Trivia / Paradoxus

• Anonymous Author: Paradoxus being a fanfic pretty much ensures all of its authors use internet pseudonyms instead of their real names.
• Creator's Favorite: Phoenix Daybreak and Popsicle are the "literary mothers"^note the ones in charge of the development of a given character because it's their favorite of respectively Trisha and Altalune. Bloom_Farella's favorite character is one of the canonical ones: Bloom. Crowgirl doesn't favor anyone over the others and, instead, likes various characters for different reasons — Stacy because of her maturity in spite of her rather fragile mental health; Morrigan for her resilience in the face of the horrific memories from her past life; Harmony because she depicts the always relatable envy towards other people's higher success ceilings; Joan for her status as a wicked fairy who contradicts the canonical paradigm of the sweet, good fairy; and Trisha as well, but only her post-Face–Heel Turn version.
• Creator's Favorite Episode:
  • Crowgirl's is the sixth as she thinks the transition between the Bergström and Oathdir families (who are the same people under different aliases) is very smooth and cool.
  • Phoenix Daybreak's preferred chapter is the twenty-third because it's the moment when Trisha finally bites back, turns into a fallen keeper of the Dragon's Flame, and thus her more unhinged, raw side is depicted. All in all, when the consequences of her psychological wounds are fully blown in our faces.
  • Bloom_Farella favors chapter twenty-four by virtue of being the point where everything in the plot converges. The events of the half nightmare, half flashback prologue are finally disclosed, which fully explains the character's motivations and personalities (both thanks to severe trauma) and how they ended up in their current predicament.
  • Popsicle leans towards the twenty-fifth chapter since Altalune confronts her aunt Daphne in it. The former discovers she and her sister were the nymph's Unwitting Pawns all along and feels understandably miserable about it. It doesn't help that she lost badly against the Big Bad. Like her sister two chapters ago, this is the turning point in her Character Development.
• Drawing Board Hiatus: Paradoxus is currently posted on Wattpad and has been since its creation. There were two times, however, when Bloom_Farella took the fic down for a while so she could have more liberty at modifying it. In both instances, Paradoxus undertook major changes (such as undergoing a Mid-Development Genre Shift and discarding some ideas).
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: This fanfic has been in the works for more than a decade—it was created in 2012 and has been on Wattpad since 2014.
• Inspiration for the Work:
  • The authors met each other on a fan page about Winx Club and World of Warcraft, proceeded to roleplay their respective favorite Winx girl, and then started wondering about how the Winx's children would be and what kind of adventures they'd live. These ideas slowly wove into the fanfic we can read nowadays.
  • Crowgirl is a fangirl of Sylvanas Windrunner, thus prompting the idea of having one of the OCs as her apprentice, a.k.a. Trisha.
  • In the same vein, Popsicle enjoys the "Wrath of the Lich King" expansion, which is why Altalune gets to use the iconic Froustmourne.
• Invisible Advertising: It's pretty common for stories, fanmade or original, that were posted on Wattpad to be promoted on other social media such as Facebook groups by means of book mock-ups, memes, banners, etc. Paradoxus, however, isn't advertised by its authors. Its popularity is all due to "mouth-to-mouth" and the admittedly mediocre Wattpad algorithm. Lila Gaela, a fellow fanfic creator with a greater follower base, recommended Bloom_Farella's works (this fanfic included) in her reviews book since she liked them so much.
• Loads and Loads of Writers: Most fanfics are the work of one enthusiast fan who is maybe aided by a beta reader for minor corrections. Paradoxus begs to differ. Even while it's ultimately written by only one person, Bloom_Farella, it was conceived by and its development is the product of four women's minds: Bloom_Farella, Popsicle, Crowgirl, and Phoenix Daybreak. There is also the official illustrator, Silver_Dakkar, as well. Additionally, some of the authors' friends contribute with ideas and constructive criticism. Between the four authors, we have "literary mothers" for a couple of the main characters, aids for the many Bilingual Bonuses, and aids for worldbuilding.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Since it's a fanfic, its development and "airing" phases are mixed, but it has been retooled several times which resulted in profound changes in its plot, tone, and characters. In the beginning, Paradoxus was an upbeat and rather generic crossover fic with shared elements of both Winx Club and World of Warcraft. Now it's Darker and Edgier, Bloodier and Gorier, and a Deconstruction Fic of how young fairies would fare with being put in charge of saving the magical dimension and dealing with the ensuing psychological trauma.
• Outdated by Canon: This fanfic has been in the works well before the seventh season of Winx Club was even rumored and long before the "Shadowlands" expansion of World of Warcraft was released. As a result, there are quite the things Paradoxus doesn't include from its canonical sources.
  • On the Winx Club side:
    • None of the fairy (and witch) transformations above the Bloomix exist in this fanon continuity. Partially in an attempt of preserving the coherence (the Dragon's Flame is the magic that created the universe, therefore it's ludicrous to think the transformation it spawns isn't the most powerful) since the sixth season also introduced the Mythix. Instead, the next transformation in Paradoxus is called Etherix and is the result of training the Bloomix to its peak, a feat that often takes years to achieve.
    • The fairy animals and the time-traveling Memory Stones from season seven are not a thing. This leaves the characters of Paradoxus with only one magical way of getting to the past: asking the bronze dragonflights, which is not an option. That's why Trisha and Tecna invent scientific time travel.
    • Icy's retconned backstory about having a sister and being the Last of Her Kind is not included. Instead, she's the older sister of Darcy and Stormy and her reason for pursuing the Dragon's Flame is first to honor her ancestors and then for vengeance against Bloom.
    • Valtor's return in season eighth. Here he was Killed Off for Real as the third season hinted. He hasn't and will never come back to pester the Winx's daughters.
  • On the World of Warcraft side:
    • The Realm of Death introduced in the "Shadowlands" expansion doesn't exist in this fanfic. Thus, no Eternal Ones, no Elune's sister, no Maw, and definitely no First Ones.
    • Zoval, the Jailer, is not the entity behind all of Azeroth's misfortunes. Instead, the Burning Legion's invasion, the creation of the Scourge, and the Cataclysm are all the consequences of the characters' free will and ambitions. The Jailer did make a deal with Sylvanas Windrunner, but that's it.
    • For that matter, Arthas Menethil is not a Jerkass with a Heart of Gold and, while still the Unwitting Pawn (at the beginning) of the Lich King, his corruption was due to sliding off the slippery slop and not because he was mind-controlled. His actions after fusing with Ner'zhul were very much his own. No one forced him to burn the Sun Well or to ravage his own kingdom.
• What Could Have Been:
  • In this fanfic's case, it took a picture to change everything. One of the authors, nicknamed Popsicle, once drew a picture of Bloom and her kid daughters — Bloom looks like a proud mama bear, Altalune is making a victory symbol and being herself without care of the world, and Trisha is shyly hiding behind her teddy bear. Hitherto, Trisha was a Featureless Protagonist barring the fact she lost her mother and her status as a crown princess (both of which are admittedly common traits for a Fantasy main character). The picture, however, inadvertently revealed her reserved and attention-hating nature. Following this trail, the authors reasoned out how she would react to her mother's untimely death — with crippling guilt, a penchant for self-destructive behavior, and a load of insecurities. Meanwhile, Altalune was always portrayed as a bad-tempered if solemn Ice Queen but the picture uncovered how bombastic and attention-demanding her personality truly is. Likewise, it led to the impulsiveness and explosive anger that would characterize her after her mother's demise.
  • Altalune's love interest in previous versions of the fanfic was a rather lackluster, plain boy that didn't even have that much screen time. Then Phoenix Daybreak realized Altalune and Iladris have more chemistry and share a deeper, more significant bond. Hence Iladris getting ascended from Altalune's best friend to her Closet Key. The previous love interest does appear in the current version and Altalune cares a little for him, but it pales in comparison to what she feels towards her elf Childhood Friend.
• Word of God: All of the information in this tab was obtained by asking Bloom_Farella (who in turn consulted the other authors) through either comments or private messaging.
  • Among the things she has stated, there are the official Character Alignments. Following the tradition of Dungeons & Dragons, goodness is defined by putting everyone's well-being about oneself's whereas evilness means pursuing one's benefit to the detriment of others. On the other hand, lawful characters tend to seek to restore the pre-war order of Magix's society while lawless/chaotic characters forgo any semblance of rules and societal order in order to accomplish their goals. Consequently, these would be the alignments:
    • Even though Trisha and Altalune aim to end the war (thus working for everyone's benefit), the two sisters start out as Lawful Neutral because of the methods they had to resource to. Respectively, burning one of Domino's cities to prevent Fel from spreading and manipulating her little sister to shape her into a ruthless queen. Furthermore, Altalune blamed Trisha for their mother's death as a coping mechanism. As the plot progresses, Trisha falls into Chaotic Neutral after her Face–Heel Turn — she's fueled by revenge and ravages cities but ultimately kills off the people who caused the war. Altalune, on her part, develops into a True Neutral — she's stopped caring about pretty much everything but her loved ones and herself, using both lawful and chaotic approaches as she sees fit.
    • Initially, Stacy is a solid Lawful Good mostly because she was spared from the most morally questionable decisions by virtue of still having a loving father. Later, she experiences lots of doubts but finally settles on Lawful Neutral. Lawful because she has decided to embrace the Sacred Light as her moral guiding and neutral due to the war forcing her hand into more dubious methods.
    • Gilliam and Zoe start out and remain as Lawful Good.
  • Paradoxus shares a few significant worldbuilding snippets with another one of Bloom_Farella's fanfics, Dragon's Daughters. For instance, queens are in charge of the internal and external defense affairs while kings administer the economic and political matters. This is because women are inherently much more attuned to magic (the Great Dragon said so) and therefore, better suited to command the military and maintain the peace.

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