Long Overdue Goodbye: Thank You All So Much · 5:19am Jul 11th, 2016
It has been roughly 91 weeks since I've logged into this account, and I've spent the last hour or two looking through my account. Whats to come will be a stream of conscious type apology with little to no editing, and an explanation of sorts. A lot has happened these past two years, and during my time here and not all of it I'm comfortable sharing. I don't know how many of you will see this, but if you don't care to get into some of the personal or randomish things I'll be typing then here's the short way of saying it.
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I was depressed and feeling awful, I hated my writing and lost interest in the show. I ended up not reading or writing anything for months after I quit logging on, and did nothing in terms of a creative outlook. However, last year I started reading again and slowly began to write. But it was worse than anything on this site, and it had been so long since I looked at anything mlp related that I felt I couldn't write the stories anymore, and then I meandered, starting and stopping stories 2,000 words in, until nearly two weeks ago. I finally started writing again for enjoyment and as a creative outlet, currently I'm at 10,975 words in the story and I've written at least 600 words every day for 11 days in a row. Now that I'm beginning to write again, I feel as though I can say goodbye with some positive thoughts instead of sad regret. I really appreciate the people here, more than I've shown or can show. My time here is the reason I can write now, the criticism, the likes, the comments, the people, all of it. I felt bad for leaving suddenly, and I still do, and there's nothing I can say to rectify that other than I'm sorry that my stories will go unfinished and that I never said bye properly. Sorry, again.
So to close the quick summary, I sincerely love all of you and this website will hold a special place in my mind for the rest of my life, and because of my experiences here I can go into the future learning from my mistakes. It may be too little, too late at this point. But thank you, and I'm sorry.
This is goodbye.
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Here's a longer account, sorry if I go off topic as its 1AM and there's so much to include.
This website made me want to write, and I loved that. I wasn't very good, I'm still not if we're being truthful, but I loved having an outlet for these cutesy shipping stories. However, I was constantly stressed and insecure. At the time I stopped, my writing was improving somewhat. But the disconnect from what I wanted to write, and how it actually came out infuriated me. The chapters were getting longer, and my ideas were getting more complex. I couldn't write well enough to have those ideas flourish, and as I wrote I began to hate it. Comparing that to when I started writing is like night and day. O day I saw a cute flutterpie pic, and wrote a 1,000 word chapter for a generic cutesy story about that pairing; and that was all that I wanted to do. It was fun, and I think I achieved what I wanted. At the time I quit I wasn't enjoying writing, it became a chore and I worried more about how much people would hate it than if anyone would like it. I stopped watching the show a month or two before I quit as well, and I haven't interacted with the fandom or seen the show since.
Now, this all happened when I was at my lowest mentally as well. My schoolwork was suffering, I hated myself, most of my friends had turned out to be not-so-friendly or moved away, and overall I was depressed for a long time. It was bad enough for 6 months in particular in 2014 that I can say without being dramatic that I was depressed, and met all the requirements for major depressive disorder. It came in waves after those symptoms lessened, some days were worse than others, but it got to a point where even reading was a chore. Nothing was fun, I was never motivated, and I was in this hazy state until late 2015. I'm starting to get better, but there have been a lot of personal struggles I've dealt with that aided in making the depression feel worse. I won't go into great detail, but I grappled with my sexuality for a long time and I'm still insecure about that and I had to keep it a secret and worry endlessly over what was wrong with me, and during all this an important family member died and I ended up pushing down the sadness until it boiled over. I also exiled myself in a way, and shut off from others and anything stressful; effectively killing my social life and school career , which still hasn't recovered and I'm just looking forward to getting out of town and staring fresh next year,
However during all this there would be bursts of writing, all original stories, but none ever made it far and unfinished story after unfinished story piled up while nothing ever seemed to work. A few months ago I thought about posting my final goodbye, as I have every 4 months or so since leaving for what I genuinely thought would be a short hiatus, but I felt it would be hollow if I didn't learn. If I wasn't still writing, how could I say I truly appreciated my time here? I gave up, plain and simple, but I didn't want to admit it. So, I finally started a fairly cliche romance story set at a boarding school, and the reason it was romance is because that's the genre of Butterflycakes, my first ever story of any kind. I wanted to recapture that want to write, and since my active attempts stemmed from romance it seemed like a good way to say, "Hey, I'm moving on from this site but it taught me a lot and I'm still going to write, even if for now its not for anyone else but me."
And while I haven't recaptured that enthusiasm quite yet, I have been writing every day for 11 days straight now; each day with a word requirement of 600 words to ease myself into it. Most I write 700 or so, with today's entry being 1,209. Why this story? Out of all of them why am I sticking with this, why am I starting to rekindle that love? I'm not totally sure, but it feels natural. I want to combine that initial enthusiasm with the criticism I've gotten on all my stories, to make something good enough for me to be proud of. When I wrote here I was sure I'd write a ton, and did outline quite a few stories, but that love burnt out for those two and I'm extremely sorry for barely finishing any of these, despite my love for them. Looking through my blog posts I really did seem to think that if I kept trying things would work out, but here we are nearly 2 years later...
But, this is why I can say goodbye now; even if I should have much earlier. I'm trying to take my fond memories, reading stories up until 5AM, writing on my old Kindle, talking with you all, and falling in love with the community despite my poor social skills; and use those positive memories to help fuel my desire to write. I honestly doubt I'll find a website like this again, and if I still could get into the show I'd start writing again but I fear history may repeat itself if I try to force myself. So, it's here that I feel I can say goodbye. My stories weren't great, but they were fun. Every nice comment gave me a smile, every criticism did admittedly make a little sad, but ultimately it was a question of ego or wanting to get better, and in the end the want to improve won out. I'll be here for a few more days, maybe less. I want to read through my stories, and some old favorites, and just finally get some closure on this part of my life.
Finally, if you've read this all or not, I love you all for reading my stories. I don't expect many to read this, but I hope I have expressed my gratitude well enough. I never really cared about follower count, but every one of you made me want to write; and through that I discovered my love for storytelling. These years, form 2013 onward have been pretty turbulent, but I want to close my time here with fond memories and this apology. This may seem too dramatic for a guy who wrote mlp fanfiction, but I spent a lot of time here and I continue to write and try to better myself because of it. I want to treat this seriously because the fun times here were kind of silly, but pretty damn important in forming what I enjoy writing about.
I'll never forget what this website started in me, and while I'm sure I've been a little cheesy, repetitive, and scattered, but I'm glad I wrote this finally.
Never stop reading, never stop writing, never stop doing what you love, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your time on this site and that you're in good health and whatever. I was never good at ending these things.
Goodbye.
~FlameingToast
goodbye my friend, although we never met before, i feel sorry for your sufferings, regardless you read this or not, i wrote this with my deepest sincerity
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Don't worry about it too much, there's a lot I left out but I didn't want to clutter up the post any further, but I'm really starting to move on. Or at least at this point I'm used to it and haven't hit a noticeable low for a while. But I want to thank you for the comment, and say I do appreciate the concern.
Thanks again.