Sorry about the long absence; the holidays are in full swing and I work retail. Digimon Survive and the new Pokémon game have also both been eating up my free time. So far I've finished one ending of Digimon Survive and I need to complete the league and beat the final Team Star boss in Pokémon before I can do the end game, so while I'm close to the end of both it's still going to take a bit of time. Especially for Digimon Survive; I made different saves for each ending branch but in order to unlock the affinity Megas for everyone I need to do every ending on one new game plus save. At least that's what I assume I have to do, I could be wrong.

Besides video games I also had my birthday a few days ago! Went out to a retro game store with my BF and bought some fun trinkets. It was nice and I hope we can go out again sometime. I'd like to get a PS1 since my PS2 laser can't read those discs anymore. It sucks that I have to buy a whole other console when this one is supposed be backwards compatible but as long as it can still run Chulip I'm not ready to get rid of it yet. Besides, a secondhand PS1 is cheap and the ones at the store are apparently tested beforehand. I don't have to worry about flipping it upside down to play games like I did with the one I got on eBay.

Speaking of video games... 

In 2019 I got a bug up my butt and decided to play around with a fanfiction idea for a series I really like. It was an AU inspired by I was feeling about myself at the time and served as an outlet for my anxieties. I thought about it so much that I decided to sit down and try to put those words to paper. 

And then I wrote seven thousand words in three hours. 

Seven thousand words turned to ten thousand, then twenty, and so on and so forth. In less than a month I completed and then exceeded the NaNoWriMo wordcount without even thinking about it. I ended up very close to the end of the story with 57k words under my belt and only stopped because I started to feel what I call "AU Fatigue". I wasn't so much tired of the idea, but every time I began to write I thought about how removed from the original story it was, and while some people might not care about that kind of thing I do, and if something goes too off the rails my brain goes "Why are you doing this? What's the point? What does this say about the original work or add to it?" and I lose motivation. 

I decided to work on another idea I had, which is also an AU but deals with themes and character issues that are much closer to the canon of the main work. It's way bigger than this idea turned out to be though, and it has so many overlapping parts that I'm still working on finishing the outline. 

It's been a few years now, and I've become a much different person than the one who wrote that story in 2019. I think I'm comfortable enough with myself and the story that I can go back and "rewrite" it into an original story. It's practically one already, I just need to change a few small story beats and come up with new character designs. 

In order to not get caught in a loop of remaking stuff I'm forcing myself to stick as close to the original plot as possible, even if those plot points feel cringey now. The words have been flowing out pretty effortlessly so hopefully I can post regularish updates as time goes on. I plan to eventually turn it into a sound novel of some sorts and put it on itch.io for people to read. 

And before you ask: no, this isn't getting in the way of Nocti or my other project; Nocti is currently on the back burner because once again, I over estimated how much work I could get done in a year with very little accountability from people who Actually Matter, and now I'm in a depressive funk about it. I'll get over it by the new year. 

So far this "new project" is 3 pages and 1204 words. 

Oh god how did I write almost 4000 words about my stupid story. What the hell. Why am I so verbose. I'm going to blame ADHD. 

Current Mood: Motivated!