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🎶 Optional Ending Theme: 🎶
Sorry this is delayed. This week has been really chaotic for me-- I went on a pretty useless and pointless field trip on the 29th, which set me WAYYY further behind than I thought it would. And that was even with missing my favorite club afterwards.
I did technically release the chapters before the end of November! It was just really late at night! I have a really chaotic week ahead of me, with homework, filming, yadda yadda. I was hoping to have more chapters out by now, but this is for my sanity. The more time I give myself the better, especially now that I realize I’m late to christmas gifts and a bunch of other stuff.
I’ve been reading back at my author commentary on Chapter 1 after planning out the story much more, and like... Damn, there’s a lot going on here. I think I’m going to stop making statements like “IV.5 isn’t plot centric”, because... I am technically building up to something. I’ll clean up my stance and my author commentaries formally when it’s Winter Break, but right now is not winter break.
A pretty recurring piece of feedback I got is that the length of Chapter 1 by itself was daunting to get through even though it was enjoyable, and when I brought up the idea of splitting them up into separate pages I was met with approval, so we’ll see how it works. Excuse the messy menus, I didn’t really have the time for something fancy. That’s another thing I’m gonna postpone for Winter Break. Please don’t be scared to add/ping/message me on Discord if you find any mislinks in the chapters.
That being said, part of the reason this did take a while was due to unexpected length, so the next few chapters may be shorter, we’ll see how it works. I keep thinking I’m obligated to treat this like a formal Black Autumn part and it keeps screwing with my thought processes. If y’all could see how much of a mess I’ve made formulating and writing ideas, you’d go insane. I haven’t even drawn up the art I’ve been wanting to make for these chapters yet!
This chapter was really fun for me, and I mean it. I love describing characters so much, they’re probably my favorite thing to write next to grand reveals... that should get pretty obvious soon.
Takieddine’s role in the story is going to be pretty minor, but I really loved coming up with him. He came to me late at night before going to bed, I drew him as quickly as possible on my IPad and it was love at first sight. I have some idea of what I’d like to do with him in the future-- it stems from an old idea
This is the first chapter without Bob and Liv, which is... A weird feeling lmao. I feel a bit bad for introducing Sinclair, Monty and Bailey kinda late, but this isn’t the last we’ll be seeing any of them. Far from it! I just have to be careful about how many characters I’m introducing to make sure that there’s not too many jumbled introductions. I’ve been debating on making little character windows so that whenever a character pops up I don’t have to plaster their description all over the place again. Or I’ll make a page dedicated to the characters. We shall see!
The ‘Jon is a part of City Council’ thing was supposed to get introduced in the last chapter, but with Chapter 2 kind of just being in limbo right now I figured this was the next best way to bring that up. I’m sure this is starting to become a little obvious, but while IV.5 is character focused, I also wanted to take some time to look at Sloth’s Pit itself. The ratio of named Foundation employees compared to UAEs and normal citizens combined has always been wildly unbalanced, even when you get into the really one-off characters. And... this is also me trying to figure out the actual layout of Sloth’s Pit. Ihp said that they had a pretty vivid idea of what Sloth’s Pit looked like, but given that they weren’t able to express that to me visually, I’m trying to make do. I also mean that in other regards to Sloth’s Pit’s Identity, but that will come in due time.
The next batch of chapters are going to be pretty low-key for the most part. We’ll be meeting the woman behind the Tin Lizzy of course, but we gotta listen to The Madame here.
I really don’t want to turn these author posts into me just complaining about not being able to juggle things that are going on in my life, but I kinda want a place to say it. The past week hasn’t been easy, and these next few won’t be either. I think about this series on a daily basis, I think I’m going to be putting a lot more time into planning it out. I’ve mostly had a loose framework, and while I’m pretty excited about it, I’m a little scared that it may feel disconnected or like filler. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, or die trying!
Thank you to DarkStuff and rosy saturniidae for suggesting some ideas for what Takieddine has in the Madrasa, and thank you to my critters cerulean warbler and yachiekitcho! I didn’t get to include all the references before the end of the month unfortunately, but they’ll likely be added some time in the future.
Some additional thanks to another handful of people who helped me stay sane while writing this chapter: remiliascarlets, Tyumen, wafflehousefan53, parssee, Liryn, Placeholder McD, raptor6, Jo, Cassandra Prime, chiraruerang, colress, mayuki, LORDXVNV, my therapist, my dog, my parents, And a special thank you to my friend Belle for double-checking the Arabic was properly translated ^u^. I am giving you all little kisses on the forehead!!
I’ll go back and link everybody once I find the time-- there’s also a LOT of people I’m missing. Fret not, I still love you, I am just tired as hell. I may come back and edit this commentary a lot more later.
Oh yeah, I hope everyone likes the touch regarding the ending themes!
Works Referenced/Quoted:
- Shakespeare's Pericles
nomoretears
12/1/2022
October 3rd is...
Iraq's Day of Independence
World Architecture Day
Butterfly Day
Day of Unity
National Boyfriend Day (USA)
Mean Girls Appreciation Day
Stevie Ray Vaughan's Birthday
Rumors (Fleetwood Mac) Becomes Certified Diamond
25th Ward: Silver Case Release Date (Japan)
Madoka Kaname's Birthday
Doremi Day
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