When Last Night Didn't End

Story Time & Acknowledgements

But the point of telling you all of that unnecessary context is for you to know that this work is very close to my heart because of the following reasons:

1. It's my love letter to two of my favorite media of entertainment: anime and k-dramas. If you have noticed (or if you didn't, then this is me spoon-feeding it to you), WLNDE contains the action, external plot, and world like a fantasy anime would; the character arcs, the emotional damage (arguable), and the internal beats of the story are very much from k-dramas. So yeah. This is just me thanking the biggest influences that have shaped my writing after all these years.

2. It's loosely based in my real life in some aspects. Again, like I did with MSWY, I won't be saying which ones. Just know that there are a lot of parallels between several character traits, choices, and situations to what I have lived through in the past years. I don't think it's really your business to separate fiction from reality.

3. This is my reflections on a lot of things, mostly on the themes tackled. It may irk some of you, you may disagree with most, but WLNDE is the way I view love, friendship, choices, life, and circumstance. There might be a lot more, including how I view the corporate world, but it's up to you to find the rest.

4. Lastly, WLNDE is a genre-bending, trope mish-mashing experimental work that combines two of my strengths in writing: fantasy and contemporary fiction. Granted, MSWY, despite a contemporary novel that is also close to my heart, has failed to win at anything, but you get what I mean. It's still my favorite trauma baby.

The Chronicles of Fantasilia, as I have been told, is a good adventure in itself, but I have noticed one thing: it lacked proper character arcs that the readers can relate to. Blame it on my idiot self back when I was 14 and believed plot-driven stories with passive MCs are the best way to go. Now, I realized that it's the characters that are driving the story forward and it should have been for my works from the start.

So, I figured there's a need to make internal and external conflict come about in one huge explosion of words. And that, my friends, is WLNDE at its core.

I hope all that story-time has been a bit enlightening to y'all. Now, we move to the second part of this essay. It's time for me to mention the same people I've been mentioning since forever, just because they've been really, really helpful in the making of this story that you now have in your hands.

To my SWF family, Waterbender_poet, TessaTuring, and AmnerisTenjo, you have my huge thanks for tolerating my existence and our friendship (?) throughout the years of knowing you guys. (We're going on 4 years already, would you look at that.) I wish y'all good luck for all the stuff you are doing and know that I'll always be here for y'all except for monetary compensation. Really, you're the best. Uwu.

To my Chaotic Fluffs, friends who made writing this work extra, extra special: the-reticent-seer, SuVida777, starisredy, and ry-reader-29. Thank you so much for staying even when everyone else has faded. Thanks for reaching out when I wouldn't, for being there when I couldn't promise to do the same (I know, I am a bad friend. xD), and for all the help you've given. To some of you, the ones who have seen the crappy version of WLNDE's blurb, thank you for your inputs and your general interest in just being there in that secret Discord channel. I couldn't have asked for better writing companions as you.

dayisdemigod, the first person to ever see all of my failures in designing WLNDE's covers, thank you for your feedback and the hype you've been giving for my graphic designing journey. I couldn't have it any other way. Good luck in your own stuff in life and I hope you read this someday. xD