#it1s been one hell of a ride

[diablo-that-first-spark]

Three Years of Diablo Fanfiction

Hi, everyone!

So, yesterday was the third birthday of my biggest project yet, That First Spark, and well... it kinda got me thinking and reminiscing about the road up to this point. I know most of my Watchers aren't reading the story, or aren't into Diablo in general, so feel free to skip this journal, you won't miss anything. :)

Not gonna lie, I did not realize for the longest time that it has already been three years since I uploaded Chapter 1 onto Fanfiction.net - and back then, it was supposed to be a oneshot! I just had this idea of “wouldn’t it be interesting if Lyndon found Inarius and rescued him somehow?”, and that was it. But right after I’ve uploaded this oneshot, I began brainstorming. Could I spin into an actual long story, was there enough material to do so? Behind the scenes I wrote scenes for practice (some actually made it into the story proper later, if edited), I was trying to map out the general flow of the first arc, and just generally conducting scientific experiments over it. While I am a Discovery Writer, and thus work with the most basic planning possible, I did not want to actually start a story, if there was no viable path for it.

But… there was a path. And here we are now, 3 years and 55 chapters later. 3 very, very weird years.

I branched out to new sites because of this fanfiction, including Tumblr and Archives of Our Own. On Tumblr, I’ve done and still doing my best to create and maintain a well-organized blog with all the necessary information, and I hope to improve on this field down the road. On AO3, my fanfic inspired another writer to make their own story, which makes me so happy and proud I cannot put it into words, honestly! I would have never imagined my work would have this effect on anybody.

I’ve got dragged into a hidden hive of scum and villainy that masquerades as an “accepting and inclusive Diablo community” on Tumblr to this day. They are lying. Go figure. They backstabbed me for no reason (none they bothered to ever mention) at my lowest and left me to bleed out – that almost killed the fanfiction. But I have also met a single virtuous person in that very same ”””community””” who actually practiced what he preaches, and listened and talked to me when all the others were busy conspiring against me. I still consider him a good friend, and I hope he does the same of me. If not, well, that is his business alone. But that experience taught me some very valuable lessons and shaped my worldview to what it is today. And for the record, no, thankfully my worldview is still very far away from “everything sucks and everyone is an asshole”.

My nephew was born in 2018 and he is the cutest kid you can possibly find! I became his godmother too!

I graduated from my architecture university, after 6 years, and began looking for a job. That in on itself had been one hell of a roller coaster. But I’ve settled down in an office and stayed there for over a year now. How long will I stick with this job, and this profession? Hopefully as little time as possible. Architecture did not become my calling.

Diablo 4 was announced in Blizzcon 2019, and I basically went batshit insane when it turned it Lilith will be the main antagonist. There are no words describing my hatred towards that bitch, I cannot wait to wipe the floor with her for good!

I’ve celebrated my 4-year-anniversary with my boyfriend this year. <3

And most surprisingly, this fanfic taught me to maintain my focus and motivation better. In March of this year, I have decided to no longer excuse my truly horrendous uploading schedule away with “shifting inspiration and focus” and other such nonsense, and aimed to have a new chapter out every month. I’ll be honest, I had my doubts if I could have stuck with it, but here we are more than half a year since then and I’m still going strong! This was actually a revelation to me. I’m quite the opposite of the “Unorganized artist” archetype, I live for organization and good day schedules, but for the longest time I had difficulty to stick with a topic for long, or have an actual framework for it. I’ve still not fully knocked this bad habit yet (why hello there, Megaman fancomic I really need to finish…), but just the fact that I could manage to pull it off in one project’s case boosts my confidence in it.

I have improved a lot as a writer, and I cannot wait to continue improving and put all of my experiences from this endeavor to future stories, including DuatStories, and even my own fantasy novel one day, hopefully. Of course there is still a lot for me to learn. The monthly updates and my Discovery Writing style together mean the pacing isn’t all that spot-on, there are important details and information that gets forgotten or come up at a much later time than it was first supposed to, and of course the usual grammatical errors and misspellings. Maybe my next goal should be to learn to plan a story out more in advance! Wouldn’t that be nice. XD

And, well, I know That First Spark is not a super popular story, most of my Watchers don’t read it. And that’s okay! Diablo has a large community but most of it focuses on seasonal plays and builds, so the fanart section gets left behind. This is a fact I have accepted a long time ago and have no real qualms with it. I have fun creating it, and apparently, some people really enjoy it, even if silently. One to the point of being inspired by it! Of course the followers of Belial who cause further division and isolation with their venom do not improve things in this part of the fandom, either. There is no helping that part, all I can do is keep doing what I love doing, and what I love doing is basically drown myself into the lore and use it for a ridiculously long adventure story.

So for everyone who reads this fanfiction, even if you leave no trace behind, I thank you. For your attention, for your time, for your patience. Here’s to years more of running around in Sanctuary like a headless chicken, almost dying every other week and saving the world on the side once per month! Let’s hope I’ll finish this adventure before Diablo 4 comes out ;) I might have a chance for that!

Thank you for reading! And remember, guys.

Everything is going to be alright.

2020.10.16.