Case studies

Raphtalia is never mentioned by name in the story, even though her character makes a minor cameo, because there was no plausible plot development that would have resulted in her joining Lyraena’s party after being rescued from the slave market. At least Raphtalia makes an unnamed cameo; there is no plausible way to have Filo appear without an extremely contrived reason for Lyraena to visit a slave market and purchase a random egg.

The genesis of this story was a roleplaying session transcript. Converting this transcript into a complete narrative was the first project to fully utilize the detailed writing process outlined in this document. A major creative decision involved changing the main character from Lyraena Winterglade to Amano Utsuhime.

This character change was driven by two key factors. Firstly, Lyraena Winterglade was already a primary figure in the story "Dimensional Inelegance." Secondly, Lyraena Winterglade was an unsuitable choice for a character intended to live discreetly in Japan. While Amano Utsuhime's personality might be unnerving, and her shared living situation with Sadako Yamamura might prompt speculation about their sexual orientation, she otherwise fits within Japanese society. Lyraena Winterglade, however, would immediately stand out, not only appearing non-Japanese but also non-human, exacerbated by her distinctive golden eyes. This isn't a concern for a purely private story but becomes problematic for a work intended for public readership.

Crucially, the adaptation from the original transcript to the final story was mediated entirely through the story bible; the large language model had no direct access to the source transcript. I believe this indirect approach resulted in a more cohesive and tightly written text compared to what was achieved with "Dimensional Inelegance."

The genesis of this story was me thinking that it would be a cool idea to have Mao Nome being the central character crossing over Macross Zero and Evangelion with an Evangelion unit derived from the Bird Human. Except for a single scene involving the SDF-2 and the Angel Ramiel, it remained a mere idea for many years.

After finishing the story “A Well Out of the Dark”, I gained confidence that I might be able to write a proper story out of one of the many fanfiction ideas that have never escaped their status as mere ideas. The idea crossing over Macross Zero and Evangelion was the one I really wanted to see become a reality next.

The process started out with the world building and various ideas. The core world building started out with the idea that Mao Nome would be sympathetic to the Human Instrumentality Project due to what happened on Mayan Island and the capabilities of EVA-03 based on the Bird Human. There was no actual plot at this point.

The story bible was split into the main story bible and a supplement. The main story bible contained information that would be reasonably known to readers and various characters from an early point in the story. The supplement would contain information that should be kept secret from the readers for much of the story or from most of the characters. This was done to combat the tendency of large language models to obsessively include details that should not be revealed, characters showing hints of behavior or knowledge they should not be hinting at, or characters getting the feeling of something secret that they should not be feeling. For most scenes, only the main story bible was used during their generation, with the supplement also being included only when the secret information was relevant.

The actual plot was formed by brainstorming ideas for the story. Once enough ideas were brainstormed, I could start combining many of the ideas together to form a coherent plot outline. The great advantage of having a complete plot outline formed before writing the story was that I could determine what plot elements needed foreshadowing or early setup so that it would not feel like certain plot developments came out of nowhere. Or at least there would be earlier plot elements I could point to that would show that a later plot development had been prepared for much earlier.

There is a problem that Mao Nome and EVA-03 might feel a little too overpowered or perfect compared to the other characters or Evangelions in the Evangelion setting, but their characterizations and abilities were based on plausible extrapolations from Mao Nome’s character and the Bird Human’s capabilities in Macross Zero. So I stuck with their backgrounds that I had set up during the world building, prioritizing plausibility over forcing the characterization and powers to match the level of those in Evangelion.

One of the most difficult decisions regarding the story was how to end it. I had envisioned many possible endings, but the one chosen was not based on what I thought would be the most happy or tragic ending, or what would be universally considered morally correct or bankrupt. It was based on narrative worth. The actual concluding arc was chosen because it was the only one that felt like it was a natural ending both as an ending to a Macross story and an ending to an Evangelion story. All the other conclusions envisioned were either only an ending that felt like an ending to a Macross story or only an ending that felt like an ending to an Evangelion story.

The story “The Hedgehog’s Resolution” was an idea that I had for many years thinking that an Evangelion derived from the Bird Human piloted by Mao Nome would be a surprisingly good fit for writing a story. The only concrete idea I had about this for all these years was the scene of the incomplete SDF-2 firing its main cannon at the Angel Ramiel from the Moon. The rest of the world building and the plot only started to take form at the end of November 2025, with the story draft being complete by the end of December 2025.

The stories "Dimensional Inelegance" and "A Well Out of the Dark" originated from roleplaying sessions. In these sessions, a large language model, under my direction, generated the speech and actions for two characters per session.

Lyraena Winterglade was a character in both stories. If you noticed the shared premise of an all-powerful being intentionally restricting herself to enjoy mortal experiences, you are correct; they feature the same character. It's not a favorite trope, but a direct consequence of using the same character.

However, these roleplaying sessions were not exclusively focused on a nigh omnipotent character; I have had many more with a wide variety of character types. The only reason "Dimensional Inelegance" and "A Well Out of the Dark" were developed into full-fledged fanfiction is that most characters in the other sessions are not associated with a particular fandom. Lyraena Winterglade was an exception, as I wanted to explore how existing fictional characters would react to encountering a nigh omnipotent being.

On another website, I maintain a list of such characters and dozens of summaries from the roleplaying sessions I've put them through. This is not an exhaustive record, but a subset of those I found most interesting. I might write full-fledged stories based on these other sessions, but they will not be fanfiction. (My personal stance is that any fiction I write that is not concretely related to a particular fandom is not fanfiction: this is not a critique of others who label their work as "Original Work" fanfiction.)