Still Here (Book)

Still Here is an upcoming supplemental book for the Groundbreaking AU. It delves deeper into the cultural history of the Dragon Ball Super: Groundbreaking Project, including the Horizon’s Rest Era, focusing on the survivors’ journeys of healing, resilience, and reconnection after centuries of cosmic wars. Written by Zena Airale, the book will combine narrative chapters, essays, and original artwork to explore the everyday lives of Gohan, Goku, Vegeta, Pan, and their communities up through the Horizon's Rest Era. Drawing on the themes of Ver’loth Shaen and the balance between Za’reth (creation) and Zar’eth (control), Still Here aims to showcase how domestic spaces, small joys, and shared memories become as important as battles, echoing the Horizon’s Rest ethos that civic life and recovery matter as much as heroism. The book is currently in progress and slated for release after the Twilight Festival arc, offering fans a rich companion that bridges the main narrative and the supplemental lore. The first edition is planned for release after the Horizon’s Rest saga is fully published..

📢 A Note About Still Here

Hey everyone,

I wanted to officially clarify what Still Here is going to be and why it exists.

Still Here: A Cultural History of the Creation of Dragon Ball Super: Groundbreaking is becoming the public-facing replacement for the old supplemental archive. Since the 17-volume supplemental system is now basically private, Still Here will serve as the cleaner, safer, more readable way for people to understand the history, structure, themes, and development of Groundbreaking without needing access to every behind-the-scenes document.

It is not a novelization of the fic, and it is not meant to reproduce the chapters wholesale. It is more like a companion book: part creation history, part author reflection, part lore guide, part critical analysis, and part archive map. It explains how Groundbreaking came to exist, why it became so large, what its major eras mean, how the characters and institutions developed, and how the project changed over time.

The book is loosely inspired by works like Out for Blood: A Cultural History of Carrie the Musical, which treats a misunderstood, excessive, beloved cultural object with real seriousness while still acknowledging its mess, mythology, reception, and legacy. That kind of approach helped me realize that Still Here does not have to be “just a guide.” It can be a cultural history of a fan archive: how it was made, why it mattered, what shaped it, and what it became.

To be very clear: Still Here will be free online on my website. I am not selling it, because I do not own Dragon Ball, and I am not interested in playing copyright chicken with a fan project that already exists in a legally delicate space.

After seeing what has happened to projects like DBZA over the years, and more recently the shutdown of Bionicle: Masks of Power, I am not taking chances. Even when fan projects are noncommercial and made with love, they can still run into rights-holder issues, especially if they become too polished, too visible, or too easy for outsiders to confuse with official material.

So Still Here is being handled as an unofficial, noncommercial, free fan-lore companion. It exists for archival reading, criticism, continuity, and development context — not profit.

My hope is that it gives readers a doorway into Groundbreaking’s larger world without making the private supplementals public again. The main story remains the heart of the project, but Still Here will help explain the house that grew around it.

Basically: the supplementals are the private archive now.

Still Here is the public window.

— Zena