permanent hiatus

Hello, dear readers,

It’s been a while.

I’m going to start this off with an author’s note to prevent giving you guys any false hope. Please allow me to apologize and explain a few things, and all I will ask is a bit of understanding. Please also do not take this as if I am asking for pity. I will merely tell a little of my story.

First of all, this is going to sound selfish, but I hope you understand that at the end of all of this – I really just write for myself, I simply find a lot of joy in sharing these stories. But of course – you who have stayed and supported me all these times, have watched the story grow and anticipated every chapter, to whom I will always be grateful for – deserve an explanation.

My deepest, sincerest apologies for suddenly disappearing and abandoning this after I have said we may continue from the last chapter, and for so long at that too. Forgive me, if I was not even able to warn any of you. I will not write any excuses here as the fault is entirely on me. I won’t deny and ashamed to admit that I have a tendency to run away when things get too out of hand for myself. I have tried many times to write this down, but every time I do so I am attacked by a lot of fear and I just get lost on what to do. I don’t know, perhaps my writing journey rooting from something so immensely personal has now come back to bite me, lol.

To elaborate on things further, and please note again that I am not trying to excuse myself – 2017 was just a one big roller coaster ride.

Earlier in the year, someone very close to me passed away. That sent my emotions in a complete frenzy. To top it off, I had to stop receiving any medical help for my mental health due to certain circumstances and financial issues (because expensive af). Which has then heightened the struggle because it’s not advisable to just stop after being dependent for so long, that I nearly went back to scratch in my progress and my life came to a halt once again. And as pitiful as it sounds, I’ve just been having the hardest time. The only upside to things is that I’ve had too many breakdowns that I’ve slowly learned how to deal with them and get through the day without actually breaking.

Don’t worry though, I have been putting a lot of effort on improving on myself and I take pride of how far I’ve come over the years. Sadly, it’s just utterly snail pace because I have no one to rely on for help. And given my circumstances of anxiety where it reduces me to a child dependent on others, the last thing I want is to burden people. Neither does it help that your biggest enemy is yourself because brain just has to have two minds where one wants to hold on and the other say bye bye.

Unfortunately, as you can tell, my stories were also heavily affected. Especially given the history of where Ubuntu stemmed from – both as being loosely inspired by personal sentiments and experiences, and just being a dumpster of emotions when I was at my lowest. That I suppose it was inevitable that it would come to a point where I couldn’t even bare open the file without triggering an emotional mess (I should’ve seen that coming when I started getting bothered by my earlier writing, lol).

There came so many moments where I just wanted to delete the entirety of Ubuntu (I know this is not the first time you have heard that), maybe delete all my stories, or even just deactivate my account altogether. I just finally decided to stop logging in to prevent that, because I continue to hold on to those who have left such heartwarming messages that my stories, Ubuntu most especially, helped them too. I just sadly didn’t think it would take this long and forever.

I did not, however, completely drop Ubuntu. Writing (and EXO) continues to be my escape, my outlet, one of my sources of happiness, one of the few things that seriously continues to keep me sane, intact, and going. And my decision will probably make you hate me more, lol *cries*.

I know I said I won’t touch this story, and believe me I was determined to do just that; even I am eager to reach the ending. But given the circumstances that I did not anticipate would grow worse that I cannot begin to bare the thought of having this out in the open and reread my past writing without wanting to bang my head on the wall or wail in shame, or even have this story haunting my dreams (this fic is really just past the mere “imagine your ship” thing… ) – I have finally decided to stop the torture and just completely revamp things for the sake of my sanity.

The rewritten version, that this time I can confidently say I am far happier and prouder of (with no feelings of wanting to throw it all in the trash), is far from done, and to be frank, I’m not even sure when and if I will even be able to finish this. I want to scold my past self because wow, why in the hell did you write a 60+ chaptered story that is far from over with such a messy plot outline that I am now struggling to fix, where did you even find all the words to write?? The only reason why I really continue to hold back from giving this story up is because of how precious it is to me, and watching Ubuntu’s story play in my head simply genuinely makes me happy.

Unfortunately, focusing on Ubuntu is seriously not going to support me financially (I would be stable by now if this was my 9-5 job, tbh, lmao). So as much as I want to just sit down the entire day to work on this, I can’t. I already do that a lot when I run away from the hell of my life, but the consequences is me being pathetically jobless and recluse.

So…

Unless anyone has an alternative idea (I’m all ears… or eyes, for this matter), I thought of two options: Perhaps I can simply write out a summary of what was to happen next until the ending. Or, to post the first few drafts of revamped chapters (not final, as I tend to go back and forth to change details as the story progresses), painfully hoping for that ending that I honestly don’t see any time soon (I’m truly sorry). I have just been unsure how to go about this because Ubuntu is more detailed heavy and very in-depth than mere plot writing.

What do you think?

Either way, however, I will not be taking down this original version posted, so you don’t have to worry about this disappearing into an abyss, just don’t expect the ending to come anymore (I have already marked this story with Permanent Hiatus). I already made up my mind that no matter how much it bothers me to have this out in the open, the wonderful people I have met since I started this and have told me time and time again that Ubuntu means just as much to them as it is to me, is worth more to have this kept. (Though if there is any way to private this only between the current subscribers, I’ll probably do that. But as of now, I have no idea how, lol (does invite-only work that way?) ).

As always, I will never go without taking a chance to express my gratitude – Thank you, for every little form of support. It all truly means a lot to me and I will never get tired of saying that despite this probably being the one-thousandth time. You have helped me more than you can imagine.

I do not know if any of you read minds, but as I was finalizing my decision and this author’s note I was determined to finally post, I have suddenly been receiving expressions of love for this fic out of nowhere (honestly thought it was now forgotten); all but gave me even more courage to face this story once again.

I’m always grateful.

This last chapter update you are about to read is what I wrote before the entire 2017 mess happened. I had this re-written so many times because I tried hard to detach myself and my emotions from the story writing, which sadly, obviously, kept failing and why I decided to just finally drop it once and for all. While this is far shorter than any other and remains unfinished, I hope you still enjoy this bit of Ubuntu’s ChanBaek ❤️

sixty-seven (unfinished)