#lwtq

So... Hey guys. I bet I surprised at least a few of you by updating this fanfic, huh? I hope you won't be too disappointed... I mean, I'm sure at least some of you saw this coming, since the fanfic has been waiting for chapter 14 for practically a year and, well, I kinda "moved on" with other stories since. Sorta.

First off: I'm not giving up. I won't orphan the fanfic on AO3, delete it along with this blog, or give up updating it at all. In fact, I will be definitely giving a few more updates, hopefully sooner rather than later. It's just that these updates... won't technically be true chapters, sadly.

I've gotten more comments as of recently, here and there, on tumblr, deviantart, AO3, asking me to continue despite the fact that, well... I tried, but I can't. Not now, at least. I think said once that I wouldn't release LWtQ's plot and leave it at that, in order not to disappoint. But... Yeah, let's say I changed my mind. LWtQ is just too hard to write, too time-consuming, too nerve-wracking. Given my current situation and the fact that I'm about to start a PhD in molecular dynamics, I'm gonna be straightforward: what I need my free time to be is anything but years-long projects that take up all of my brain cells, after said brain cells already spent the entirety of the past few days/weeks/months/years working at full power. I'm not saying working on LWtQ or Pythagorean Thoughts or The Fifth Save isn't fun anymore, far from it-- I'm just saying that it's just extremely tiring, and that my physical and mental health just can't keep up with two full-time "jobs" that require my brain to work constantly.

So... I'll try to find a middle ground here. I'll reveal my notes, but in a form that lets only those who truly seek them out will get to read them -- because, y'know. Spoilers. I'll give a link to a Google Drive folder, and this folder will contain a large bunch of documents -- and those documents will be dedicated to giving either random notes I had for the fanfic, or, more importantly, a detailed summary of what I had planned for the story, chapter by chapter. I'll try to make these summaries as enjoyable to read as possible, still! Don't expect a mere checklist of things that were supposed to happen. The thing I'd ideally like those summaries to feel like is some sort of mix between one of those plot summaries you find on wikias, and a sort-of minimalistic fanfic. So, I'll try to make the text sound at least a bit engaging, but yeah the quality of the narration obviously won't be nearly as advanced as that of LWtQ.

Anyway. Those who want to seek out the story's secrets will have little trouble reading through everything I have, while those who would rather wait just have to, y'know, not click the link. (And also, very probably, not read the comments either, because I'm 99% certain that at least some of those who read the spoilers will want to talk about what happens. So be careful around the comment section from now on, just in case.)

Once again, the fact that I'm releasing those notes doesn't mean that the fanfic is abandoned for good. However... Hopefully it means I can relax a bit and feel less guilty upon extending the hiatus and ignoring the comments, until finally I can afford to continue this story for real. By the way, I am SO sorry for ignoring you if you were one of those readers who commented during the last few weeks/months. I just... I have a hard time handling the situation right now-- not just the fanfic, just pretty much everything that happens in my life to be entirely honest. With that, the guilt of disappointing, and the fact that I hate repeating myself, that's pretty much why I just... kinda didn't have the courage to answer you, I guess. Even though I make a point of never copy-pasting my messages when I'm talking to one person individually, just saying "hiatus" over and over feels like I'd be doing it anyway.

So with all that said... I'm sorry. For now, you may or may not know that I'm "rather" productive with that Hollow Knight comic/ask blog I've been running since June... It's kinda the only thing that keeps me sane right now because it's much easier to make, it's funny, it's a story that directly interacts with its readers, and it doesn't take ages to update, for once (at least until those darn readers started sending me encrypted messages in Morse code for whatever reason. Typical u_u). I guess that's why I have much less trouble working on it while working on LWtQ is so hard, despite the fact that I love both plots equally -- or even, I guess I kinda prefer LWtQ's plot, to be honest... It's more refined and complex and dives deeper into stuff. And the threat/stakes are much higher, too.

Anyway. If you've waited for long enough... Here's the link to this hellish pandora box that is my brain notes regarding this story.

>> Open the Spoilers Box <<

And now that this is out of the way... Here's how things will go from now on. So far, the only docs available in this folder are the beginning of chapter 14, as I was able to write it so far; the "first part" of the LWtQ script, which contains a summary of chapters 14 to 17; and, an extra doc that lists Dawn's online friends and is just really a list of random facts about them. In the future, I will update this fanfic regularly in order to let you know when other parts of the script are done, and a new doc that contains the summary for the next few chapters will be added to the folder. I initially planned to release the entire thing all at once, but... Hopefully you'll soon understand why I couldn't really do that, and why it probably wouldn't have been a good idea either way. Even a summarized version of LWtQ is gonna be one hell of a mess to write, and it'd be even more painful to read if I just released everything at once.

So... Just giving you a heads up for what's coming. I also have in the works, but haven't revealed yet : - The summary for the next chapters up until the end of the fanfic - An overly detailed doc dedicated to just LWtQ's backstory, which will only be revealed once I'm done with the summaries - A graph which summarizes LWtQ's timeline, because obviously time travel shenanigans tend to make things confusing. It includes the backstory mentioned above and therefore will only be revealed alongside it.

Oh, and... I know chapter 14 isn't finished, but just in case you wanted to read some fanfic stuff today, then I hope I can at least entertain you a bit with what I've already written of it.

I'm going to answer this here, partly because I have way too many asks right now, and partly because you have a question addressed to me directly.

Regarding the Player: she misses her home, but she also feels immensely guilty regarding what happened to Hallownest, implicitly because of the mods she uses. She might be tempted for a quick second, but she wouldn't take it. Besides, it's likely that if she left like this, the infection wouldn't be the only plague, since all the broken characters incident wouldn't be solved either.

Now, the answer directed to me...

LWtQ will update once chapter 14 is finished. It's simple as that. The same goes for Pythagorean Thoughts, too.

Thing is, I absolutely can't work on multiple stories at once. I have a full-time job now that I was selected to continue as a PHD student in my current lab, which means that The Fifth Save alone sometimes pushed me borderline to the first signs of a burn-out. And even before that, although I still have no intention on leaving these stories unfinished... Pythagorean Thoughts became too hard to draw (human anatomy is merciless and hand-drawn backgrounds are insane), Learn When to Quit became too hard to write. It may sound like a joke, but I'm serious. I even asked for help regarding LWtQ and another fellow UT author accepted to help me redact the future chapters with help from my overly detailed script and the conversations we have, but this same author is just as busy as I am, with his own personal projects on his side.

... Also, it's hard to continue writing a fanfic when you emotionally distance yourself more and more from its fandom. I hold nothing against Undertale or its community personally, but I just feel like... I grew out of it, is all. I don't know if I'm "too mature for emo-drama AU stuff" or whatever, but I just don't feel like I'm in my element anymore.

Spoilers for Chapter 11 are not too big, but having read this chapter will sure help give some context. I hope I’ll be able to post the second half of this scene soon, but for now I’m done. (I did all this in one day, so please share the effort and reblog or something if you enjoyed it lmao)

> If you want to see more badass Alphys but this time live instead of in monochrome flashbacks, read the fanfic here!

* Reset ------- * Reload ------- * Continue (coming soon)

Hi! Don’t worry, the story you’re following isn’t going anywhere. It’s just that I’m sadly going through a rather busy period in my studies – namely, heavy projects and oral exams and all that. It’ll be hard for me to work on anything consistent until probably March or so at the latest.

If you want other news on a brighter side… I kind of was led to start a “liveblog” of sorts due to a very miraculously unexpected event. If you want all the details, go check out the tag #mushitale in my main blog, @lutiaskokopelli​ ! You can click here if you’re on a computer, to directly read the whole story in chronological order.

But long story short, a few days ago, I found a baby caterpillar who, for some reason, somehow, found her way inside my flat, inside a tank inside of which I was keeping some succulent plants. So I guess I am now a mom?