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the-tzarina-alexandra-paracosm · 11 months

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All my stories in chronological order (with various specifiers in regards to degree of completion etc). By story I mean every story and characters I have ever come up with, hence the blog name of Paracosm, but I will not insist much on my very earliest years on this post, but on the stories I wrote after I learned to read and write, and especially those in my teens, so choosing the age of 12-13 as a sort of 'epoch' to mark the beginning of my 'real' writing. Thus, this post is rather a summary of my last decade of writing, not really my entire life. (Also, I think I will copy some commentary from the previous masterpost, if I think they still hold up). With that said, my personal history of writing, with commentary:

My 'Prehistory' era of writing

I have been daydreaming various stories, characters and scenarios ever since I could remember. I liked both making my own OCs and creating fanfic and fanart long before I ever learnt these words even existed. As a small child, I had some OCs that were either based on dreams I had at night, or obviously knock-off characters of cartoons I liked watching, such as Winx or Tokyo Mew Mew. I will elaborate on these on a separate post. When I finally learned to read and write, aged 7, my mom encouraged me to gather my stories and drawings in a notebook. I gladly did so, and wrote highly derivative, 1st grade textbook, page-long stories. Those are cute, too, but they were a result of my trying to 'standardize' my writing. However, parts of my unhinged sense of storytelling shone through, too, in that notebook, via my various fanfics. One I still remember is a Transformers (the 2007-2009 movies haha) fanfic I did back then, and it was hilarious, but in an insane, typically 8-year-old writing way (for example the sheer size and amount of absolutely astronomical numbers used completely gratuitously still cracks me up). When I was at the end of primary school (aged about 10 I think) I tried to write a Mario fanfic play for school... didn't work out but you gotta admire the sheer guts to actually try to cast my classmates! I wish I still had that level of confidence haha!

My Transitional era into 'real writing'

Aged around 10-12. This was characterized by me trying to create original, self-contained stories, as well as experimenting with fanfiction even more. I used to do a lot of Mario fanfics and Final Fantasy, most of which were retellings with various slice-of-life episodes added and some very non canon drama/ attempts at sequels/ prequels etc. I still have fond memories of those, but others kind of make me cringe. Either way, they were how I became truly invested in writing. It was my Mario fanfic play that made me try writing my first original play and it was writing my Final Fantasy comic-form fanfic that made me want to make my own OCs and stories.

cca. 2012 (aged around 11, in my last year of primary school)

The Life story of Vasile Moldovenescu

length: 10 A5 pages, handwritten, script format

status: complete

(commentary from the prev post)

This was my second attempt at writing a play. It was a comedy. Basically this dude, who talks very much like a Moldovan stereotype (sorry guys I was 11 don't cancel me, love you). But Vasile, despite being seemingly dumb, is a very lovable character. He randomly runs into a pair of spies, Violeta (Romanian) and John (British), who are searching for Anonymous. Vasile is kind of clingy to them and they're annoyed at first but they let him follow along eventually. They also meet a woman only written as "the blonde" in the character list (she later introduces herself as Miruna, and she is rather stereotypical too, but not so much in the dumb sense as much as very tacky.

Vasile gets approached by his "ex" (woman he used to have a crush on) and she tells him he is literally wanted (in the way a criminal would?) in his home country. Vasile talks at lenght about his personal life, some details being inadvertently relevant, but the others assume he's just speaking nonsense. The man seemingly had a million different jobs in the past (he swears he never caused that inundation oh no! And also he is also doing translations from Chinese).

I'll take this moment to mention that John speaks fluent Romanian, but at some point another character enters the scene, tagged first as "The American", (and he later introduces himself as George; he is a fellow spy and works with John and Violeta) and he speaks in English. I was quite good at English even then lmao. George came to announce that Anonymous escaped and they have to catch him etc, with a sense of urgency.

Vasile annoys them one last time and they want to kick him to the curb, and Violeta, in a grand reveal, yells at him that they were secret agents all along. To which Vasile casually replies, oh I was in the FBI once, I have a timed bomb in my cellar btw.

Suddenly Vasile is reunited with his brother Ștefan, who he intentionally avoided all this time etc, they throw a random party (?) and play pocker etc but the brother leaves again. As if that wasn't enough, Violeta mean spiritedly tells him that if she were him she would just go far away such as Egypt, and he, with his bags already made, promptly does so. Violeta hurries to catch up with her teammates to catch Anonymous etc but suddenly receives a letter.

It is literally a letter of complaint on behalf of literally all citizens of Moldova, saying that, because of her, they lost their president, who was none other than Vasile. Curtain falls. Etc.

It is funny, especially by 11 year old standards lmao. But ofc more than that it's a charming story, because it's obviously written by a child. I had much fun rediscovering this one. I was also surprised by how much comedy I was trying to write as a child and how much I just... stopped. That says a lot about me I think.

cca summer 2013

The Immortals series

(the commentary from last time)

The next big step in my development as a writer was a shared imaginary universe between my boy cousins and I, which we used as a backdrop for our stick fights. So basically a sort of DnD. But the cousins only provided very basic details of the plot and their respective characters, while I actually took it very seriously and started writing actual narratives about it. My cousin called our paracosm The Immortals and he even designed an admittedly sick logo, and I kept that name. I was very into FF at the time so I was daydreaming about creating a never ending RPG game franchise. That is why the following are called just The Immortals + their respective number. Only a few have I actually completed, though I had planned like 20 entries for this franchise. At this point I barely took input from my cousins.

The Imm 1 & 2

lenght: a few written pages and a few comic pages etc

status: unfinished

A sibling duo, one Dan, and his younger sister Alexe, who have been working in the mines, hear of an opportunity (contest of sorts) to become one of the King's royal guards. They succeed.

The Imm 3

lenght: several A5 pages, handwritten, prose

status: finished

(the original commentary)

A story I wrote integrally on a sketchbook. A general, named Marshall, is sent out on some sort of rescue mission for a lost princess, which turns out to have been a scam, which annoys him very much. He is, however, stuck with the random girl he mistook for the princess, and they continue their journey together. She, named Barbara, is very much a sort of manic-pixie-dream-girl, and he very cold etc. Also I think there was quite the age gap between the two which... yeah. The two have a sort of enemies to lovers arc but not enemies, more like annoying strangers to lovers. The core conflict is less between the main couple, as between the two students (subordinates), one of them being his ally, and the other having rebelled against him and become the main villain (who lured his old mentor into a trap in the first place, and now intended to kill him). The last scene is a battle, and the heroes get injured etc but survive. The main character is like very regretful about the whole situation, feeling somewhat responsible. But other than that, he and his love interest basically live happily ever after.

The Imm 4 & 5

lenght: several A5 pages, handwritten, prose

status: finished

(the original commentary)

A stereotypical vampire story that I had very very much fun writing approximately late August - early September 2013. The story centers around a rebellious vampire prince, Vincent. His grandfather is the king, and he is evil. One day the grandfather captures a human girl, Ivy, and has her do menial tasks I guess. Vincent and Ivy have a bit of an enemies to lovers arc but again not at all enemies, they're actually each other's only allies, but in the sense of she doesn't trust him at first due to prejudice against vampires etc. He did like her from the first meeting and was kinda flirty from the start.

Anyways the two gradually become friends as they interact more. And ofc discover that they are allies against the evil grandpa. There are several "funny scenes" such as one day Ivy practices her combat skills aka shooting an arrow and Vincent volunteers to be a target - with an apple om his head. He was ofc overconfident etc. He promptly gets shot and Ivy nurses him back to health as it were, which is a bonding moment. They fall in love etc. They prepare to fight the evil grandpa but Vincent gets caught up in the sun because they didn't make it to the dark inside soon enough. So he literally burns up (not described in a gore way because I was 12 but yeah he doesn't just turn to dust but literally burn). But he dies in her arms so it's this tragic romance moment. And the sequel hook is that she has to fight the evil grandpa alone.

No I have never read twilight and at that age I think I would've actually been banned from it.

The Imm 6 & 7

length: a few handwritten pages, some comic pages

status: incomplete

Sheng, a master samurai was married to Feng, a woman master samurai, but through the intervention of their common enemies they have been separated for decades (they also apparently suffer from memory loss since the day of the attack + separation). They, separately, begin training young men, and at some point their students meet, thus making the heartwarming reunion possible.

The Imm 8

length: some comic pages

status: vague outline

Dragon hunters. The leader is this red-headed woman Cheryl (she has some magic staff). The youngest member of the group, Bobby, is killed and they mourn him.

The Imm 9 & 10

length: some comic pages

status: vague outline

A wanted thief, Chloe, stumbles upon a group of three as she runs away from the ones who chase her. She befriends them (two twin guys and this blind young girl). She is supposed to have this redemption arc so she gives up her life of crime etc. She adopts the young girl. At the end she is injured, but survives, and she is delighted to wake up to people who love her.

The Imm 11 & 12

length: some comic pages

status: vague outline

Similar to Imm 1 in that some young ppl/ teens seek to become part of the King's knights or whatever. The main character, Phoebe, is searching for her mother. She encounters this younger girl to whom she becomes like an older sister etc. At the end Phoebe meets her mom, who had gotten amnesia but immediately regained her memory upon finally meeting her daughter again. They decide to officially adopt the little girl etc.

The Imm 13

length: many comic pages

status: more complex outline

There is this group of wizards who have to fight an ambiguous threat/ war of sorts. The leader of the group is one Zephyr, a more stoic type. The main character is Len, a sort of tsundere haha. Eyline has a crush on him but he doesn't love her at first. (I think they were somehow in an arranged marriage of sorts. They do begin to get along eventually and I really shipped them back in the day). Len gets very sick at some point but survives. There is also a character arc of Glinda, who is abandoned by her ex, who turned evil (either was evil all along or defected for the bad guys). Meanwhile Zephyr had a crush on her but was kinda too shy to express it, but he eventually does, in some scene in which they're free falling, no less! The whole point with Glinda was that at the end of the story she was about to leave but the others were like no, stay! And that 'stay' was a first in her life. Len and Eyline are quite in love by the end of the story, but at the very end, they're both mortally wounded (but at least they die together so yay >...<). This story I eventually turned into my novel The 5 Books of the Immortals, and changed so, so many things.

The Imm 14 & 15

length: some comic pages

status: vague outline

Thea is an alien princess, and she has a forbidden love story with a human traveler to her planet. Her ending is tragic, because as soon as she leaves her atmosphere, she dies.

The Imm 16 & 17

length: some comic pages

status: vague outline

Onix and Xavier are teens in a very large, modern city. Their main hobby is parkour, but it turns out to be not so casual at all, almost resembling gang rivalry at some point (they are from rival groups and have this Romeo and Juliet dynamic in that respect). They get themselves into way too much danger for a bunch of teens, like actual life vs death jumps between sky-scrapers. But they all survive and have a happy ending.

The Imm 18

length: some comic pages

status: complete outline

Kaito sets out to find the killer of his brother and avenge him. Instead, he meets with Kata, and her family. They go on a life-changing journey. At some point, they are attacked and Kata is wounded. In the first draft, she dies and he had barely just realized he loved her etc. In another version, she survives and they're happy etc, he gives up the revenge plot.

The Imm 19 & 20

length: some comic pages

status: vague outline

Mermaid story. There are two sisters. They turn into humans but at some point one of them tries to turn back to the sea but her decision is irreversible. She drowns and dies.

My 'real' writing debut era

It was very soon after the "the Imm" era that I started writing my first novel ever, namely the 9th of September, 2013 (I noted down the date because it was so important to me). I was 12 and a half, and the quality of the writing certainly reflects my age, but I still value this huge milestone. This era is characterized by me trying to take myself extremely seriously, as a writer, thus attempting dark, serious stories I was not yet qualified to tell. I will include here my first novel, my unfinished project, and my second novel too, though I will consider that a sort of transitional piece, as I had a much more optimistic worldview at that age than when I wrote my first novel, but I still bit more than I could chew and I was still taking myself too seriously.

sep 2013 - spring 2014 ish

The Image through the Thick Glass

lenght: 53k words, 103 word pages

status: completed

language: Romanian

This story was initially based on the Imm 18, but I changed it more and more until it wasn't about revenge at all, and there was no more action, becoming a drama romance instead.

(original commentary)

The plot revolves around a certain Kaito Hayashi, whose life is genuinely miserable from start to finish. First he's an orphan, then he's bullied (because he's a weird kid, but also a child savant or something), then he suffers in love as it were, aka feels very rejected, he is in poor health and almost dies of pneumonia at some point (hiking trip gone wrong??). He eventually gets with the woman he loves (whose name is Kata but that's not an actual Japanese name)))))) but she kind of stops loving for some very arbitrary reason again relating to his health (ableism???). At this point they have a young kid so it's very sad too like the kid is like wants to spend time with his dad but his mom is like no, and at the end he dies... but it's not completely tragic I guess because some people do mourn for him namely his son and his brother.

The side characters are interesting too like Kaito's older brother, Chang (again that's not a Japanse name but ok) is very protective of him and generally a likeable character, though a stereotypical aloof type etc. And he even has a "meet an adventurous girl and learn to have fun" arc so he's got that going on for him. Kata has a sister, Miku (you can see my inspiration) who is married to an American guy, who is Christian which is a plot point but also kind of not. Like the Japanse characters are vaguely non-religious. Kata and Miku's grandpa is a recurring character; he lives in the mountains but for his granddaughter's wedding he does come to the city, and quite dramatically while he's at it.

Kata also has a neighbour kid who has a weird relationship with her as in... the kid remembers her fondly but Kata literally treats the kid like some sort of ghost because due to some misunderstanding she thought she had died (instead what happened is she got into a car accident and was hospitalised for a while... poor girl...). This was supposed to show how Kata had a crippling fear of death, which would be why she left her husband when he was at his worst health wise. But that's still very selfish??? But I think the other characters do call her out for it. Anyway she herself was disabled (had a severe accident as a child and her legs never healed the right way and she alternatively uses crutches or a wheelchair) so I don't even get where her attitude was coming from.

Kaito himself was my personal blorbo for my entire preteen section of my life. Although in retrospective he's just... sad. Like literally just miserable all the time except select scenes. In the first draft I remember having written him attempt suicide but my parents were like what! You know nothing about things such as depression and the such. And yeah they were right. So I didn't have him do that anymore. But he was still... depressed? And his only support was the fact that at least his brother cared for him, but even said brother, being a responsible adult TM didn't have much time. And Kaito had a job too I guess. He was supposed to be an architect. And as a hobby he was an artist and was a very creative person in general.

Some things I'm still pleased with to this day: the scene in which his bullies, now adults, randomly meet him again and see him spending time with his son, and they straight up apologise to him. And they even socialise in a friendly way with the kid. They had jobs and stuff etc. I like that it was neither the "bullies remain nasty abusive people forever" trope nor the "bullies are punished by fate by becoming homeless jobless deadbeats etc" trope. They just moved on with their lives, happened to meet the kid they used to bully and apologised. I think I wrote that because especially at that age, being bullied a lot, I secretly desired to have that kind of closure.

Another scene I like to this day is the "vacation" episode in which Kaito's son comes to visit him and they play in the snow and have an overall good time together, bonding time etc, but a shadow of sadness looms over because Kaito thinks to himself that he's getting worse with his health etc, but at least for the moment he is happy etc.

Another scene I find wholesome is Chang's date with Yume (that's the name of his girlfriend). Very nice dynamic between him who is very serious and stoic and her who is, to put it this way, office worker by day, adrenaline junkie by night. Her hobbies are very sporty and she even takes him out for a parachute ride of all things! The other side characters all have good relationships too. Miku and her husband get along great, and have a nice peaceful scene together (he comforts/ encourages her about something?? She is a doctor so it might've been her stressful job?). Only the main couple is kinda toxic. Though back in the day I liked drawing them together a lot.

The relationship between the main couple felt very much like. Him trying his best to win her love and her... straight up not doing the same. Like sure during the hiking trip gone wrong episode, she has one of those "Oh no you're hurt so now I realise I've loved you all along" moment, and there are times when they genuinely get along. And she even apologises to him at some point towards the end of the story (for not having been by side during his hospitalisation and other issues etc). But the lenghts he goes to just to impress her and... not even that... just to make her notice him, are quite staggering.

One very painful such episode is towards the end, when she's distancing from him a lot. She's doing laundry etc and some dress or whatever just flies off the window onto a tree or whatever. And here we have a (contrived) chase scene, in which he is very dramatically running after a flying piece of clothing, tripping (and hurting himself in the process) until he finally retrieves the dress. And she's like smh my head, it's dirty now. And man the book is full of such tear jerking scenes. (Another example is a scene in his childhood when he falls face first into the ground but it's treated realistically and he ends up splitting his lip open... which man why friccin describe how he was bleeding like that dude...) Like see how miserable this dude is? Even when he has what he wants it gets taken away from him, nobody loves him and he's dealing with chronic illness on top of it all!

And genuinely. What, girl... Like I appreciate the fact that it was my first novel, and I'm always glad I wrote it. I'll always cherish it and treasure the memories. But the story is not good, though. Or at least not as whole. The message at least is pretty messed up if you try to extract one. Like what is even the message? Fate is cruel? Life is meaningless? Or idk maybe some people live good lives but there are some particular people that literally nobody will love and that's just the way it is?

Thinking of it in a meta way. I think the message, subconsciously, was the last one. In life there are certain people that people arbitrarily will never love, or even outright hate. And yes this story was heavily influenced by the media I was consuming at the time, namely anime and more specifically very dramatic tear jerking anime like Clannad (after story was my main inspiration I think, especially for the latter scenes in which Kaito spends time with his son, but is also slowly dying etc). But even deeper in my subconscious than just my immediate memory of what I was consuming, there was the desperate cry of unloved unloved unloved. That's plastered all over this story. In September there'll be 10 years since I wrote this. It'll be interesting to see the retrospective. A mentor figure I had at the time told me this story feels like it was written by a very lonely person. At the time I rejected such "criticism". But girl that was NOT criticism. It was the truth. The whole story reads like a cry for help. No wonder my parents didn't want me writing this dude contemplate suicide.

Overall self assessment: nostalgia value because it's my very first long form original work, my first novel, my writing debut as it were. There are individual parts of the story that are really beautiful, but as a whole, it's a hopelessly bleak story without much of a purpose than venting, subtly crying unloved unloved unloved from between the lines.

october 2013 - revisited in 2016

The Hacker: Death of the Internet

(the original commentary)

A movie script idea I had been writing on and off.

The main premise is a hacker (for whatever reason) trying to create a virus that infects the whole Internet, but one day he passes out in exhaustion in front of his computer and suddenly finds himself in the virtual world. Every app has a human form etc.

The main character, villain-protagonist is a guy named Hans, and the antagonist, arguably a more moral individual, is the mysterious Mr. G. The latter is supposed to be a representation of the entire Internet but a later reveal is that everybody in that virtual world is an isekai'd actual human. And the elusive Mr. G? Is Hans's programmer neighbour, Gerhard. (At first I chose Hans' name arbitrary but then I decided this is actually taking place in Germany because one of the songs I was listening to a lot for inspiration was Berlin by the Piano Guys).

In the virtual world, the virus created by Hans took actual form (it was a black goo/ wave that engulfed everything it touched, destroying it. Whatever it touched, started glitching green then black 0s and 1s, making the characters turn to dust not unlike in infinity war + endgame). The problem was that Mr. G and the others were basically convinced that if they got infected by the virus they would get killed irl too. Said Mr G had two children (teens - the girl representing social media and the boy representing video platforms). Over the course of the story, they both get engulfed by the virus, basically dying. The boy, right before his father's eyes, and the girl, right before Hans' eyes, and he is helpless to stop it, although he had made the virus in the first place. The scene of confrontation between Mr. G and Hans (which I wrote in 2016) hits extremely hard. The rage I drew on his face, as well as the sorrow like man... and if you think about it yeah, this dude really killed Mr. G's children...

At any rate both remember their lives back in the real world (in an early version there was a memory room which showed their flashbacks in video format). Gerhard was a single dad, his wife having left him for whatever reason (mostly to do with his workaholic tendencies). Hans had a girlfriend too and she does make an appearance in the virtual world too, as a sort of mercenary figure (she kind of opposes Hans but not really. She tries to help Mr. G's daughter too but with no success). At the very end, the virus spreads so far that almost everything is destroyed. Mr. G is dying (literally fading away) and shares some last words with Hans. He dies immediately afterwards too.

The two wake up back in the real world, their respective computers not only completely ruined, but literally on fire too. Thankfully, their death in the virtual world doesn't translate into their death irl. But the two still are in danger because the apartments caught fire and they have to escape etc. They make it out alive and mostly uninjured. Gerhard reunites with his children (and his ex is there too, to tell him he cannot look after the kids etc but that gets solved too). Hans goes to prison etc. However, fortunately, it is clear to him that Gerhard finally forgave him. It is implied Hans will get out eventually and resume his life etc, and they'll be friends etc.

The main inspirations were (movies that I had watched for the 1st time in my life at the age of 12 and literally had my mind blown) the Matrix + Inception. I already mentioned the song Berlin by the Piano Guys being used as inspiration etc. And most importantly, because I wouldn't have started writing it if it weren't for reading those, two short stories I read in a Romanian Christian magazine for college students from the early 2000s. One of them was about hacking and the other was about a college student metaphorically rotting away in his dorm room for decades, which to me seemed both horrifying but also a great source of inspiration for the "darker tone" I was going for with my story.

It is unfinished in the sense that I never actually sat down and wrote the script itself. But I finalised the outline back in 2016 so...

june 2015 - feb 2016 - transitional period

The 5 Books of the Immortals

lenght: 73k, 167 word pages

status: complete

language: Romanian

This was initially based on the Imm 13, and I tried to make it about WW2 instead of a fantasy war, and the way I 'adapted' the story from its original idea did not translate quite well. In retrospect, I think this was one of the main problems with ITGG, too. Thankfully I've gotten better at turning a story into something different from the original concept, but boy did it take a while and a lot of practice!

(the original commentary)

My second ever novel. 73k words. My beloved!!!! The characters from this work were my absolute blorbos, and sometimes still are. This is genuinely a monumental improvement over the 1st novel.

Debriefing. This is not a fantasy, despite the title. It was meant to be an illusion. Start as a fantasy and slowly fade into the real world as the "game"/ innocence of childhood faded away and was replaced by horror. The concept of course is great, and it still lives rent free in my head. One day, I hope to execute it in a way that does it justice. The fact that I didn't manage this is one of the biggest flaws of the novel ofc. But let me talk about the positive things because I genuinely loved writing this so so so much.

The story starts in a college in what we later learn is late 1930s Britain. The main character, Len (should more accurately be Lev but you get the point) is an extremely ambitious chemistry student, the "wizard" among his peers. Except for the dean's son, Zephyr, who is also a genius, but more serious, a foil to Len's rambunctiousness. They become besties tho, and as you can imagine Len gets his friend into trouble a lot. Zephyr has a tense relationship with his dad, which is explored later. Len also meets a girl, Eyline (supposed to be Eileen but bear with teen me and her name giving habits lmao), with whom he is soon quite smitten, and tries a lot of wacky magic tricks to catch her attention (magic tricks = chemical reactions and stuff. On the hallway????????) She's a med student. This info is a tool that we will use later *winks*. She's quite the introvert and a very serious person but she does like him too and find things in common with him. And they become friends which inevitably means wacky shenanigans, and fall in love over the course of the following college years. The scenes between them are just adorable, like one day they stay up late in the library and she just falls asleep with her head on his shoulder etc.

There is one scene at this point which I would totally change now because it went too far in terms of stakes. Len's hubris gets the better of him and he accidentally sets the friccin lab on fire????????????? And it's a very dramatic scene and apparently his sister (coincidentally his lab mate for said project) died?????? And he survived but... he got away with that like. 1 legally and 2. without crippling trauma?????????????? By all accounts this makes no sense and if I were to write this again I would never. I'm not saying he was not affected at all. He's very distraught and gets his own come-to-Jesus moment but... why have such a situation in the 1st place given the drama that is coming for these characters outside college. Anyway. What I was trying to show is that yeah Len is very wacky silly and fun as this over confident character, but his self confidence can get the worst of him and make him do stupid and dangerous things.

At the end of college he marries his beloved Eyline and they have a nice little 1st year of marriage, which to this day I love that montage I did. And now comes the "fantasy fades away" moment. Not by them falling out of love ofc. The fantasy is actually violently ripped away from them as Eyline sees Len, holding his head in his hands, burdened, looking at a letter. He was drafted!!!!!!!!

Because it was actually 1939 all along. Yeyy? And so he prepares for war but Eyline pulls a Mulan and is like no, I'm going to fight alongside you, I cannot be separated from you etc. And he's like nooooo that's very dangerous etc honey you don't have to do this for my sake but she, the original girlboss, is like no, I'm coming because I want to be by your side. If you're going to die at least we die together (or something along those lines). So they went together. And they meet up with Zephyr too ofc. And then another character is introduced, Glinda, who registered as a volunteer out of personal conviction. Later down the line they meet a teen boy who totally lied about being 18 and now they adopt him. I don't make the rules. Adopt as in the found family sense, you get what I'm saying. They're on the battlefield still.

A lot of battles and stuff go down. There is this recurring character Gus who has a vendetta on them for whatever reason and honestly I would remove this character if I wrote this nowadays. This creep follows them around sometimes. Anyway I guess his whole spiel was to be the type of person that views war as licence to kill but... it doesn't really go that well idk. At some point they meet some girl who used to have a crush on Len and she works in the factory to produce weaponry now (which would be the 1st genuinely historically accurate detail so far lmao). But again why is this girl meddling like. This guy is taken. And also this drama has no place during... a war....

Anyway at some point Len catches a stomach disease and is bedridden for a while, which is very much treated as an almost death. Like he has a sort of going-to-Heaven type dream too. Anyway it is during this time that the others get to meet war veterns from ww1, who just so happen to know Zephyr's dad (also a vet). They get some neat little backstory with this occasion. It is also during this time that they meet the teen boy, named Günther (he is half German; he ran away from home for a yet undisclosed reason).

One interesting episode is when Günther meets a girl his age. But as it turns out, she had been coerced into becoming a spy (for the Germans that is), so this was all a ploy. Except she genuinely likes Günther and is friends with him so now he wants to protect him. But she gets caught by both sides as a spy. Günther is helpless to rescue her and she is killed off screen. Again I would write this differently nowadays. It was meant to be a shocking scene like oh no, this is what happens to a double agent. But poor girl was genuinely a victim of circumstance here. Günther is understandably extremely distraught by this.

One of my favourite episodes: Christmas time is coming, which means the soldiers stop by some village and camp etc. They are intent on celebrating. Zephyr meets his cousin, Miles, and they just so happen to stop by his hometown so they stay at his house. Miles is a skilled piano player. The gang has a bit of a breather moment, they play with snow like little kids and have an overall great time. Then ofc the scene gets dramatic real fast but the way I imagined it was always so cinematic. I even imagined using this scene as the trailer for the movie adaptation!!! Miles is playing a familiar Carol on the piano, the camera as it were zooms in on his hands and its almost silence and then BOOM. They actually get bombed, which is supposed to be this shocking scene but also one that (for the purposes of the trailer) sets the tone. Everybody survived except Miles, because that's the part of the house that collapsed. Ok again I would not kill him off if I wrote this today. After finding shelter from the raid etc the characters basically immediately have to go into battle again. It gets dramatic real fast.

Eyline is seriously injured and remains in the hospital for a long time. Len sulks, extremely worried, for a while, but at some point he gets the opportunity to volunteer to fight I'm Stalingrad.... being an ally and all... but remember he himself was Russian (yeah. See the above comment that he should be named Lev for accuracy). So it gets kinda personal. The chapter in which this happens is named... drumroll... the Land where winter never ends. Sound familiar? I thought so. Anyway my dude fights until a heavy snowstorm overcomes him and he gets lost. He remembers a lot of stuff, in a sort of life flashing before his eyes montage? He remembers a lot about his childhood etc. Anyway he survives this ordeal because his (not elderly enough not to fight) uncle was also there, in time to rescue him.

He spends some more time there. Meets a boy about Günther's age named Ivan, to whom he becomes a bit of a mentor figure. Ivan gets killed before his eyes which again is supposed to be for shock value bit dude this is a bit much. Len eventually returns, and, much to his delight, Eyline is alive and also managed to heal in the meantime.

Günther finds his hometown completely wiped off the face of the earth which is understandably very traumatic for him. He assumes both his parents died and deeply regrets having run away from home. He had run because he failed 10th grade + was expelled?? and was too ashamed to face his parents ever again (and he had been a problem student for a while already). I'm not sure I actually wrote this but in an adjacent comic I hinted that his getting failed was more or less due to his teacher being Antisemitic (in the actual text his mother is hinted to be Jewish. But like living in Britain I guess). But the real twist is that his father had gone away from home the night his son was gone in order to search for him.

Guys this is hands down my favourite arc in this story. Like I really like the wife so loyal she'll join the army arc too ofc. Chefs kiss. But father travelling the war torn country, putting his own life in danger to find his son who he has no evidence is even alive anymore? Crying on main my friends... Anyway his dad is crazy dedicated to his pursuit. One day he searches through a forest and falls into a valley, but a lumberjack living there rescues him in time, and takes care of him until his broken bone (arm??) heals. The lumberjack tells the story of how he isolated himself from society once he discovered his wife just up and married somebody else as soon as he was (falsely) declared dead back in the day. And now he's a miserable old man etc. But he is genuinely inspired by this father searching for his lost son, and examines his cynicism a bit.

Zephyr receives a letter from his dad which explains a lot about his own experience during ww1 and basically serves as an attempt to reconcile with his son. There is a nice moment in which Len and Eyline hide from the elements (it's raining hard etc) and have a moment to reflect on the past few years, how they met, how they ended up both going to war etc. It's maybe cheesy with the line delivery but I love the moment itself. They're just genuinely just grateful for each other. There is an interesting callback to a very early scene. Len is all like yeah falling in love is literally just chemical reactions (at the beginning of the story) and now he's like but staying in love that's a choice right here. And he is just genuinely so grateful that she chose to come with him. And she's just glad to be by his side through thick and thin. Guys I'm telling you, one of the couples of all time.

The war eventually ends. Len and Eyline go back home and have a cozy life for a while. They visit his parents (which again is weird in terms of historical accuracy because it wouldn't be very safe to just go to 1940s ussr but ok...). They make several plans for the future etc. Eyline is pregnant etc. Günther is staying with them and tries to find work etc (just what I was saying about them essentially adopting this kid). And everything is normal until suddenly that minor character Gus from earlier comes back with a vengeance and... out of nowhere, stabs Len when he sees him. Eyline and Günther try their best to get some help in time but Len dies and quite dramatically too. Eyline has to deal with the completely unhelpful doctors, and has to assert herself, because they don't take her seriously at all until they learn she was no ordinary doctor but a war medic veteran too. There's an extremely sad flashback/ dream sequence she gets immediately after dealing with his death, with of course the added stress of being ignored like that by the doctors etc. The following scenes are very sad too but I think I at least managed to show the mundane ways in which the characters deal with Len's absence in a meaningful way. The funeral scene is also very sad and Eyline's speech at the end is quite emotional etc. Zephyr crying over the death of his friend, too. But all is not bleak because it is during this event that Günther finally reunites with his dad, and honestly this scene is probably the most emotional of all.

The other characters move on with their lives step by step. Eyline gives birth to a daughter and raises her alone etc. Günther gets a job and takes care of his father as he ages etc. Glinda I think ends up travelling the world or some such. Zephyr reconciles with his father and continues his studies in order to become a professor. There's this moment of parallels between the old generation and the new one (and its more or less the same structure between Zephyr's friend group during the war and his dad's own friend group during the previous war, including the one of the friends dying tragically etc).

Overall assessment: in retrospective, this story was needlessly dark at times. Why kill off characters so quickly and just for shock value??? If I wrote this today I'd change many things, including never even making Gus a character in the 1st place. If Len has to die, it would be in battle. But I'd tend towards him not dying at all tbh. Because I remember quite clearly my mindset as I was writing this "it's not realistic if nobody dies, or if all main characters live". So I was equating tragedy with realism, as well as basically feeling pressured to write a sad ending to make my story more "meaningful". No man it was meaningful enough with its having a group of friends who genuinely love each other a lot, a main couple who are very loyal to each other and a father relentlessly searching for his lost son.

There is so much love and beauty in this story, and it didn't need to stoop to the common denominator of haha sad ending smart. Come on. The meaning is not in the tragedy, it's in the love. What I appreciate is that this story is by a large order of magnitude better than my first in terms of overall feel and message. The plot is more complex and interesting. It's an extremely dramatic story too. It wouldn't be a story written by me if it weren't. But it doesn't feel meaningless anymore. It still does reflect a very key flaw in my minset though, namely the believing that happy endings are too good to be true and in life you just have to get the rug pulled from under your feet just when you're the happiest. Also that happiness is unrealistic and tragedy is realistic. This is a mindset that I'm still trying to unlearn a lot, and it's obvious through the way I used to write and maybe even through the way I write now that I'm an extremely pessimistic person. But overall, this story was a beautiful one. Obviously it had its flaws. Just now I cringed at the sheer teenage way of wording my stuff. I understand that many parts are written immaturely, but hey I was literally 14-15. I love the characters first and foremost. The ideas for the plot could use some work but it's something to start from, its workable etc. I'm extremely happy I wrote this when I did.

My main inspirations were the sheer volume of war movies watched with dad as a child and teen. So any cliche present in those was here too. Also The Book Thief, my beloved!! I loved that book so so much. Generally I was quite happy at that age and I think that translated clearly into the overall tone of the work, as well as the choice of main character (very extroverted, confident, playful).

My experimental era

The following period was characterized by me just writing whatever story idea I had in my mind, without strict outlines or plans, and based on much more vague concepts, in the case of original fiction, or attempts to make canon-compliant fanfiction.

summer 2015 (aged 14)

01&02

lenght: 50 A5 comic pages, small panels etc

status: completed

language: Romanian

During this period, I was finally reading fanfiction, finally having learned of the concept, so I was inspired to start writing fanfic again after years of trying to only write originals. As you can see, my main fandom at the time was Vocaloid.

(original commentary)

Vocaloid fanfiction in comic form, all on my sketchbook. 50+ pages of comic pages of my longest running comic ever.

The Vocaloids are sentient robots living alongside humans. Rin remembers how she and Len were made by the same inventor a long time ago, and he gave them hearts, metaphorically speaking, as in made them sentient. This was later applied to all Vocaloids.

Fast forward much time later. They live their lives normally, being mostly preoccupied with their performance arts (singing + acting). Many vocaloid songs are reinterpreted as plays they perform, but some get integrated into the main plot. The robots are regularly maintained by the humans, and got them out of trouble etc. These humans were descendants of the original scientists (several generations down the line).

Rin is a gamer/ streamer and makes several online friends, including getting herself a boyfriend (a human tech nerd). But they eventually break up and it ends up badly down the line. In the meantime, Len has a crush on Miku, but she is seemingly more interested in Kaito etc. They even play in several plays together though (like Servant of Evil etc). At some point Miku is also with the same guy Rin used to be with and again it's not good for her etc. However, over time, Len and Miku get along increasingly better, and collaborate on some song/ ad (SPL) and Miku realises she likes him too etc so they get together too.

At this point the story seems like it's mostly romance drama but suddenly they realise something is wrong. The human guy was never so much interested in actual dating as much as gathering data. Now that he had all his resources, he created a virus that affected the vocaloids quite irreparably. It was quite slow acting, however. The human scientists try to find solutions but they don't really manage, despite their best efforts.

Len, Miku, Rin and the others spend a lot of time together like before, but are now more aware of their mortality as it were. Miku one day starts to feel the actual effects of the virus when her voice cracks and it's this shocking emotional moment etc. Len and Miku get married etc and this again is this emotional scene etc. Miku legit just dies. And soon enough every single one of them is infected with the virus with no hope of a cure and they kind of just die one by one. The humans are helpless to find solutions. And the vocaloids are just devastated at their newfound sense of mortality + loss of their friends.

Len dies too, and this affects Rin a lot. She knows she will die quite soon, too, so she sets out on an existential journey. She finally finds the place where her inventor first made her and Len. She looks through his old papers and computers etc, with no hope of finding a cure. She locates her "father's" grave and contemplates her life, the memories she formed with her friends, the miracle of having had this Heart, as well as appreciating life, as she feels closer and closer to death. She falls off her feet, on the ground, next to the graves, but she is smiling and seemingly shedding a small tear.

My main inspirations were: vocaloid songs: Kokoro + the Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, and also a film I saw as a kid about a robot who got more and more human organs until he became human and died. Permanently changed my brain chemistry etc (I loved that movie despite at the time being terrified of robots). I spent like all summer writing and drawing this fanfic, and had great great fun. Literally unrestrained summer fun.

December 2015 - early 2016

Train of Thought

length: 20 ish A5 comic pages

status: complete

language: Romanian

This was a story idea that came to me very impulsively, soon after watching Inside Out, and basing it on a joke I had heard recently. I created the character designs and started the story very soon afterwards, eager to finish it relatively quickly. I drew it in the same notebook as the Vocaloid fanfic.

(original commentary)

A short story in comic form, written in full on one of my sketchbooks.

This is a world in which the 4 Temperaments, as well as other categories (Pessimist, Optimist) are personified. There is more than one entity per category, and people are grouped into countries based on their category. The story starts with the Realist cynically observing the Pessimist and the Optimist waiting helplessly on the train tracks (both free, not tied up, also standing etc). The Optimist foolishly convinces himself no train will come, and the Pessimist is convinced they will die anyway so what's the point anyway. They get run over offscreen. The Realist, who is an absolutely emotionless being (he is supposed to represent Reason and is completely removed from and opposed to Emotion), so his reaction to seeing those two killed right before him looks like indifference, although he pities them (though with a bit of an attitude of superiority).

He was called to sort things out between the Temperaments, who have some level of international conflict. Specifically Choleric and Sanguine aren't allied anymore and are in some sort of conflict. Realist sides with Choleric and helps him rationalise the whole situation. Choleric comes to his senses and sorts things out with Sanguine and reconciles with her etc.

The problem is that the seemingly extremely rational Realist has been hearing voices all this time, and they grow louder and louder, and suddenly this world doesn't seem real anymore. The scene shifts immediately. It's a hospital room, and a man with the same physical appearance as Realist is in the hospital bed, looking as if having suffered a grave accident. The voice echoing is now clear: it was his wife calling him by his name, Richard, name that he doesn't recognise because he lost his memory due to his head injury.

Once awoken, he learns several shocking news regarding what had happened. The train he was on got derailed, causing a devastating accident. He is suddenly curious to know the other patients in the hospital (which is full of the injured from said accident). He meets at least 4 people with whom he is able to communicate and learn more about what happened. Those are Cole (the Choleric), Sandy (the Sanguine), Melvin (the Melancholic) and Felicia (the Phlegmatic). All four were businesspeople heading to a meeting in which to discuss the relationship between their respective businesses and negotiate trade etc etc.

Richard talks the most to Cole, with whom he is both annoyed, due to his abrasive attitude, but also gets along with eventually, finding a lot in common. Richard also gets a lot of information about everything, but is unable to actually remember it, which frustrates him. Richard falls asleep/ unconscious again and dreams the continuation of the same dream. The Choleric gets shot by somebody trying to overthrow the current government, but doesn't die. Despite the controversy, he once again allies with Sanguine. The Realist doesn't find his place in this world. Richard wakes up. He doesn't find his place in the real world either, with his not remembering anything, except the facts others tell him, which he has to take at face value.

During the following days he befriends the other patients and learns about their lives too. For example, Cole and Sandy were actually together but had a fight about something. Of course now that it was a life vs death situation, they put aside their differences. Richard himself finally gets his memory back when he remembers his wife, Sophia (who also appeared as a constant background character in the dreams too). She is very happy to have him back as it were, but she leaves eventually, in order to let him rest.

This time Richard cannot dream anymore and instead is plagued by (traumatic) memories. He remembers exactly what happened during the day of the accident. His co-workers (and friends, who in the dream appeared as the Optimist and the Pessimist) had actually died right then and there, in a thoughtless attempt to escape. This memory disturbed him a lot. He also remembered having interacted with all 4 of the survivors (that he had talked with at lenght) while on that train ride, as they were seated very close one to another and they even exchanged some words, enabling him to make a first impression of them (and explaining why he even dreamt about them too - for example in real life Richard directly saw how Cole was injured).

The next day they even watch the news and see that the accident is still being discussed. The others, such as Sandy, have other concerns however, such as Cole being rushed to the emergency room again (I'm not good at medicine and was even more so at 14 but bear with me) because his injury either got infected or there was some internal bleeding etc. Although the scene is kind of dramatic, he survives and makes a recovery.

All of them heal from their wounds over time, and, having become friends during this time of hardship, keep in touch etc. Richard ponders upon his tendency to judge people based on first impressions and stereotypes etc etc. Eventually he too goes home, happy to reunite with his wife.

My main inspirations include Inside out which I just saw recently at that time and was very normal about, thank you very much. I was interested in stuff about personality types and read a lot about it (and did every test out there lmao - yes MBTI too - I always get different stuff between INTJ, ENTJ, INFJ, ENFJ so for me it's not accurate but its fun as a concept). The actual starting point for my writing it was this dark joke I heard at the time: in a tunnel, the Optimist sees the light at the end, the Pessimist sees the dark, the Realist sees the train lights, and the train conductor sees 3 idiots on the train tracks. So yeah hearing that joke + my "psychology phase" at the time made me go into a several day writing binge. Ah those are always fun. I get struck by an idea and come back with a fully formed short story.

april 2016

Frozen parody

length: about 10 A5 pages, comic form

status: completed

language: Romanian

Another impulsive story decision that I finished in a quick time, also on the same notebook.

(original commentary)

Frozen retelling as a modern ice skating competition. Comedy/ satire. Only like 10 comic pages so quite short.

Elsa is a child prodigy in ice skating, earning the title of the Ice Queen. However, she has a strained relationship with her sister Anna because of a childhood accident caused by her negligence. While ice skating, Anna broke her back (?) and remained paralysed from the neck down.

Now as adults, they are more independent etc. Elsa runs away to her castle which is actually a private hotel (??) .

Hans is introduced as a "villain" but only in the sense that he's a direct competitor and maybe overly confident that he will win/ a huge sore loser. His main characteristic is not being in power and manipulating others into thinking he's a nice guy, instead being characterised by over competitiveness. He and Anna are in a relationship, but it's very short lived because Anna herself is quite flighty (immature, indecisive) about relationships in general. She almost immediately gets with Kristoff after breaking up with Hans, which makes the latter very jealous.

Desperate to win the contest (as well as maybe out of petty revenge??) Hans cheats by creating a hidden hole in the ice. During the competition, it is Anna who falls in, Elsa having to jump in the cold water to save her (as Anna absolutely cannot swim etc). The day is thus saved. Hans is disqualified from the competition altogether.

Quick flash forward to the future, Anna and Kristoff are married, Elsa happy for them etc. They live at the Ice Hotel (r) (hotel firm owned by Elsa). I just found the notebook at man it's a bit of a mean satire but one joke that stands out is that the trolls (love experts) are refered to as Kristoff's doctor-therapist-fortuneteller parents. I think that should set the tone for how this story is like.

Yeah I was in my "Frozen is cringe and for kids" phase I guess. Ok though but nowadays I like it unironically. No need to mock it lmao. But I'll say only one thing. I gave Hans a more believable motivation in this spoof fanfic than the actual movie lmao.

Unwritten fanfic concept

(original commentary)

A Derpy and Dr. Whooves ship fanfic. Basically combining a human AU with the Pony world. The two meet irl, him being a time traveller, fall in love etc, start a family, but the interdimensional police eventually come after him and catch him, forcibly separating the two. She ends up in the pony world and spends many years there, raising Dinky etc. But one day she manages to reach an interdimensional warp zone and find her long lost husband etc but the police kill him. Thankfully by now she already knew to operate time travel tech so she rewinds time etc before he gets shot and by a combo of time stops, also redirects the bullets etc. They manage to escape from them forever, and live happily etc.

I wish I had written this when I first thought of it, but I basically just daydreamt it and left it.

2016

The Hacker: Death of the Internet

This time I rethought the story and wrote a complete outline and several scenes in comic form and even tried to start writing the script. This was the last time I tried to outline the story, but I never abandoned this story, and I wish to one day do it justice.

late 2016 - early 2017

Fairy worldbuilding project

length: dozens of pages of worldbuilding sketches and character designs, at least several comics and 2 written pages of lore, but mostly just drawings

status: vague ideas

I just thought the ideas were cool so I made an entire design series, and then decided to create more and more lore, but didn't really create any story.

(original commentary)

Not much of a story but I loved doing worldbuilding. There are fairies who are based on several insects, and each species has a country, its Queen etc. Butterflies are considered frivolous etc but they carry the textile industry. Bees are the hardworking ones etc - food industry. Flies, Moths and Fireflies are nocturnal so they hold meetings at odd hours in order to adjust to the timezone of the others. Ie international meeting between Butterflies and Moths: 10 am but its very early for the Butterfly and very late for the Moth etc. Ladybugs!!! Just all bugs basically fall here. Including scarabs which are like super buff. Actual bugs are stereotyped as dirty etc. Flies are kinda tricksters etc. They get along ish but not really.

The plot if it had one would be internal political conflict in the Butterfly Kingdom. The Queen refuses to step down and let her niece rule. Matriarchal society etc. The Butterfly Queen rules over the others Kingdoms as well etc so it's kind of an Empire. But Ants for example, being mostly terrestrial and wingless, are separate.

This mostly makes sense by looking at the actual artwork. Not much else here. Ongoing forever maybe, it's just for fun. My baby cousins loved watching me draw these.

My perfectionist era

This era is characterized by me becoming increasingly rigid, strict and perfectionistic with myself, to the point where I became unable to write anything at all for months on end. My writing (and lack thereof) was a great symptom/ side effect of my very distressing mental struggles at that age. In trying to write the perfect novel, both in terms of craft and morally, that would become my guaranteed publishable debut, I ended up not only not being able to write the novel itself, but not being able (or even allowing myself to) invest in any other projects at all. It's very sad to look back on all this.

late 2017 - early 2019

The Choice to Love

length: 4600 words, 15 pages (first attempt, only the first 2 chapters), 3200, 11 pages (second attempt, the first 2 chapters), many comic A4 pages, hand drawn, and many pages of drawings, many competing outlines, and many dozens of A5 handwritten pages of various fragments of the novel

status: incomplete

language: Romanian, English

(original commentary)

My 3rd novel, but it never saw the light of day. It was supposed to be a Christian Victorian romance novel. I only wrote the first 2-3 chapters + a lot of disconnected scenes, outlines (redoing those outlines many times), research sheets etc, concept art etc.

The plot takes place in 1845, in a unnamed town in southern England, not very far from London. The main character is one Ernest, a 30 year old bachelor, the youngest son of a family from the lower nobility/ gentry (so upper middle class to upper class). He is made to marry a certain Jeannine, who comes from a seemingly poorer family but otherwise of significant aristocratic origin (her grandfather was a French marquis but fled France in 1793 due to very obvious reasons). Jeannine was 25 I think and her family was rushing her to get married too etc. Anyway they end up married despite being strangers etc. Ernest is a very neurotic individual, with a clear perfectionistic tendency and general "weird" aura about him. Jeannine is herself very shy and introverted (especially in comparison to her twin sister Georgette), but otherwise a much more relaxed person in comparison to Ernest. He is nerdy and he likes building mechanical stuff like cuckoo clocks etc and Jeannine has more artistic leanings.

Now the main plot was supposed to be their falling in love etc but try as I might I literally couldn't... write anything in the middle, at least not the main plot. There was zero actual chemistry between the two aside from my drawing cute art of them. But I wrote very extensively about the side characters which there were many of. Ernest had several servants, all of which had their own backstory, personality etc, and all of them got along with him very nicely. The main housekeeper/ admin was his old nanny, who just so happened to also be a French immigrant with a sad backstory like Jeannine's grandpa etc. She never had children of her own, but basically adopted Ernest. (The idea here is that Ernest's family was quite bad actually. The mom and dad hated each other. Ernest was never loved by his mother, despite that not being the case with his older siblings, and their father was very absent etc). The cook was married to the gardner, and there was also another couple among them (one of the maids and the stable keeper I think??). The cook's apprentice is an orphan teen that got taken under their wing (Ernest is a teacher figure to her, but he didn't adopt her etc). Generally the household is kind of a found family which is very wholesome. This is meant to contrast the tense situation of Ernest's biological family.

He also has a close friend, Jasper, who is a small business owner (he has an antique shop and I think that's actually how the two met because Ernest was trying to recondition an old clock and looking for parts). He has a wife Gabrielle (you guessed it - also French - I genuinely spent a lot of time researching every detail and yes apparently in the 1st half of the 19th century, it was not uncommon for there to be French immigrants in England, with the French Revolution + subsequent revolutions + religious persection of the Huguenots) who is a seamstress. (OK now that I mentioned my very specific real world details that I included because I did some research: I imagined Gabrielle was raised Catholic and her parents gave her quite a hard time for having married a Protestant and herself having converted etc. Jeannine and her family I imagined to have been Huguenots - which are basically just Calvinists. Ernest I imagined to be a member of a Reformed Baptist church (at the time it was called Particular Baptist), despite not having been raised that way and ofc, that's just one more thing that his parents would give him trouble for. Given the time + location + already mentioned details, you can safely 100% imagine Ernest would attend Spurgeon's sermons in person).

Ernest had 3 older siblings, two brothers and a sister. The oldest, William, was 40 years old, had a wife Sophia and 5 kids. He was the owner of a factory and very financially successful, but, not unlike his father, was much more caught up in work rather than family etc. He also hung out the wrong kinds of company (doing gambling I think??) and was very much a smoking addict. At some point in the story his health takes a turn for the worse (he faints at some point and he fears that he is developing a heart problem, which scares him back to his senses as it were. He has his come-to-Jesus moment, and then tries to reconcile with his wife and children etc. There's even a montage in which he tries to become healthier so he runs around to lose weight or whatever). The other brother, Frederick, is 38 and is also married, to one Olivia, with whom he has 2 or 3 children I don't remember. He is a believer but his wife is not and that's the beginning of their conflict, but at some point she actually just... cheats on him with some dude. Undergoes a full on Hosea + Gomer arc (and quite explicitly based on that mind you). She realises that the lover she ran away with actually wants to harm her etc so she runs home to her husband, literally in rags etc. And of course he forgives her etc. The sister, Amelia, is 36 and she actually lives far away from the other siblings because she married a northerner. They also have several kids etc, and among all of the siblings, Amelia has the happiest marriage. She was meant to be the good example to the others as it were. During childhood, she was the closest to Ernest, the brothers being rather bullies to him (during adulthood their relationship improved however). The mother was very miserable and bitter despite living a life of comfort and luxury. The father was suffering from some sort of terminal disease (I imagined something like stomach cancer and yes I did google whether they knew cancer was a thing back then - turns out they did but ofc the only solution was to physically remove the tumour by surgery and hope they got it all out basically). The father had also been a very bad parent but now that he was closer to death he was reflecting on his life and feeling regretful etc.

Jeannine's family was much more normal. She had a twin sister, Georgette, who was also unmarried etc (but for some reason nobody rushed to find her a high-class match???) but at some point she falls in love with a gardner/ farmer guy and marries him. The parents were in a good relationship, and were reasonable in the way they raised their daughters. They had no other children aside from them (due to how complicated it was to give birth to twins??). I was undecided in my outlines whether to write the grandpa as still alive or not. Either way he would've been quite elderly at this point. His name was Yves and he ran away because of the Revolution, only fleeing once the king had died (he was very loyal etc). Jeannine's dad was his youngest child (or second to youngest - he had a large family) and he was raised in England his whole life.

Anyway, eventually Ernest and Jeannine fall in love and are finally more of a real couple etc. Part of what drew her to him was the closeness with his servants, and how by being Mistress of the household, she got to be part of this large family too. Most of Ernest's internal conflict was like "this woman I was forced to marry is objectively a good person in every single way but I still can't force myself to fall in love - am I in the wrong here and am I a terrible person for this etc? And he was generally very very very overthinking. Very perfectionistic. Also spending a lot of time feeling guilty over stuff and yeah. More on that later.

The big twist at the end, when Ernest's dad dies (and has a deathbed conversion), is that the reason Ernest was so marginalised as a child is because he was actually his mother's illegitimate son. His "dad" was resentful towards him because his wife cheated on him etc, and his mom hated him because he was a living reminder of her "helpless condition" (cannot just run away with her lover but has to raise child while still living with the husband she despises). However, re: deathbed conversion, Ernest's dad apologises to him and reconciles with him. Some time after the death, Ernest finds that he actually not only is part of the inheritance, but got an equal part to his siblings.

That's where the story ended, and the sequel hook was Ernest finding his biological father etc. On my sketchbooks I drew many scenes etc. But many were of the next generation as it were. The adventures of Ernest and Jeannine's children (4 of them: Alexander, the responsible eldest son, Ada, the rebellious daughter, Justin, also a kind of rebellious son, and Irene, the very sweet daughter. Alexander ended up getting married to Edith, one of Jasper's daughters. She had a crush on him since childhood etc. Irene, maybe by virtue of being the youngest, was closest to her parents. Justin, after finally becoming a responsible adult, got into Law school. Ada, after sorting out her vicious sibling rivalry with Alex, as well as becoming a responsible adult etc, got into journalism. She married a young widower and single father Frank, who ran an independent newspaper. Everybody kind of gets paired off together in some way. Justin is revealed to be the grandfather of Zephyr, from my 2nd novel. Talk about literary universe. Ernest builds a school whose principal he becomes etc. He teaches maths and physics, Jeannine teaches French and History (and over time they get more teachers to hire).

Aside from the unending family trees, the sequel gets very depressing very fast, as all beloved characters just die off one by one. William dies of a heart attack when he is in his mid 50s (despite all the changes he made to better his health??!!!), with a very emotional and gut wrenching scene in which his wife laments how others only find it tragic when a recently married wife gets widowed, but one that was married for 30 years, not so much, despite hurting her much more to know she lost the one she spent 3 decades with. Frederick dies in an accident (gets thrown by his horse). Ernest, now himself middle-aged, with his children grown up (some of them as I said rebellious in their youths, which makes him feel like a bad parent), and both his brothers dead etc, falls into a very deep depression out of which nobody can take him out, not even his beloved wife etc. There is this very dark scene in which he faints due to burnout from how much he had been over working himself, and Jeannine finds him unconscious on the floor etc. But due to how absolutely hopeless and miserable he had acted lately, Jeannine just immediately jumps to the conclusion that he committed suicide, which everybody else believes until Ernest himself wakes up to explain was not the case as he only just fainted after having been awake for several days in a row. He eventually heals after spending some time by the sea and relaxing from his work etc. But I never found a satisfying ending to the sequel. Is that all? Everybody is dead and Ernest doesn't get along with his family anymore? He only barely gets over his depression by hanging out by the sea for a bit?

And this is the moment where I analyse this from a meta perspective. It's almost embarrassing to what degree Ernest's development over the year that I wrote this mirrored my own mental state. At first, I focused on his attention to moral integrity - good! I too was trying to be good. Then I focused on his perfectionism, and guilt. He was feeling guilty for not being able to force himself to fall in love. He was very strict with every detail of his life - in one scene he rearranges his entire library because a book is out of order. Even though he literally commits absolutely no sin whatsoever during the entire narrative, he still acts so guilty like WHYYYY. Why make a character who is morally impeccable but still has the behaviour of one guilty for existing. Oh well he did have a bit of that illegitimate child complex but he didn't even know he was illegitimate until the end so like??? But now in retrospective I'm like oh. Oh. I was very well behaved, unnaturally well behaved for a 17 year old, and still felt the weight of the world with how guilty I felt all the time. I was dealing with horrific intrusive thoughts on the daily, on the hourly basically. I suppose I was aware even then that my Protagonist was basically me in many ways. But I never even allowed him bad thoughts!!! Not even a tiny little "but what if I just stabbed somebody" and have him react in horror or whatever. Which would've explained his guilty attitude etc. But no that's not clean enough for a Christian romance. Yes in hindsight I censored myself a lot in order to fit into that label. Very squeaky clean. No real conflict aside from the side characters who were interesting because they were allowed to have flaws and an actual character arc. But then I started getting art block. Writer's block. My head was literally empty. Except it was very full of all sorts of bad thoughts. But it was empty of my usual ideas etc. I began finding no purpose much less pleasure in my otherwise extremely treasured hobbies. When I did "get inspiration", it was to ruin my main character's happy ever after, make his siblings die tragically, his family life become dramatic and divided, and him be miserable, depressed, overworked and with a middle age crisis, and contemplating suicide. Although he didn't even do that. It would be too inappropriate. So he just fainted from exhaustion I guess. I wrote that scene in December 2017. And then in 2018 didn't manage to come up with much new. I stagnated completely, and almost completely stopped writing and drawing altogether. As you might already know 2018 was the worst year of my life. So it's no wonder I was literally unable to create anything. Sometimes I get sad when I look at my folders and see stuff like 2016 (70 items) 2017 (60 items) 2018 (30 items) 2019 (50 items) etc. Like the decline is so obvious and I know why. But at least, as that "if you have art block that's your brain trying to tell you to do studies", while my original stuff was plummeting, I have some genuine bangers in terms of studies from the summer of 2018.

Overall, the story was supposed to be heartwarming but ended up depressing. It does have all the blueprints to be a beautiful and uplifting one though! The love between characters is still palpable. It only needed to be more real ie not so censored that the main character literally has no flaws, and more of a conflict. Also the sequel was just literally me ruining the source material so I would completely scrap that or at least change it a lot. I'm sometimes very emotional about this unfinished novel. Oh, it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its development mirrors my mental state at the time quite accurately. One day I wish to rewrite this. Maybe when I get all my existential questions sorted out, and being more mature I am able to look back at all of this and make sense of it. But I would make it a less squeaky clean story too. I would make Ernest have serious questions about his faith, not this lowkey legalistic lifestyle being treated as "just being a good Christian, let's not ask many questions etc".

The main inspirations were all those period drama films where the woman is married to a husband she isn't in love with so she cheats on him with somebody she is in love with. Trying my absolute best to go the opposite direction of that. Had been reading the Rose of Versailles manga at the time + watching a lot of period dramas. Inspirations from the history I read etc.

around 2018

Unwritten fanfic concept - Betrayed

I think this was inspired by me reading Frozen fanfic at the time and it being one of my only sources of entertainment/ distraction.

(original commentary)

A Hans fanfic (Frozen) which recontectualises his villain turn not as a random thing neither as a planned thing, but as him going insane from so much betrayal during his lifetime. He tells Anna if only there were somebody to love you not to be cruel, but to make a bitter jab at the fact that he believes her to be cheating on him with Kristoff. Basically Anna's engagement song is taken seriously and not as a joke and Hans is like how can you abandon me so fast etc. He does succumb to madness as it were etc and the events go down and he gets imprisoned etc see the Frozen fever short. So the story would end tragically with him catching some sort of disease, a literal deadly fever, and some nurse being the last person he sees. For a brief moment he remembers the good times with Anna and as he lay dying he calls her name. The nurse, for the sake of comforting a dying man, pretends to recognise him etc and tells him some encouraging words etc. He dies but kind of imagining a more happy version of events in which he just happened to fall sick but at least he saw his fiancee during his last moments.

I did make myself cry with this concept lmao but I never sat down to write it.

My healing and recovery era

This era is characterized by my healing from the brunt of my mental health struggles, and gaining a more positive outlook on life, and thus, as if suddenly, regaining my writing ability. I was reading a lot of fanfic at the time, which, again, was a great source of inspiration. This era ends with yet another period of writer's block, but that was more due to my being extremely busy with writing essays for school to be able to write anything personal. I did have some ideas but didn't yet want to commit to any other project than TLOEW.

around 2019

Unwritten fanfic concept - The Red Plague

(original commentary)

Hetalia historical fanfic. There is a mysterious lab disease called the red plague. Russia is the first to get sick etc. The plague is supposed to mirror the spread of communism etc and the symptoms are supposed to be both physical but especially psychological, the other characters being horrified at how much their friends chanted for the worse etc.

may 2019

Draft 0 of TLOEW

length: 14 handwritten A4 pages

status: complete

language: English

I was supposed to study for a national contest one day (I was in 11th grade, aged 18) but I was looking out the window and remembering a fanfic I loved and I immediately thought to myself! Yes I can and will rewrite this according to my vision!

(original commentary)

The first story I wrote after my hiatus/ writer's block/ mental health break. 14 handwritten A4 pages so I'd say... 5k-7k words?? As an estimate.

A young, Elena, princess falls in love with her servant, Kęstas, who secretly turns out to have been a foreign prince all along. The two run away together from her dictatorial brother, the king Anatoliy. Once in the forest, Elena learns the truth about Kęstas, namely that her brother killed his parents, conquered his country and took him prisoner. The two get married in secret, but they cannot hide forever so they return, backed by the people, who revolt. Elena also frees her older sister, Svetlana, the rightful monarch, and they remove Anatoliy from power, sending him into exile. They reunite years later, Anatoliy now a humbled pig farmer. His older kneels to hug him, showing her forgiveness towards him. He sincerely apologises, saying he had been a madman.

The sole inspiration for this was the Hetalia fanfic A Blend of White and Red by SweetVerses (on ffn) that I read in April or may 2019 and it changed my brain chemistry. I was obsessed especially with the winter vibes and tried my best to emulate that. I rewrote the fic as a royal AU as it were, added some other details until it was my own thing and boom. Narratively satisfying ending too. That was certainly very procrastination fueled + inspiration of the moment. But it had been years since I'd last written a full story, and since I had allowed myself to just write without being perfect, so writing this was the single most liberating writing experience of my entire life.

Available on my sideblog but it's handwriting only so I summarised the complete plot here.

june - july 2019

Do you know what it feels like

lenght: 14 words, 31 word pages

status: completed

language: English

I just had a sudden idea for a fanfic and immediately started writing, with the intention to finally post this online (I had made a deviantart and ffnet account).

(original commentary)

Hetalia human AU, mostly a LietBel ship fic. 14k words.

Two lonely and miserable people meet and think they can fix each other, which temporarily seems to work but it ultimately leads to a very toxic place. Available on my deviantart, ffn and tumblr, so not giving away more of the plot.

I wrote this right in between writing draft 0 and starting outlining draft 1, which was a nice breather (as well as a nice writing binge - I got this out in the span of about 2-3 weeks). I had just read seemingly all fanfic of this ship on ffn (not a lot of it) and was struck by an Idea so I had to write it down as fast as possible. I was in a good place at the time (was writing this in the week before and the one after I got baptised, and I was finally in the summer vacation after a brutal school year namely 11th grade). I think that this reflects in the fact of my writing a story with an optimistic ending, and, while very dramatic because it wouldn't be written by me if it weren't, still full of wholesome moments etc.

summer 2019

Untitled medieval story

(original commentary)

Arranged marriage between a prince and a princess. They don't get along at first but eventually fall in love. He was a bit arrogant at first but got better. He had some scars from smallpox as a child etc which is how she gets him to talk about his backstory. He even gets wounded in battle at some point, and by that point she already cared about him etc etc.

december 2019 - august 2020

The Land of Eternal Winter

length: 115k words, 270 word pages

status: complete

language: English

I had this idea that I should turn that short story from May into a full novel, by making Anatoliy the main character instead of the villain, so I spent all summer and autumn planning and outlining and brainstorming the plot and character arcs in light of these changes. The fact that I had a lot of free time in early 2020 certainly facilitated my finishing this 115k novel in just under nine months. This story was written deeply from the heart, from the bottom of my soul, and it was a key part of my healing process for what I had endured in 2018. I know it's not a perfect story, hence why I plan to write a draft 2, and fixing the worldbuilding, first and foremost. But I am very happy with how this novel turned out, even as it is, and it means a lot to me. I believe it is a meaningful and emotional story, that with the necessary amount of polish, has the potential to become a masterpiece.

(the original commentary)

Anatoliy, a prince, namely the king's middle child, takes revenge for his father's death, but he kills an innocent person. This sends him completely spiraling, and he becomes desperate to fix what he did, and also to receive forgiveness from God and the people he's hurt)

Draft 1 available on deviantart and my sideblog in full (written directly in English). Main inspirations: draft 0 (yes, it's a self fanfiction as it were lmao), Hamlet, Crime and Punishment (but at the time I wrote these I basically only knew the sparknotes ver, not having read the actual books until later 2020). My mental space at that time was one of recovering from my depressive episode and finding hope, happiness, peace again etc. And also not having as many horrific intrusive thoughts and constant guilt. Especially my very recent experience with crippling guilt helped me write a guilt torn and forgiveness starved main character. 100% convinced my psyche always heavily influences my writing a lot. That's OK though. This book is very hopeful actually, not hopeless, and sends a good message. I'm currently working on rewriting this from scratch aka draft 2.

2020 -2021 ish

Red Shadows: In Memoriam

This was only a vague idea that I came up with though I have a pretty clear idea of the ending and themes etc. I plan to write this one day.

A story from the perspective of an old woman seeing her whole life before her eyes. She faints/ almost dies of a heart attack when she looks at the 21 December 1989 memorial, and has a lot of flashbacks in chronological order or not. We learn that she was fervently loyal to the communist party and there seems to be feeling subconsciously guilty over something. The rest would be a spoiler - I genuinely want to write this one day.

I want this to be part of a volume for other short stories, Red Shadows, all in some way related to Romanian communist or post-communist history, all of the characters being at least tangentially connected in some way, thereby unifying the narratives within the volume.

2020 - 2021 ish

Do you know what it feels like

I have some ideas of how I might rewrite that fanfic from 2019, but with added characters and nuance and a character arc for Ivan.

My impulsive and 'edgy' era

This period is characterized by my writing, in very impulsive bursts of inspiration, amidst periods of extreme distress in my personal life. Writing is used as a sort of (unhealthy) coping mechanism, but, at the same time, the works are more mature than the previous ones, by virtue of having a decade of experience, so even if I did not plan so meticulously or write so consistently as usual, the themes that I struggle with in my real life are more and more visible in my work the less I intentionally try to add it. I call this era edgy because my stories have themes like death, mental illness and apocalyptic anticipation, and, of course, these are ultimately things I myself have in my subconscious as I'm unpacking my own trauma etc. This era started with my trying to expand upon the worldbuilding of TLOEW, and creating a very detailed mythos, and, at present, includes my completing the Inklings Challenge, which, indeed, forced me to go way outside my comfort zone.

october - novemeber 2022

The Land of Eternal Winter

Expanding on worldbuilding for an eventual draft 2.

january 2023

The Keeper of the Underwater Graveyard

lenght: 20k words, 40 word pages

status: complete

language: English

(original commentary)

My most recent piece of writing + most recent feverish writing binge. 20k words.

Žadgailas, a young merman, is treated as if he is a demigod, ruling over the sea and the dead buried in it, but he begins to doubt this and tries to learn the truth. He is very fascinated by the human world above, which he first ever visits on his 15th birthday, meeting a human girl, Lærke, to whom he swears he will never forget her and even search for her again. The two remain loyal to the other, eventually having to suport the other in finding some horrific truths.

Since this was written directly in English and is very available to read, I won't spoil anything else. The main inspirations are Eglė Queen of Serpents and The Little Mermaid, although I changed quite a lot and idk how much it can even be considered a retelling. But I was in a combination of extreme inspiration and extreme procrastination so I just cranked this in like a week. Oh well it happens to the best of us. I think it's a beautiful story in its own right but I think I'm going to inevitably find it flawed soon but oh well.

february 2023

Fireworks in the Fog

lenght: 7550 words, 14 word pages (the Romanian version), 8259 words, 16 word pages (the English version)

status: ongoing

language: Romanian and English

Another project I started on a whim haha. I decided to finally rewrite the fanfic from 2019, with the ideas I came up with in like 2021 and with some other key ideas I came up with in the meantime. The main change from the original, aside from the characters now being OCs, is that the relationship the main leads have with their siblings becomes a key plot point and the siblings have their own character arcs! The story becomes less about a toxic relationship and more about two broken people expecting a relationship to fix all their existential problems, and the siblings arc only serves to reinforce this. This is also possibly my darkest story ever, alongside the Gravekeeper one from january, as its main theme is death, or at least one of the main themes. It may start out as a love story, but the reveal is that every character in the story is not only struggling with a lot of mental illness and existential crises, but they also have a very death-focused worldview. However, this is not a hopeless story. Instead, they face all this darkness, learn to reject it and find true Life instead.

october 2023

Mission: LUNA

lenght: 23k, 38 word pages, movie script format

status: complete

lanaguage: English, with Romanian dialogue, translated via subtitles

This was a challenge not only because I was unfamiliar with the genre of 'intrusive fantasy', but, first and foremost, because I had to commit to a whimsical and comedic tone, and I cannot express enough how much being funny and silly was an effort on my part, especially as real life kept happening. But I was determined to finish this work in time, and I wrote everything with an open and sincere heart, trying to recapture the sheer joy of my childhood writings such as the Vasile Moldovenescu one more than a decade in the past. And, thank God, I did succeed!

The main plot without any spoilers, is that the Moon is stolen on the day of the first moon landing. The Americans find three Romanian spies who, somehow, know more about the true thief than the others. A silly and at times, very deep story featuring the space race, an unlikely alliance with the soviets, a star eyed child holding onto the wonder and joy of life when those in his family wish to stifle his creative spirit through propaganda, and supernatural events happening on live TV, with most people still refusing to believe what is before their very eyes. The story is funny, but also includes deep philosophical discussions about the nature of life and reality. I think I managed to balance the comedy and the drama well, and I think the ending scenes wrap everything up in a way that makes sense. The story was fun to write (and, at the end, emotional), so I hope it is to you too, and I believe it is a very meaningful one.

As a conclusion

I am so happy and grateful to God for my writing journey so far. This post is to celebrate a full decade since starting to write my very first novel. But I know I have created stories ever since I could remember, so, this is also to celebrate the full history of my writing life. It's very nice and heartwarming to have a full overview over my progress up to this age. I can only hope to be able to continue creating stories that are even better, meaningful and beautiful.

#pinned post #my writing journey

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