0! - Self Reflection
I'd like to say something, very personal about my writing in this 'story'.
If you care to read this author's note, you'll understand why I've had such a hard time with being consistent with this story's updates.
It will be a long author's note that desperately needs to be written so I myself can look back and see where I've personally encountered my mistakes, so that I can always have a perfect reminder to fix it and stop myself if I screw up again.
If you do not care for this note, click off this page now, because it's not a new chapter.
Yes, lengthy times for updates did come from depression, writer's block, lack of inspiration, school, personal life, etc. One of these is a very easy excuse to give to your audience/readers. However, the real and better excuse/reason for my lack of updates, is because I genuinely think I am a very shitty writer.
Let's be real for a sec, or always since I hate giving people bullshit. I was an artist before I was a writer, and I will always claim to be an artist before anything else. (I draw on paper of course, but I also like doing things digitally, bleh.) But just because you can do one thing good, doesn't mean you can do another thing just as well or even decent. You could be a damn good artist in drawing human beings (me), but you can also suck dick at drawing scenery or trees. (Also me.) This is how I feel about myself in writing VS drawing.
I personally think I'm an okay artist, (if you'd like to judge me as well, look at my profile pic, I drew it. Seriously, I don't mind.) but I do not think I'm a very good writer at all. I think I am very much a novice, and still have tons upon tons of improvement. Now granted, you can suck at something and still enjoy it. After all, I still like writing even though I cringe at looking at my stories.
And there's where we get into our next point: I despise my old work. And it can be as old as a week ago, and I'll more than likely hate it. This even goes for my own artwork. There's very few times where I look back at something and say: Damn, I did a good job on that. Or at least a: Huh. Yeah, I did okay on that. But now? No, it's constantly: This is shit, this is shit, this could be a lot better and I'm doing something wrong. This is how I felt about this 'story' that was at first a collaboration that took on requests.
Ironically, I do still admire the chapters of PTV (Poison, Toxin, Venom), the first 95.I story, and the older chapters of HNR (Have No Regrets). But now, as I'm writing more for 95.I Aftermath, I get the sense that something is wrong.
Now let me list all of those things so that you for yourself can see that I'm not being overly harsh on myself to be an attention seeking depressive douche.
All of the flaws I've seen myself make:
1: I turned these badass warriors of a cut throat assassination company, into a bunch of whiny ass cry babies who constantly get their feelings hurt. I made the stone cold, number one agent of all time (Atem), a sensitive angry little bitch who keeps throwing things like a pussy-footed Hulk. I made Yami an emotionless yet not emotionless robot who has random sparks of personality and emotions here and there that could more than likely be an emotional outburst to start some stupid drama. I made Yugi into a super creepy and absolutely psychotic overemotional pervert who is scared of everything with an annoying ass stutter. (I also think I'm putting people who actually have DID to shame. I mean, no one can actually write a mentally ill character properly and accurately unless they've experienced or witnessed it themselves first hand over a period of time, but still. I suck at that.) Now everyone's too touchy or sensitive and, that's not who these guys are. Not at all.
2: I'm dropping waaaay too many hints for a large series of plot twists that will be revealed in the sequel. If you keep pulling on the sense that something awesome's gonna happen, it won't be awesome once it happens. It's like hyping up a movie or game from a God awful fanbase. That thing that you hyped up might actually be worth the hype, but not if you take away all of it's luster by making it seem a lot better than it is. Undertale, Black Panther and Homestuck are all perfect examples of that. Excellent pieces of art and entertainment, but was ruined horribly by terrible fans who either spoiled the entire fucking story to express just how awesome it was, or bigoted assholes who swear it's better than anything you've ever experienced. If you put the stakes up that high, you'd better deliver on that promise or you will ultimately fail in a miserable way. Being discreet is better for both my sake and your sake to make an amazing bombshell drop on you, while keeping you at the edge of your seat. If I keep hinting to what it is, you won't be blindsided, you'll expect it and you won't be impressed. Not only that, but it gives me the power of manipulation to make those bombshells whatever the fuck I want. If a certain plot twist didn't work out for my liking, I could still change the story's progressions so long as you're still ignorant to what that twist originally was. If I accidentally screwed up or retconned something, it'll be obvious since you know what I previously hinted to a long time ago. It'll be obvious that I made a stupid mistake or plot hole, and wanted to cover it up.
3: I turned something what was supposed to be a fun collaboration, into idiotically drama-filled episodes of Bold and the Beautiful. I used to take requests, I used to make this story fun. But I took that away from you guys to shove in my own ideas of a sequel that I desperately want to write. I am very sorry for that, because that's selfish.
4: I am making my main characters look like good people. Here's a news flash, an idea that I've driven into my first 95.I story several God damn times: No one in this story is a good person. No one. Not Atem, not Yami, not Yugi, not Seto, not even Mana, not anyone. The only person who's innocent is Mokuba, since he's just a little kid who only just discovered D75, and somewhat Joey despite his past dealings with a gangbanger like Ushio. Everyone else in this story are murderous, sneaky, lying and violent serial killers who get an easy pass because they had hard lives. Just because you had a horrible life, does not give you the right to be forgiven for wrongs that you've done, or be seen as a good person just because you did a little redemption. Now granted, this is partly what this 'story' was intended for. To give the characters redemption (even if they weren't the villains of the main story) and a happier life. And that's all well and good, except that I feel like I'm giving them too much headroom. For instance, Atem (once again) is very flawed here. I wanted him to be the biggest symbol of: "I am redeeming myself, I am giving myself the chance to be happy." But instead I gave him the symbol of: "I used to be a badass murderer that went through hell all my life, but because I found my long lost little sister and my two lovers who also used to and still are bad people, I'm a passive-aggressive sweetheart housewife now." For now, I gave Atem some chapters where he still showed he was a proficient D75 agent. Like in the chapter 'Thief', where he took on Akefia but, that's meh compared to how he used to be, and that sucks even if he's trying to be someone who gets away from that. I'm not even showing how he struggles with not being a monster anymore, he just started out as a perfect housewife in this 'story'. Let's not forget, Atem was a horrific and terrifying killer who killed anyone the government ordered him to without a second thought. Granted, he like everyone else was forced into the line of work, but to some extent, Atem enjoyed it. Nearly everyone in this story enjoyed being a sadistic monster, even Yami after he brutally destroyed Gozaburo's skull. The same goes for Seto, Yugi and even Mana, but I could go on all day with that. I took away the reason why they should be feared, or even hated. I took away the reason to give them the purpose of being redeemed.
5: None of my ideas are ever planned. Now this isn't necessarily a bad or abnormal thing since no one (and I mean no one, fight me) actually plans out literally everything they've put on screen. As a writer or creator of any kind, you may have a permanent concept settled in your head, but once you actually get to work out and make that idea, you will gain new ones to either add or take out. That is the basis of creating anything. This is the case for anything I've ever thought of, including, sadly, this 'story'. I have so many ideas sprouting from this 'story' (which is a good thing), that I feel like I'm overcomplicated things or making a huge mess. (A bad thing.) Now here's the worst part: 90% of the ideas that I have sprouting from this 'story', aren't even for this story, it's for the sequel. Isn't that ass-backwards? Ironically, that's what the purpose of this 'story' was for. However, while I have ideas for the sequel, I'm usually left with nothing for this story. And that's a huge problem, a corner that I keep backing myself in.
6: I am the essence of laziness. Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I'm not even sad or depressed, I just genuinely don't feel like doing shit. But I feel this way a lot, and that's bad. Ever since I graduated as a highly respected, top of her class student from high school, my work ethic went down significantly, and that's pitiful. Again, maybe that's depression or writer's block talking here, but for the sake of not being a whiny little bitch, I believe it's just pure laziness on my part. For that, I apologize. Nothing much else here, I'm just a very shiftless person who needs to slap my face and get my act together.
7: There's, a lot of sex. Which is awesome (since I'm a pervert to some degree I guess), but it also makes me feel lost of my own work. The point of a sex scene can be for a lot of good reasons: Drama (GOOD drama, not whiny bullshit), wanting to connect or bond characters to a strong degree (usually my reason), wanting to spice up the story for a short couple minutes (also usually my reason), wanting to create a strange or unorthodox way of presenting something with sex being used as symbolism, etc. But with this, it feels like I'm just throwing in sex scenes to throw in sex scenes. And I feel that they sometimes take away from the story or the value of the message that I'm trying to get across. Sometimes I feel like I put them in places where they were unnecessary. And I don't mean this in this 'story' particularly, I mean it more in the first 95.I story. The sex scene before the final Gozaburo mission? The scene of Atem giving Yugi a BJ after going over Ishizu's plans to kill Gozaburo? I felt that they were a little too much. And you know what? Maybe it isn't the fact that they're too much, it's the fact that they're too raunchy for a deep chapter. It takes away from it very easily. I shouldn't put stuff like that in, unless I write it in an extremely emotional way that connects with what I just tried to write about. OR, just write a completely raunchy chapter.
8: Too messy. Again, I've put so much thought into the sequel that I'm pressuring this 'story' to be just as grand and convoluted. And that's a bad thing, because that wasn't what this 'story' was supposed to be about. It wasn't supposed to be the sequel, it was supposed to be all in good fun. Now I'm mashing in hints and foreshadowing into this story, just to satisfy the sequel that I'm still not even done piecing together yet. I'm doing things, that don't need to be done. I'm being too extra, I'm doing too much for something that was supposed to be extremely simple. But because I liked the idea of connecting this story to the sequel, I'm trying to go through with it as much as I can and I think it's honestly hurting me.
9: This is not just self-hate, this is sincerely self-critiquing of my own writing. Self-criticism is something I very much believe in, and it can do wonders for you by fixing those mistakes and getting things done right. Please do not think this is a letter of farewell because I just can't fathom how bad I am as a writer, this is just a very important note to both myself and my readers on how I need to fix my mistakes.
10: I am a huge hypocrite, and all humans are. No one is perfect. I guarantee you, I will make all of these mistakes once again. Do I want to? No. Will I? Probably. To get better, you need to practice. When you practice something that you need to get better in, you will probably fail every single time you try, until you get that big break when you finally get at least one part right. This takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of genuine effort. I cannot promise better chapters, but I can promise that I will try.
11, AND THIS ONE IS VERY IMPORTANT! : I already had chapters ready BEFORE I wrote this self reflection diary. So if I post chapters that directly and immediately contradict everything I'm writing here, it's because those mistakes are already made and I just don't feel like going back to fix them. (Laziness, told you so.) I will even put in a note at the beginning at every chapter to express that it may be a chapter before my self-reflection, so no one can PM me about being an even bigger moron than I already am.
12: Review. You don't have to favorite, you don't have to follow. Just give me some feedback on what you agree or disagree with. Or hell, tell me even more what I did wrong so I can fix that. I'm already realizing that I suck, and I wish to be better but I need more than my own myopic view to see that.
That's all the points I had to make. If you made it all the way here at the bottom and actually read everything I had to say about the story and myself, then I love you. If you just skimmed or skipped all the way down here, I still love you, but you're just as lazy as I am. Or, you really just don't give a shit and hey! I can dig that. I can't tell you how many times I've skipped through a long meaningful author's note in the past just because I didn't care, I just wanted more chapters. If you feel that way, I still love you regardless and perhaps even more so. That just means you want more of my work, and that's honestly very flattering. So thank you if that's all you care about, makes me a little happy.
I will return to all of my stories sooner or later, I just need a little more time.
Please, just be patient a little while longer.
Please.
Thank you, and have a nice day/night, wherever you are in the world.
Quick Edit: I WILL post a new chapter very soon, during this week. But I still have no fully returned, so again, please be patient. :)
END - 0!