Chapter Text
Okay a quick description's above in the summary if you need it. All the vital info regarding the state of ACL is there. The rest of this is gonna be further elaboration on those points and some personal context I would like to provide. Feel free to skip it if that doesn't interest you. Now, to be blunt, consider this a content warning. I will be discussing uncomfortable topics which includes the death of a close friend. That said, if you're still here, let's get into it.
As any who've kept up with ACL for at least three years knows, updates have been slow ever since around mid-2023. Back when I first revived and regularly began posting on this account with "Mutual Thoughts, Mutual Feelings" (Jan 2020), I was both nominally in college and had a part-time job. You might think these things would've made writing more difficult, but if anything my motivation back then was thriving. I churned out the original four stories in that series over the course of about a month, with a word count roughly equivalent to two average chapters from this story. Not too long after, I wrote "Trip to an Outdated Hell". And then after a few months break, I got the bug and started this story. It averaged higher than once a moth for a good while (on top of sneaking in a fifth ReiMari story in February 2021; wrote that one in about a night). I was proud of that! Even made sure to write while irl circumstances forced me to be in another state for a month in April 2021 (specifically Chapter 9 of this story, which is still the longest one as of writing). In September 2021, Chapter 13 came out and finished what I consider to be the first major arc of this story. While the big picture was ultimately building up to the Lunar Capital, the Dream Seija plotline was the thing most directly foreshadowed and setup for a long while. And maybe because of that, things slowed down. Six months went by in a blink before Chapter 14. Then over a year and a half to 15 plus eight more months to 16. 17 then came out slightly over three months after that, on November 1st, 2024. A pace of thirteen chapters in a year gave way to four in slightly over three (plus three other unrelated short Touhou stories during some of the downtime). Still, I thought I was slowly getting my groove back. Now it's eight months to the day since Chapter 17 released and all I've published in the interim is a small, self-indulgent FFXIV story that's less than 500 words.
Obviously this (as in, this account) is something I do on my own time for my own fun. ACL (and every other story) is ultimately something I write by and for myself; it can and does sometimes get postponed so I can focus on other things I want or need to do. Admittedly my June this year was dominated by Deltarune Chapters 3+4 (phenomenal time btw, worth the wait). I've been doing things I've enjoyed and, in at least a few ways, have progressed in my life. Though admittedly, others aspects have been stagnant. I won't bore you all with my menial problems that I know I'll ultimately get past, but there was one specific experience that I think massively affected my life and this story: a dear friend of mine I met on this website. Her name was Melina, "Mel" for short. I commented on a story of hers I liked way back (I found her account from her leaving kudos on this story, in fact). She responded and then became my number one fan (and I hers, always wished she wrote more given her skill and enthusiasm for it), leaving borderline essays in the comments here every time a new chapter dropped (I'm sure a few of you have seen them, though the associated account has since been deleted). Soon I reached out on Twitter because, bluntly, I really wanted to talk to someone who so thoroughly enjoyed my writing. Properly thank them in ways that I can't convey with just a reply chain here. From there, it was about as you probably already expect given how much detail I'm giving. We became good friends and eventually started dating. I don't think this was The Big Thing(tm) that slowed progress on here to a crawl; rather it was a variety of factors, and the aforementioned point of my mentality following the release of Chapter 13 still played a big part. Still, I was more focused on spending time both with her and other friends I had made over the pandemic years that I loved (and still love) spending time with. To spare you all the details, Mel and I eventually broke up. I realized I was aroace (demi more specifically I think) over the course of our time together and came to the conclusion due to that and other factors I couldn't be in the relationship anymore. Things got a bit rough from there, but we remained friends and also had mutual friends for support. However, a year after that, in February 2024, she passed away.
This is a difficult topic for me to discuss with numerous details being skimmed over; bluntly I'm still not sure I should be sharing this with strangers on the internet. I know plenty of you didn't ask and, rightfully, aren't invested in this topic or interested in my personal life. Similarly, I am extremely averse to sharing my problems with others. To be clear, I don't desire condolences or sympathy. Do not feel obligated to give any. But this is something I want to get off my chest in this specific context due to how deeply it's entwined with this story in my mind. Mel was my proofreader for a time, the one person I've ever meaningfully shared my ACL work process with. She only previewed Chapters 9-15 and exclusively offered feedback on grammar and wording/clarity. It wasn't a huge affair nor something that ever majorly affected the story's content. But still, it was someone to share my passion for writing with. I have other friends who I've asked proofread things before and I'm forever thankful for their support, but none of them have the interest in Touhou and/or backreading context that's required for ACL. That's not something I begrudge them for at all, of course, nor is this me asking/wanting anyone to take up that role. It was a way for friends to connect more than anything. But while writing Chapters 16 and 17, when my process was once again the solitary affair from my production speed height of 2020-2021, I realized it felt kind of lonely. Yet paradoxically, I think the reason those two came out with the relative speed they did was because I didn't want this story to die with her. She was obviously so much more than just someone who helped me with a Touhou fanfic, but I want to carry on her torch in at least some small way, self-centered as that reasoning is. She adored Touhou and its cast; our shared fondness for the series (as well as Seija, Shinmyoumaru, and Mamizou specifically) was a huge point of connection and source of extremely fun discussion. Even in our most strained moments, we never stopped talking about this wonderful world nor did she ever stop encouraging me to keep working on my story here.
Since November of last year, my mental has improved a decent bit regarding the above topic. Not a day goes by I don't think about, well, everything, but I'm certainly nowhere near as bad as the months immediately afterward. That's where other realities began to pop up, primarily the culmination of years of questioning my gender identity (they/them btw) and the steps I'm now taking regarding it. On top of that, I have neither the school nor job obligations I had when I began posting here. All this adds up to my current day-to-day feeling like a huge transitional period; but I have faith I'll come out alright on the other end. The immediate reality of this, though, is that I don't have money coming in for the moment. While obviously a story doesn't need pictures to be good and, in fact, most don't, I've come to view the art pieces that cap off each chapter as a fun and necessary staple. I want this story to be the best it can be within my power to reasonably do so. I've even considered going back and doing some major structural/dialogue rewrites that more closely align with my current sensibilities. However I also think this story is important for my personal journey as a writer, to show how I've improved. I certainly think Chapters 16 and 17 are, in many ways, among the best I've written. I love what I've explored with them and am greatly looking forward to doing more. Not to try and self-aggrandize or act as if what I'm doing here is high art, but I care deeply about the process and result in equal measure.
SO! All of this being said, I've landed on the following decisions:
1. I want more time to properly and wholly move past the mental state I've been stuck in regarding this story for about four years now. To facilitate this, I'm going to try and work ahead more than I have in the past and only start updating *this specific story* again once a backlog has been built up. This could be in a few months or a year. I can't make any guarantees on the time frame.
2. I likely won't update *this specific story* again until I regain a consistent source of income, as currently I can't justify commission expenses. Ideally this won't be relevant by the time the above condition has been fulfilled.
3. You may have noticed that this account's name's been changed. "Rekoto" was something I came up with one day near the start of the ReiMari stuff cause I hate my old username and was afraid of family finding me online if I used my actual name. However, I also really dislike "Rekoto" as some trite combination of an OC name and the name of a character I liked. But since then I've taken to just having my actual name but backwards be my screen name since it plays on Seija's gimmick. Simply put, I like being called *exclusively* by my name, nothing else. Don't even like the other parts of my legal name, I always tell people to please just call me "Pierce". If this is enough to dox myself then oh well but I have a feeling it'll be fine.
If you read all this, I only have two things left to say: "Sorry" and "Thanks". See y'all for the real Chapter 18, eventually.