First and foremost, thank you so much for reading this story. I’ll admit, it only exists because I entered a contest over at Honeyfeed, but the more I wrote the outline the more I started to like the characters. I reached a point where I knew it’d be impossible to win that contest due to the length of the chapters and the divergence from the tone that was intended (wholesome romance from male pov), but I stopped caring pretty quickly.
I just wanted to write something. For the past three years, I’ve been outlining and starting stories but never finishing a single one. With this, I finally finished something. I feel proud. I feel excited. I feel like I got better, and that was one of my biggest motivations – to improve as a writer just as I feel I have as an outliner.
After-Action Report.
I know I just said why it exists, but I want to go into more detail about that. This story was made for the 2023 MAL Honeyfeed Contest. I uploaded the story there and here for a while, but the story got no traction over there so I deleted it. There was no scheduling feature, and it felt like a waste of time to upload daily for literally one view a day.
***future Shirime here. i scheduled this whole series to be uploaded in one day so i hope that point isn't redundant***
I’ve mentioned it plenty of times, but the reason this story still exists is twofold. First, I fell in love with it and wanted to expand on the universe. Second, I needed to learn how to write and find my writing style. This entire story was an elaborate experiment, and I think I passed in that department.
I briefly mentioned it in Chapter 34’s author note (ON ROYAL ROAD), but I need to come clean. As much as I love this story and this universe, it won’t be continuing at any point in the foreseeable future. The main reason is because of its genre mix, Action/Romance. Realistically, I need to pick one or the other. If I want to treat my writing career as a business – which I eventually do – I need to pick action and let romance be a side-genre of sorts. Think of how many stories have romantic interests and shit like that. If I did that and really expanded on the System to be more present in the world, I know this story would have actual potential as a LitRPG. For that to work, I’d need to rewrite the first book entirely. Thankfully, the next seven wouldn’t need much work. I don’t have them written or anything, but I do have general drafts and ideas for what I’d want to do. Once I've finished writing my other Action LitRPG series, I'll come back to this one. It holds a special place in my heart, and it feels wrong to just stop like this. Like you're climbing a mountain and you stop for water but you're already at the top. It feels incomplete and I hate it, but I also want to pay my bills soooooo.....
Speaking of the future, I have to come clean about something else. There were two epilogues I had drafted that would’ve foreshadowed the crew’s journey into the world and answered a few lingering questions about a few certain characters. I decided not to write them because they foreshadow a version of the story that no longer exist, and if I do come back to this series, it’ll be spoilers to some pretty big plot points. Regardless, let me know if you want to see them anyway. Just know I warned you.
So, What’s Next?
I’ve talked about it a few times in a few authors notes, but I have an action-oriented LitRPG in the works. I don’t want to say anything too concrete because anything can happen, but so far I am in love with the concept. The System is inspired by DCC, the story is like a blend of CSM and Over the Garden Wall (weird mix, but trust me), and I plan on making it a fairly long series but not unending like many other LitRPGs and popular web serials. It’s an isekai just like this with very little romance and a heavier comedy focus.
***future Shirime here again. that story is gonna be done by Jan-Feb. im posting it first on Royal Road and if there's an audience here then I'll post it here as well. also there's romance in it and it isn't as comedic as it was when i first wrote that. it's still pretty comedic tho***
So far I have a good chunk of it drafted. I’m fleshing out the worldbuilding right now and once that’s done I’ll finish the main antags and move into actually drafting the story. I can’t give a timeline on when everything will be done, but I’m hoping it’ll be in time for the writathon.
Conclusion.
Again, thank you all for reading and following me on this journey. Getting over 2000 views on a story I wrote is extremely flattering and overwhelming. Having a group of people who consistently read this story fills me with immense pride. I’m grateful for every single one of you that followed me on this journey. I hope you all stick around for my next series when it drops, and I hope you all enjoy it even more than this one.
I swear I'll come back to finish the stories of Seiji and Cora someday, but for now I need to write something that can pay my bills LMAO. I hope you all go on to create something yourselves, I’d love to see what’s going on in your weird little heads. I love you all. Thank you!
Shirime.
P.S. - I MADE YOU READ A SHOUJO LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
