Over the year I spent working on this story, I compiled a whole list of random fun facts, so here are those

-In my original draft, Jesse died too, right after killing 303
(I'm sure most of you aren't surprised)

- Also, literally the only reason I didn't kill her was because I wanted her in the sequel
No joke, I had no other reason to keep her alive
When I was writing chapter 22, I kept thinking 'aahh, it'd be so easy to kill her right here! She doesn't have to survive!! I WANT MORE DEATH!!!' but I knew I wanted this to be canon with FD and WoWE so naahhhh there you go she survived

-Entity 303 was also going to be a past Shard that turned evil, but then I decided to save that idea for the sequel.
Which...maybe wasn't such a good idea since I'm not writing the sequel after all. Good job, me.

-Joss was named after Joss Whedon, the creator of Firefly (WHICH IS LIKE THE BEST FREAKING SHOW EVER GOSH)

-Jenni's death was based on Newt's in the Death Cure (haha you probably noticed that)

-The whole reason I wrote this fanfic was because I am extremely fed up with Story Mode fics that include both male and female Jesse for no reason at all.
Oh wait no, some of them do have a reason: they want to be able to ship Jetra and Lukesse.
*throws a chair*
It also really bugs me when their names are 'Jesse' and 'Jess' (or some other annoying variation of that), and a lot of times they're twins. Sometimes I'll even flat-out refuse to read a fic because it has both Jesses, even if it looks fairly interesting.
And because I'd rather not get mad, but get even, I decided to write a fic that stars not both, but all of the Jesses.

-Since I've finished this, I've actually started another story that involves multiple Jesses. That one's called Parallels, though I took a VERY different route with the whole idea lol.

-Jenni is loosely based on an IRL family friend named Jennifer. This is because they kind of look alike- Jennifer even had red in her hair at one point.

-I was originally going to create my own villain, but Entity 303 just...sprung into my mind, and I thought it would be fun to use an MC creepypasta that WASN'T Herobrine.

-I basically just took everything I don't like about MCSM fanfictions, reversed it, and turned it into a story xD

-If you've read the prologue of Forgotten Demons, you've probably noticed that the 'red-eyed man' has the same name as Entity 303. They are...connected...but tbh I don't know if that'll actually mean anything in the Author trilogy, since Entity 303 isn't part of that and Zelos is only minorly important in the backstory of the Torivors.
Well. The part of the backstory that was going to be shown in War of Wither's End. He's important in their full backstory, but most of that wasn't going to come into the Author Trilogy at all.

-the chapter from Petra's POV was literally just an excuse to add more Luktra.
That one was originally going to include all of the Order (and Ivor) and be from Olivia's point of view, but I decided I'd rather take the Luktra path

-Jesse's name was originally going to be Julie, but I decided to leave it and don't remember why

-The animated statues were not a reference to Hero in Residence- I wrote this way before that came out, and was a little shocked at my future-predicting skills.

-Jandro was originally going to be straight, and I noticed this while going through my original plan and laughed for like ten minutes flat.
Originally, he didn't have much character development at all. He was just kinda there. Once I started writing him, though, I found out how much I liked the way he spoke, how he acted, and how much fun it was to mess with his character. By the time I decided he had a crush on Justin, he was one of my favorite characters to write (overall, not just in this story)

-They were originally going to meet Null too but I changed my mind

-Idk why it was so important to me to have Herobrine help them, it just was. Also, his little monologue about 'power' was one of the very first things I wrote when I started this story.

-Honestly the Jandro-Justin-Jaq love triangle was one of my favorite things about writing this. The three of them were so shy and adorable and awkward and furious (respectively) and I kind of loved it. I didn't really plan that when I started writing, it just sort of happened lol
And then we had Jenni and Jesse in the background like 'i want nothing to do with this'

-I kind of really didn't want to kill Jenni, especially so horribly. But it had to happen.

-The endless marsh was kind of an inside joke with my sister, because one MC world I made was just literally...swamp. And more swamp. And even more swamp. So yeah, the 'neverending marsh' has kind of become a joke between us.

-I was a little iffy on Jaq and Jandro having the same worst memory- I messed with the idea of them each having their own worst moment, but decided it was simpler to just have them as the same one.

-I got a little too obsessed with Jandro and Justin haha. They're just so cute, and I honestly didn't add all the ship moments I wanted to, mostly because it just felt too rushed.

-I seriously couldn't decide who was my favorite Shard throughout most of the book. Still can't, tbh

-For the trial where Jesse almost died, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I had written in my notebook plan that 'jesse needs to almost die at some point' but hadn't come up with a trial where that would happen until I was actually on that chapter. Talk about procrastination!

-I think this story is the only one I've ever taken a long hiatus from and then returned to. I stopped working on it around the beginning of August (2017), and then picked it back up around late November, then dropped it again and officially came back to it during a 'family vacation' in January 2018. Most of the books I've abandoned have never gotten finished, so I'm kind of absurdly proud of myself for coming back to this one.

-My little sister absolutely forbade me to kill Justin...but yeah that obviously worked.

-The other Shards originally weren't going to actually be dead- they were going to respawn and be able to go back to their lives. But then I decided that 1) was too nice, 2) kinda defeated the point of them dying and 3) was too reminiscent of ep 8

-Most of the middle chapters were fueled by Of Monsters And Men ahah

-I was going to change Char's name but couldn't think of anything better so I didn't

-Justin's magic rope was inspired by Jace's golden rope from Five Kingdoms

-I kept trying to make Jaq nicer and it just kept not working. She did eventually start getting along with Jesse, though, so that was good.

- I actually had two different ideas for Jaq's death that I took a while to decide between. My original idea was a lot gorier, where 303's blast actually sank into her body, solidified, and literally ripped her apart
Thank Genna for talking me out of that one lol

-The memory-shadow versions of the Shards in the flashbacks were a completely spontaneous thing. I only added them because I was wondering what Jaq would look like if she was younger, and one thing led to another.

-My entire tactic with this story was just Making Shit Up as I Go Along and no I'm not sorry

-The chapter titles were weirdly fun to come up with but also a little difficult

-I was planning for there to be a lot more ship moments between Jaq and Jandro, but it just didn't work :T

-And speaking of that one, I didn't intend for Jaq to be such a huge bitch. She was supposed to warm up to the other Shards and become a lot nicer, but apparently she just didn't want to.

-Basically the whole memory-trial, I had no idea what I was doing or where it was going xD

-I'm mildly disturbed because in my mind, Justin and Chase look kind of like Lance and Keith and this was before I got into Voltron

-They were never actually introduced, but Kyrie was taken from my Horribly Cringy story Know Everything, Know Nothing
And actually, since that chapter I've developed Kyrie's character a lot more; they're now one of my basic OCs, and what happened to them in this book is not canon with their backstory.

-The Shards were all going to have the same birthday as well but I ended up not knowing how to squeeze that little detail in and deciding it was too insignificant

-The way the hydra spoke was based on how the Deadly Shadow talks in HTTYD and also kinda inspired by Hespera, the hydra in Fablehaven #4

- I literally spent an hour roaming through a Minecraft world searching for an ice biome, to help me add details to chapter 20

- The monsters in the ice trial were kinda inspired by the things from A Quiet Place
Forgive me, but that's an excellent movie and I have no regrets
*shivers happily*
Their appearance, however, was inspired by the rat creatures in the Bone comics, except the ice ones are blind and have larger mouths.
And they're white, instead of rat-coloured.
AND NO THEY'RE NOT ANGERY GUINEA PIGS, THANKS FOR THAT AIDEN AND BURNING.

-the alternate title for chapter 20 was 'In Which Justin Suddenly Becomes a Badass' but yeah

-I kept meaning to change the cover to something more fitting, but just never got around to it
I did eventually make a new cover, but instead of doing something involving the Shards or Entity 303 or anything relevant, I just redid the old one
Yes yes I know I'm lazy

- I started procrastinating this around the beginning of May 2018, and then began panicking when it was suddenly mid June and I only had a few weeks left to complete this haha

-I started this Fun Facts page after completing only a few chapters
I'm good at getting waaaaaaaaaay ahead of myself lol

- I swear to god I didn't mean for 303's human form to look so much like Romeo
Like I said. I came up with a lot of things for this book right after s2 was announced, including Zelos's human form.

- the inspiration for Jaq's death came from Firefly, the little rod-thing that the 'hands of blue' men used.

- the epilogue was originally going to be called In Which I Try To Forget, but since the prologue didn't have a title, I figured it'd be better to leave the epilogue without one as well

- also the epilogue kind of became a metaphor for depression WHEEEE WHY AM I LIKE THIS

- Part of the reason Joss was such a minor character (and a jerk) was because I'm pretty annoyed at the fandom for using the 1st male Jesse for EVERYTHING
GUYS
THERE'S SIX MALE OPTIONS
STOP IT

- it took me a while to figure out good ending lines for both chapter 25 and the epilogue

- and yes I know the ending is kinda weak, I was running out of time and getting desperate okay

- No, they other Shards are not going to 'see each other again' in the after life.
In my version of the MCSM universe, there's not so much as heaven and hell as just the Beyond, which is explained better in Forgotten Demons. It's basically the afterlife, but it's also a magical alternate dimension, and it's also the Dreamworld. Complicated, I know.
So when a person dies, they depart to the Beyond, and what kind of person they were (good guy/bad guy) affects where in the Beyond they end up.
But since the Shards had a shattered soul, they don't count as full people and they don't get to exist happily in the afterlife :))

-this almost got called Shadowed instead of Shattered Souls and I don't remember why
Tbh I'm not sure why it's called Shattered SoulS either, because they're not multiple souls?? that was the whole frakking point???? what were you on, past me

- I literally don't remember how I came up with most of the main ideas for this book, but for a lot of the trials, I just kinda kept asking, 'k...how can I make this WORSE' and writing that

-this fun facts page is longer than the last three chapters I'm so sorry 

Anyways. I think that's it c:

~Rush💙