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Language:
English
Series:
Part 1 of ‘The Will of the Living’ Series
Collections:
Ongoing fic, Works In Progress, Love these stuff UwU, Those Tomarry fics, thiccboimork's harry potter reading list, thiccboimork's reading list
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Published:
2023-04-04
Updated:
2025-09-05
Words:
194,854
Chapters:
20/36
Comments:
255
Kudos:
1,089
Bookmarks:
345
Hits:
37,603

Iron & Decaying Dreams

Chapter 20: INTERMISSION 2. AN UPDATED NOTE ON THE HIATUS

Chapter Text

Hi, everyone.

I want to start this note by stating this is still not an abandoned fic in any way, and this is just giving some more context to my extended absence, and why my promises of a new chapter have not materialized.

Life has been a rollercoaster, and I have found that I tend to write the most out of a purging-mental-anguish-and-compulsive-thoughts kind of way, which means I stop writing once I’m doing good. And I have been doing good! Without oversharing too much about my personal life, I have had a really busy time planning for a trip to meet my partner in the first few months of 2025 and then I had the greatest three months of my life with him—a time I could finally rest and feel safe and plan a future outside of my current CPTSD-triggering living situation. I have returned now, but there are a lot more life planning ahead, plus quite a bit of mental health-related processing to be done (turns out I have OCD, primarily the morality kind. Who could have known? Apparently not me, even though it’s crystal clear through all the insane mental leaps and guilt my characters [primarily Harry] experience in this fic. Hell, the whole concept of fixing Tom’s morality is an exercise in exorcising my own OCD demons, and I honestly don’t know if that’s healthy or not, whether I’m giving myself an outlet or giving validity to my intrusive thoughts, but, anyway, I’ll stop rambling), so I cannot promise a return soon, as much as I’d like to. In addition to everything, I am also learning German, which is quite a high priority (even if terrifying) to me for personal reasons, so writing, unfortunately, has been in the backburner.

I understand if some people are not willing to wait until I make a return and decide to abandon this fic, but I hope some of you stick around. I truly mean it when I say I have the plot, characters, and interactions of this entire story figured out, and despite all the associations to my OCD this fic has dredged up and my continuous detachment from Harry Potter due to J.K. Rowling’s... antics, so to speak, I am still very proud of the writing and characters and worldbuilding and what it sets up for the sequel, and I want to see it through. I am simply putting myself first until I can find peace of mind and a safe place to come back to writing with a new perspective and a renewed love, instead of using it as a crutch to escape reality.

Thank you for your patience.

With love,

Ian

Notes:

Hey! If you like my writing and Tomarry/Harrymort stories, I have some other works you might be interested in checking out as well.
There is There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in which is a one-shot where there is no Voldemort, Tom and Harry go to Hogwarts together, and Lily is alive (while James died on duty as an Auror). Harry has a crush on Tom, but they are rivals, since Harry is number one in Defense and Tom very much wants to surpass him. This story is an exploration of grief and parental expectations.
There is its prequel, As Rare As Springtime Snow which is an interpretation of how the werewolf “prank” went in this universe, by focusing on interactions with James Potter and Severus Snape.
There is Hope is Hell's Final Torment which is a post-war AU where Harry never killed Voldemort, since Dumbledore died before telling Harry of the Horcruxes and Harry ended the war by de-aging Voldemort and making him forget everything. He eventually goes to visit him in Azkaban, only to discover he's been experimented on for ages in an underground prison. It's mostly a character study and exploration of Voldemort's (now Tom's) psyche, and how he's (ironically lol) been suicidal. HIHFT might be one of my favorite pieces of writing I've ever done, and it’s the first in a series.
There’s also its sequel, Terminal Lucidity which is similar in themes and follows more of Tom’s and Harry’s mindsets leading up to their encounter, and the third work, Memento Mori, which furthers the plot and ideas.
There is Earnest which is an AU where Hogwarts is an Arts School, Dumbledore adopted Tom and became Headmaster, and Tom is an actor (just like Dumbledore used to be), Harry is a violinist, and they have a meet-cute in the Astronomy Tower, where they bond a bit. This particular one inspired me a whole bunch, and I ended up writing a multi-chapter sequel set years later, which has some quite insane lore, if I say so myself, called Unlucky Streak which might be, no joke, my absolute favorite piece of writing I've ever done so far. The tone is very different and way more modern than I’m used to writing, but I fucking love it. I'm having so much fun with it.
More recently, I had the privilege of being a part of the blind chaos Tomarry collection alongside some awesome writers, and my contribution can be found here, in the story called “something that is either hilarious or deep”. It was so much fun to be part of it, and I really like our end product!
I'm done with the sales pitch now, I promise. It's just that I've really loved writing these short stories, and I intend on expanding them in the future. I&DD is still the priority, but stifling myself is not an option when you have a brain like mine, pulling me into all sorts of directions. If you guys like any of my stuff, I recommend subscribing to me or the stories for more content.
Anyway, thank you for reading!

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