Author's Note – What Makes a Story Dark?

Hi, everyone. I haven't changed anything in this story, but I wanted to update this because it has to do with this story specifically. I want to share an anonymous comment (they entered their name as Dhacian) I recently received on this story, that you may or may not have seen on its Reviews page (I deleted it as soon as I saw it).

"Huh. So after Colress murders Rosa's Emboar, she magically falls in love with what a strong, manly man he is, huh? And he gets her pregnant, to boot! Wow! That's what you're going for? I see you have some more trash planned. I wonder how Retold Red's going to go. Can't wait to see Leaf fall for the Mask of Ice's sheer, unbound sexyness from when he tortures her "brother." Maybe Yellow will be raped by Lance and learn to like it. Oh, wait, no, I won't actually be reading any of that, because it's garbage, just like you."

Obvious flame is obvious. But I'd still like to address it in the event someone else does what this person did, which seems they jumped between chapters, skimmed, and just read the ending. So, while I'm going to try to remain calm about this entire thing, this annoys me so much. I put a LOT of effort into small details, emotions, character movements, in my stories. A lot of it relies on the reader noticing these details and filling out what they think that character is feeling/thinking themselves. Saying that to say, obviously if someone skims without reading much of the details, they're not going to understand what's going on!

Furthermore, I'll reiterate this even though I've said it a million times before: I. do. not. condone. Rosa. and Colress's. relationship! If anyone thinks I am presenting it in a way that makes it look inviting, good, or acceptable… Their reading comprehension needs serious work, or they need intense therapy. Rosa is terrifyingly ambitious, to the point she willingly throws her family, her Emboar, and in the end, even Nathan, away for power. This looks like her throwing it away for Colress, yes, but why Colress? Because Colress makes her powerful. She does not love Colress (in later stories where she shows up, she does care for him, but that's out of necessity since he is the only person she has left; eventually, you bond with people you work closely with, no? But still, it's not beautiful, romantic love. She does sexually manipulate him in later stories as well, but a) this is when she's older and b) again, it's not because she loves him or finds him JUST that damn hot, it's to keep him under her thumb; literally in one of the Hidden Grottos stories, he's thrown her against the wall and looks like he may do far worse physical abuse than that, and she kisses him and gets him into it so he'll stop. THAT'S NOT LOVE!). She is USING Colress, she is fascinated by Colress, but she does not love him or find him 'sexy.' Fucking gross, Anon.

Colress gives her an outlet for this sadistic ambition. Rosa IS NOT a sympathetic character. That was her entire character arc, realizing that she is not someone to be saved, that the fall to villainy isn't as impossible as it seems. It was totally intended for people to feel sorry for her at the beginning and hope she can work through it, but ultimately, she fell to her demons and you were supposed to realize she couldn't be saved. She was fully willing to attack and deeply hurt Nathan at one point and was mad at him for not thanking her for killing his father, when she should have known that would raise all sorts of uncomfortable questions and feelings for him. She felt cheated of praise. That should have shown her sadism, her dangerous ambition, her extreme arrogance, at its highest, and made her a villain in a reader's eyes. When NATHAN got her pregnant (wtf was Anon on about there? Colress is infertile, for one thing, and also, Rosa never had an intimate moment like that with Colress, but she did with Nathan? Like, what the actual fuck version of the story did you even read, Anon?), she only kept it and had it to keep Colress on her good side, keep him happy – not because she 'loves' him, but because he wouldn't have been her fun, fascinating plaything that showers her with fun powers anymore.

But anyway, that's only part of what I wanted to say. I also want to add that my stories are dark. Yes. I know this. They always have been, they likely always will be. I'm a little better nowadays about balancing the dark and the light and making the dark have meaning when it happens, but at the end of the day, people tend to have two reactions to bad things going on in their lives when they consume media to handle it: 1) they gravitate towards happy, rosy, fluffy content to forget all about the badness in their lives, or 2) they gravitate towards darker, grittier content to find solidarity in the pain or difficulty characters are having. People can enjoy both, but typically, they flock to one over the other.

I feel it's fairly obvious I am the latter. I write as a form of self-therapy. That is why I write fanfiction and don't go out of my way to write serious feature-length novels. I'd never finish them, and I wouldn't enjoy it because I'd feel the need to make them perfect and socially acceptable, falsely rosy and happy, so more people would read it (because I do believe most people react in the prior's fashion). I'm not out here trying to say "woe is me, I've had the worst life ever!" because I haven't, and this isn't a contest, but some things I've been through have sucked. I was preyed on by an Internet sexual predator when I was 11-12. My father was horribly abusive, and I only recently left his household (but my mother is going back to be with him, so I'm going to have to mostly cut contact with her, because she's an enabler and apologist for everything he does. This means I'll also lose contact with my brother). I flunked my first year at college due to rampant undiagnosed ADHD, pissing away thousands of dollars on failed classes. I had a scare where I thought I'd owe them another $15,000 on top of that because they screwed up housing and thought I was going to live on campus during fall 2020. Not to mention, I got sent home from college due to COVID-19 in March 2020 and have basically been in quarantine since then. I had COVID-19 while I was moving out of my Dad's place and was bedridden for so long that my muscles have atrophied to where I can barely keep my room clean and may have to start taking physical therapy. I haven't seen my boyfriend in the last 6 months or longer, because I'm terrified of even the potential of getting him sick, and if he gives it to me again or a different strand of it, who knows what my physical state will be in a few weeks.

So yes, my stories are dark. They are a way of me exercising certain demons. Nathan's character, for example, is a combination of, well, hating my father, and having been sexually preyed upon when I was younger. My father being so abusive and being treated like that still produced deep-seated feelings of shame and anger for a long time, which Nathan's character at the start is strongly centered around. No, my characters aren't self-inserts, they're often exaggerated or have other traits very different from myself, but stuff like that often gets sprinkled in on them. If you've been reading Ultra Sun, and you know Elio's character, then you know that he feels like he has to help everyone but always seems to go about it the wrong way (whether that's his fault or not is a moot point in this example)—this is because for a long time, I was so convinced by my father that saying anything to help other people was futile, because he would often just get angrier if I tried to offer suggestions to help with whatever problems he was having. So, my attempts at "helping" my later friends who were having problems were often weird or unsatisfactory, and left me feeling somewhat destructive, as I went through a lot of friends since I didn't know how to have friends!

Anyway, I just wanted to say, my stories are dark. I know they are. I try to ensure there is a happy or at least satisfying ending, even if they are. But they are not dark because I'm some evil cunt that wants to spread hedonism and chaos. They are dark to make you think, they are dark to let me exercise and handle feelings that are too potent and complicated to think about directly, they are dark to give others like me something that feels relatable.

And honestly, if anyone reads this and has a problem with that or with these stories in particular… I truly believe Black and Black 2 are the best written stories I have ever created. If you have a problem with the plot or something, naturally, you can say it, but there is absolutely no fucking reason to word it like Anon did or behave in such a way. Keep in mind this is a fanfiction. I do it for fun, and I work hard to make it enjoyable for others, but at the end of the day, it is for ME. This is not a professionally published work. If you have nothing nice to say, saying it isn't going to help a damn thing, if anything, you're just punishing some random person on the Internet trying to have fun and soothe themselves. Note that negative criticism and flaming are two very different things. "I don't like why Rosa did [x] and here's why, it didn't make sense to me" is very different from "you're human garbage because you wrote this."

To all those that already understood this, I am sorry, and I hope this did not come off like I was annoyed with you. So many people came out of the woodwork to comment and applaud these two stories and it made me so happy, truly. I was so thrilled whenever I woke up and saw email notifications about reviews to these stories. Imaginair in particular has been incredibly supportive and without them, I'd have probably stopped posting these stories a while ago, but at theirs and others' support, I've been able to explore so much with myself and write such fun, intertwining stories!

Thank you, and here's to hoping I finish Ultra Sun soon!