CANCELLATION

Instructions

Hey guys. It’s me, Maple! Remember? Been super inactive. Okay, as you can probs tell from the title of the project, I’m here to announce sad news: I’m cancelling Batten. For those of you who don’t know, Batten Down the Hatches is—was—a fantasy xenofiction series about anthropomorphic pirate cats that I posted the Prologue of on the 11th of May last year, which has eight released chapters. Chapter 8 was released August 2nd, nine months ago. (Gurl, it’s been long enough for someone to become a MOMMY.) I originally planned on releasing Chapter 9 on the one-year anniversary. This was back in April. But then the pressure started, since I have two very incomplete versions of it and PILES of schoolwork. When I first started releasing Chapters, they came once a week. However, this got harder to maintain as more work piled on me and since I had little idea for the story, it basically was mentally painful to think of, resulting in me impulsively creating Herring for a palate cleanser. It became impossible to write a Chapter a week and motivation was being dragged away constantly as my focus shifted to studies, other stories and occasionally writing Pokémon fics with my bestie @Z_1513. I know I said a year ago that I would never end Batten. But that was a year ago. I’ve changed, I’ve grown. Over that time, I’ve read piles of novels, engaged in several TERRIBS media, come up with many story ideas, discovered I may have AuDHD and OCD . . . I’m not the same Maple I was a year ago. Engaging with some disgarstingly bad media off-Scratch made me worry constantly about whether Batten was being as awful as they were. I was running on fumes with the Batten plot. I’m buried in homework, stress, extended classes . . . So a week or so ago, I decided Batten’s gonna end. This doesn’t mean Batten’s gonna end forever, zon’t worry. You can’t get rid of them pirate kitties forever. It just means I’m gonna need a LOOOONG time to reset and reboot Batten, think about what I wish to do. I might post art of it here and stuff as I experiment. It’s not bye forever, just bye for now! I love you guys, all of my audience. You inspire me so much. Thank you to my readers. Special thank you to my friends on Scratch! @crazycurecats, and to name a few great ones! I love y’all. It breaks my heart to do this, but don’t worry, Batten will live on in our hearts and may get rebooted. <3