Letters Lost in Time - Karl Jacobs

A/N

aaa we've reached the end of this!! this was a great journey im glad we all embarked on. i tried out a lot of new styles of writing here, and i think they turned out really well. this was the first linear ongoing fic i wrote (with Servant of Evil actually being published as a oneshot on AO3, but I had to break up all 13k+ words into segments here because otherwise it would be too long), and the concept of a real deadline was an interesting form of pressure on me honestly. of course, i didn't mind, but it was a whole different kind of experience from just writing oneshots :00

i know we left off at an open ending, and that's honestly how i planned it from the start. however, this isn't the last i'll be writing of time traveler karl or even of this fic's universe. it's indefinite as of now because i have other wips i want to do as well, but i'll definitely be writing something from sapnap and quackity's points of view eventually. im thinking karl's decline from an outside perspective, and some sort of sequel maybe. it's all unplanned as of now, but i'll put all future works related to this in a series so don't worry :DD

now, onto my own ramblings!! karl's descent into madness was particularly interesting to write about both from a first person perspective and a third person perspective. it's a slow decline that all comes to head at the climax, and i think that's a pretty standard progression of events. it's basic, but it works at least. of course, it's not all up in your face. there are some less obvious details ive sneaked in, along with more literary devices. here we go :DD

1. the most obvious things you'll probably notice is the chapter titles and signatures at the end of the entries. karl slowly forgets how many diary entries it's been, and at some point he just entirely gives up on counting them. its the same thing with his name at the end. at some point he questions his name, then forgets his last name, then just doesn't sign it at all. again, these are all just very subtle ways of expressing the decline in his memory over the course of this fic

2. an established theme i bring up often is warmth and cold. karl in this sees warmth as positive and cold as negative, and that's an integral part to a lot of the descriptions in this. for example, quackity and sapnap are often associated with fire and affection meanwhile the inbetween and (to an certain extent) the quarters are associated with ice and loneliness. if we go by that, this line: "That's strange. The metal of this person's armor is cool against his skin, and yet he only feels warmth bubbling up from inside of him." suggests a more helpful resolution because the warmth sapnap provides breaks through the cold sensation :DD

3. im not sure if you noticed, but the narratives at the end of each chapter never refer to karl by name. i always use pronouns instead of his actual name, and from the beginning that establishes the inevitability of karl forgetting his own name. it's also a subtle way to illustrate his self-doubt and self-deprecation, because even in a third-person narrative that follows him, he isn't addressed by name. only quackity, sapnap, and all their previous versions are given a name. this is also suggesting that since he inherently views himself unworthy of being their equal and undeserving of a name, he just forgets it. im not sure if my explanation makes sense, but yeah.

4. while we're on the topic of narratives, the narrative in the eleventh chapter is particularly interesting. at that point, the narrative doesn't even refer to karl until the very end. i don't use his name nor any pronouns, and sentences with actions are structured in such a way that we don't even refer to him specifically and instead use body parts to express it. it's made to be particularly disconnected, and puts even more of a distance between the events in the story and the reader. this is supposed to be an experience we can't understand, and that's why i made it so disconnected in the narrative sense. it's only at the end, when karl is suffering, that we finally get some semblance of a connection.

i think it all turned out great in the end!! tell me what you think in the comments :00 i hope you enjoyed it as much as i did, and thanks for reading once again :DD