Behind the Mask

Author's Q&A

Hi everyone! I would like to start off by thanking everyone once again for reading this story. I had a lot of fun writing it, reading the comments (y'all are funny asf), engaging with y'all and being here every single day.

Now it's time for the Q&A! A lot of the questions were similar so I had them categorized into 6.

1. What inspired you to write Behind the Mask?

I got this question on tumblr a few weeks ago so I'll just paste my response here.

I wrote the first chapter a day or two after watching Ultraman: Rising. While watching, I felt like there was a lot of potential for romance when it came to Ami and Kenji's characters. In the beginning, Kenji did a good job at putting his walls up, wearing a mask for people to see when things were way different behind closed doors. The one character, outside those close to him who saw something different from what he showed the world was Ami.

This dynamic was what set off the idea of a romance between them. I just wasn't sure where to begin. I had a whole list of ideas but ended up deciding on this one.

After that, I needed to figure out the voice of the story. At this point, I thought about how the movie didn't give me a lot to work with when it came to Ami. With Kenji, we get to see everything, from his childhood, to his daddy's issues and how his mother's disappearance affects him but it's different with Ami. She's seen as this calm, no-nonsense character with a discerning eye. She has a kid (I wondered where the father was) and she stays with her mom. This was the biggest reason why I decided to write the story from her POV only. I wanted to give her a voice.

I posted the first chapter while I was at work. Once I had the story in my head, I couldn't let it go. I was shocked when I saw how quickly it blew up, and honestly, that motivated me to continue every day!

2. You mentioned that you watched an edit before you started writing this story. What was the edit?

Y'all, it was a Ken Sato edit. It had nothing to do with the story if thats what you think. I just watched it and thought "yeah, I need to write a story about him😔"

This is the edit though if you're that curious: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMrQgMWma/

3. How many chapters did you plan on writing for Behind the Mask?

Twenty😂

When I wrote the first chapter, I'll admit I had no idea where it was going to go. I only knew there had to be an identity reveal at some point. I didn't think anyone would read it either but after I published the first chapter, I got a bunch of comments asking me to update.

I figured if I was going to continue, I needed to plan it out a bit. I recorded voice memos of how every single chapter would go. There were a lot of things that I added as the story went on, of course, which is how we ended up with 32 chapters.

For example, in the voice memos, I said that Ami would write about her discovery of Ultraman's identity. She wouldn't publish it but the file would be found by Kubo and shown to Rin. That didn't make a lot of sense to me later on, so I made Daichi record­ their conversation and well...you know what happened.

4. How the hell did you update every single day?!

I'm going to admit y'all, it was stressful as hell. I just didn't say anything because I was actually enjoying myself, and if I did, the comments would be more about me getting rest than about the story.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a ghostwriter and while writing Behind the Mask, I was actively working on 2 other books for 2 different authors. I'm also interning in media marketing so its safe to say I was very busy. I wrote Behind the Mask when I had free time during the day - while I was at work, when I got home, after dinner, before I went to bed, etc.

In the final chapters, the updates were usually past midnight on my side of the world because I was so busy during the day that I would end up finishing at like 1 AM. Then I would sleep and wake up at 5:30 to read the comments on my way to work.

I'm not complaining though. It was fun🤩

5. Will you be giving us more Ken x Ami content? (Nsfw included?)

I didn't plan on it, but it's something I can do. It'll most likely be one shots though, not a full on book like this Behind the Mask. I think I need a break🫠

Also, it'll have to be on request via my tumblr. If you want to see Ken and Ami in certain situations, you're welcome to use the ask button. I do reserve the right to reject requests if they're too weird💀

6. Will you be writing more stories in the future for other fandoms?

Yes of course! I'm just not sure what fandom I want to do next. I'm a part of many, you know. I know part of what made Behind the Mask blow up was the fact that Ultraman: Rising was trending at the time it was published so I'm in this weird place where I'm wondering if my readers from the Ultraman: Rising fandom would read my works with other characters from other fandoms in them. I have this greek mythology AU fic idea in my head but it's not on paper yet because of that. I will keep writing though and see where it all takes me.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their questions! I hope you're satisfied with the answers.

I love you, Bye!

- Kiyo.