From The Ashes

Well here we are, another story has been completed. This one actually took quite a bit longer to finish than I expected it to, but we got there eventually. Before I get into my thoughts on the story and all that fun stuff, I wanted to give out a few thank you's first. First off, I want to thank all of you who read, commented, and stuck with me to the end of this story. I know I disappeared quite frequently with it, so it means the world to me that you still followed it. Second, I haven't talked to them in awhile, but for the first half of this story (before I disappeared for months) I had a couple people who were proofreading the chapters and helping me with grammar. They even let me bounce some ideas off of them from time to time. I never reached back out to them after I returned, but I just wanted to make sure they knew how much I appreciated their help.

Now that we got the mushy stuff out of the way, let's get into the meat and potatoes of my thoughts and reflections of this story.

To begin, the first ideas I had for this story didn't make it into the story whatsoever. Like my previous stories, they came to me while listening to music on my way home from work. The first scene that I thought of was the break up scene, but instead of it happening in person it was done by a letter. Basically Kendo and Midoriya were staying together the night before the raid, Midoriya left the note and left in the middle of the night. I pictured her reading the letter that was basically Midoriya explaining everything that he was doing and the scene ended with her walking into the common room and seeing him on the news being arrested. I really did like the idea, but I didn't love it.

Also Midoriya originally didn't have a Pyrokinesis quirk when I started planning ideas. The first quirk idea was going to let him look at a person and see the area that would let them do the most damage. I pictured him walking through the alleyway and landing "critical hits" on everyone he encountered. As much fun as that idea would have been, it got scrapped pretty quick once I got deeper into the planning process.

Another big change from the original ideas I had was Midnight. She wasn't anywhere in my original plans for the story. I remember sitting on a plane going to California for a vacation, I obviously had some time to kill so I spent my time writing. The chapter I was working on was the entrance exam and I wrote Midnight making those comments as a spur of the moment. After that I decided to keep her around and she started getting more and more relevant in the story. In my original plans it was going to be Aizawa picking Midoriya up from Tartarus, not Midnight. Given my previous story it should be pretty obvious I have a soft spot for Midnight as a therapist. To me it just makes so much sense and it is officially stuck in my head that she will always be a therapist. Now that I've said that, I'm sure some of you might be wondering why I didn't have Midnight ride with Midoriya to Tartarus, well it's simple, she was with Eri. Plus let's be real, Aizawa definitely held a grudge after Midoriya shot his students, I'm sure he had plenty he wanted to talk about.

I'm certain those of you that read Traumatized noticed a few call backs to that story. Midoriya and Mama Joke having a moment when she asked to adopt him, Alas made a comeback and took his spot at UA, Auntie Mitsuki being a second mother to him, and as always he knowingly sent someone to Uwabami's agency knowing full and well what was going to happen. I'm certain there was more, but those were the ones that stood out to me the most.

Speaking of things that stood out... yeah so how i essentially dropped the entire Midoriya has a motorcycle thing after the first like 5 chapters. I won't lie, I thought it would get used more, but it turned into just being something that gave him a home to go back to at the end of the story. It wasn't anything I'd consider spectacular writing, but I think it got the job done well enough.

Alright, let's get into why I decided to write this story. I feel like I've said it somewhere before, but I wanted to write a good IzukuXKendo fic. Whenever I'd try to find one, it was either haram, reacting to multiverses, or 10 chapters long with like 500 words a chapter. I wanted to give a story with some sustenance that made people feel satisfied when they finished, not wondering what could have been if the author had taken more time to flesh out ideas instead of jumping from A to B.

Now, the question is, do I think I accomplished that?

No, I honestly don't think I did. When I look back at this story I feel as if I could change Kendo for any other girl in the series and it would still work just as good if I made small adjustments. The reason I feel this way is because I fell out of love with this story. All those months where I didn't upload wasn't because life was so crazy and hectic that I didn't have time to write, I just didn't want to write this story. Everytime I thought of writing it was for a different story. I actively told myself not to work on another story because I knew I'd never come back to this one if I did. I pushed through this story because I wanted people to know how it ended. I owed everyone that was invested that much at least. I'm not sure if anyone could notice it, but I personally could feel a decline in my story and writing as the chapters continued.

Overall I'd say I'm happy I finished this story, but I'm not very happy with it overall. I believe it has some golden moments but just as many, if not more, meh moments that can be a turn off.

So, what's next for me? At this point I'm honestly not sure. I'd love to start writing my next story, it's going to be a reboot of the first story I ever attempted to write. I loved the plot I had for it, but I definitely didn't execute it well since almost every chapter was like 500 words. Looking back at it, it was extremely cringy writing and I'm glad most of it never saw the light of day. I still have two things to decide on, the first is the ship. It's going to be an IzuXJiro ship. I know I just said it's going to be IzuXJiro, but I'm not sure if I want it to be that or IzuXJiroX? I already know who the third would be, but I'd like to keep it a secret for now. The second thing I need to decide is if I'm even going to write it.

I've been writing fanfics for 4 years now and I want to take a nice break and catch up on reading other stories and light novels. I actively push off reading those while I write stories because I know I'll get sucked in and stop writing all together.

In the end I don't know what I plan to do in the future. For all I know I could see you all again in a few months or this could be my last post ever, only time will tell. Either way, I appreciate all the support all of you have given me over the past two years of this story. I hope you all enjoyed it.