So I love this story but have no compelling way to finish writing it...
I've been kinda stuck in a loop whenever I approach writing this final chapter of trying to work out how to make the dinner with the triad revealing the existence of Sylph as an alien and the offer of joining up with The Consensus.
I thought of maybe having David accept but have an allergic reaction to the brain fungus, but that didn't feel all that interesting and kinda being mean to my characters for emotional effect.
I thought of having some escalation of human contact attempts with the aliens, but that just gets into more of the fun I want to do with the sequel story, Help! I Think My Mainframe's in Love.
I thought of just having a nice dinner and evening goes well. The triad accepts Sylph, everyone hugs and cries. They decide to just join via the internet connection with maybe doing brain fungus later if they want. The full fluff ending, but I just couldn't find the executive functioning to actually write it out.
Ultimately, this is my first ever creative writing for others to read and was written without any overall story outline. If I ever were to do a rewrite, I'd probably do a combo fluff ending with the whole satellite blinking at the biosphere for the first time cliffhanger ending setting up the sequel 5 years later with the fallout from that in full effect. Overall, I'm super happy with this story as is. I'm also very in favor of accepting how my neurodivergent brain is probably never gonna find a compelling reason to just sit down and finish this chapter, so ending it like this.
A huge thank you for all the readers that have enjoyed and commented on my work, and being able to move past this last chapter I think will free up brain to work more on the next story which I'm still very excited about❣️
While I am sad that we won't be getting a true ending to this amazing tale, I am excited to see more in this setting. I'll miss the characters, though. Everything about them was so wholesome and fluffy, it was pure joy to read. Thank you.
Yeah I'm kinda sad too. Brain is just all, "nope, not allowed to finish" and I've not worked out a good way to trick myself into it🤷
Even tried some of the GPT based AI co-writing things and it's just not going 😜
all caught up & refreshed! and yea i totally understand where you're coming from, shit's hard n i don't blame ya. best of luck going forward with whatever you decide to do!!
I binged this story in a single evening, it's got so many concepts and topics that resonate deeply with us..
we really want a magical emotion sync hack like the fungus, it would be a invaluable tool to RA / poly relationships.. and we like shrooms that expand your mind :P
we love the reaction to the ship of Theseus and philosophy of the aliens
we love how your writing feels ADHD in how it goes on small tangents at a time, it makes it very engaging to read, I could not put down my phone for the last 7 hours.. and we learned a bunch of small things..
and new takes on everyday sights.. like lawns.. we thought of them to just be a waste of space and time.. but the context of social posturing shines a even worse light on the whole concep xD
we loved the intimate scenes, the emotional weight did more for me than anything else could have ...
we like how you share your intentions of the writing.. and leave the ending of the novel open ended..
at least until I get stuck reading about a lovestruck mainframe it seems.. we want to dive into this world again..
and that's all before mentioning how adorably queer and relatable all the main cast is.. just.. hehdhdjskfgbdkdhffnfjfk...
I read your comment as I was getting ready for bed last night and had the biggest smile on my face afterwards. Thank you so much and I'm super happy you enjoyed everything❣️
Thank you so much for writing this! Tbh, this ending isn't that catastrophic for me personally, I love this story, I love all the concepts and ideas that exist in it, and I'm already immensely happy with having seen them in their context, and given time and spotlight. Thank you so much
if I ever catch a good writing hyperfocus stint I might do a rewrite of the whole thing to fix tone and pacing and retcon some things in properly so they fit together, but overall i was pretty happy just closing it like this so I could say i finished
Glad to hear from you! And yeah, that sounds like a nightmare to manage, but even just saying "these are possible" is enough
That was a fun fluffy story. The exposition, though there was a lot of it, was fun to read in a way that most of the exposition in most of the stories I've read lately hasn't been -- usually framed as one of the characters adorably geeking out over something they're interested in, which is an underrated way to do exposition. And I loved all the characters, they're so distinct and so delightfully weird and adorable. I hope you'll be able to continue the sequel at some point, but if not, I hope you find other good creative outlets to keep you healthy and happy.
One odd thing I wasn't sure what to make of was the bit about the older polycule owning the library. Most libraries in the present day in the U.S. are run by county or city governments, so a privately owned library (outside of a private university or college) is an anomaly that I'd associate more with libertarians than these queer progressives. My no-prize explanation is that the local government in their area of Colorado was taken over by libertarians and they cut all funding to the libraries and some other "non-essential" government servies, and the polycule bought it when it was put up for sale and kept it going as a low-cost subscription service. Or maybe there are still public libraries in the county, but the closest is in the county seat twenty miles away, and the polycule took over the local one when it was closing due to budget cuts.
Yay, happy you enjoyed❣️
And yeah I didn't even think about the topic of "ownership" all that much for the library. If I think about it now I'd probably say it was your "lack of public funds" assumption and they just took over running it as a nonprofit on a combo of their own savings and donations from those who live there.
I've not really gotten into it too much but it being vague Octavia Butler fanfiction, the government is kinda falling apart into some level of christofacism like in Parable of the Sower (and in reality...)
Honestly, I'm not even too upset? I'm more happy to hear you're still going well and are keen two write when possible.
An ending would have been good, I guess? But I value any future stories you write over the ending of this one. We can make head-canon of anything we want!
Thank you ❣️