jul || they/them || 20+ || brazil || multifandom, currently deep in oc hell || please don't repost my art (ok to use as icon with credit!). twitter & instagram: @chuwuyas_
Hello my dear saioumers, it is I, jul chuwuyas. I wanted to stop by to talk a little bit about c&r since people ask me about it a lot
Unfortunately, to talk about it, I will have to dive into some personal stuff and share some things with you all that I've been keeping to myself for quite some time now and didn't really want to share, but felt like I needed to. So, since some stuff will be kinda, uh... serious? I will put everything under the cut
(TL;DR for those who don't wanna read about my personal life tho: c&r is NOT abandoned, but writer's block is not the only reason why I haven't updated the fic yet (tho it is one of them). I don't know when the hiatus will end. I'm sorry)
(CW for the things under the cut: mental illness, pet death, suicide ideation)
So, to start: yes, writer's block is one of the reasons why c&r is on hiatus. No, I have not been lying about it. I burned out so badly in 2021 that it's Still hard for me to write things that satisfy me because I reached my peak back then and was popping out 5, 6 fics in a month for 7/8 whole months when my usual is/was about 2 or 3 a year (if you check my ao3 page and the dates in which my fics were posted, you'll see that aside from the danganronpa fics, that usually was the case. I'm a slow writer). I'm still recovering. And the universe seems to not want me to.
Last year, around January, I felt like I was finally setting myself free from writer's block. I started writing something for my oc ship (yes, yes, I know. Not c&r. But what can I say? They bring me comfort) and I was so happy with what I got, so inspired to write, I was actually seeing the words on the doc again.
Then, one of my three cats got sick. Then, he died.
It completely broke me in a way I don't think I will ever recover. I was extremely attached to him and I drained all the money I had saved for therapy to try to save him, but it didn't work and I lost my cat, the money, and consequently my mental health. We spent almost an entire month taking him to the vet and bringing him back home because the vet kept telling us he was okay and then he'd get even worse and need hospitalization again, so that was more money spent on him. I had my friends help me with that, and I am immensely grateful even though it didn't work out in the end. Thank you for helping me bring him some comfort on his last days @ friendos.
After he died, a couple of months later, I tried writing again and managed to write a few thousand words, but my mental health still wasn't the best. Then, I started getting some personal problems that I will not talk about here but took a toll on me and shoved me back into the writer's block box, but now with the addition of increasingly growing self-doubt and depressive thoughts that soon turned suicidal.
Then, around September, another cat of mine got sick. And, this time, we didn't have money to help him.
He was my best friend. We basically grew up together (he was 13 and was born when I was 11, so I had him longer than I didn't have him) and I was also extremely attached to him. When he got sick, I would sit down on the floor and talk to him in tears asking him to hold on just until I got a job so I could pay for his bills. I didn't get a job fast enough to help him. It was me who found him, too.
From August to November, things were so bad in my life (between my personal life, my pets' deaths, and family members getting sick) I genuinely caught myself considering ending my suffering. Planning it. Thinking about it every day. Not wanting to wake up. It was a rough period of my life that I made it through alone because I didn't really tell anyone what was going on with me. I wished I could go back to the past. I wished I could change things to make the future not so bad. I'm still caught up in the past and nostalgic for a time that will not come back no matter how much I wish it would. But I pushed it through.
And one of the things that kept me from ending it all was the fact I haven't finished c&r yet.
I didn't wanna go without concluding the story. I didn't wanna go without showing you all what I have planned for the last chapter and how this story will end. So, I started using c&r as some sort of anchor — something to keep me going because I still have something to do on this earth before leaving. I love this story and I don't wanna leave it unfinished. I wanna see your reactions reading the last chapter, the freaking out, the key smashes, the DMs I'll receive, the theories, the fanarts. I love how big this story got and the little fandom it got for itself. People love something that I wrote so much they make art of it! They cosplay the characters, they write things based on it! It's so mindblowing that something like this would ever happen to me, I started telling myself: I can't die until I finish catch & release.
My mental health is way better now and I'm no longer considering suicide (though, ough, it sucks not having a lot of money). I have a job now and can pay for the vet in case my last cat gets sick. My personal life is good now, too, and my relative who's sick is doing a lot better. I have things to look forward to. Things are good now. I'm happy, though I still miss my cats every day.
I am, however, still using c&r as one of my anchors, and I don't know when I will stop doing so. So, for now, the fic is still on hiatus. But it isn't abandoned, and it will never be. I will finish it one day. So, until then, keep bearing with me.
Thank you for reading, and most of all thank you for understanding. I love you all.
Im gonna shill for Marie Kondo again but this is why I find her books (yes, books, the TV show is fun but ultimately misses a lot of the core ideas) so good.
A lot of home org advice fully misses this aspect. Kondo not only acknowledges it, but leans into it. And ultimately this helps motivste me to keep my space tidy - it's really hard to me to keep on the nebulous goal of self-care, but much easier to get up and put things away if I envision my salt and pepper grinders as like, retail workers who are now standing in an empty shop (my dining table) and just wanna go home (the spice rack where they live).
Normie tidying process: that heater should be put away for summer! I mean, I'm not gonna need it
Me: well it's just chilling and also I can't be arsed.
Kondo: that heater has done a good job keeping you warm over winter and now it should get to go have a rest in the cupboard
Me: !! Sabbatical for my heater!! Thank you for your service sir and have a very nice break!
just saw a tiktok or something where the person was saying they did this and they were on a hike and they were like "i managed to get myself to go on this hike because i promised my boots we would go" and its like. OH YEAH. THAT.
diFHIASHFKSJDHKJ YOUR C&R FIC. OHHH MY FUCKING STARS ?????? LITERALLY IN LOVE IWTH IT CAN I KISS YOUR BRAIN IF THATS OKAY. OR JUST GNAW AT THE FIC. GOEHDKJDHVKJBVDBKJBDSVF
HAHAHAHAHHAH THANK YOU!!!!!! I'M GLAD YOU LIKED IT!!!!!!!
Be honest, are you a bad person in any kind of way? I've been finding out about gross stuff that a bunch of blogs I really liked did and I feel icky :(
I’ve been playing so much sudoku. You have no idea how much sudoku I’m playing. Every time I close my eyes I see the grid. I’m making moves in my sleep. 179432568. 653897124. 824516937. 915683742. 246175893. 387249615. 561724389. 498351276. 732968451. This morning before I was fully awake I was playing sudoku in my head. I rise with the dawn. I’m a warrior of numbers. You’re nothing to me.
