Notes

A Thank-You Note on the Occasion of Reaching 5,000 Kudos
by writingerror

Hello! I hope you are having a good day so far. Thank you for clicking on this, because you didn't have to, and I don't think I have anything really important to say other than "thank you". So feel free to stop reading here, if you want. I believe you have much better things you could be doing with your most precious time!

On the off-chance you're still here, though, I am about to start rambling again, so feel free to roll your eyes and go 'oh boy the author's going off again'. But I figured this might be a good way to provide some commentary around the story I'm writing (not about the story itself) and the surprising attention it has received.

And oh boy... Was it surprising to me.

I can't really repeat this enough: I am shocked! Unravelled! And rather bamboozled by the fact that people continue to read and enjoy something I am mostly just writing because I want to. Really, I thought I'd peaked when I hit 1,000 views (you may recall reading my flabbergasted comment in the notes about not being able to believe 1,000 PEOPLE had read something I wrote. What the heck?). Like I have mentioned before, I really was just celebrating Scarabia's CM airing because it gave me quite a lot of emotions, and the game Twisted Wonderland was continuing to give me a lot of emotions. Coupled with the world situation and the building stress of analytical chemistry courses, I figured that trying a new way of catharsis (i.e. writing) couldn't be so bad, could it?

Thus the story was born. It was just a silly thing I wanted to ramble on about -- me, the person who is extremely NOT a writer nor was ever much good at it, has no training or background outside of some university courses, nor was the least bit interested in writing for sport until starting to write this one. But I suppose the power of Twisted characters surpassed my expectations wildly, because people really like them, even enough to gush about them with me in the comments! (This I am very happy about.) They also really like Yuu, the character I sort-of built myself!? (This I am very happy and VERY surprised about.)

Trivia (because I cannot NOT include trivia in every single note I write): Originally, I was going to focus far more on each character and less on Yuu because my primary goal was enjoying Twisted Wonderland. Plus I wanted to tell everyone why I loved all 23+ characters in the game so much. But people really, really, really liked Yuu! In fact, the passionate declarations of love in the comments and in my messages has made me wonder why Yuu is so good at generating people who are ready to go to extremes (such as assaulting Headmaster Crowley, kidnapping her and locking her in a tower, for some of the more tame examples) for her sake. Cough. Anyway, your love for Yuu has prompted me to "introduce" her back-story much earlier in the story, where before it was to remain as a sort of trivia thing that wouldn't be a focal point. Uh, maybe you're noticing a trend, but I have to cut out or change a bunch of stuff when planning so there is a LOT of trivia about the story just floating around in my head...

Trivia over! Back to me being surprised at how much people like the story. I remember being shocked that people outside of Japan even knew what Twisted Wonderland was! Now that the game has released in English, I suppose it's less shocking, but I'm very happy to be riding on the coattails of its success. (Actually, I don't know how popular the game is in the worldwide audience, but in Japan, it is highly successful, at least looking at sales charts.) While I am still ever grateful for your engagement and all the messages I get every day, it seems that the momentum of the story's attention growth is continuing really strongly to the point where it is almost overwhelming!

I don't know if this is pretty evident already, but I don't actually browse AO3 a lot. In fact, I didn't know it existed until a little before I decided to post my story. (Trivia 2: I was originally thinking about writing the story in Japanese because the Japanese story archive on pixiv for Twisted Wonderland is wayyyyyyy bigger. But I wasn't really confident in my Japanese at the time as I had only been studying for around two years and had only just received my N1 native-level certification of the JLPT.) But I still almost never visit AO3 even now, partly due to the fact that I am way too busy all the time, and partly because I'm not very familiar with this area of the internet LOL. (Picture your author sneaking very quietly into the website, leaving the chapter, and disappearing.) So, I very rarely even glance at my own story and its statistics except for right when I log in to post my next chapter. And yeah -- this time I checked, forget 1,000. We were at 314,587 views! For MY dumb story!!!

At this point... I don't know if the number is a big one or not (pixiv's scale is quite different), but for me, it is so far beyond my expectations that I am not only humbled and grateful for everyone taking a chance to click on this... I am rather intimidated, too. Seemingly overnight, I have so many people waiting for the next update, and even staying up until I post so they can read it right away. I have really long comments and AMAZING analyses that span multiple comments. I have people conversing in the comments, which I LOVE to see! And recently I have had an absolutely wonderful person create an unofficial Discord server?! Just to discuss THIS STORY?! People are hunting for references and Easter Eggs in the text and making predictions all the time too. It's sort of mind-blowing.

The thing is -- I've mentioned this jokingly before, but one day you are all going to recognise how much of a quack I am and run for the hills! One day you're going to figure out that my story is full of holes and doesn't make the least bit of sense! One day your lovely analyses, discoveries and critiques in the comments, every one of which I read multiple times each, is going to reveal that I have perched my foundation on a house of cards that will crumble at the slightest gust of wind! Are you sure you want to expect a well-told story from someone like ME!? I guess I want to preemptively leave a cautionary note here that maybe the details are going to crumble or the holes in the plot are going to swallow it or the ending is going to suck or something and you'll all regret spending time here in the first place LOL Don't say I didn't warn you! As mentioned in the very beginning notes: Caveat emptor!!!

Okay, but seriously: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little story. (It's not really little anymore but you know what I mean.) While wholly unexpected, it has been a joy to read each and every one of your messages, as well as making friends and chatting with those in my message box on Twitter (P.S. come talk to me on Twitter!!) I've even been getting messages about there being other communities? on Tumblr that have recommended this story, and while I have no experience with that website at all, I am very very grateful for the discussion even off of AO3. I really appreciate you all, and wish you the greatest of enjoyment in whatever game or story that seizes you next!

TL;DR: Thank you! I am humbled, grateful, and somehow always mind-blown about the attention my story has received over the past two-plus years. I don't know if I deserve it, but I will continue to do my best to entertain everyone! But if it falls flat, you know who to blame... 🤣 At least you know I was having fun the whole way down!

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Concerning the unofficial Discord

I am a firm believer in allowing a community that forms to continue its growth organically. I did suggest the idea of a Discord server a while ago, but I didn't think that people would actually WANT one! However, I think it was actually better that someone in the community created the server instead of me, because while I do write the story, I don't want to seem like I'm infringing on anyone's opinions, comments, or interpretations of the story.

Concerning moderation and the running of the server, I would like to leave it in the community's hands, because I don't believe I am authorised to make such a decision without more information and better familiarity around Discord servers. I believe that as long as the Discord is well-moderated, providing a safe, inclusive and welcoming space, that I should fade away and become just another name on the right bar of the screen.