Pixie's Chronicle: Goodbye 2020!

I think we're all grateful to see the back of 2020. Without a doubt, it's going down as one of the worst years on record. Pandemic aside, it just seems to have been rotten for everyone on a personal level. Time just didn't seem to exist and it honestly felt like we were all living in some sort of alternate reality. This kind of stuff only happens in movies where you point and laugh at just how stupid the characters are. Jokes on us though, because we are in fact MORE stupid than what the characters in the movies are. When playing Plague Inc, I always thought there was no way a pandemic could spread that fast in the modern age... yikes... The human race is way more stupid than we give it credit for. 

Honestly, given my line of work, I'm shocked that I didn't catch COVID. But then again, I probably could have and just never displayed any of the symptoms. Also, there's still a high chance I can catch it. That's always a scary thought. However, it was awful watching pretty much everyone I knew catching the virus. So many people have got sick and died, and yet so many people are still not taking this seriously. It baffles me. Things in the UK especially haven't been good as we have somehow gained a new mutated form of the virus which is way more infectious than the first strain. So yeah, I am truly sorry for how awful the UK has been during this whole ordeal. 

But I don't want this whole blog post to be about the pandemic. I guess all I want to say is rest in peace to those who have lost their lives to this horrible virus that should never have occurred in the first place. I truly hope that their deaths have not been in vain, and that humanity can hopefully come together (though no more than 2 metres) and learn from all of this. Hopefully we can have a worldwide plan in place for when this inevitably happens again, and that so many more lives can be saved as a result. I hope more funding will be given to science so that we can further prevent disasters such as this. I also want to say a huge thank you to all of the doctors, nurses, carers, teachers, and supermarket workers for facing this crisis head on. It just goes to show that it's these people that keep the world running and that more power, respect and gratitude should be given to them. They deserve higher pay rates and better working conditions. 

Moving on, this wasn't exactly the 'year of writing' that I had originally planned. I was deemed an essential worker and therefore had to work throughout the whole pandemic. To make matters worse, we were always super short staffed meaning that I had to work a bunch of overtime. This left me with pretty much no time for writing, and my mental health has also been suffering as a result. I've lost count the amount of times I've had to hide in the stockroom so that I could get a panic attack out of the way. Then of course there were the fights I kept getting into with my bosses. Probably not the best idea, but at the same time, I'm actually proud that I've been managing to stand up for myself like I have been doing. So I suppose that's been at least one improvement that I've made for myself this year. 

I'm pretty sure I haven't met any of my new year's resolutions that I set for myself at the end of 2019. While I started off with my language lessons pretty well, that ended up drifting off due to how busy I've been with work. I'd even bought myself some notebooks so I can really focus on learning French and Spanish, but so far they haven't been touched, which is a huge shame. But here's hoping that this year quietens down enough for me to focus on that again. 

As for losing weight pfffffft. If anything, I think I've put weight on instead of losing it. Being too exhausted to cook equals many nights of take-out. Stupid, I know. Plus, at one point, there was hardly any food available in the shops thanks to people panic buying. Bloody morons. I would set myself a weight loss goal for this year, but I feel like being too strict on myself tends to have the opposite effect of what I was intending. So I guess I'm just going to ease off on the take-out, eat less carbs and try exercising some more. I bought myself a trampoline, yet I never use it. Now would definitely be a good time to start. I want my super fit body back! I just need to be healthier in general. 

Mental health wise, I really need to focus this year on pressuring my doctor into refering me for long term psychiatric help. All this short term therapy just isn't working for me because we only have just enough time to scratch the surface of my issues before I'm sent on my way again. It's so stupid. Sure, the medication helps, but I need to actually address the issues that I have. 

This is going to be another year where I really want to focus on writing. Whether that's actually going to happen remains to be seen. But I have been truly blessed by the muses lately, because my brain is shooting out ideas like there's no tomorrow. I've got so many notes dotted about everywhere for different stories and one-shots, to the point where I don't know what to work on first. My brain seriously needs to slow itself down. Though apparently some of my muse managed to carry over to LycoRogue as I apparently accidentally helped inspire a story idea for her. So yeah, I'm super curious to see what that is, and I'll be sure to let you guys know all about it as soon as she publishes it. 

Due to all the negativity I was experiencing in the Miraculous fandom, I've finally managed to branch myself out into more fandoms again. It's been nice to indulge in my other interests as I think I was hyper-focusing on Miraculous Ladybug way too much. The sudden increase in attention Madness Within received was putting way too much pressure on me, especially once a few readers started harassing me and downright cyberbullying me. That was a pretty low point for me during the year. But the break I've been having seems to be working wonders, and it has allowed me to also focus more on uploading more chapters to AO3. 

I actually managed to finish the first part of my 'Madness Trilogy' which was great. I am working on the sequel as we speak, though publishing it will still probably be a good few weeks off. I want to get it finished on AO3 first, and then I want to make sure that I'm ready to come fully back into that fandom and write for it again. The last thing I want is another onslaught of abusive comments. I'm going to have to really start heavily monitoring them. If need be, I may have to disable annoymous comments. I don't want to do that since it means that a lot of people won't be able to express their opinion, but if the abuse doesn't stop then I'm going to have no choice. I can't be dealing with that every day. 

Lately I've found myself becoming addicted to Hellsing and writing fanfictions for that fandom. I have no clue what started that. I've always enjoyed Hellsing and it's one of my favourite animes/manga, but one day I just decided to randomly start reading fanfiction of it, and then my own brain just exploded with ideas. Especially when I saw that other people shared my ship. Writing Hellsing fics has been great because I've not had to censor my dark imagination at all, and I do love a bit of supernatural/occult goodness. There are so many possibilities to explore since the series is so open to interpretation and so many mysteries/questions have not been answered. That equals a fine recipe for fanfiction! 

I have so many more Hellsing fic ideas in the works, and I'm looking forward to working on them further this year. It feels great to be enjoying writing again rather than feeling pressured to meet the demands of a large audience. Not that I don't appreciate the large audience I have with Madness Within, but I won't lie when I say it does create a lot of extra pressure. I feel a greater need to people-please so to speak. But I never want to fall into that trap as a writer. I love my twists too much, and to be honest, I'm not one for cliche endings where everything works out perfectly fine in the end. I like my stories to reflect real life as much as possible. I fell into that trap once before with my Sonic the Hedgehog fic, Project Darkness. I was so worried about how the audience would respond to my original ending idea that I panicked and changed it at the last minute because I was worried people would be upset with me. It totally backfired in my face because I wasn't happy with the ending, and my audience could tell that it was supposed to end a different way, and actually prefered my original plan. 

So yeah, I refuse to fall into that trap for Madness Within. The story will continue on and end how I see fit and will not be influenced by the audience or my apprehension towards not giving into what I think they want. I'd say that Madness Unleashed is the most important story of the trilogy and will no doubt probably be most people's favourite as that's where the most stuff happens. I'm just glad that I don't have to cut so many parts out of it now thanks to splitting the story into three parts. You might hate me now for it, but you'll thank me later - I hope.

I'm definitely also still working on Immortal Bonds, it's just technically on hold at the moment. I should hopefully be coming back to it around the same time that I manage to publish Madness Unleashed. Chat Vert still continues to present a problem though. I have the storyline for it, and I know how exactly it's going to end, it's just filling out the middle part that I'm having issues with. I'm starting to think that maybe that story should have just been a one-shot or something. I'm struggling to bulk the story up if that makes sense? So overall, that story is still stuck in limbo. I'm really sorry about that. 

Luckily, Professeur Noir is a much more straight forward short story, so I don't have too much to worry about there. It's still on hold just like Immortal Bonds, but I will definitely be coming back to that one. I'll be in need of something more light-hearted, especially when I start working on Madness Unleashed again. I'm still not going to be posting any more new multi-chapter story ideas for Miraculous Ladybug apart from the Madness Trilogy. Though I'm now no longer ruling out one-shot ideas. I guess I'll just have to see where 2021 takes me. 

As for any free time I've had lately, I've mainly been spending it playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and also playing Stardew Valley with Jowy. We both now have the Switch version and can play online together again due to the fact that my stupid laptop can't handle the PC version of the game anymore. I seriously need to get a new computer this year. Though the problem with us working together is that our ideas often clash. Our arguments can be pretty hilarious. And Jowy, if you're reading this, I'm still fuming over the damn trees! You may have won the battle, but you won't win the war! Me accidentally selling your amaranth will be the least of your worries. 

Speaking of Jowy, if you're into the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom, he's just posted a discussion on his own blog, The Dragon's Den. He discusses the fan theory about whether Metal Sonic is actually the real Sonic roboticised. It's a fascinating read, so if that's something that would interest you, then you can read it by clicking here. It's a theory that I've always been fascinated by and can totally get behind. 

Anyway, I think that I've prattled on for long enough. I just wanted to try and give an outline of what this year might entail writing wise (that's if nothing else goes wrong). Dare I say it, but I'm excited to get to work on all of my new projects and really flex my writing muscles. I hope to see you along for the ride. I also hope that you all had a lovely holiday season, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, any other holiday, or nothing at all. I wish you all a very happy new year and I'm sending you all the love that you deserve. Thank you so much for being a part of my life in 2020, and let's all look forward to see what 2021 brings and face it head on!