Alright, I'm back!

So, let's talk my plan for future writing. It seems like people want the authors notes to stay, so it looks like they're staying for the foreseeable future (if it comes out later that people don't like them as much as before, I will re-evaluate).

A couple of people have expressed confusion on what exactly the rewrite will entail, so I'm going to go ahead and lay out my plans for how I'm going to go about it, what's in my list of things to change, etc.

First off, at the time of writing there is no plan to drastically change any given plot point. As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any significant complaint about the general structure of things, so I'll just keep it as is. The way I'm going to treat any given portion of the rewrite is as if I was writing a new chapter. Instead of tweaking and editing what's already there, I'm just going to write it from the ground up, which should help bring it up to the standard I want my later chapters to be at. This shouldn't cause there to be any changes to anything you'll be reading going forward. I'm planning on somewhere around 75% of my effort outside of weekly uploads will be going to new content, with 25% dedicated to the rewrite.

Once I have 5 rewrite chapters queued up I'm going to make a new series here on SH where I'll be posting those weekly. If it turns out the rewrite is significantly easier than I thought and I end up finishing the rewrite before the series is caught up to the current status of the rewrite (well, that may happen regardless) then I'm going to hurry and post the remaining rewrite chapters, port over chapters from 22+, and then this new series will be where all the new content is posted. I'm still working on the name, so suggestions are welcome (I'm currently fond of A Wish for a Change, or maybe Seeking Perfection or something). Once the rewrite is completely caught up, I will also look into porting the series to other sites such as Royal Road and...I feel there are one or two more out there similar to SH or RR, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
Anyway, here are my notes for the rewrite, so everyone is on the same page with what exactly I'm looking to do:

The one other thing I'll be doing (and this ties into what's written below) is that I'm going to be splitting the series into 'arcs' that...honestly don't mean much but are more for my organization and use in planning, which I hope will lead to a more cohesive experience.

As for chapter 22, I'm hoping to have it up sometime between today and Tuesday. To make for a better quality series as a whole, I'm going to take some advice, and I'll be writing up an outline for each arc, putting out (in general terms) what I want the arc to do for the story as a whole.

I'm also going to experiment with having chapter titles. As stated before, I'm awful with names, so we'll see how it pans out. If it ends up significantly cutting into the time it takes to write, I'll probably stop doing it, but who knows?

That aside, let's get into things I'd like to address from the story itself. As I am back, and chapter 22 is due to be posted soon, chapter 21 spoilers are going to be unmarked from this point on.

This won't just be official "questions", but also things I saw in comments that I wanted to mention, so I'm going to do the things I want to mention first and then official questions last.

So, ShadeByTheSea mentioned the implication that the angels and everyone would catch up to Lilith, so let me just sort of lay out why that is and what I expect the power curve to be like.

The reason they're catching up has to do with a "compensation" given when the system changes. When it changes over, there are four ways I see things could reasonably be handled:
1. Everyone starts as a fresh slate, all abilities gone, level 1. This is not happening. It's goes against what Kali wants from the system change. She wants to, as a whole, increase the power of her universe, allowing her to be able to actually start competing and get more than the leftovers she currently gets. Wiping everyone's power just sets that back too far, and breeds discontent in the population.
2. Everyone starts at what level they would have, as well as with any abilities they would have. This is better, but sort of drops everyone straight into it and she wants there to be a period for people to adjust and get used to things so they don't get any bad habits.
3. Everyone starts at level 1 with the stats and abilities they would have. Massive powercreep. People from Earth have basically no chance and people born after after the switch will be vastly weaker than those from before. Short term gain, but likely to backfire massively in the long run.
4. Everyone starts at level 1, with the abilities the abilities they would have normally unlocked, but at level 1. Then, give growth bonuses until they reach the level they would be at. This is the one Kali's going with, as she sees it as overall the least risky.

The current expectation is that most everyone reaches the level they would be at in option 2 within a year. At this point they'd be a fair bit stronger than they are now, simply due to the bonuses from the system. Kali's hoping that things will be...mostly stable within a year, and rule of law will keep the inhabitants of Earth from being completely shut out by those from Haven. They'll still be at a disadvantage, but Kali thinks that the major players will have decided there are bigger fish to fry and will leave them alone.

So, in this period of time, Lilith's going to be quite a bit stronger than anyone else, as she'll have had quite a while to basically have abilities, experience, and equipment fed to her. After that year is up, I'm going to put her power as slightly above any given member of the Council, but that's raw power only. She might be able to take one in a fight, depending on who it is, but they all have a lot of combat experience on her and two or more just wouldn't be doable. And those are just the members of the Council. She'd be significantly weaker than any other Perfect Chimera, as they're all really old and have a lot of abilities.

That's not to say she's going to spend the rest of the story in that state, though. The Perfect Chimera race does still have an incredibly hefty advantage in the new system, but even if we put that aside, Lilith's got a lot of things that'll give her an edge in growth, most notably King's Knowledge, which is going to have an even better effect in the new system.

Alright, so, that ended up being longer that what I expected, so let's get on to other things.

I was actually kind of happy when Thorium pointed out that a lot of 'the squad' doesn't get enough screen time, because this was something I noticed myself around when Siph was introduced. So, that's going to be addressed in the rewrite and I'll be paying attention to that going forward. In the next arc, there's going to be a split in focus, with some chapters focusing on Lilith and some on Carmen. Lilith's chapters are going to be focused on levelling and growing stronger, and Carmen's will have a lot more focus on character interaction (Not telling you what's going to be happening with her, though, you'll have to wait for that!)

And finally, official questions, courtesy of ChickenSoup:

"Is it possible for lilith's alternate personality to rebel and kill lilith?"
Theoretically yes, realistically no. If any given personality does rebel and make it through the nasty effects given by the skill and manages to overpower Lilith, unless they are controlled by someone else they'd never kill her. Due to the way she's set up, if they go through the effort to permanently kill the main personality, all the alternate personalities would die as well. If they were doing it of their own will, they'd most likely attempt to leave her comatose or otherwise unable to act, just out of self preservation.

"When familial bond is used, like when judy became siph's sister, are they actually sisters or do they just think they're sisters, similar to adoption."
Little bit of both. Genetically, they're not actually related, so in that sense it's like adoption. From their point of view, they might as well be biological sisters who were raised together. So...I guess it's more like adoption, but without any of the baggage that might come with that. Same for the marriage. They basically feel as if Siph's been married to them the whole time.

"Is it possible for people from different races to mate and can there be half-breeds? What about perfect chimeras?"
Oh no.
You did it.
You opened Pandora's Box.
...
ALRIGHT ADDENDUM C TO THE TALK LET'S GO
Joking aside, I'm surprised I forgot to mention this because it's complicated and stupid but I thought of it.
So, when two people of different races have a kid, the kid ends up with both the Domains of their parents, and often a special sub-Domain or whatever I called those way back when. Case in point, half-elves. They have the Elf Domain, another Domain, and a Half-Elf Domain. So, usually any given half-breed is potentially more powerful than their parents.

But, you can't just throw any two people of different races with different junk together and have it work. They have to at least be somewhat compatible. You can't expect a centaur and an elf to realistically have a kid.

Well, unless one of the parties is human. Because humans have a Trait that lets them get it with any sentient species.

If the half-breed has a kid, they pass down a Domain at random, unless they're having a kid with a half-breed who has the exact same Domains as them, in which case the kid has the same Domains as their parents.

As for Perfect Chimeras, they pass down their Domains (and count towards the population limit as) as they would have before they were a Perfect Chimera. So, Lilith would pass down Human, and a theoretical half-breed Perfect Chimera would pass down as a regular half-breed. The only exception made for them is that they can have kids with basically anything. Because if humans can get it, then Perfect Chimeras can get it. I mean, there's a good chance they'd have to be shifted into the form of whatever they want to have a kid with for logistical reasons, but that's basically their only limit.

Not that bestiality is likely to happen, because Kali very specifically made sure the people she chose would not be into that. That would cause a lot of chaos and that's not something she wants. Also, she thinks that's gross. Only way that's happening is with mind control or one of them going insane but that's incredibly unlikely.

And I think that's it for everything I wanted to say and the questions, if I missed anything let me know below and I'll update this post with a response!