Wait, We’re back!
Hello, hello! Side of Fiction went away for a bit, but it’s back now! Exciting, isn’t it? Hold your applause. Yes, yes, I know you’re happy. So am I. delighted actually. I’m really looking forward to writing for this blog again, regardless of what I write about. I’ve already thought of a lot of ideas. Sometimes I’ll have more or less, and that’s ok. There is no schedule or requirements this time around! I’m just going to do whatever I want, whenever I want, for as long or as little as I want. You know what I want? You should. I just wanted to say want again, my bad. Sorry, sorry. I’m getting cocky again. Anyway, we have a lot to discuss.
I will keep the first part of this post pretty to the point. What types of content will be back on the site? We will still have anime reviews. We will still have game reviews. We will still have any type of content centered around both those things. The same will be true for anything else that I’ve ever written about on the site. At some point, Side of Fiction became purely an anime blog, and while I don’t regret that decision as it led me to a lot of amazing things, I don’t want to be confined by that. I likely wouldn’t have stopped the site if I did. With all that being said, we will still have all the same types of content I’ve ever done before because I love those things.
As for the new content coming… there will be lots! Not confining myself anymore means I’ll likely talk about little things that interest me a lot more. For instance, I want to make a short, little post about Pokémon TCG Pocket soon! As being a vtuber is a big part of me these days, I will also be extending content to anything vtuber related. Same as YouTube content. I will be talking about literally anything I love. And that also means lots of behind-the-scenes stuff for things I’m working on. I’ll probably give some insights into new projects on the site as well, for people who actually come here. They’ll be in the know first!
In short: expect more of the same, with a ton of extra stuff. Completely unfiltered me!
What’s Happening to the Old Content?
As you may have noticed, or maybe haven’t at all, all the posts that were once on Side of Fiction aren’t here anymore, but don’t worry your pretty little head. They will be back. So to give you a quick run down of what had happened, I had plenty of backups for the site after I stopped having it hosted, however the WordPress backups that I used didn’t include the media library the blog had. I still have all of those images organized well, so I can make things normal again, but I have to manually add them all back. There are also some other blogs I linked to that are now dead, sadly, and I would rather not include stuff like that. So all content will be back, just released one by one as I go over them again. Starting first with the posts I like, then following through all the links to minimize any issues that may come up.
There are some types of content that I still want to preserve, but will change the presentation a bit. Still, all the content inside will remain the same. Not a single word altered, as I think it’s good to keep the time capsule alive. For instance, I still have the old about page linked even though I created a new one. We should appreciate and value our past. Not be controlled by it. But remember it made us who we are. The main posts that I plan to reorganize a bit, we’ll say, are all the many update posts I did, the seasonal anime award posts, and also the episode reviews, and all the different posts related to them, such as the top 10s.
I feel like all of those posts, even more than the others, are a sign of the time I made them. The episode reviews came out largely alongside the episodes, and reading and writing them as the season went on was the fun of it. I can’t help but feel that the posts just don’t make sense to have all on their own, especially with how much it populates the searches and stuff. This is an example of something I just disagree with my past self with. I think I’d do things different now, so I will. Episode reviews will all be combined into one long post, completely unchanged from how they were separately, while the top 10s and full review will still remain on their own. The seasonal awards will all be combined for the year they were made instead of all separate as well.
Lastly, the update posts. I love the update posts. I think looking back on them helps you see my mindset at the time I wrote them, and that’s precious and cute, so I want them saved and public, but not confusing people or being in the way. How I’ll handle this moving forward is that I will have a separate page dedicated to all updates in an easy-to-follow timeline with bullet points of the important jazz. Each of those will link to a full update post you can go read! That will be what this post is, and also all old updates. They will all be saved and preserved just as they are, and this one will be the same. So again, you’ll now have an easy list of updates to see, but also quick ways to find all the lengthy update posts in their full glory! Granted, it will take some time to do this, of course.
At this point, that is more or less all I have to say about the regular update jazz. The same posts will be back unchanged. There is lots of new and exciting stuff coming, and I’m dealing with it all in a way I find a lot more fun and much healthier. And that’s why I want this last part of the post to be a pretty sappy one. I want to talk about why I ended up ending the blog before, when it was clearly something I loved and never stopped thinking about.
My Mental Health
Side of Fiction is by far the most important decision that I have ever made in my life. It was a stupid whim. I decided to chase after something randomly just because I thought it would be fun. I did. I dove after it, and my life changed. Regardless of if the blog gets any views or attention, the impact this website has had on my life is immeasurable. I love it. It is my baby and I owe it everything. The inspiration it gave me. The people I met through it, how those people changed me. How my mental space has changed since I randomly decided to make this blog almost 4 years ago. I can’t even begin to explain what this place means to me. I’m crying just thinking about it all. I love it so, so dearly. But life is hard. And that never stops being true.
My life started to get pretty rough early into the blog. I got a job I hated that drained me of so much of my energy. Bit by bit, even as far back as 2021 my inspiration and motivation begun to drain, but I kept up, and I had fun. I don’t think I realized at the time how much I was hurting, but I was, and it was slowly eating away at me. Then I got another job, and guess what, I hated it. Even worse. I had to deal with constant abuse of power from my bosses, and despite being part-time, I was still getting 40+ hours a week, with none of the rewards of full-time. Eventually, that boss got fired by the company, but my job was still hell. So much of my week was spent miserable, in hatred, and I wasn’t even allowed to leave when it was my time to go. I was often forced to stay until midnight when I was supposed to leave hours earlier. I hated it, and it slowly sapped away at me.
While I didn’t see it at the time, this led to a slow, sneaky mental spiral that I had. Slowly, I lost passion for so many things in my life. I started to envy the person I was before. That person who would randomly throw themselves at something just because it was fun. I began to stop thinking about fun or enjoyment. My vtuber stuff became some way for me to try and make money to get out of the job I was in. All my hobbies slowly got consumed until my stress from life took away everything I truly enjoyed.
This led to my whole personality changing a lot and I didn’t like myself anymore. All of this happened without me really knowing. Sometimes you don’t realize the strain life can have on you. That’s why you need to slow down, reflect, and listen to people that care about you. Recently, all of this kind of came to head in a pretty terrible experience in my life that resulted in some of the worst months I’ve ever had. My life almost looked very different. But my eyes were opened, and once they were, I started to slowly realize a lot of what I’m talking about right now. It took a lot of self reflecting and a lot of tough times admitting all my problems I had caused and experienced, but it was necessary.
There was another paragraph here about Metaphor Refantazio. I honestly don’t know how I lost it, but it was weird when there was no context to the image above. Basically, I was talking about how this game had saved me. The story and characters moved me beyond belief. It also helped open my eyes and changed my whole outlook on life, really. I’m completely dead serious about that, and because of it, it became my favorite game of all time. I owe it a lot as well, and I’m sure I’ll discuss it at some point.
Anyway, thanks to these bad experiences and finally self reflecting again, I realized things had to change, and slowly they did. I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I truly mean that. I feel so secure in that happiness in a way I’ve never felt. I still have bad days, we all do, but I know they’ll pass. I’ll make sure they will after all. And that’s why I’m so motivated again. My life is mine. It is all my own and I won’t ruin my life over the stressful days I have. I’ll falter, but they won’t beat me. Nothing and nobody will. Side of Fiction is but one step on my way to reclaiming my life and everything that I began to take from myself.
That’s really all I have to say. Thank you for reading, and thank you for seeing the sappy stuff. I love life and I love this blog. It’s here to stay, and so am I!
Wait, that’s not how I end these.
Good to have you back :3
Thank you! Good to be back