Hello everyone, it's been some time.
I might need to go back a bit to properly explain just... everything properly. But before that though, I wanted to apologize for my unannounced absence from fanfiction and discord for those that know me from there. I wasn't exactly planning on being gone for as long as I was, but some complicated things happened in my life that severely derailed my focus on writing. It didn't start out that way though. After I posted my last chapter I was planning on being more active and finishing the first chapter at least around March of 2021.
But as you can tell that didn't happen... and the future for Beyond Broken began to look grim as I sat back and asked myself if it was really worth it to continue this story.
You see, I grew more distant from Danganronpa in the months that followed, and my interest in the game dwindled. This was entirely my fault and though I could've continued writing a mixture of my own indifference toward the fandom and game, as well as growing pressures from reality made me take a break from writing and eventually just... everyone online. I grew to feel shame for this after, and I felt like I NEEDED to put something out as I lagged behind some imaginary deadline. Eventually, though, this fear of taking too long to either update on my situation or post a new chapter made me scared to even attempt to log back in since I didn't have anything to show for my missing time.
I tried to work on this story behind the scenes because of this, thinking I could get it done more effectively that way and that if I had something to show for my time off it would excuse all the time I spent away. But I couldn't do it because I was forcing myself to do something that gave me so much mental anguish. I don't want to say it was agonizing for me to write or anything as that's an exaggeration, but my mental health and stress just stopped me from attempting anything, and the more time I wasted the more I feared that if I tried to log on one day it would prompt anger. I know that's a silly thing to think, but factored in with the pressures of my personal life, all these fears just felt real to me, and soon I didn't want to talk to anyone. Everything just made me feel annoyed and irritated, and I felt like my tolerance for things started to shift as a result of that.
It got to a point where after much deliberation, I just didn't think I owed anyone an explanation and kept to myself while watching from the sidelines.
And for that way of thinking... I apologize. For everyone that knew me on discord and fanfiction and has been waiting for a response from me in that timeframe, I'm so sorry I didn't explain anything going on or I didn't even bother to announce a hiatus or anything. There's no excuse that I managed things poorly, and I apologize for essentially holding your characters hostage. As to why I've come back now to give this update, I have decided to lurk around a bit after I managed to get through many complicated things in my life and before I realized it, the familiar joy Danganronpa used to give me suddenly overtook me and gave way to nostalgia. Because of that, I finally decided against my judgment that I wanted to get back into the flow of things with this community and correct my absence.
Now, I know that saying "sorry" doesn't really fix the fact that many have waited for updates, but now I wish to correct that mistake by answering the question I posed long ago... whether the future of Beyond Broken was really worth continuing. I've taken some time to reflect on what I should do after I managed to overcome most of my problems, and I decided I'm not really suitable to write something as high-scale as a killing game, at least the one I had planned.
...so therein lies my final answer to if I'll continue Beyond Broken. I've really thought about this... and the answer I've decided on is sadly... no.
The quality of my writing and mental well-being isn't exactly on par with any of the other great writers here, and I felt that through the constant negativity I gave to myself I just didn't enjoy what I was writing anymore. I know that sounds disappointing and honestly, I am as well. I did have all of my chapters planned out and I thought it should've been relatively easy, but nothing slaps you harder in the face than the realization that you really do need consistent effort and motivation to keep these projects running, and to that end, I must applaud the several SYOC writers in this community that keeps their stories up despite growing pressure to deliver... and I especially applaud all the submitters who make fantastic characters for those stories.
To those that did submit to me, I hope by now you have archived your characters for better stories out there. I plan to delete Beyond Broken soon so as to not let those characters be spoiled with my interpretation of their dialogue... but if you did enjoy the chapters I published and wished to keep the story up so you can see your characters written out in another writers eyes, you can vote in my profile over whether it'd be best to take the story down or not so you can read through what I did write before cancellation. If you also wanted to know the character's fate in this story, you can PM me and I'll tell you where I had them end up in the roster... but if you simply wish to just take your character and go that's fine too.
As for what I'll do from now on, I decided that personally, I'll enjoy being an outlier in the Danganronpa community... at least for a little bit. I've grown back in love with the game for a short time and I've already submitted a few characters to stories MUCH more focused and interesting than mine. There are also many other authors I wish to submit characters to myself and read their works. As for if I'll return to discord, I most likely will dabble on there but not stay for too long, mostly cause some stuff happened on that app and as a result, I just kinda locked myself out of it for a long while. If anyone has any questions on there feel free to ask me, but I won't be on discord as much as I used to be, and this likely means I'll be taking down the server as well, only because having it up for a dead story feels kind of sad to me. (I'll keep it up for a little while so anyone can save whatever images they want, but eventually it'll be going down. That also means I've taken the link to the server off my profile.) However, I will try and be active there if I can, and definitely on here as I simply just stay in the background.
As for my future of writing, I'll probably put a pin on that for now as I focus on personal projects outside Danganronpa, but who knows, hopefully one day gain I'll gain the necessary skills and confidence to actually write a dedicated Danganronpa story... or just any story for that matter.
If there's any lesson you can take from yet another story falling under the curtain here is that please don't underestimate the work it takes to pull stories off like this. For those of you who may think the authors in this community can effortlessly write sharp and purposeful stories... know that behind the curtain there's a person actually taking time out of their day to write those stories.. and that writing them takes a lot of effort far beyond what most of us realize. I may be saying this to try and absolve myself of guilt for canceling my story in some form, but I do really mean it, the stories here are a product of amazing effort and for those working on your stories right now, I implore you to do what you enjoy doing... rather than do what you feel like you NEED to do.
Anyway, all of this writing may have been a little indulgent but I'd still like to thank anyone who read through the entire chapter. It was nice to get this all off my chest, and I want to remind you all that you have incredible talent, both character submitters and authors alike! I wish you luck and I look forward to reading new stories (and continuing old ones, you know who you are :heart:)