DragonBall GT Revised [fanfic]

[Kaboom]

Whoopsie! Thanks. Fixed now.

[Saiga]

This is the second time you've pulled that ol' timezone trick on us, I think.

Seriously though, enjoyed the chapter. Nice to see that Regano is still planning to give them the Dragon Ball.

What was Goku's comment about swords and Vegeta referencing?

[Gyt Kaliba]

Woo-hoo! Can't wait to download this in a bit and read it...soon. At this point, I think I need to re-read the rest of it first haha.

And I wouldn't get too worried about being slow to get new chapters out. I've been bad about procrastination with my own writing - original writing, that I hope to get published - so I know all about how bad writer's procrastination can be.

[fogdark]

I've been reading the fanfic for a long while now. Almost since the very beginning, so I think it's about time I commented on it.
This story quickly became my favorite piece of Dragon Ball fanfiction, ever. And by that I mean, that I've hardly found any Dragon Ball fanfiction that had kept me interested long enough or that kept me from rolling my eyes every minute. Your story is really quite something, Kaboom.
Now, when you said you'd be introducing your very own arc, I was a little apprehensive, to be honest. But I shouldn't have worried. Your arc has quickly become one of the best so far, and it'd got me quite curious about how things will play out.
This latest chapter was quite fun, totally worth the wait. Goku simply cracks me up. You write him quite well. And the shanenigans between Pan and Regano are quite fun as well. And finally we get to the main part, and the evil and dastardly plan put in motion. I admit I found it a bit obvious who'd turn out as a bad guy, but it was done quite well nonetheless.
As much as I like a silly and dumb Goku, I know he can be very cunning when he wants to, and perceptive. So him being so aware of what was happening, made me realize that even though he acts like a silly kid, he truly is a 50-60 something year old warrior with lots of experience, and that more that anything, made the chapter for me.
Keep up the good work, Kaboom!

[Kaboom]

This is the second time you've pulled that ol' timezone trick on us, I think.
Seriously though, enjoyed the chapter. Nice to see that Regano is still planning to give them the Dragon Ball.
What was Goku's comment about swords and Vegeta referencing?

Only the second? Really? Huh, maybe I'm not as much of a weasel as I thought.

Yeah, but just like for his parents, Regano's much-too-nice-ness has the potential to get him in trouble...

And it was a reference to this. Congrats on (mostly) picking up on GTR's first Vegetto reference.

And I wouldn't get too worried about being slow to get new chapters out. I've been bad about procrastination with my own writing - original writing, that I hope to get published - so I know all about how bad writer's procrastination can be.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, and I know what you mean. Though I like to tell myself it's not so much procrastination and more about lack of inspiration (in execution, anyway, not in conceptualization) and having higher priorities. But at times I am too easily distracted, even when I do have the time and the "creative zone" to write.

I've been reading the fanfic for a long while now. Almost since the very beginning, so I think it's about time I commented on it.
This story quickly became my favorite piece of Dragon Ball fanfiction, ever. And by that I mean, that I've hardly found any Dragon Ball fanfiction that had kept me interested long enough or that kept me from rolling my eyes every minute. Your story is really quite something, Kaboom.

Thanks a bunch, though I'm still kind of flabbergasted that people give it such high praise already when I'm not even to the meat-and-potatoes of the story yet. I genuinely have to wonder why so many people here and on FFnet give it labels like "best GT fanfic evar" when I haven't even introduced Baby. Is my self-PR really that good?

Now, when you said you'd be introducing your very own arc, I was a little apprehensive, to be honest. But I shouldn't have worried. Your arc has quickly become one of the best so far, and it'd got me quite curious about how things will play out.
This latest chapter was quite fun, totally worth the wait. Goku simply cracks me up. You write him quite well. And the shenanigans between Pan and Regano are quite fun as well. And finally we get to the main part, and the evil and dastardly plan put in motion. I admit I found it a bit obvious who'd turn out as a bad guy, but it was done quite well nonetheless.

I've been nervous about writing it, as well. I think I've already mentioned it's one of the oldest single story concepts I've had in mind for all of GTR, and even with how long it's taken to get to, I still can't believe I'm actually writing it.

Glad to know I haven't made what happens in chapter 17 TOO obvious. One of this chapter's main goals was to show the man behind the scenes and hint at what might be motivating him (the other being to show Pan slowly and steadily warming up to Regano over a couple days). Unless you were present in the IRC chat on the days I was getting some help brainstorming about him, I'm pretty sure I've done a good job keeping the true nature of the OTHER big villain for Koum under wraps, too.

As much as I like a silly and dumb Goku, I know he can be very cunning when he wants to, and perceptive. So him being so aware of what was happening, made me realize that even though he acts like a silly kid, he truly is a 50-60 something year old warrior with lots of experience, and that more that anything, made the chapter for me.

Thanks, that's another thing I was really going for. As unbelievably fun as it is to write Goku being a total goofball who's having way too much fun with being a child again (and in many ways never really completely "grew up" to begin with), he is still a seasoned warrior with decades of experience and wisdom under his tiny li'l belt. His ninja'ing around here to learn what was up was the first real taste of it for this story, but we'll see plenty more of it both in chapter 17 and the rest of the 'Grand Tour' and beyond.

[Saiga]

Thanks a bunch, though I'm still kind of flabbergasted that people give it such high praise already when I'm not even to the meat-and-potatoes of the story yet. I genuinely have to wonder why so many people here and on FFnet give it labels like "best GT fanfic evar" when I haven't even introduced Baby. Is my self-PR really that good?

I think it's because the early GT is considered to be really wasted potential. It is probably both one of GT's best ideas and the one with the worst execution. So even though in GT is ends up coming off as random filler adventures until the real plot kicks off with Baby, you've taken the idea and executed it well, and I think that's something fans would have really wanted to see out of GT.

[Kaboom]

Alriiiiiiight! It's still technically New Year's Day in some timezones, and I've got the bonus content for Chapter 16 all set! Let's get crackin'!

First off, we've got some character conceptual sketches! This time around, it's Silva and Prika sharing this particular spotlight.

Next up, it's a character bio! Now that pretty much everything about him is out in the open and spoiler-free, we can go on ahead and see the details on Prince Regano himself!

REGANO
(Somebody remind me to go back and update the color details of his royal garb here at the end of Chapter 15!)

Alignment: Lawful Good
Age: 15
Race: Koumian
Power Level: ~16,000
Home: Planet Koum
Family:
King Mace (Grandfather, deceased), King Cinna (Father, deceased), Queen Tarra (Mother, deceased), Princess Prika (Younger sister)
Occupation:
Charming Prince of Planet Koum.
Goals:
To live up to his father's legacy, maintain peace for Koum, and find the right girl to become his future queen.

BIOGRAPHY:

Born into an era of peace for a world with a history somewhat lacking in it, Prince Regano was marginally luckier than other Koumians and born into the royal family. His parents, the benevolent King Cinna and Queen Tarra, spent Regano's early childhood relating lessons to him about Koum's violent past, its reformation towards a peaceful present, and the importance of striving to maintain that peace in the future. The two gained this wisdom first-hand during Koum's relatively brief period under the control of Freeza during their own earlier years, and desired more than anything to pass this knowledge on to their son and heir.

Unfortunately, when Regano was a mere 11 years old, and the new Princess Prika was but an infant, tragedy struck. Queen Tarra lost her life in a freak space transport accident while on a diplomatic trip to a nearby star system, and mere months later, King Cinna died in battle while leading the defense against a massive invasion from off-world. But the two had already more than left their impression on Regano. The moral seeds they planted were cultivated by Orris, the head of the royal guard, and his wife Silva, the royal nursemaid, who together took on somewhat parental roles for the young prince and princess. Zatar, the elderly head adviser, likewise diligently tutored and assisted Regano in the more mundane and political side of Regano's princely duties, though the old man's affinity for peace always seemed somewhat less sincere.

As the years passed, Regano grew in both character and strength, and came to be loved by the people, especially those who remembered the violent times under Freeza and could even better appreciate the stark contrast between their world's rulers then and now. Regano would spend much of his time out and about in and beyond Koum's capitol city, often passing the daytime hours chatting with adult citizens, playing with and caring for children, helping out with manual labor, and genuinely being every bit as much a neighbor to the people as he was their monarch.

Eventually, though, a certain problem began to rear its head. All of a sudden, Regano was 15 years old. According to Koumian tradition, a prince was expected to choose a bride for himself at the age of 16, and whichever lucky girl was selected would afterwards be groomed for her future role as queen. But while playful flirting was certainly a skill that Regano spent plenty of time exercising while among the people, he had never before given serious thought to marriage. Once he did, he soon found out that while there were plenty of willing candidates in the form of excessively-groomed and spoiled girls from rich merchant families, they were, unfortunately, all excessively-groomed and spoiled girls from rich merchant families. Most of them were interested in little more than climbing the social ladder and marrying into royalty, and none of them appealed to Regano on a level any deeper than that.

The issue began to nag at Regano more and more over the course of his 15th year, and Zatar likewise began to nag at him about it as well. Regano did his best to "sort through," so to speak, the so-called viable candidates before him, while doing his best to hide his growing discouragement over the fact that, put simply, he didn't like any of them.

But then one fateful day, Regano received an urgent report directly from the commanding officer stationed at the outlook post on Koum's moon. It seemed that a small ship, bearing unknown markings but seemingly coming from elsewhere in the North Galaxy, was approaching the capitol for a landing...

_____

Well, there you have it! There was one more thing I had originally planned to post with this stuff, that being a map of the Koumian capitol city-island area. But I've decided to save it for inclusion in Koum's "Planet Profile" as part of Chapter 17's update instead.

Chapter 17 itself, on that note, is already started. I've made sure to prevent my near-fatal mistake with 16 by making sure everything is plotted out in order, in detail, BEFORE I start writing the chapter. Every. Single. Little. Thing. No needing to think up whys and hows this time around like with 16. Hopefully, that will allow me to put it all in fancy words much more quickly and get the chapter cranked out ASAP. Hey, maybe I can give that "one chapter per month" resolution another shot this year. Fingers crossed, everyone.

I've got a few little things planned for in-between content while I'm writing Chapter 17 as well. I'm planning to crank out shorter and smaller character bios for Orris, Silva, and Prika, so that bigger and fuller bios can be saved for the Koum arc's villains during its conclusion in Chapter 17. I've got one or two other illustration goodies I want to whip up along the way as well.

[Saiga]

I'm starting to think I may have been wrong about how often you pull the timezone card.

I have a random question, after reading Cataclysm earlier today. How come Slug and Thorgas' battle power is increased with their giant forms? Does Piccolo just suck at it not to increase his own battle power at the 23rd Budokai?

Also, if you're not updating as often as you'd like, have you considered just making shorter chapters so that it's less time consuming for each chapter?

[hleV]

Make some ugly ass aliens next time!

[Kaboom]

IT'S CONTEST TIME, BIZNATCHES. This should be fun.

• At some point in Chapter 16, Goku made use of an ability which we've, as far as I know, only ever officially seen him use ONCE before. What and when was it?

First one to guess correctly gets to pick a GTR character —past, present, or future— for me to whip up and post a drawing of, spoilery or not. Though be warned, there's plenty of character designs I haven't 100% finalized yet, and I might even decide to not include some characters at all; such might be the perils of picking a future character. If nobody guesses it after, I guess, a week, then I'll just treat everyone to a "teaser" character image of my choice.

Remember, point out what what ability Goku used AND when he used it. Quoting an excerpt from the chapter itself would work.

If I mentioned this at any point in the chat room or something, then hopefully either A) it was so long ago that nobody will remember, or B) if somebody DOES remember, they'll not "cheat" and graciously let others try to find it on their own.



Now then...

I'm starting to think I may have been wrong about how often you pull the timezone card.

This time, it was (mostly) on purpose.

I have a random question, after reading Cataclysm earlier today. How come Slug and Thorgas' battle power is increased with their giant forms? Does Piccolo just suck at it not to increase his own battle power at the 23rd Budokai?

Y'know, I'm not sure. I had their power increase because that's what seemed to happen for Slug in Movie 4, when he transformed to counter Goku's quasi-Super Saiyan (though Goku dropped out of that as soon as Slug's Namekian-ness was revealed, so Slug wouldn't necessarily need extra power anymore). But if, officially, the giant form doesn't actually increase one's battle power, then that might be something I have to retcon somehow in the future (Just like Slug being Thorgas' "son" when Warrior-types apparently can't reproduce). Maybe we could assume that for old Thorgas and battered-and-beaten Slug, the giant form helped them pull out and/or regain their full power?

Something like that could work, but I don't have much motivation to go back and change anything in Cataclysm. Maybe someday, but it's INSANELY low on the list of GTR priorities nowadays.

Also, if you're not updating as often as you'd like, have you considered just making shorter chapters so that it's less time consuming for each chapter?

Trust me, it has occurred to me, but even then I always have a specific, pre-planned amount of actual content and events for each chapter. If I cut things down or divide things up too much, then plot points might not be sufficiently stressed, or a chapter might not end up having anything important happen at all, and what not. I'd rather have longer chapters that better move the story forward.

Besides, the length of the chapters has never really been the problem; good ol' fashioned writer's block has.

Make some ugly ass aliens next time!

We just had some pretty fugly aliens a little while ago with Don Kia, Shilla and Ghel, and the native Imeggans, so I thought it'd be a relief to switch to some pretty ones. Plus, the Koumians all looking like pretty Tolkien-elves-esque people is kind of part of the "theme" of the arc...

Well, kidding aside, if you want some butt-ugly freakish-looking aliens, I think you'll like Chapter 17.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Just one question - are we supposed to post our guesses in the thread here, or PM them to you, or what?

[Kaboom]

Whoops, yeah. Right here in the thread. Meant to mention that.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I figured you'd just overlooked it haha. Let's see...

I'm honestly not sure if this even counts as a technique only being used once...but it's the first thing that came to mind for me. So I'm going to give it a shot and guess, the 'foot Kamehameha', the firing of the Kamehameha wave using feet instead of hands, that he only used the once against Piccolo at the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai. I have absolutely no idea what chapter or episode it happened in or any quotes that'd go with it, so...hopefully that's a good enough guess.

[Kaboom]

Nope. Nobody fired off any Kamehamehas in the new chapter, much less from their feet.

Remember, it's something he used in this chapter, so even if you've already read it, you'd probably have to go through again and look for it.

[Gyt Kaliba]

Ohhhh! Wait. Okay. I misunderstood something here, my bad.

I completely blanked out and thought Chapter 16 was the next chapter that will come out whenever you get done with it, and we were guessing what attack you'd be making use of in that one, rather than...something from the previous chapter before this, that I totally haven't gotten around to reading yet.

So...yeah. My bad.

[Kaboom]

Haha, okay, I see. Well that WOULD be something worth guessing about, though it won't be Goku pulling off something special. But yeah, it's something Goku used in THIS chapter.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

He used Instantaneous Movement?

"Ah, yeah, sorry," Goku waved it off. "I was just, uh, watching something." He then decided to take his leave. "Swords ain't really my thing, though. Closest I can ever remember to usin' one was when Vegeta and I were…" His interest seemed to wane completely. "Hey, I think I'm gonna cruise back around the city, or something…" With that, he raised two fingers up to his forehead and abruptly disappeared just a moment after.

[Kaboom]

Nope, he's used Instant Movement plenty of times in both the manga and so far in GTR. This is something much more obscure that we saw only once in the manga and then never again.

Here's a hint: it's early in the chapter.

[Gyt Kaliba]

I may have actually found it this time, but since I already guessed once, is it okay to guess again? Or should I let it go? Either way, I give up after this one.

EDIT: Never mind, what I was going to guess has now been guessed. This is what I get for falling behind on reading these things.

[Tzigi]

Nope, he's used Instant Movement plenty of times in both the manga and so far in GTR. This is something much more obscure that we saw only once in the manga and then never again.

Here's a hint: it's early in the chapter.

Goku continued to study Zatar, doing his best to be subtle about it. He took note of his worried and anxious expression, his brow curled in contemplation of clearly some other important matter beyond that of dinner. If Goku didn't know better, he'd almost think that their group was the cause. Then, of course, there was also his ki. When you focused and let it soak in, it almost felt… dirty…

Mind-reading? Seen once - when Goku arrives on Namek.