HELLO!
Good news and bad news.
I'll start with the bad. I'm going to summarize most of what I can recall would happen with this story, just so you know how it was supposed to go, but I don't think I'll do the technical finish of the story as is, written in a normal way. The reason being is the good news, actually.
Blind is being moved over to AO3.
I considered going by a different username, but for sake of clarity of those moving over too, it's the same, haha.
The original chapters will still be here, if anyone wants to read through my teenage writing ability, and since this website might eventually die, I might upload the original chapters over there as well. But, in the process of editing chapters for AO3, since it had been TEN YEARS since I first uploaded... I ended up… changing a lot. Like, a LOT a lot.
Yeah, so. Basically, I'm rewriting it.
So, since I can't use larger author notes there, and really should avoid them anyways, here's some important up-front notes for anyone curious about this newer version.
Blind here on will remain as 'unfinished', as I don't know if I feel quite right about saying it's been 'completed', and if I find some particularly interesting scenes in my story notes that won't work for the rewrite, I want the availability to add the scenes in… should I ever find them, my notes are a MESS.
Next, Mai's blindness has changed significantly. Before, she had no vision. She "saw" black for specific reasons, but it really just translated to 'she didn't have that sense at all'. Its called Total Blindness, and it's actually less common than having SOME amount of vision.
THAT SAID!
Mai is still, obviously, blind. However, despite being able to see color now, she still can't really see. And the reason I gave her any sight at ALL was so I could nerf her 'sensing everything around her' sense.
There's still some remnants of it! But I wanted to give her a harder time, haha.
Further, it's not longer a curse. Spoiler, she's still cursed—but her blindness is unrelated. I felt like saying it was a curse was one—kind of not great representation for those actually blind, and two—gave the sense that she might be cured. She wouldn't have been, although HOW her blindness, er, worked? It would have changed.
Other than research, I did my best to simulate what her vision might be like by just… taking off my glasses and 'unfocusing' my eyes. My vision prescription is apparently 'moderate', so it's not perfect. But reading some of the ways people navigate having less vision and then using some of those myself gave me a better idea on how to do things. Such as, how big of a font I need to be able to read a laptop document without leaning abnormally close. (The answer, by the way, is about 20 font. I can kind of do 18 font, which is standard for 'large print' books. That said, I still had to squint at 20, 22, so on… kudos to any readers out there using huge print to read fanfiction, although I hear that screen readers and podcasts or audiobooks are the way to go.)
Anyways, another formatting change is that the original would have one episode=one chapter. It makes sense, in a way, but it lead to some incredibly long chapters. Many people like this style, and that's totally valid! But as I write now, shorter chapters make more sense to me. Like, the first time I rewrote the first chapter (well, this time—i edited and reuploaded the original first chapter many times), I went from about 7000 words to 12000. That's like, a quarter of a book. It was FORTY EIGHT PAGES.
THAT'S A LOT.
So far, as I write this, the chapter endings I've chosen have aligned with the light novel chapters. I'm not going to intentionally keep to that, but I'm not going to break it just to break it—if all of them work out like the light novel chapters, then I guess that's just what will happen.
Plus, AO3 has a really neat feature, where you can connect works together as a series. So, Blind, while technically one story, will be the name of the collection. Instead, each case (and some in between one-shot stories!) will be its own 'story' in the series. So, to recap—Blind is the series name, each case is its own story, and the chapters will cut the episodes up in a way I feel seems more natural.
As such, I'll need to rename the cases, as I don't just want to copy and paste the episode/case files. I have ideas for some, but if anyone has any suggestions, feel free! Bonus points for titles involving puns and references to blindness or eyes in general. I'm avoiding the actual word 'blind' for these titles as much as possible, but if you can omit it without it being weird, that's fine. For example, Love Is Blind is a phrase, and if I used it (say, for Valentines Day), I'd maybe write the title as "They Say Love Is…" because Blind would be implied. Not saying that WILL be the valentines day case file name, but… it might be?
Anyways, bringing up the different media forms—one of my favorite parts of writing Blind, and also the most frustrating, was taking the three different sources and stitching them together… Usually kind of crudely, but I have hopefully learned. Hopefully. For now, though, I'm primarily using Blind's already written dialogue—most of it was exact, which… I mean, I'm not changing all of it just to change it, but I could have done a bit more. Otherwise, I have the light novel translations pulled up for The Original Reference as I edit the Blind chapter 'base', rewatch the episode to catch anything or just spark a better idea for a part (for example, that's how the vase scene came to be—I saw it sitting there and it felt like a taunt), and… well, I'm supposed to pull the manga up at this point, and I probably will, but… not until the end, I think, or if I'm not entirely clear what the light novel meant but the anime cut it out. Being… not fluent in Japanese means I'm reliant on translations, but sometimes its a culture thing that just goes right over my head. Plus, my sources for the anime and the light novel are just plain easier to access.
I think I'll try doing a bit more divergence in the story, but I'm not sure by how much. I think part of me is frightened to destroy the base I've got, leaving me reliant on my own writing ability, and I'm unsure if it'll be strong enough. For the first case, at least, I won't venture far. As it is, a few other things have changed around too—but I'll leave that for something you'll have to read to find out.
I will ask a question though—as Blind, as well as Ghost Hunt, has almost always been a first person POV story, I wonder if I should change it. My first instinct is not to—while I've played with the thought of a point of view change before, I've never fully committed to it. I generally write in a mishmash of both, as I actually don't often write formal chapters—one of my many, many weak points as a writer and one of the reasons I have trouble having anything to publish at all. Third person point of view, however, is WILDLY more popular in fanfiction circles, to the point where most won't even read past the first 'I' pronoun. I don't want to change the story just for it to be more popular, but I don't want people to leave it just because I write more like a young adult author than a fanfiction author. Since you guys are literally my target audience, I'll ask you—what would you prefer? First person or third person? While you're at it, any grievances, go for it. Things I'm already planning to address are—making Mai's disability more noticeable and more accurate; being more consistent with writing style; more focus, or attempt to focus, on stories and ideas outside of the canon, as well as diverging a bit more from the original Ghost Hunt story; hopefully by prewriting this, having a more consistent update schedule, although I can't promise anything—no, seriously, I have unmedicated ADHD, I honestly try hard with consistency but its something my brain quite LITERALLY is not good at; shorter notes, dear goodness, and nothing about other people's reviews. So, while you're free to drag me for those, I am already aware. I welcome the critic, but be gentle—my writer's heart is fragile.
TL:DR? I'm moving the story, fixing it up, see you in a while, and do you want first or third person pov?
Onto the actual story notes.
I kind of got frustrated with the direction things went with the case—I had the start, I had the ending, the in between fell out somewhere. Setting, maybe? Timeline? I'll probably give it another go in the rewrite, along with other cases I've conjured up, but part of the reason I ended up on hiatus was because I was so utterly lost on this case. I even had story notes, I had the structure, but when I tried to stand it up, it fell apart.
For now! What you need to know.
They have names. I cannot remember them. I could literally just look up the last chapter. Its funnier this way, and also how my notes actually list them. Anyways, the family for the case. Mother, Father, Young Daughter Hana, Baby Boy Dai, and Creepy Uncle Whathisface, that last one exists basically as a red herring that I didn't even fully flesh out? There's Old Lady Neighbor, who you can now forget about, as she exists purely for Explanation and Investigation purposes. We also have Friendly Neighbor, who seems to just be Some Guy.
Mai and Izumi are currently underground. Naru has had a Moment and caused a minor cave in at thin part of the wall. There's now an access point to a second set of tunnels.
They pass a few doors that lead into the first set of tunnels. The first set, as established, are kinda rough. A bit more packed dirt and rock, although still stable. The second set is much clearer, concrete finished walls and such. Essentially, depending on the version of the story I went with, the second set would be used to pump water down into a hot springs area—the water itself wasn't actually hot, and it wasn't a natural spring, it was basically a tourism project. Locals did not react well, and media got involved, bleh bleh bleh, the whole thing went under. The tunnels got constructed, but were now abandoned. They're large, easily traversed, and do technically still connect to a large water basin at the top of the mountain. The first set of tunnels were basically worker tunnels that survived the years.
The two finally get to a final set of doors, and it opens into a weird room. Originally, this building they end up in would've been a sort of maintenance house. Since the project fell through, its now a normal-ish house.
Remember Friendly Neighbor? I'm not even sure if I ever introduced him in story. He offers the team soap and pastries at some point. No one takes them, cause he's kind of just… something is Wrong Here. He's doing all the right cues, he's acting like the average friendly Japanese citizen, but something about him makes most of their alarm bells ding off just a bit.
Friendly Neighbor has indeed, kidnapped Izumi and Mai.
The question of why is probably coming up right now. Perhaps a desire for the land? After all, part of the reason the case family's house is so damn big is because it was going to be a hotel. Friendly Neighbor could very well want to buy their land, combining his own property into a large area, and possibly getting grants to restart the fake hot springs project. If a few kids go missing, if its haunted, surely then they'd want to move, or even get arrested.
But then, why keep them alive?
Simple! Land isn't his motive. At all.
Friendly Neighbor, our dear neighborhood widower, lost his wife five years ago. He's always been a bit strange, far more interested in… normal hobbies, crafts and such, but often in… almost unsettling ways.
We'd basically call him a mix of a horror artist and mad scientist. He has no problems with traditional landscapes, but what if he used animal blood as paint? And sure, the doll whose head he replaced with a mushroom is… kinda weird, but the mushroom is actually alive—he propagated it to live there. He sells some of it, keeps others, an artist for sure. His wife was much the same, and a very calming presence for him.
Then she died.
And it wasn't really that Friendly Neighbor cracked so much as he finally didn't have someone to hold him in a vaguely human shaped way.
An important note is that his wife is, indeed, dead. An equally important note is that most everyone else just think she's missing.
An additional note is that disappearances around this time of year have been happening for a few years now, starting with her.
You can probably guess where this is going.
So Mai and Izumi are in this weird little room. It smells mostly of cleaning supplies.
Investigation of the room finds bleach, art supplies, lye, micah powders, a camera that went missing from SPR's investigation at some point, and oh—Mai and Izumi's luggage. And some other personal belongings that surely no one would just… leave there.
Mai's getting the camera to work—wireless, but the tape has to be manually gone through later, and doesn't connect to a monitor in base.
They hear footsteps.
Mai barely gets a cabinet door to conceal most of the camera by the time Friendly Neighbor shows up.
Somewhere, I wrote a proto version of the scene. If I ever find it and can get it spoofed up, I'll upload it. For now, just know that Friendly Neighbor spells it out for them what he's going to do.
One scene I specifically added with Mai and Izumi's banter was about soap scents.
That's because Friendly Neighbor turned his wife—and a few other people—into soap. Some of their other body parts get turned into other art supplies, but by and large, he plans to make Mai and Izumi into bar soap.
Mai and Izumi do not agree with this plan.
Into the tunnels they escape. Mai makes Izumi turn off any lights he has. They're plunged into darkness, with only sound being able to pinpoint where anyone is.
Mai is blind.
This is, for once, an incredible advantage.
Now, you might be wondering what SPR is up to at this point.
I am too. I truly have no idea what the hell they'd be doing, and that was part of the reason this case got stagnated. Whoops. Just assume that some if not all are currently at the case house. Naru, at the very least, is there.
Back to the Benny Hill Horror Addition happening in the tunnels. It's raining, and that little earthquake Naru caused actually did cause a bigger issue.
Yeah, remember how these tunnels do connect to a water basin at the top of the mountain?
That door and lock haven't been maintained basically since they got installed.
The tunnels start to flood.
The second set of tunnels are made for this, with water being siphoned off appropriately, for now.
Slight issue, though, is that they, too, have not been maintained, and that they were intended to feed and circulate water for a hot springs. That exit point does not exist.
The first set of tunnels is now open to be that exit point.
Now, if it had been at all wet recently, the water would actually be able to absorb into the ground quicker. Paradoxically, though, dry dirt has a HARDER time absorbing water quickly. Those tunnels, too, quickly start to flood.
All three get swept up.
That weird little chamber where the very top ceiling is actually the floor of the house? Mai and Izumi end up there. Friendly Neighbor hasn't caught up yet, as he's gotten swept into another room. Unfortunately, he's also an incredible swimmer, and this is all a Big Damn Issue.
With few options left, Mai and Izumi start trying to break the floor.
The noise, naturally, brings in our favorite ghost hunters.
Izumi manages a well placed kick, and there's now another client with a hole in their home, somewhat indirect courtesy of Naru "brings a crowbar with him on cases I guesss?" Shibuya.
Naturally, there's a bit of commotion where Mai and Izumi crawl out like two traumatized, feral kittens.
There's a second commotion as Friendly Neighbor grabs Mai and drags her back underwater.
Dramatics, Naru dives in immediately to save her, pulls her out, Lin fishes out Friendly Neighbor, Naru makes a dramatic and almost emotional speech about how he'll never let Friendly Neighbor touch another hair on her head, etc etc.
Mai would be touched, if she were not unconscious.
She wakes up next in the hospital. Naru's there, because naturally. Fusses over her, in his weird Naru way. Lin has received the camera back when the police arrived, and the tape where Friendly Neighbor very clearly admitted to all of the shit he had done is now in police custody. Izumi gets a very tearful reunion with his family and his boyfriend, who totally has a name that I totally had not forgotten ahahahaha, and all is going well.
Dai, the baby, is at SOME POINT in this mess going to be shown as having awakened early a very uniquely strong pyrokinetic ability—he can set fires with his mind. In at least one version of the story, he'd set Friendly Neighbor on fire, although in that story, Friendly Neighbor didn't make people soap and had also kidnapped Dai for… reasons? Hana, the older girl child, was supposed to be constantly finding weird passageways that wouldn't be unusual for a hotel, but are weird for a normal house—one of the clues that the house wasn't actually built to BE a home.
Fun fact about the family is that the Mother is actually black. That's why Mai specifically mentioned her hair to be cloud like, but since Mai can't actually see… The parents met when they BOTH were overseas at an American college, the Father from Japan and the Mother from… Somewhere In Europe That Is Not England No I Did Not Forget Again. Fairly irrelevant to the story, but anyways.
Mai being in that situation was supposed to showcase off Mai's sensory ability in a situation where anyone would be in massive trouble if they couldn't navigate the dark. She keeps them alive and was working on an escape plan when, well. Water does what it does—fuck stuff up. It also would give Naru some caution on her being alone, and make him try to challenge the fox spirit himself in the next case—the last anime case, if you'll recall. She and Izumi would also have an aversion to bar soap, just on principle alone.
As for the rest of the entire story of Blind, a lot of it was determined by a much younger me. My tastes have changed, and while some aspects I plan to keep, lots of it I would not be.
For instance, one of the wilder things, was that Mai's parents adopted her. That's… not weird. What was WEIRD was her birth mother, who kinda went cuckoo for coco puffs mad, had three genetic donors to make three embryos that she implanted in herself, resulting in Mai being a triplet to an older brother and a younger sister, all half siblings. Makoto, the brother, and Mesuo, the sister. Is that second name even a name? No idea! Why triplets, you might ask? My oh so clever self decided that hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil would be fun to bring in. Makoto, deaf, Mai, blind, and Mesuo, mute. I think their mother cursed them individually with this, to see how their spiritual powers would develop. Makoto… did something, but I think he ended up without any abilities? Maybe music channeling-he was a drummer, feeling the beat of the music even without the sound. Mesuo would hear the voices of the dead—but couldn't speak to them at all, leaving her unable to do ANYTHING about what she heard. She's actually the girl from the Valentines Special—the one who Mai's ex mentioned looked a lot like Mai. Also, Mai's bio mom kidnaps her while Naru is in England, fakes her death because HER special little power is to make people see visions that she constructs—such as a fake death vision. It was a bit wild.
While I might still get these guys in as a cameo, even if they do appear—Mai's back to being an only child in the rewrite, and fully her parents' child. I mean, she was even if she was adopted, but her birth mother isn't cursing her this time.
As many guessed as I barely hid it, Gene was planned to somehow live.
Again, Mad Scientist Mai's Mom was responsible. Lets just say that he was alive, but he wasn't exactly having a great time—I think he was in some kind of stasis? I'm not entirely sure how I'll handle Gene's death-or-not-death this time around, as some things are planned to change. But, well. Gene's characterization in the story is going to be… hm. Hmmmm. Going right along.
At some point, the four—the triplets and Gene—steal a helicopter. At another point (or two or three), Mai ends up having to break into the Davis house.
Small bits and pieces, and at no point did I actually start planning on HOW Mai's curse would be reversed. I just knew that her eyesight was permanently fucked regardless. A lot of it I forgot, a significant bit I forgot intentionally. It wasn't great guys. While I can't promise that things won't be a bit wild, or crazy, or what have you—Mad Scientist Mom Curses Own Children, Mostly For Shits And Giggles, does not happen. (We may or may not have a kinda crazed, sort of step mom running around? Maybe. Haha.)
I wasn't sure of the exact end—around when we'd get Mai and Naru married, for sure. Otherwise? Mmmmmm not sure, considering I never bothered to think of how Mai was going to get declared alive again in Japan.
As is, I'm not super sure where the ending for Blind is going to be as of yet. But I have a better idea of what sort of overarching story I might want. I still prefer a general 'monster of the week' basis, with cases still being fun to do and all. But as for a proper end, I'm not sure.
TLDR—Things got kind of wild, and VERY WEIRD. I'm saving y'all from the worst of it. I will not submit you to some of the nonsense I had cooked up even if you ask.
So… Yeah! Tell me what you guys think, and I understand if you're disappointed that this is how Blind… kind of ends. But also not, because, like I said—rewrite, and ship off to AO3, where I don't know how to do literally anything other than sign in.
If you are somehow inclined to look at this version of Blind, of the ending story, and say 'well, damn, I want to give it a go'-go for it. I'm fine with people using general ideas I've brought into the world for their own things (just not plagiarism, which I haven't dealt with well in the past—if anything happens in the future, I'll be way more delicate on it… high school me was not having a great time, we're cutting them some slack), with the only ask being to maybe credit me with inspiration, and even that not really being necessary.
SO—like I said, what do you guys think? Excited for a rewrite, or just thinking 'why bother?' And moving over to a new platform, I can't lie and say I'm not a bit nervous. has always been pretty good to me, so its really weird to leave it! And, seriously, do let me know if you guys prefer first or third person. I've only gotten about halfway through the first case (which has been fun, but ohhhhh my goodness, who let fourteen/fifteen year old me near a keyboard?), so I'd like to figure it out before I go much further, if third person is preferred and I end up changing it.
(Any further questions, I have no plans to delete this account, so feel free to PM me, find me on tumblr, or find me on AO3!)
((Oh, and if any of you want to save/download the fanfics I have for your own personal collections, for if and when becomes unusable, go for it! Not that you necessarily need permission to do that, but if it bothered you somehow—there you go! I'd rather they not get uploaded without asking permission, though. (Well, if I disappear for like, seven years, then yeah go for it. Otherwise though…)))