Letter from the Author

Hello, everyone. It's been a long time. As I'm sure many of you have guessed, Sound of Madness is, unfortunately, discontinued, and at the time of this letters posting, removed. And since I couldn't do you all the courtesy of finishing my story, I figured the least I could do is tell you why. I owe you that much.

Sound of Madness was not an idea I created, but rather a writing prompt given to me as a teenager. It was a challenge from a friend who, after a long conversation on how I'm not disturbed by much of anything, tried to think of something that I would find so uncomfortable I would be unable to finish it. What my friend didn't know, because we hadn't been friends very long at that point, is that I thrive under that kind of pressure, and Sound of Madness took about two second to go from a "challenge" to "my entire life" way back in 2012.

Like a lot of people that are heavily involved in fandoms, I am completely incapable of liking things casually. I was already in love with The Walking Dead, Carl was already my favorite character, and now, I had been given this rough story line to make my entirely my own. Therefore, by the time Chapter 2 was posted, I had this story plotted like a full-length novel. I mean, I made diagrams, flow charts, character charts, character designs, and drafts of chapters that wouldn't show up for another hundred pages down the line. I planned at least four different endings (I'm sorry to say that our leading lady died in all but one of them). It absolutely consumed me, and I was so sure that this would be the first thing that I ever finished, because I've never finished anything before. Not really. Nothing beyond typical short story. I wanted it to be as perfect as I could possibly make it, and I was very vocal about that. And then I dropped of the face of the planet. Because, in the middle of writing a heart-wrenching story about a pedophile's moral struggle between right and wrong in post-apocalypic America, something happened that kind of changed everything.

Well, okay, two things.

One, I became a parent.

Yep.

For the majority of the three years or so I was gone, I was parenting it up in parent land as a stay-at-home mom. And let me tell you, nothing changing your ability to write about an adult taking advantage of a child like imagining it happening to your own kid. And then, I got to thinking. (And by thinking, I mean overthinking, because I do that.) My username is pretty obvious to people that may know me in real life. If someone from my real life found this, would they thing me capable of doing such things to my own child? Could a piece of fiction I wrote as a teenager impact my adult life later down the line by opening an investigation against my family? Probably not. But it's scary thought to new parent, isn't it.

Two, a family member of mine, not a close one, but close enough for me two witness the drama, went to federal prison for having an inappropriate relationship with an underage girl. Everything about it was absolutely heartbreaking. But what really bothers me is how everybody seemed so sad about how he, a grown-ass man, ruined the rest of his life rather than how he, a GROWN-ASS MAN, and let's call it what it really is people, raped, a young girl. I know that in Sound of Madness, I made it apparent that the dynamic between Carl and my original character is wrong, and that she's sick and she's aware that she's sick. But I didn't realize just how much the story sympathized with someone that, deep down, is an abuser. And that's really unfortunate, because statistically speaking, we're living in a world where 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually abused, and so much of society is already hellbent on victim blaming and sympathizing with abusers. And I really don't need want to add to that.

It probably seems like I'm blowing everything WAY out of proportion because fanfiction is fanfiction, it's nothing but an outlet, and some people like to read kind of messed up stuff (I like to read some messed up stuff) and that's completely true and completely fine. Reading stuff is fine, writing stuff is fine, drawing stuff is fine. As long as you're not hurting anybody, it's all fine. I enjoyed writing Sound of Madness. I made wonderful friends from it and it is something I'll never regret. A part of me wishes I could have continued; that the topic of the story didn't grow to bother me so much. But it did, and I can't change that. I just wish I could have given all the readers the ending that they deserved.

I'm sorry; to everybody that I left waiting, and everybody that I disappointed. And thank you to everyone that encouraged me along the way. Your support was more than I ever could have asked for.

Love always,

-turnipcat