book editions of fics is possible (if likely free, since the legal disaster to be found in outright selling fic is... not pretty), I'd definitely love to get that whole crazy story on paper. But if not... well, it's no sweat off my back either way xD knowing that people like you think it's of high enough quality to warrant being published fiction is enough for me <3