127 Goodbye

I was always a very keen reader, not much when it came to studies but everything else, sure. I used to read Nancy Drew, Famous Five, Secret Seven in school, and yeah I friggin loved Detective novels. 

After that I discovered Sherlock Holmes, and yeah, I discovered it after because my school library sort of assigned books to read. You couldn't choose books out of the library, if you can believe it.

Then I saw the Harry Potter movies, and then I read Harry Potter. As you might know, my love for that particular series is still going strong. I'd even pre-ordered The-Book-that-shall-not-be-named and read it, even if I hated it, and then threw it away.

My love for reading has helped me through a lot of tough times. Quarrels within the family, studies not making sense, my social awkwardness, my anxiety issues, and later my depression during college days. And when actual fictional books weren't available to me.. I turned towards Fanfiction.

Funnily enough I discovered fanfiction completely by accident. I didn't have anything in 2012 through which I could learn about fanfiction. No Facebook account since my family didn't allow it, no friends who read fanfics, I didn't even know about any other Social media at the time. No one told me about fanfics, I just.. found them.

I don't remember what I was looking for, I think I was reading some theories or trivia or something about Dragon Ball Z, and a google search accident must've showed me a fanfiction about Dragon Ball Z. I think it was about Bardock, the father of Goku, but it could have been Trunks for all I know now.

From 2012 to 2015, I read solely DBZ fanfics. I was obsessed with them. 

And then.. one day.. I thought about looking for Harry Potter fanfics. I remember the first good fanfic that I actually loved. Really loved, and still read for nostalgia's sake.

'The world without me' by Eternal Cosmos. 

If you haven't read it, I recommend it. It is fucking beautiful and makes you feel things.

Anyway, the thing is. Reading is something I've always loved, and I haven't missed a single day of reading at least some fanfic for the last.. five years or so. At least.

And one day.. I decided to write one myself.

5th January 2020.

The day I uploaded my first fanfic on fanfiction.net; 'Harry Osborb- Black Spider' is basically a copy of The Spider, 12 Steps to Omnipotence, and a Harry Osborn fanfic on WebNovel that I can't find anymore. So, yeah, it's bad. It was always bad and I'm sorry for every saying it was good.

I basically introduced Harry Osborb as the SI character, had him do nothing but collect superpowers, and even had him create an AI like most SI fics do. Yeah, there were many things wrong with that fic, and being unoriginal is one of them.

My second fic, 'Harry Potter - The Angar' was similarly inspired by KossBoss's crossover stories on ffn, and while it wasn't as bad as my first fic, it was still disappointing to many.

('Harry Potter and the Land of Ice and Fire' and 'Harry Potter and the Chance at a New Life' by the way. Amazing stories, you'll love them.)

But I wrote then because it gave me a chance to distract myself from my own failures, from my depression. I got a chance to vent even if I wasn't actually venting. But of course, I got myself lost in the plot of those stories, by trying to copy those stories I mentioned above, I lost what my aim for the stories was. 

I knew that I was plagiarizing a lot of chapters from scripts of those particular movies, and only realized it after dropping the stories and returning to reading just how bad that shit was.

I am really sorry about that. Apologies to the authors of those fics, and I can only hope that they forgive those mistakes as a result of my stupidity.

I then took a break, and went to WebNovel to read my heart away. 

Then, came the first story that actually made me somewhat popular. 'Legends of Baldur.' I enjoyed writing it a lot. People loved reading it a lot. My Pat-reon got me my first donation of $5 for this fic, even if the Pat-reon wasn't actually active then.

And if I hadn't decided to put my MC in a triad, I think it would have gone for a lot more chapters than it did.

'Mason Aves- The Wizard' the first version came next. Again, I messed up and did not remember my past failures when I introduced Mason into a triad of himself, Dorea, and Helena Ravenclaw, his own ghostly ancestor. Ancestor's sister really, but that really didn't make things better.

Next was 'Celestial God', which.. boy, did people love it. It also made me realize that I really, really enjoy writing about the past. Not the canon timeline, no. Like, wayyy back in the past

(I also almost had Theos also enter a triad with a pair of Eternal sisters, so thank God I dodged that self fired bullet.)

Alas, each and every one of these books had to be dropped for one reason or another. Writer's block, lost myself in a convoluted plot, wrote myself into a wall, etc. 

My writing had many issues, least of all my many distracting trains of thoughts, and my ability to piss people off. 

But still, people showed their love for my writing. Showed their love to my books. Even now, I get reviews for Legends of Baldur, or Harry Potter - The Angar. People still ask me, to this day, if I'm going to rewrite it. Love you guys for that!

And finally, came my rewrite of 'Mason Aves- The Wizard.' This was something that gave me the most love. 

Harry Potter is a world which holds a special place in all our hearts, and so, my original MATW story had a special place in mine. Mason Aves was someone I really, really wanted to finish the story of. Fix it, even. Even when I dropped it way back when, I knew I was going to come back to it someday.

I knew I was going to take Mason Aves, and rewrite the shit out of his life.

I had hoped.. that I would finish his story properly. I'd hoped I wouldn't take too long with the Pre-Canon timeline. But well, my past arc just kept on going, and kept on giving me new ideas.

All my fault, really. As I said, I get distracted.

But even through my distractions, people fucking loved it. YOU loved it! And I loved writing it all!

Really, 3k followers on Ffn for this one story alone. 2.6 Million views and 6.7k hits on WebNovel. 615 watchers on Sufficient Velocity, and 470 on Spacebattles.

Fucking love all of you!

And I.. disappointed all of you when I decided to stop writing more. You all showered me with love, and even helped me with advice when I found myself slipping. 

Words won't be able to express how sad I myself am at not getting to finish this story. For once, I wanted to finish a story without needing a Summary Chapter to finish it off.

Alas, real life catches up. Always. And it did. It caught up with me. A need to look out for my future has arisen, after over two years of doing fuck all at home. I helped with our business, sure, but it wasn't enough. Not for me.

I need a proper job. I need something that's not at all frowned upon, like using Pat-reon to promote, and earn money off of fanfics.

And so, I've taken my first steps towards it. 

I can't get a job directly by giving interviews now, not those I'd like anyway. My two year break, and my delayed Masters Degree(Thank you University for messing things up) has made sure of that. So, I've been preparing for a Job Oriented Diploma course since the last few months. 

I've been studying for the Entrance Exams for these months, which is why my last 15-20 chapters might have seemed a bit worse than those before. 

And now that I've given the Entrance Exam, scoring a pretty good rank even, I'm currently in the process of taking the admissions for that Diploma. Which means, for the next 7 months I will be completely busy.

Like, I'll probably be returning to depression kind of busy. Minimum 10 hours of studies every day, barely sleeping, little to no free time. The Diploma will basically cram everything about Front and Back End Developing in my brain in 6 months, or try to do so. What I take in will decide how good of a job I get.

That's it with the background, about why I'm leaving.

Now comes the good part.

I've loved this, loved every moment that I spent on my phone, tapping away on Google docs, writing chapters. Even the time I spent writing just story ideas, short summaries for some other ideas, and just venting, is something I've cherished.

And you guys.. you have been with me all this time. You guys understood when I needed to take a break, or take it slow. You guys reassured me when I was depressed, when I was stuck. Your words helped me stay calm when my grandma died.

Thank you.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn't for you, my readers, my supporters, I probably would have given up on life two years ago. And I'm not even exaggerating.

Every good comment, every review, every PM helped me with my own self confidence issues. Sure, some comments were bad, but my anger at them just helped build my confidence tbh.

Thank you.

Thank you for staying with me through all these times, both good and bad. Thank you for reading what I wrote, even if it was shitty at times.

Just.. Thank you. I love each and every one of you even if I don't know all of your names!

Special thanks to AvidReader2425, who I tossed around ideas with, who just took time off of their schedules to sometimes just talk with me. Love you mate!

And now, time comes for the goodbye.

And this is a Goodbye.

I.. don't know when I'll return to writing again, but if I do, it won't be through Pat-reon. The next time I write anything it'll be for free. Or for a book that I'm actually going to sell, but you won't be paying for half finished work.

I truly enjoyed writing, and the research I did when writing. But the time has come for me to hang my pen, or delete my Google Docs app, lol.

I don't know what else to say. Sorry about that, I'm not good at this.

I just.. I'll miss writing. I'll miss staying up till AM to write chapters too. I'll miss figuring out Mason's character, making his life difficult, having him face challenges in a Monster of the Week type story. I'll miss Mason Aves. I'll miss being HelloDarkness07.

So this is it.

This.. is my goodbye. A bit shitty, but yeah I'm really bad at this. Ironic, considering I'm a writer.

My Pat-reon account will be deleted on 31st August 2022, but my public profiles will remain standing. Fanfiction, Spacebattles, Sufficient Velocity, and WebNovel for those who don't know. My stories will be available for all to read, and hopefully be archived some day.

My profiles will be marked as "Stopped Writing/Inactive", and if I return, and you're still following me at that time, you'll probably get a notification.

Thank you for everything. Sorry for leaving. 

Signing off.. HelloDarkness07. Or as my name is.. Chinmay.

Goodbye.