What is FFFP?
FFFP is an acronym for my biggest fanfiction, Fragile Feelings, Fragile Progress, an EriKar fic set in a post-SBURB AU where everyone is alive (with the exception of Calliope, the Ancestors, and 7 of the 8 guardians for important lore reasons,) and back on Earth A, trying to adjust to daily life now that they have to do so. It's part of what's going to be a bigger series, called the Epilogues They Deserved; I just only have two fics out right now and one of them is 2 chapters long. FFFP is, currently, in its native version, 85,942 words and 13 chapters long, and, in the version made accessible for minors, which, as of right now, is no different, is 2 words longer. I don't know which two, I've scoured the whole fic and it's driving me nuts. This fic was inspired by Alone Together, an EriKar fic written by SlaveToMyKeyboard on AO3 (which, I just found out today while looking for the link to show you, is getting a rewrite itself and I could not be more excited.) Read it here, please, I'm begging you. It's really fucking good and I'm almost sure you won't regret it.
As of right now, this fic has gone un-updated since December 2nd of 2020, and is severely lacking in consistency, coherency, any sort of semblance of substantial plot before chapter 12, and well-flowing writing that is pleasant to read. While I've been told the characters are very close to canon, and that my dialogue is natural, I don't believe it. I can barely get through any of the chapters without cringing and I almost always put it down come chapter 8, my longest and most confusing chapter, every single time I re-read it for rewriting purposes. I'm almost sure that despite changes to notes on the fic and updates to my status on AO3, my readerbase has the impression that I've left it to collect dust in the corner, never to be touched again.
This, of course, could not be further from the truth.
Almost ALL my writing in the past year and something-odd months has been related to this rewriting project; this is, believe it or not, exactly what I want to do with my life and what I want to end up finishing before I die. The original fic had a planned 55 chapters MINIMUM in order to finish it, and re-reading the fic has only further solidified that unless things change, plot, pacing, or otherwise, there's no way I'm going to be able to finish what I have planned in 55 chapters, even as content-heavy as my fanfic is now. My last update to this fic was even rewrite related, but I'm not happy with rewritten chapters 1 and 2, and I think they only serve to clunk up the fic further and make things so utterly confusing, especially since I haven't posted a rewrite since.
The goals of this rewrite are to:
- Polish the writing to make it more coherent
- Get every little basic detail down to allow for more consistency
- Flesh out the plot of both the fic and its sister fic (and allow for the other sister fics to be fleshed out from the get-go as well)
- Make the characters feel more like real young adults instead of people you see in some dorky fancomic
- Polish my character writing, worldbuilding skills, and scenebuilding as a whole
- Get myself back into the swing of writing after being unable to write for so long
- Allow for my one beta reader to catch me on more of the mistakes I missed last time
- Finally churn out a product I'm okay with, finished or not
- Fix this garbage pacing once and for all, or at the very least, fix the garbage pacing for what I already have
Before you go thinking, 'well, that's all kind of a load of bullshit, you could be lying out of your ass,' I'd like to show you just a small part of what has become an extremely grueling, taxing, yet interesting project:,
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Here, I have the entirety of the fic as it is now, printed out and binder clipped (alternated stacking for storage purposes,) AND an unpublished, unfinished draft of chapter 14 that I don't think I've even shown my beta reader, all so that I can make edits, notes, and annotations directly to the paper, read it offline, and keep a physical reminder of the project in my room so I fail to put it down. What you'll see below, though, includes the real bulk of the project:
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That top picture is a brief snapshot of the reworked timeline, that snapshot showing a tiny amount of the events that happen the April they exit the game and return to Earth, and that April only. The timeline goes, right now, as far out as 2023, the timeline starting in 2016 and the fic itself taking place early 2019, but it's not fully detailed as of right now and won't be fully detailed for a long time. I need to get it all fully fleshed out as far as 2023 before I even begin to have confidence my rewrite will have any sort of success.
The bottom two pictures are footnotes regarding chapter rewrite plots. Yes, footnotes. I also have notes for planned chapters 14-16, though they're going to be going through some changes as I will need to once again edit the rewrite plots due to ideas that fall in with consistency. There's actually way more to that document than you see in the bottom two images as well (and not just regarding plot, mind you,) but it doesn't matter much. I've spent a lot of time on this, is what I'm saying. I really treasure this fic and the characters surrounding it and it would be a downright shameful act to let it stand the way it does now. I started this fic at 19 though, so what can you do, you know? Sometimes your own shit is garbage and you have to work on it.
Anywho, I wanted to make this for my readers, not just myself, and for anyone who's interested in seeing whatever bullshit projects I'm up to. Of course, this is my main project, but it's not my only one- which means it's not getting my full attention, even when I don't have life to attend to. Maybe when I'm doing better than literally struggling against the brink of death half of my days, this will get better attention, but I don't know when healthy days will come. I'm working on them. I'm working on this project all on my own and it's going to take a lot of my time, I PROMISE if I had more hands or more people it would probably be done already. Thank you all for checking in on this page, I do appreciate it. Who knows? Maybe it'll see an update in the next year! That'd be crazy. Don't count on it.
Update as of 1/16/2023
Been going through a lot lately and said updates to this project would be made in bulk. However, as of right now, I have deleted the fic on my AO3 and archived it in both a Google Drive folder (each individual chapter, as well as the full HTML,) and via files the archive sent to my email. Didn't know AO3 did that. Thanks AO3. I am now getting back into working on it after some personal struggles and hoping it'll help me get through some things I'm dealing with right now. I let my readers know before I did it, so it wasn't exactly a surprise. Once I get some bulk chapters up for people to read, I'll have the Google Drive link available here so you can read the old version.
At the moment, I have a couple other priorities I'm working on that might delay the release of the next version of the fic. That's not a dismissal or an excuse to weasle my way out of it; I need this after everything that's happened to me lately, and it's on my mind as prominently as when I first started the project (for reference, I posted at least three chapters on my first day of writing. It could very well have been five, but three's the most solid number I have.) I am going through, like, a massive depressive episode after almost losing my life twice in the same week and being isolated (intentionally) from friends and (not intentionally) family. There's other stress factors there. I think that's more than what anyone asked to hear, though, and I keep talking about it, so I have to shut up about it sometime.
I told my readers on AO3 that my first objective would be to re-read Homestuck to get back into the swing of things. I have decided to work alongside my reading of it, however, as Eridan's character is the one I know best and his area of the comic is basically embedded into my brain; I'm mostly re-reading for the sake of changing my perspective on the narrative as a whole and to get a refresher on other characters. I have, so many ideas for Eridan right now. I can't wait to get going.
I'm honestly not sure if anyone reads this page. I don't know how much traffic it'll get in the future. If you are reading, though, thank you. A lot. Even if it was a click out of curiosity, sticking around until you reached the bottom means a lot to me and shows a lot of thoroughness and care for a project or a stranger you might not even have any interest in. I hope you're having a good day, and month, and year, and that you're doing well, and if you're not, I hope things get better for you. Here's to moving forward, even if it scares the shit out of you.