Marionette

Update Note - 9th May 2023

Well.

Long time no see.

I know my absence has been an extremely long one this time around, and I have no excuses or explanations that will satiate any concern you all might feel over it. All I have are circumstantial factors that --to me-- contributed greatly to the reason behind it. But fundamentally there's only one real reason and you've probably guessed it.

Simply put: There was a sizeable part of me that didn't want to come back.

Now, please hear me out before you jump to the next conclusion that's probably really fair at this point. Here comes the factors that I mentioned.

For the people that have been here for an extremely long while and seen how long I've been plodding along with my fictions on here, or at least long enough to know a year-long absence doesn't eclipse how long I've really been here to begin with, you've probably guessed it. I'm exhausted. I reached a point that I have next to no motivation for really anything anymore, I go to work irl, I come home, I eat an after midnight dinner (Because my job holds me hostage until well after 11pm at night), go to sleep, and repeat. I don't do any of that painting I used to do anymore, my graphic design has gone on the wayside, and my photography doesn't happen anymore. My motivation is crushed. The ones who have been on here since Marionette was still in Oceans Arc, you all probably remember I was on here 24/7 uploading everything and anything that I was working on.

For those that have only wandered onto here in the past year or less, yes. To you people it looks like I've just upped and abandoned this page. Fair enough. That's a fair assumption considering that you haven't been here for the long haul. That said, that doesn't mean it isn't rude to PM me messages that you're tired of writers abandoning their books among other things. Strangely enough, harassing somebody and complaining that you're mad about the lack of chapters doesn't spark the motivation to suddenly spring up and write the whole rest of a book overnight.

That's not to say it's all been bad. Those that have reached out in support and generally just have been really damn nice, don't stress your comments have been really nice when I've been able to read them. Honestly, I really appreciate it. And honestly it's been so sweet that a number of you really do seem to feel like I should turn this into a profession, or at least should earn something from the amount of work I put into my writing. It means the world to me. Which is why I've been feeling so conflicted with this next part.

Because for the span of people that have been so utterly kind and supportive even in spite of my overall absence, it's ultimately contrasted by the number of people who have since seen that little idea in the comments at the end of Marionette's last chapter and expressed a strong protest against the sentiment. The majority of them of course are new to my work and perhaps have only just read Marionette to its current state of completion, but there's been a handful who have PM'd me not only on here but followed me all the way out to my Instagram Account to raise their concerns with me there when I wasn't answering on Wattpad.

I'm going to answer some of the concerns and questions between both sides of the idea from here.

No, I'm not going to Patreon-lock all my fanfictions. I'm not the kind of person to want to lock a person into a monthy fee just to read something I wrote in a pre-existing fandom. I'm not going to charge people to read something that is based off of somebody elses intellectual property (even if that intellectual property only forms the background and 1/3 of the content to begin with). Even if I wanted to start earning an income from my work as a supplement to my current employment, I wouldn't use a Fanfiction.

"Are you going to open something like Patreon so we can support you?" Not exclusively like Patreon, but for those that just want something to donate towards just to be the gorgeous little souls they are, I've got a "Buy Me a Coffee" to do that. No tie-ins, no ongoing deductions or such, just whatever you want to do with it. I just haven't finished setting it up.