Convergence

A thank-you note

Hi, everyone. My name is Belle. Some people call me Spyret. I've been the author of the Spyretverse stories since five months ago, if you're reading this on March 9th, 2023.

I started writing Deeper Walls in early November of 2022. Earlier that year, my life had been turned completely upside down, and there was no foreseen way I'd get over it. Still haven't. So, one day, I came up with a small little doodle of a kid(?) who liked gaming and wore a blue gamer shirt from Walmart, based off Berdly from Deltarune. I gave them hair so puffy, it drooped over their eyes, and just for fun, I made sure they never spoke in contractions. I called them Morgan, and later, I'd use this design for another character, already deciding to use it in a story.

Of course, I'd been really into Deltarune at the time, and still sort of am, so I got to thinking about the plot. Two kids who really dislike each other fall into a world of characters based off objects and come out friends by the end of it.

Holy shit.

So, that day, in my notebook, where the doodles of my character called Morgan were, I wrote "I have a plan" and didn't update further.

Around that time, I'd already decided that I wanted to make a game. So, I thought out an idea, and built a story around it. I gave Morgan's name to the second main character, and their design to a deuteragonist. I created a boy made out of fire who represented a fireplace, and several other things I'd like to fit in a world of my own. I even wrote a menu theme for the game, which, if you ask for it, I might let you listen to. Though it is awfully repetitive.

I made sprites for Morgan and Riley, which still remain on my school Chromebook, and built a room. Then, my Game Maker crashed. Being the nihilistic piece of shit that I was, I gave up on the idea of making a game around it. I remembered something my best friend told me not too long before: "When it doubt, write it out." So, I wrote it out.

How would it feel to have to mush a family together out of nowhere? I already knew the answer to that question from personal experience. It sucked. But, looking at the family I'd had for nine years now, it seemed to work out. So, I started from the meeting of Morgan and Riley. Being completely honest, I put myself into these characters. Morgan and Riley are a mixed-up jumble of me. My emotions, my mannerisms, my appearance, mushing them together would make me. A white ginger kid with pronouns and a pretty blue jacket. Also, I really like purple.

Writing the end of this story, I knew I couldn't keep it to myself. I had to let someone other than my best friends read it, because even I thought it was decent. So, I went to my old Wattpad account, separated the story into chapters, and posted it all. Friends of mine made a fan server, and things were going great.

Then, I got another idea, inspired by Stranger Things and Portal 2. I was hopping from hyperfixation to hyperfixation, things that instilled hope in me when real life couldn't. I made it known that I was writing another story, and that, eventually, it would connect itself to Deeper Walls. I stayed focused on those characters so much that I didn't want to let them go, so I made the decision a week after Deeper Walls went up to start writing a story called Matilda and Nick, one set in the future.

I created Nick, Matilda, Alistair and Wylie, and started from there. I already knew how it was going to end when I started, and I already knew that the character of Wylie was going to betray the group and kill Alistair. I had no idea that, later, I'd bring them all back, so the deaths hit hard for me, especially since I was going much more violently with killing them off. I was shoving my own trauma in these stories to cope with it, and it was... working? Well, it was taking my mind off of it, that was for sure.

And then, when Matilda and Nick was done, I already knew I wanted to do Little Weirdos. I wanted a Lemony Snicket-esque type writing for this story, especially since it features kids who are just a bunch of little weirdos. The day M&N ended, I wrote the names of the characters Zoey, Benny, Mason and Luke in my notebook, and wrote their descriptions. I knew Zoey would be the one to create the realm behind the walls, and I knew the warlock would be her father, Mike. However, what I didn't know is that Luke's only personality trait would be eating glue. That came naturally to me.

Zoey has an abusive mother. It's never been stated in canon, but her name is Charity, purely for cruel irony. Charity kills Mike, and ends up killing her daughter. She's given death row, I promise. But I made this decision not for personal reasons, but to show that this universe isn't perfect. It's proven in other stories, but even in this where discrimination and prejudice exists not, there's still horrible people. It's inescapable. If it weren't for Zoey, Mike, and Charity Ansley, my stories would have never happened.

When Little Weirdos was halfway over, I went to a diner not far from my house on a windy day, and I looked out on the street at flags flapping up and down and wind chimes making music out of shitty weather. Waiting on my food and my company, I stared out the window, dreamed of a character who could control the wind, and dreamed of ending my Spyretverse in a way only befitting to the way I started it.

With my characters. The ones I'd spent weeks thinking about, months drawing for, days crying over. They all needed to come back and have their final moments, the moments I stole from them. They all could have it now, if I could just find a way to make it happen.

And then, Convergence sparked in my mind. An adult Nick, leading the scientific world into a new age, wishing they didn't have to. Ella walks into their life, and the rest is history.

I knew Ella was going to die, and my original plan was to leave her fate and Nick's ambiguous at the end. "Are they alive? Are they dead?" Questions I'd never answer. But that would have gone against what I wanted for my characters, and for my dedicated friends who'd been sticking with me all this time. A happy ending.

So, Nick adopted Ella. A found family became a real family.

I also knew Matilda and Alistair had to kiss in the way they did. It was only implied in M&N, that Alistair had a heavy crush on Matilda. And Matilda would never like him back the way he was, so he needed to go through some serious character development. As such, he's one of my most profound characters to this day.

I will miss this world. I'll miss dreaming of new moments with everyone. Which is why I'm not stopping here. I have at least four spinoffs fully planned out, and seven in mind.

I don't know when I'm going to let this universe alone. The overall story is over, and we've had some amazing times and made some amazing friends (and art). But, to quote my favorite author,

"Sometimes a chapter might end, but that doesn't mean that the story is over. And some stories go on, even after the storyteller has stopped telling them."

Lemony Snicket said that. And then a million other people said it, and it made its way back to me.

My name is Belle. Some people call me Spyret. I am fifteen years old, and I am the writer of the Spyretverse.

Thank you for sticking with me. Let me know how the sun looks from your end.

--Spyret (bellepeper91)