MCSM: Shattered Souls [COMPLETED]

•Afterword•

Hellooooooo everyone, and thank you very much for reading this to the end. I hope you enjoyed the story, and I greatly appreciate your support. 

This is the third MCSM fanfiction I've actually finished, and ended up being possibly the most fun to write. I started it on June 29th, 2017, and even though I took a few hiatuses from it here and there, I was determined to finish it on the one-year mark. I almost ended up officially discontinuing it towards the end of August 2017, but was thankfully talked out of that decision.

I don't quite remember what inspired me to start this, actually. It may have just been me being mad at the MCSM fanbase and deciding to write a fanfic on a whim, because that's what I do.

I got a lot more absorbed in this story than I thought I would, though I guess that's a good thing. It was a lot of fun to create personalities and backstories for the Shards, and I was a little sad to be killing some of them.

...of course, there was also a few deaths I'd planned out waaaaay in advance and couldn't wait to write ahah-

Shattered Souls is kind of a conglomeration of the darker things I'm into.

I like freaky monsters. I like impending death and knowing that there's only gonna be one survivor. I like hopelessness. I like already knowing how a story's going to end and still being upset when it goes exactly as I predicted. I like impossibilities becoming real. I like creepy details. I like connections. I like perfect imperfections. I like unrequited love. I like characters being conflicted over who they are and what they want. I like dredging up unknown pasts. I like sowing seeds that become big horrible plot-flowers. I like things that make little to no sense. I like red herrings. I like ideas that go spinning out of control and create new ideas in their wake.

I tried to put little bits of all of this into SS (some bits being not quite as little as others hehe), and I hope I succeeded.

What I'm trying to say is, this story was a shit ton of fun to write, especially the darker, gorier, death-ier parts.

At 56, 500+ words, 6.06K reads, and 27 chapters, it's not as long or popular as some of my other stuff, but it was certainly less stressful, and I'm very proud of the end result nonetheless. I mean, chapter-wise it's a lot longer than AWU, but not in chapter length.

This was actually one of the only things I've tried to do where I just write, not maniacally plan it out to the last detail. That ended up...not...working so great towards the end, as I was kinda writing blind. I ended up reverting back to my 'make a detailed plan' thing for the last few chapters, but hey, it was worth the experiment. I got a little stuck on the last couple chapters actually; after all the adventure and chaos, it got a little difficult to write normal conversations haha

Writing this was definitely an adventure, and even though there's some parts I had to go back and change, I think it's safe to say that I'm proud of the result.

Kudos to GennaJ8232 for Jaq's death, giving me name ideas, for tolerating my insane rambling, and for generally being the best friend ever; to my little sister Alicia for pestering me constantly and letting me awkwardly read aloud to her to help me edit; to my mom for giving me gross details about snakebites and poison and stab wounds; to itwasAidensfault for convincing me to keep working on this after I considered discontinuing it, and just for being wonderful (rip, I love you); to Mr. Keeline for letting me type during technology, and of course to all of my readers, for giving me the support I needed and making me laugh with your bizarre comments.

Last year, when I first published this A/N, I mentioned a sequel that was going to be called Reflected Ruin. Now, it's been several months since I was planning to post said sequel, and I think it's safe to say that it's just not happening.

However, if you're new here and you want to read more of my stuff, I'd suggest Parallels, No Rest for the Wicked, Complications, Unlikely, Petra's Escape, or my short stories book.
A World Unwound and Forgotten Demons both exist as well, but the former is pretty old and the latter is on hiatus, so I'm not sure if I'd recommend either of those haha

If you've got the time, I'd greatly appreciate hearing some feedback on this story. As you already know, I worked a long time on this, and I'd love to hear what you think of the full thing now that it's completed (and edited). You don't have to write a full review or anything (though you could if you want to??), I just wanna know where I could improve and where I did okay ¯\_ツ_/¯

Thanks again for reading!!

-Rush