Aug 26, 2025
Hi everyone. This is Derek, aka Supersession.
Before I start, thank you for reading the book—or even just choosing to scroll down this far to look at my thoughts. Without the support of everyone I wouldn’t have come close to even finishing.
Thank you to Claudia, Kevin, Alicia, Sophie, Atish, HX, Moripanda, and countless other unnamed people for pushing me to get this far. If your name isn’t here, it’s not that I don’t remember or I don’t appreciate your support—I’m sure if my memory is jogged I’ll be able to remember. It’s just that the list of people I’m grateful towards and things I’m thankful for are seemingly endless at this point (it’s been a long journey for me personally) so I’m sorry if I forgot.
Okay, let’s get into the meat of things.
Story wise—where do I begin? Personally, I’ve never quite been a fan of the isekai genre, or at least how it’s handled in modern times. For what it’s worth, I feel that people either vastly underestimate how easy it would be to adapt to a fantasy setting (even whilst being genre-savvy), or a lot of times protagonists get handouts that feel relatively unearned. (Sometimes, initially relatable protagonists become unrecognisable or irredeemable due to uh… unseemly sexual proclivities.) I understand that fantasy in itself is supposed to be a form of escapism, but the way that relatability gets thrown out the window is hard for me to accept sometimes. In this story, I tried to avoid doing either of those three things.
Did I make it work or not? It’s hard to say. That’s kind of up to the reader to determine. Personally, I’m happy that I made it this far: I have severe impostor syndrome, so I have a habit of never finishing things because I lose motivation halfway. I get burnt out very easily by negative comments. I always remember criticism and never internalise praise properly. That’s why, regardless of how this is received, I am happy that I pushed through, hunkered down in my cave, and poured every last bit of my soul into it when in the past I would have run away. Some people will complain about the magic system, and how Daisuke’s narration might have been misleading with how important the “cards” are (I’m sorry), but magic is magic. Just like how skilled pantsers might be able to chain words together to create magic on the page, while others have the ability to outline bullet-proof plots and weave together set-ups like professional screenplays, anything is possible with art. You don’t need a method to the madness if your soul is felt enough through the page. Art is magic, and therefore, magic can be anything. Daisuke doesn’t realise this because he’s busy trying to force his understanding of the new world into TCG mechanics, and until he lets go of this, he’s not able to cast. Or, to be more overt—until Daisuke lets go of his past, he can’t focus on changing the present. He’s too busy subconsciously rejecting the entire premise of isekai.
(I also know that just because I intended for it doesn’t mean it’s good. I’m sorry if this is a bad point of the story. There will be more in-world explanations of magic in Volume 2… if that ever happens.)
Daisuke as a character is also a representation of a lot of my fears and vices: egotism, self-aggrandizement, fear of genuineness, and a whole host of other things. That’s why this has been a sort of nice thought experiment: how can someone like this redeem themselves? I would say that I’m happy I made Daisuke the way I did, because figuring out how to become less afraid of expressing my “true self” on the page instead of hiding behind humour was kind of inspirational to me. After writing this, I feel like I have discovered something about myself, and it doesn’t feel so scary or pretentious to write an “I love you” or a “thanks for being my fan” anymore.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on for too long.
To close off, I’m very thankful for the opportunity to have sat down and wrote something. If you’d like to, feel free to tell me what worked, what didn’t work—if there were any reveals that felt completely unearned, if there were some that you read and wanted to scream at me. If there was anything that moved you—or even, conversely, if there was anything that made you cringe and scream, “Supersession is a talentless hack”. I love reading any comment, especially passionate ones.
This is a contest at the end of the day, so I’m hoping you will come back and support me if I do get picked for the finals. If I don’t, so be it. And if you have any more questions, want to debate the story, dissect my lack of skills (or simply want to get in touch or keep up with my future projects)—my DMs are always open on Discord at Supersession.
If that’s all, I’ll be seeing you later.
Take care. Remember to tell your parental figures you love them if they are still alive.
