Word Count: 2882<br />Final Word Count (unadjusted): 121407<br /><br /><a href="https://www.deviantart.com/nintendiumman/art/Finale-Part-2-ANGA-40-801134817">Previous Part</a> | <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/nintendiumman/gallery/69162443/May-2019-Interactive-ANGA">Back To Collection</a><br /><br />That's a Wrap!<br /><br />So, now that it's done, it's time for me to share my thoughts on the interactive as a whole. But before I do that, I want to personally thank everyone who's helped shape the story and characters by voting and writing questions to the characters. In particular, I want to thank <span class="username-with-symbol u"><a class="u regular username" href="https://www.deviantart.com/quad2" target="_self">quad2</a><span class="user-symbol regular" data-quicktip-text="" data-show-tooltip="" data-gruser-type="regular"></span></span>, <span class="username-with-symbol u"><a class="u regular username" href="https://www.deviantart.com/wandertones" target="_self">WanderTones</a><span class="user-symbol regular" data-quicktip-text="" data-show-tooltip="" data-gruser-type="regular"></span></span>, <span class="username-with-symbol u"><a class="u regular username" href="https://www.deviantart.com/heraldofopera" target="_self">HeraldOfOpera</a><span class="user-symbol regular" data-quicktip-text="" data-show-tooltip="" data-gruser-type="regular"></span></span>, for writing questions on almost every single day of the interactive. Seriously, when I started this, I was absolutely terrified that I wouldn't get a single question throughout the entire ordeal, but you three easily helped calm me down.<br /><br />I also want to thank <span class="username-with-symbol u"><a class="u regular username" href="https://www.deviantart.com/wandertones" target="_self">WanderTones</a><span class="user-symbol regular" data-quicktip-text="" data-show-tooltip="" data-gruser-type="regular"></span></span> again, for providing some awesome artwork to the series. Seriously, if you haven't seen them yet, click <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/wandertones/art/ANGA-What-Happened-To-My-Body-797631039">this link</a> and <a href="https://www.deviantart.com/wandertones/art/ANGA-I-Can-t-Be-Cut-Up-798490023">this link</a>. You will not be disappointed.<br /><br />So, time for my thoughts now.<br />Overall, I think this series went extremely well. Was it perfect? No. But am I proud of it? Immensely. Honestly, I think this has probably been the best thing I've written on this account thus far.<br />In terms of this style of audience participation in comparison to the old method, I personally liked this style much more, as it made my end of things much easier, and allowed for a better connection between the audience and the story, than with the simple number-choice system of my other two interactives. I think this style might have scared people away from commenting, which is understandable, if I were reading someone else's work, I would also be less inclined towards interacting with the story in this way, but I felt like this was a much better way to have character development in a story where the characters are stuck in a single location for most of the story.<br />I know some people are going to be immensely annoyed with the fact that despite being a story about magic, the story seems to focus an awful lot more on the characters than the actual magic. I don't really know what to say to this, that if you're just here for the magic, you can focus on any of the days that are contest days, as I tried my best to focus exclusively on the magic for those days.<br />The last point I think Im going to make on this summary, is that I feel like this story has been really great in the sense that it managed to fix many of the problems I've had with interactives in the past. The comments are filled with more thoughtful discussion than just numbers. Burnout occurred <b>so</b> much later than in either of my interactives, despite the larger word count (for the first one, it occurred at around day 20, the second one was within the second week, and this one didn't really happen until that last week, and by that point I had mostly planned ahead and could work around the burnout so much easier than usual). Besides midweek challenges, the proper important poll questions were always extremely close (except for Cammie's dismissal, which I must say, happened so much later than I expected it to).<br />So, those were my personal thoughts, obviously they can be different from your own, but I kind of realized I've never really gone in depth on my own feelings on one of these before. With how long me and you (the invisible viewer that I'm currently writing that has theoretically been with me for all three interactives), I felt you all deserved to hear my opinions on my own interactive at least once.<br /><br />Now, I'm going to try my best to pre-empt some questions now, but I obviously will not be able to catch them all:<br /><br />1.) Are you going to use these characters in another story?&nbsp;<br /><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; Honestly, if you've been a reader of mine for a long time, you'll know that I very rarely use the same characters that I've established in a story. There are obviously exceptions, like the second interactive (although you could argue that the characters are different from how they end up in the first interactive), or my four year anniversary story, or any story that is a direct sequel. Honestly, while I'm sure there are plenty of stories that could be told with these characters, I'm of the opinion that if their story is over, there's not really a reason to prolong it unnecessarily. Does that mean these characters are completely dead to me? No. I'm sure I'll do what I normally do and try my best to work in references to the characters in my other writings, but I'm going to warn you right now that if you're hoping for some sort of spinoff series revolving around one of the girls, it's most likely not going to happen.<br /><br />2.) Season 1? Does that mean you're going to do a season 2?!<br /><br />&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Maybe?. If I were to do a season 2, I'd want to try and do it as a massive collaboration with other people. Like, I don't know if you realized this, but in the course of this interactive, I had to try and figure out about 30 'original' tricks, not including minor references to magic that may have been part of a midweek challenge or just a passing feat of magic. That's a lot of magic for a single person to write over the course of 41 days (which, I'm kicking myself for not extending by a day so I can simply say it's six weeks long, but whatever).<br />&nbsp; &nbsp; If there's an express interest by other parties to help out with a second season. Sure! I'll easily do that for the next interactive! It can be a similar set up, probably need to make a new magician character up, have one character represent my own character, probably have cameos from everyone in season 1, it'd be sick.<br /><br />3.) Did you plan it out specifically so Jill would win?<br /><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; No. In fact, and I'd recommend you stop reading if you want to maintain the idea that I'm some sort of genius writer, in every single show Jill was the last character's act I wrote. Honestly, I was rooting for Ophelia to win (which I know that sounds rather counterproductive with how obstinate I made her, but some people like things differently). For the most part, I tried my best to plan out what all the magic tricks were going to be for each character, but Jill always managed to slip my mind, and I had to make her tricks up the night of release. Maybe it was that sleep deprivation and creativeness that managed to snatch her the gold, or maybe people kept voting for her success because people love an underdog story. In any case, I did not plan things out for her to win, nor did I plan any other character (even Ophelia) to win. I was perfectly ready for any of my characters to win or lose.<br /><br />4.) Yo, what was up with that terrible choice you made for the last midweek challenge? You should have known people were going to want to do a magic transformation punishment.<br /><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; Yeah. So, once again, if you don't want to have your view of me tarnished, look away, but I'm going to pull back the curtain once again. Originally, the midweek challenges as you know them were going to result exclusively as punishments for the losers. The only problem is, if I made it that way, I'd have to write another 5 options every week, and be ready for a different magical transformation to occur to all the characters, and would have to write out how every single character was affected differently by it. Not to mention, since I was deciding who won, if the punishments were too severe, it could be seen as favoritism (why do you think there was never a situation of the same person winning). I loved writing this story, but I can tell you right now that doing that would have burned me out within the first two weeks. So, I changed it to the semi-standardized reward set up that it ended up being. Although, since I knew the final round was going to be a team competition, and I still had all of my ideas for how to punish a group of contestants (sort of hinted at by the wheel of punishment. Some were in my original plan, others were made up on the spot to fill it out to eight), and I thought (like an idiot) 'Well... I did all this hard work, might as well put it up as an option and do the one I would have liked to see the most as the winner if it's chosen. But it's probably not going to be chosen'. I know in hindsight that seems like a dumb move, but by the time I realized that, it was way too late to take it back, and I couldn't just to a repoll on Thursday, since Friday is generally crunch day in-universe. Again, it was a dumb move, and I fully acknowledge that. Can't do anything but apologize for it.<br /><br />5.) What's next?<br /><br />&nbsp; &nbsp; Sleep. Followed by hopefully riding out the last fumes of my creativity to either finish my 20k story, or write something else.<br /><br />If you've managed to get this far in the description. Wow. Thanks for reading it! And thanks for reading my story as a whole. I'd love to hear your comments on the interactive as a whole, even if you never participated in either the comments or the polls and were simply along for the ride.<br /><br />To echo 2017 me, Write On! To echo 2018, I hope you enjoyed! And from the 2019 me in the present, Have a Great Night!<br />-Michael Clark (NintendiumMan)