hey everyone
I wanted to update everyone here who follows me, who have read my fic, and who periodically send me asks or leave me kind comments on my fic hoping for an update and hoping I'm alright. I'm doing well! I'm actually doing much better right now than I think i have in years.
in july 2024, about 2 months after my last chapter update on all the ashes in my wake, I actually dropped out of university. it was a long time coming, honestly. university wasn't working out for me, and it was really stupid and very stubborn of me to try and make it work. I barely turned in any assignments and failed my first year and went ahead and repeated it, to nearly the same result. it was bad enough that it was starting to seriously impact my mental and physical health. I started having frequent anxiety attacks that got progressively more severe as well as major depressive episodes, to the point where, for about three months I could barely get myself out of bed to eat and get to class. I knew it was bad, I knew what was causing all of this, but I didn't really know what to do about it except push through until I literally couldn't anymore. and then I admitted to myself and to my parents that I couldn't keep doing this, and that clearly, university wasn't for me. and I dropped out.
since then, things have been getting better. I actually started working in a bakery! I'm a pastry chef now, which I never thought would be something I'd ever be doing professionally. I can honestly say that dropping out was the best decision i could have made. I've been feeling so much lighter than i have in actual years.
and in all that time, I have not updated this fic, even though I would sporadically work on the upcoming chapter, and I'd tell myself "this time, I'll sit down and finally write it". and then that became "I'll finish this chapter when things in my life wind down, when I find the time". I never did, and slowly, I started writing less and less as my interests shifted, and I started writing and posting for new fandoms.
I want to say before I write anything else: I am NOT abandoning this fic and I am not discontinuing it. I still care for this story very deeply, I still love the characters, the fandom and the very lovely people i met here. I still have a story to tell, and I still want to tell this story. but this fic was written during a very low point in my life, and I'm not going to lie and say that it's been easy picking this story back up, because much of it was a way for me to cope with all of this, to process all of these feelings, because there was literally nobody else in my life I could talk to about it.
and, as I said before, my interests have shifted. I slowly stopped engaging with the fandom as much as I used to, and my interest in it was already starting to drop even before i stopped updating this fic.
I will finish this fic, because I want to. I haven't responded to the more recent comments, but most of them are very sweet, and I absolutely love seeing how many people love this fic, and wait for an update, and wish me well. you alone are the reason still think about this fic, and this fandom in general, so fondly. because this community is full of very kind people, and I've personally received almost nothing but love and compassion from you guys, and you really have no idea how much this genuinely means to me. how much this meant to me when my mental health was at its lowest.
I'm sorry i can't tell you when I'll pick this fic back up again, all I can really say is that this is a project I care far too much about to abandon. and also, more simply, I don't want to abandon it. I had so much fun with it, I had so much fun writing it, and sharing bits of it on tumblr, or with my friends. I still can't believe how many hits and kudos and comments it's received since I first started posting. I read every single comment I receive in my inbox on this fic, I love every single one of them.