The Zodiac Cycle

Authors Note

Thank you all so much for staying here for the past year as I made this amazing story. It had been running through my head since 2020 when COVID hit and I was bored. I went with a prompt of "what if the Zodiacs were people?"

well, I rolled with it, but back then I wasn't fully comfortable yet making non-female characters.

needless to say, their original designs (also all humans) were definitely something to behold. I knew a couple things from the start;

1. Nina and Astrid were a thing (Nolan and Ash)

2. Brianna was a lesbian in love with Iris

3. Alice radiated nonbinary energy (Alex)

but when I tell you their designs were ATROCIOUS...

Iris had half white, half black hair. Astrid (Ash) had straight cut bangs, and don't even get me started on country bumpkin Georgia (George) or whatever the hell Caroline was (Carson). well, I tried designing them on gacha and changed half of their genders to make the friends we have today (and eventually went in and drew the fantasy redesigns.) that was not the end of the horrors though. I had designed a plot line where they had to collect not only the 12 signs, but also 4 characters of the four elements.

it was too many characters to keep up with, so I did the fantasy redesigns, taking the earth characters design and switching it to George as it was the troll, and reusing the other three as Stormy, Mark, and Jest. Stormy and Jest were both prompts as well. what would a dragon and a phoenix look like as people? Mark had a thing with the male earth character, the previous troll, so he was always very gay. that previous ship was why I decided to make Mark a Taurus as well.

Vel came along later, when I made the idea of soul bonding. this was shortly after I decided to kill Iris off. I was just so disappointed in the half-half hair that I decided she didn't deserve to live, I guess. that was when I made Vel. the original thing was more of a mix between soul-bonds and Immortal hosts, so that when the host is put into the body, the previous soul comes back half the time and tries to fight for their body back. Zach's host, originally, when he was killed had a whole "I'm free!" thing and getting Sakura as his daughter back and everything.

I also tried for a while actually killing Iris, but she was like Sakuras little ghost buddy and her spirit was freed at the end.

CANNON: there's a deleted scene (still happened, just never wrote it) where Sakura allows Iris to see the ghosts and all the previous Geminis at the next remembrance ceremony as they dance and pass to the next plane. its known they cant completely cross over, but they wont be summoned by any later Geminis because their part in the cycle was so short. If you haven't read the YES ending, read it to find out a bit more about what happened to the other 108 and Iris's part in it.

I later tried some expectation subversion in two ways. one was making iris actually remain on Zach's side, and the choice in the story would be either her pulling the lever to end the world or just running away without pulling it. there was also a darker choice that I wont discuss unless I'm asked. the second expectation subversion choice was giving Iris a different love interest, Olive.

If you've read the YES ending, you probably know about Iris and Olives relationship.

I WAS HALFWAY THROUGH PART THREE WHEN I REALIZED THIS!!!

their relationship was incredibly TOXIC. Iris will be given her happy ending in a short I'm going to write called "Wet Feathers."

once I fixed that little MISHAP I continued the story as it was. also, If you all remember the name Zveck, that was indeed his original name, cause it sounded Vampirish and I'm terrible at naming things, but it was hard to say, so I was all like "What about Zachary?" and my friend was like "Imagine a super evil end the world kind of villain named ZACH?!" and we laughed and I was like "fuck it, why not?"

so I changed his name halfway through the first Part...

I made a lot of last minute changes and took so long choosing between endings, that I just wrote both.

all in all this story has been a lot of fun and really pushed me out of my comfort zone. it presented a somewhat reasonable villain and an ally to the protagonists that wasn't that great of a person. it developed characters from not so great people, to those willing to change, and there were some that never did change.

most of the ships have kids if they want them. Clementine and George dont, and neither do Stormy and Mark. Vel remains single for the rest of existence, Avery finally finds someone who he's comfortable allowing to touch him, and Amber and Carson had a magical baby (plus two more)

but that's a story for next time.

thank you for reading, and I hope to see you again ;)