|| LANDING || ABOUT || STORY HUB ||
Bar broken. Wesbite still under construction!
Chapters Come When They Come!!!!
May 28th, 2023
Hey hey! Still alive! I don't have much to say, except for the fact I'm going to have considerably more free time and energy now, as I finally graduated! I'm exhausted, it still doesn't feel real, and I haven't forgotten about this project for a second. The last few weeks of highschool were just an absolute ride, and while it doesn't mean any of my other IRL priorities are out of the way, it does mean that I finally can gather the time and energy I wanted to continue this project.
Thank you all again so much for reading! Sorry again for the short update, I promise it's with reason!
April 23rd, 2023
I AM STILL ALIVE. I AM STILL ALIVE. I don't feel like it, but nonetheless, I am still alive.
It's been a plan for a while now to release chapters in 'segments', but no chapter is in a place right now where I feel confident doing that yet. And the chapters where it does feel right... admittedly have a bit too much plot progression than I'm comfortable with.
School is tiring. I'm preparing for AP Exams, and then after that I'm preparing a bit more for finals, doing a bunch of other projects... Not to mention the fact that the staff at my school are finally acknowleding that my senior year has been a lot rougher than it's been for other graduating classes. Fun. Very fun. Not exhausting at all. school so bad im yearning for goddamn junior year like oh my god i dont even have an entire month left.
I also picked up Limbus Company late last month, suffice to say I've been pretty obsessed with it and I'm happy that I finally have another mutual interest I can share with a bunch of my friends (I love S&C, but I need a breather sometimes). Maybe I'll get into it more during an author commentary. But oh my god. Nobody reading this will ever understand just how estatic I was when I saw Gregor for the first time. He looks EXACTLY like ROBERT!!!!!!!!!!! IF S&C AND LC WERE LIVE ACTION PRODUCTIONS THEY WOULD BE PLAYED BY THE SAME ACTOR IM NOT EVEN KIDDING.
TLDR; still hard at work. But I've had to put working on IV.5 to the side on more than one occasion because everything is demanding my time and attention. I've been meaning to write this update for weeks now but I just didn't have the mental energy. There's only so much complaining I can do.
March 16th, 2023
CHAPTER 4 IS REAL NOW. IT HAS TWO PAGES AND AUTHOR COMMENTARY!
I technically finished it earlier in the month, but I wanted to run it by critters/beta readers, and I'm also swarmed with other responsibilities now more than usual.
I don't have much to say, I'm currently getting squished between a dog and a pillow and my fingers are getting tired of constantly getting cracked. For real, I'll talk later, or you can read the author commentary. THANK YOU FOR TUNING IN AND READING!! I hope whoever is reading this is having a wonderful afternoon!
Finale of Self-Aware Gnome Alyx is great, btw!
March 7th, 2023
I'M STILL ALIVE!!
Rest assured, I have NOT given up on this project and I don't intend to. I've just had a lot of priorities that have both kept me from updating the site and writing. I value my future. I had a really productive and social February school-wise, at the cost of being dreadfully unenriched mentally, alongside trying to figure out my plans for the rest of S&C in general.
I don't have any chapters done yet, because I've been working on building them up bit by bit. You know it's serious when nothing is done yet but there's still 35k words. Sometimes I wish I wasn't working on this alone.
This is just a status update. I got shit going on in life >_<
New chapters coming soon!
January 8th, 2023
Happy New Year, People!!
It's going to be a while until I make any significant progress... I had a pretty awful start to the year and the end of 2022 was chaotic enough as was. New to my list of priorities is taking care of a puppy with mild Distemper. He's doing better because his case is mild and the folks at the shelter caught it early (We're fostering), but my demons have kind of returned alongside taking care of him. This isn't a case of me just falling out of love with IV.5, it's a case of me living an unecessarily chaotic life. There's a lot of edits I still need to make and a lot of friends I've been meaning to text and catch up with. I'm just dealing with a lot.
I really do feel like a lot of this is me making excuses even though IV.5 isn't my only creative priority (even though I've been thinking about it constantly and I literally fantasize about working on it), not to mention the fact I am dealing with trying to figure out my future these next five months. I've got a lot of stuff on my radar, making some much more thorough plans for writing to ensure that chapters get written a little quicker than before. I will finish this. I won't do all 31 chapters, because I'm not fucking crazy, but I will finish this! Chances are chapters aren't going to be as recurring as I thought, but I'm going to try! It's not demotivation, it's just my life!!
A little space to ramble real quick:
I watched the CSM finale with my cousin, it was great! I'm really excited to see it continue and it absolutely deserved the love it got. I also realized how much of a fucking doofus I was for not consistently catching up with Mob Psycho Season 3-- I went into it blind with a vague idea as to what was going to happen in the finale and with Dimple and BOY am I happy.
Aside from the rough start, my 2023 is fine, I guess. Last year wasn't dogshit, but I'm going to try to make this year better nonetheless.
Again, Happy New Year, and thank you for stoppin by! :D
December 17th, 2022
Wow, did not intend to make this 10 days later.
Thank you all for 5k views! I'm not super crazy about view counts, but it makes me happy that people are at least peeping the site.
I'm going to be busy next week clearing up the last of my finals and taking care of X-Mas presents, but I still haven't forgotten about this series. I've been doing planning to compensate for the fact progress is so slow, but life happens. I don't know how people find the time to write as they get older.
I'm hoping to be releasing much more chapters after Christmas. There's been some things I've been really looking forward to writing that I just haven't been able to follow up on yet, and I'm hoping that I can reasonably juggle chapters with the making of some X-Mas gifts in the coming week. Sorry again for the slow output. To say I think about IV.5 on a daily basis would be an understatement.
I don't have a concrete plan on what I want to study yet, but I absolutely think being in college will make writing update-to-update like this easier compared to the total ass-backwards schedules of highschool. That being said, I've been accepted to even more colleges in the meantime! And I have yet to recieve a rejection!!
I have another thing I have on my horizons--I have this tradition of redrawing a specific piece of Dr. Sinclair at the end/beginning of the year to document how my art skills have developed. I don't think my artistic ability has taken the huge leap it took between 2020 to 2021 this year, but I'm happy with what I've created nonetheless. I'm excited to show it when it's done!
Thank you all again for checking the site! It means the world to me. ^u^
December 7th, 2022
Thank you for nearly 5k views on the site!
I'm sorry again for my abscence and minimal updates. It's the same old thing again: school and mental issues are keeping me from keeping consistency.
I don't have much to say, aside from..
Chapter 2 is available as well, I just haven't gotten a ton of progress with it. Finals are coming up and it's time I deal with other responsibilities. I have the outline for Chapter 4 done, and Chapter 11.. Chapter 11 may as well be my favorite chapter! I may post it not too long after Chapter 4, depending on how much progress I get done.
I'm also setting my sights on potentially getting the art I wanted to make done. For how much IV.5 has been on my mind, I wish life wasn't so complicated so I could be done with it.
I know this is a very mild update, but it has to be. I made a late realization as to how big of a commitment IV.5 has been for me.
Thank you all again for keeping up and staying posted with the work. I'm trying to have fun while also trying to make some kind of quality output. My progress is just going to slow down a bit with school and all. I'll talk more soon!
November 25th, 2022
I'M NOT DEAD MY UPDATE RATE IS JUST REALLY EMBARASSING
I know I've said time and time again I'm writing IV.5 for myself, but I have to admit I feel bad for my slow update rate.
I'm going to be releasing a small portion of Chapter 2 and the entirety Chapter 3 soon!
Bear with me on this... I spent about 2 or 3 weeks trying to write Chapter 2, constantly restarting it, fighting myself over how to write it. When I came across a descision I liked that made it easier to write I STILL Got nowhere. I decided, very late into the game, 'screw it! Let's try writing Chapter 3 since we have a couple of other scenes for the future written out already... and BOOM. I got more work done on Chapter 3 in a little less than 2 hours than I had with Chapter 2 for 2-3 weeks. Writing, everybody!!
I've been busy with stuff such as... giving a shit about my mental health, motivation, maintaining relationships with family and friends, actually hanging out with family and friends, going to my first ever concert (thank you again kevin you were wonderful), school projects and grades (in absolute awe and jealously of people who say they're bored and have nothing to do over thanksgiving break what the hell), working on a speech being presented in front of 800 people including several members of my family who have known me since diapers, preparing for college (since last time I've gotten accepted to one more college... It was my top college for a long time so I'm very happy, I have yet to get rejected from anything!), touching grass, and generally having a life. Writing is hard. It helps when you're excited for it and having fun, but it doesn't make dealing with everything else in your life much easier, and when you hit that good ol block it hurts.
I'm going to be reformatting Chapter 1 soon (I'll be creating a 'page' system-- Chapters will be the same, but they'll just be sectioned up a bit. A big piece of feedback I got after Ch 1 was just how long it felt to read and how it probably wouldn't have been hard to get through if the chapter was just broken up. I'm not intentionally making these chapters long, I'm just writing as I see fit to tell the story I'm trying to tell.
If it compensates, I've been doing LOTS of future planning, even outside of IV.5-- a lot of the ideas I'm currently accumulating may be seen on the SCP Wiki next time I talk about them, and will likely have foreshadowed bits here in IV.5! I made a pretty big but much improved change to the character behind the wheel of the Tin Lizzy, and you'll hear much of it in the ~60% done Chapter 3, if that's any testament! I'm telling y'all... Cellphone notes apps are the backbones of our society. I've also been considering an unofficial soundtrack or score... If you've read Chapter 1 already, you absolutely know one of the big songs already LOL.
I'm sure the amount of foreshadowing vs the amount of answers that get answered is a valid concern, but trust me when I say I just love reveals just as much if not more than the mysteries prior to the reveals themselves.
After December and towards Christmas Break, please expect updates to speed up somewhat. (Expect them to be slow for a hot sec too, because, er... finals...) The next chapters will absolutely be out before the end of the month. I'll actually be heading to a cafe after I post this to get another big portion of it done.
Thank you again for checking out the site! Have a wonderful day! PEACE!!
November 5th, 2022
Thank you for 4k views on the site!
Life is... busy as always. I made the mistake of thinking that I'd be having a bit more free time this month and December, but then I got blasted in the face with a bajillion other things.
I'm having a snail's pace of progress with Chapter 2. I may post the intro so far later today or tomorrow, and start posting chapters a little out of order. This is probably a good place to remind people reading this that, hey, BA IV.5 is pretty episodic. Yeah, there's an overarching story, but I'm writing chapters so that if you just jump in blind, you'll still understand what's going on.
I do want to at least add some sort of buffer, though... I don't wanna make it seem like we're time traveling here, but I dunno if I'm gonna have a choice, what with having mental issues regarding energy and attention and IRL demands. I'm sorry if I sound tired, it's because I am.
On a good note, I got accepted to at least one college!! It's a party school, but it means I have some kind of backup. I'm excited!
October 31st, 2022
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! LETS GET SPOOKY!!!
I'm sorry for my many abscences. I've been dealing with a lot of stuff personally- the past couple of days have been especially rough. I'm finishing up the last of my college applications... and I've been working to try to promote this site on other places, I just haven't gotten around to it because of the chaos going on in my personal life.
If by any chance I will have successfully promoted this as intended: Hello, visitors!! Please check out the menu above: the 'About' section can give you more information on what this site is for, and the 'Story Hub' is exactly what it sounds like! I'll be doing lots of cleanups in the coming weeks, not just story upates. Thank y'all so much for checking the place out!
If you're worried about my inconsistent updates and catching up with them: Don't worry! I'll be making some update posts as well, to notify people of new chapters and such. And thank you to everybody who's checking back!
Rest assured, this series is still a go-go! I'm quite certain it won't take as long as BA IV did-- scratch that, I'm absolutely certain. Apologies for repeating that constantly. It's less out of an urge to tell everybody else and moreso to reassure and recenter myself on my personal goals here.
Anyways, to nobody's surprise, I'm going as Tofflemire this Halloween!! I'll show photos in another update, but me and my dad had fun working on his jacket. I thought his sleeves were going to be a pain in the ass-- it was actually the yellow circle on his left breast that was a bit more anxiety inducing, especially considering the frayed ends.
A lesser known fun fact.. I went as Monty last year! ..However, I rewore it not that long ago, so... I'll probably show off both of those photos once we're a bit into November. Monty's cloak is SUPER fun (and quite a lot more accurate to my original design of him compared to what was depicted in SCP-6500) to just walk around and wear because it's so floaty, and Tofflemire's jacket does exactly the job I wanted it to do in making him look sporty and perfect for combat but also perfect to hang out in. It's more or less his off-duty clothes than his actual uniform. I have a confession to make: I have been struggling with how to depict Site-87 uniforms since I first got into S&C. I've made a lot of advancements recently, I literally coined an entirely new idea last night. Now if only my drive to do art can return to me in one piece so I can show it off appropriately....
Oh, Chicken Smoothie update! (they put WHAT in their smoothies?!?)
I GOT THE BIG RATTIPEDE AND DRAGON RATTIPEDE!!!!
Pet's name: Bullet
Pet's name: Iori
suck it nerds!!!!!!! the rng gods have blessed me!!!! except for the big rattipede tho. i got that guy thru a trade.
Anyways, a proper chapter should be coming up soon these next couple of weeks.
October 27rd, 2022
GOOD MORNING/EVENING SOLDIERS!! I HAVE GREAT NEWS!!
THE SITE NO LONGER LOOKS UGLY AS HELL ON MOBILE!!!!!!!!!!!1
Which means, in the future, it'll be much easier to add art onto the chapters! Albeit my art output is at an absolute snail's pace right now, it should hopefully be ramping back up soon.
As a general status update (1, because I like to ramble, 2, because while I am writing BA IV.5 for myself, I like to talk about what's got me busy) I do want to take some time to ramble.
I've been doing great on the ChickenSmoothie Halloween event, but I've only gotten the PPS Rattipede from the banner, which I totally forgot was possible because I'm hardly ever on CS anymore... the Halloween pets this year feel weirder than pervious years, but that may be a recency bias thing. The artists have done amazing! I'm sure Concept is happy at the evolution of chaos regarding banner pets, lol. One second everyone's fighting over the Rattipedes and then the dragon pops up and everyone's at everyone's throats. I love pixel animal economies. It's like TF2 Hats with extra steps and with even more trans people.
Pet's name: Geronimo
i love him...
Regarding minor updates, real quick: There likely won't be too many site updates the following days, since I'm trying to figure out Halloween stuff, on top of taking care of school stuff, both Highschool and College-related. I think I'm going to start to promo the site tomorrow.
Not much else aside from that, my motivation is being really slow right now, and my assignments aren't helping.
Oh, while we're here.... This is going to sound weird to anybody who didn't already hear it. Thank you to my utmost beloved father for providing some valluable corrections to some weird grammatical stuff in CH. 1!! I still need to add some of them in, but hey, he likes IV.5 so far. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thank you again for reading!
October 23rd, 2022
Status update!
This site hit 3k views, thank y'all so much for checking the place out and reading! My slow progress is a necessary evil. It's actually really helped me to get more time to work on it without crunching it out: I came to a really important realization about my approach to the next chapter. It's stupid! Having more time to mull it over is really going to make it better in the long run.
I've had one pretty silly anxiety while writing IV.5, and it's that it "doesn't feel 'SCP' enough". But. Like. On god. Have y'all seen anything on the SCP site. Shit's all over the place, it's great. Saying that because the people who say that don't realize just how limiting their perceptions of what SCP is really doesn't work in the lens of such a diverse creative community, in the sense that every single person is going to want to write different things in different ways... myself obviously included.
I rather I feel like this series isn't "SCP enough" as opposed to treating it like a chore or slaving myself away trying to make as many connections and crossovers to try to mend that or dig too far into tropes. I know I said in the 'About' section that I'd be making some crossovers, and that's still true in some regards, I do want to carry them out, but trying to figure out what to write in the chapters I don't already have concrete ideas for is hard enough.
SHIT. Just noticed that I haven't pointed out the main gimmick of this part already. March of the Gladiators starts playing. Love thinking out loud while typing. It's the closest I'll get to having a stream of conciousness that thinks in full sentences. Yeah, newsflash to my, like, 13 year old self, aparently writers depicting characters thinking in full sentences wasn't a narrative device!
Patch notes for Chapter 1 consist of...
- Typos and grammatical errors got cleaned up
- Credits in author commentary updated
- HAPPY DAY!! (See Author Commentary)
May seem minimal, but I'm way happier with the changes.
Speaking of Chapter 1...
I can't give a ETA for Chapter 2, but I'm working on it. Chapters after that I'm a little worried about admittedly. I don't want to stress myself out over writing IV.5, especially considering I just finished applying for five colleges today, but I'm not going to abandon it. The baby will update when it's ready! Which shouldn't be that surprising to people who know me. 'Cause even when I don't talk about S&C, it is always on my mind. I shit you not, I can't remember the last time I drew characters from another series aside from maybe Reimu Hakurei and Tohru Adachi.
Also, I've finally gotten some leisure time! After yachiekitcho, Jo and other friends badgering and rambling to me about it, I decided to give Chainsaw Man a try! And as expected, it's really good, and I enjoy it very much! It's a bit grittier than stuff I'd usually take a liking to, and while I'm having a hard time try to decipher why it's different in the case of CSM, I am without a doubt enjoying the ride. It's fun, it's different, it's a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the anime industry's output.
When's the last time we saw something like it? My money's on Madoka, I think. Fujimoto seems a lot more likeable than Urobuchi, so that's also a definite plus. I always get nervous flocking to super popular properties, but CSM deserves the love it's been getting, as far as I can tell. I am also 100% seeing the experimental style of CSM really blending and mixing in with my other inspirations for BA IV.5.
(while I'm here, since Jo will kill me if I don't: please stop ignoring Santa Claus in your 'CSM Girls' doodles. Give her the love she deserves. She is very pretty. I am a sucker for eldritch women. That may or may not be a teaser for things to come.)
Oh shit! That reminds me, I should definitely be catching up with Mob Psycho too!
...I should also maybe talk about the things that inspired this (unofficial) contiuation, aside from the core Black Autumn series. There's this one album in particular, and another story I steamrolled in about 2 days... I'll wait for the right chapter to talk about it.
TLDR: I have some busy days ahead of me, but I won't be forgetting about this series at all whatsoever! Also, I'm learning to have fun again, and that's nice!
Mini Update, 10/26/2022:
...I can't believe I only just noticed that the old link for the 'Read Chapter Here' thing didn't work. I'm genuinely so embarassed. Please be patient with me, this week has already been quite overwhelming. I'm currently working on a promo poster, so my progress is slowing more than I'm comfortable with... I have a hunch that I'll be getting a lot more done once we're in November and December. Yes, I know, it's called Black Autumn... Then again, BA IV took a year, and I'm literally writing this while juggling my entire future...
I'll likely make this a new, seperate update in a bit. Thank you again for reading!
October 21st, 2022
CHAPTER 1 IS UP!!!! BITCHES!!!!1
Phew!!! It'll definitely being go through some clean-ups, but god, I'm happy it's done. I don't want to spoil too much (regarding both the story and my author commentary), but there's a new girl in town... and it looks like Colonel Tofflemire isn't a huge fan of her, for whatever reason. No idea what's up with that guy. Off topic, my own beloved father is very much a car guy himself.
(And... expect lots of cleanups to the format, once I get comfy with HTML again :PPPP)
Feedback is much appreciated! I'm considering setting up a guestbook or investigating other code some more so that people who don't want to add me on discord can give their two cents.
Thank you so much for tuning in, I can't believe this site is already close to 3k visits.
October 10th, 2022
There are many consequences to trying to write while having mental issues and also a busy life. I'm worried that that's gonna be all I talk about, but hey, trying to assert the fact I'm still trying to work on the series that this site was made for. Also, I'm too lazy to update the progress bar right this moment. No development hell here, I fully intend to finish the series, it's just hard being a Highschool Senior when I'm also trying to account for virtually every other facet of my life. I'm saying December for an estimated finish because my college concerns should be clear. I'm writing this both out of passion and for fun, so I'm not going to rush things.
That being said, it's officially been two years that I have been able to call myself an S&C Fan! On this day in 2020, I messaged Ihp on Wikidot for the first time. Shit happened fast!
Addendum: Happy Birthday Reigen Arataka! I watched the first episode of MP100 With my best friend, love it so far!!
October 7th, 2022
Phew!
Life has been hell, and I've been trying to tackle all of my IRL responsibilities while also making this site and planning out the series parts. Why is October such a stressful month suddenly?
This site is definitely going to undergo some cleanup in the mean time- especially considering how awful it looks on mobile. I'll be working on it, I swear! I never really got into coding before making this site, if that's any good defense. It'll definitely look nicer in the future once I get a chance to make it look nice and pretty. The site's functional right now, though, so .
I'm still working on polishing a lot of aspects of the plot-- I anticipate I'll finish the series entirely by December, we'll see how good my word is on that!
Thank you so for your patience and for taking looks at the site in the meantime!! It means the world to me!
