Ok so I'm publishing this because I gave up on trying to push any chapters out today and this is going to make me feel at least a little better lmao
So basically this chapter is just going to be notes and a rough draft of the original plot for Haunted, transcribed exactly as they were written by 14-Year-Old Me plus commentary from Present-Day Me, which will be in underlined italics text. The picture above is from the notebook I wrote the original plot in. I tried to draw Rebecca but even in 2019 (I know, it's from that long ago) I was a pretty crappy artist.
Also Haunted was not originally going to be called Haunted! My original title was "The Forge and the Jewel" and I am so glad that I had the sense to change it bc "The Forge and the Jewel" sucks.
Btw how's my handwriting in the pic? Everyone says it's really neat but I think it's messy af lmao
And the text scanner thingy that I used to scan this into the google doc also seems to think so. Because I wrote "They steered the Princess Andromeda the day Beckendorf and Percy attacked" and the scanner thought I'd written "a feelings neu steered inoromedo the day Beckendorf nd Percy attacked 汁" Yes, including that Japanese character that, according to Google Translate, means "juice." I'm telling you, I can't make this shit up.
Anyway enough of this, let's get onto the notes!
Plans for The Forge and the Jewel
I seriously hate this title lmao
Backstory: I'm just gonna break this up for each book because this is seriously a big ass paragraph and 14-year-old me didn't understand the concept of convenient formatting
Born in '38 (I have no idea if this is even accurate to the PJO timeline), parents are Maria di Angelo and Hades. When her mother died in an explosion, Hades took Rebecca and her siblings Nico and Bianca to the Lotus Hotel, where they stayed for about 65 years, never aging.
She was brought to a military school in Maine, where she was discovered by Grover Underwood. Grover contacted Percy Jackson, Thalia Grace, and Annabeth Chase. They take the siblings to camp Half Blood. Bianca be comes a Hunter of Artemis. Rebecca joins Thalia, Percy, Zoe Nightshade, Bianca, and Graver to save Annabeth from Atlas. Bianca died on the way, and after that Rebecca was approached by Luke Castellan, who had not yet been possessed by Kronos. He told her he could help her avenge Bianca and handed her a ring with a scythe charm, telling her to tap the charm when she was ready. Upon returning to Camp Half-Blood and telling Nico what had become of Bianca, Rebecca realized that she was a daughter of Hades. She left camp with Nico.
She tried to help Nico bring Bianca back but failed. Angry at the gods, she tapped the scythe charm on her ring. Luke was pleased to accept her into Kronos' army. She quickly rose to the rank of major and commanded all of the demigods in his army became close with her partner, Nathaniel Flynn (Lmaoooo ew I'm glad I changed it to Nathan Westbay), son of Hermes and Luke's brother. They developed romantic feelings and became a powerful couple (yeah I changed this too bc I decided that Rebecca would be too busy avenging Bianca to have a boyfriend ya know?)
They steered the Princess Andromeda the day Beckendorf + Percy attacked it. Rebecca killed Beckendorf (When I scanned this in from my phone to the Google Doc it wrote Beckendorf as Beekenderf IM CRYING LMFAOOOOOOOOOO) herself, believing she'd finally begun to have her revenge on Hephaestus. In doing so, she showed Percy her loyalty to Kronos. However, Nathaniel had been terrified of Rebecca's power (yes, in the og version Rebecca was still the Heart-Crusher, though I didn't think of that badass nickname until later) and told her so. They arranged to run away from Kronos' army and hide until the war was over. However, Kronos discovered them and forced Rebecca to kill Nathaniel (Nate didn't get blown up in the original as you can see) She publicly renounced Kronos and joined the gods' side. They wouldn't have won without her, but everyone still considers her a traitor.
Okayyyyy so that was the original backstory! Not super different, but there were some changes that just made better sense, such as Nate's name. Like who the fuck even names their kid Nathaniel anymore
(Side note: If your real name is Nathaniel I promise I'm not shitting on your name)
Anyway now for the story, as of TLH-onward. Again, gonna do it in paragraphs by book bc 14-year-old me didn't understand the concept of fucking bullet points smh
Discovers Camp Jupiter w/ Nico. Jason and Percy disappear. Rebecca searches for both, discovers Leo and Piper @ Wilderness School and summons Coach Hedge to assist her in protecting them (Yeah I'm definitely glad I changed this part to Annabeth telling her to help Coach Hedge because how tf was I supposed to explain what the fuck she was doing hanging out at Wilderness for no good reason lmao) Jason shows up and she tells Nico about it while pretending not to know Jason (Again, none of this shit makes sense and I wouldn't have been able to explain it) She's chosen to accompany Piper, Leo, and Jason on their quest to save Hera and Leo develops a crush on her (Clearly it was better for Leo to be whipped from the start lmaoooo) Rebecca tries to shut him down but is unsuccessful. She ends up falling for him after they return and begin working on the Argo II (and no one blames you bb, he's ur hubby uwu)
Nico asks her to accompany him on his search for the Doors of Death. They split up and Nico is captured while Rebecca barely manages to return to the mortal world (clearly this was changed up bc there's no way in hell Rebecca would abandon her baby brother like that wtf was I even thinking) Hazel and Leo find her among Narcissus and the Nymphs (why) and bring her on board the Argo II. She confirms the Argo II crew's theory that Nico found the Doors of Death but doesn't want to talk about Tartarus (for plot convenience af so Nico could be the one to spill the tea :/ ugh I hate my 14year-old logicccc) They find Nico and lose Percy and Annabeth in Tartarus.
They journey to the Doors of Death and close them. This was literally all I wrote for HOH. 14-year-old me was lazy af like come on bitch this was the most important book
She helps Nico, Hedge, and Reyna return the Athena Parthenos. They win the Giant War and Leo chooses her over Calypso Again, 14-year-old me = lazy af. Like I wrote next to nothing about the Leo x Rebecca x Calypso love triangle that was going to happen, then I decided forget Calypso, let's add a fucking Six the Musical arc lmaoooo
A few more things that I'd changed/added to the original plot:
Leo healing Rebecca's ghosts. This was added right before I published the fic.The Malignant Spirit. That was an impulsive addition bc I'd just discovered the "Person A has a dark, corruptive power and Person B is their light" trope and I was like "Aww yeah this is gonna be them." Another thing that influenced this decision and the Malignant Spirit being constantly reincarnated into a new human host was my newly-found obsession with Avatar: the Last Airbender.Atretes and Cleodora. I didn't end up writing them as much as I'd originally intended to. I thought maybe Leo could have a one-sided rivalry with Atretes for Rebecca's attention, but then I added Anne and Rebecca having a chaotic mentor was much more appealing bc everybody does the rivalry thing and it was getting kind of old. Therefore Atretes and Cleodora became background characters. Sorry, guys.Anne, Henry, and the Queens, aka the entire Six the Musical subplot. That was actually the most impulsive addition I'd ever made to the plot. I'd just gotten into Six the Musical and I was obsessed with it so I decided to add it to my HoO fanfic (as one does). Adding Henry's character and the Queens' prophecy was literally just me bullshitting bc I had no idea what the fuck was going to happen to these characters lmao. I started with Anne, then decided that if I added Anne, I couldn't not add the rest of the Queens. And I really liked the idea of having Henry VIII reincarnated to make amends for all the shitty stuff he did to his wives (though that never really happened bc as we all know, Henry and Anne died). Rebecca dying. That was never going to happen, but then shortly after I'd decided Henry and Anne would die, I thought, "why not Rebecca too? That way the readers can really hate me :)" and also bc ANGSTTTTTThe prom oneshot :)
Things that I considered changing/adding but didn't:
The Calypso arc. I thought about it for MONTHSSSSS I kid you not. It was so fucking hard to decide how I wanted to go about it bc every fic I've read where Leo meets Calypso and falls for her Leo ends up coming off as a bit of a douchebag because he tries to hide it from the OC and I didn't want that for Rebecca. I thought about that part sooooo much, it's insane. Some of the things I considered were:Both Rebecca and Leo crashing on Ogygia, Calypso falls in love with Leo but understands that bc of Rebecca it'll be unrequited (sad af, scrapped immediately)Rebecca crashing on Ogygia alone, taking Leo's place and Calypso falling in love with her (considered this the most before the Anne one) Rebecca and Leo crashing on Ogygia and discovering that Nate was just chilling there with Calypso (funny af, would've been hilarious to write Rebecca and Leo's reactions, but it wouldn't have made sense because of Leo healing her ghosts)Leo, Rebecca, and Anne crashing on Ogygia and Calypso and Anne falling in love and simping for each other while the rest of them are like "guys... we kinda need to get back to the Argo II" but lowkey shipping it (Also funny af bc Anne would be such a chaotic lesbian and it's a huge revelation about herself that she never saw coming. Like her thought process about it is "Yo, Calypso's kinda hot... wait, what the FUCK? Am I a lesbian???? Omg I think I'm a lesbian????? Holy shit I'm a lesbian????? Wow okay... now how to seduce Calypso..." And Rebecca gets to be her wingman)Then I wondered if I should've had Anne stay behind because she found her happy ending but by then I'd already finished writing the Queens' prophecy and Anne was thus doomed to die. :( Omg should I write this part as an AU???? Would you guys read it if I did?????? Omg I can see it alreadyyyyyyyNate reincarnation, again to have a (mostly) one-sided rivalry for Leo. I immediately decided against it because, again, I think it's overdone.Rebecca becoming a goddess after her death. Obviously that didn't happen bc it would've been very complicated for me to write. I did do that oneshot tho :) When will I make a part 2? Nobody knows.Continuing into TOA. This was scrapped immediately after reading the Burning Maze, for obvious reasons. Poor Jason :(
And yeah that's pretty much it! Hope you guys enjoyed this little look into the beginnings of Haunted as much as you would've enjoyed a full-length chapter on one of my fics (I'm trying to work on an update, I promise I am). Comment for more, because "more" might be a little look into the Jason x OC fic I never published and probably never will publish.
~~~~ Kingfisher ~~~~
P.S. Please do tell me if you want an Anne x Calypso AU chapter because now I really want to write it