User blog:RedNovaTyrant/A Look Back: My First Year on The Creepypasta Wiki

One year. It’s hard to believe that much time has already passed for me here on the CPW. From bumbling beginnings as just an newbie creepypasta fan with an idea of a story, to... wherever I am now, I’ve had a lot of fun over the last twelve months making friends and writing more stories for the wiki, be them individual and on my own, or working in a collaboration.

I couldn’t really think of anything else to do for a one year anniversary other than looking back at what I’ve done so far, and discussing how I feel about my contributions (mostly just me being hard on myself, like any content creator). It feels a little... vain, but it is what it is. So, here’s my thoughts on each story of mine that stands on the wiki to this day:

The Greenhouse Effect: The first, the beginning of the end. Uhh, let’s see... despite being a little pretentious with “oh look religion reference, do u get it”, I’m still happy with the story. I mean, it’s my first try and it got to stay, how could I be disappointed with that? Going back and re-reading it, I noticed that this was an actual “creepy” pasta, and that I’ve kinda shifted towards more twist ending scares than progressive creepiness, which DOES disappoint me. I have no problem with shortpastas, but I just want to prove to myself that I can write scary fiction that isn’t so reliant on a big plot twist, especially since I prefer the slow kind of story more. So I’m gonna try to get back to that way of writing in the future. Speaking of “shifting”...

The Shifts: First story of mine to be narrated (thanks again to SpiritVoices for that). Yeah, still happy with this one too. I wanted to do something a little different with mirror pastas, so that’s what I did and there it is. The ending still twists a little quickly I think, but otherwise I’d pleased with the result. Once again, same thing I noticed with TGE where there’s an actual build up of creepiness, so, yeah, gotta do that some more.

How To Beat The Sandman: They say hubris is the downfall of a man, but I’ll be damned if I don’t say this is the story I’m most proud of. I’m a sucker for good ritual pastas, so I desperately wanted to write my own. And considering that I had started having trouble sleeping at university a few months prior, I realized how appealing it would be to no longer need sleep. So then I chose to make use of the classic Sandman figure and corrupt the hell out of him, and then devise the rest of the ritual after that. Two fun facts about this story in case you didn’t know: first, the affects the Sandman places on the ritual participant are all symptoms of sleep deprivation, some more extreme than others of course; and two, the missing eyelids bit isn’t just some random bit of goriness I conceived. The concept is actually based on a Chinese myth about a monk named Bodhidharma who tried to meditate for nine years straight, but fell asleep after seven. The story goes that Bodhidharma got so angry at himself that he cut out his own eyelids and threw them to the ground, from which the first tea plant grew. And that’s why tea doesn’t make you sleepy (caffeine is a lie, ancient legends are the way to go, believe me).

The World Is Quiet Here: Not gonna lie, this one is tied for, if not THE pasta I am the least happy with. It’s quite different from what I had originally planned (which was STILL worse than this), and if you thought TGE was pretentious, then you’re in for a treat. I just don’t find this one to be as scary, and I tried way too hard to cover up what was going on that it becomes obvious. So... eh... (This is the moment where I realized the admins could use this to gauge which my stories should be removed. Oops.)

Choices: Not a necessarily super creepy story, but I’m alright with this one. The illusion of free will is a really scary idea to me personally, so this story still bothers me if I place myself in the shoes of the narrator. Plus some other people liked it, one even saying it reminded them of a certain Black Mirror episode, and I like Black Mirror so I was happy for that.

Going Viral: The other contender for my least favorite story of mine. This... hmmm... Going Viral is a mixed bag for me. It stems from another one of my worst fears (massive untreatable epidemics), but it still feels kinda clunky, or talky. Like I’m just telling you everything. I remembered this one getting reviews in the workshop on both ends of the spectrum, and I couldn’t please everyone, so I went with the version I have today.

Date Night: The true beginning of the end. This was where I started trying my hand at shortpastas, trying out a quick little twist to catch the reader off guard. It’s alright, it’s fine. Only real problem I have with it today is that it started that trend I mentioned earlier, and I wanna get away from it to write more creepy stories, rather than last-minute-twists.

The Stairway of Chaos (Wiki Collab. #5): August ended, my boring desk job came to a close, and I headed back to university, so I was busy with other things and had no new ideas for creepypastas. Then I checked back in November, and this was when I began being more active on the site. I joined in on the collaboration and wrote Chapter Seven: Limbo in November of 2018, and then Chapter Eleven: Justice in May of this year. This was where I began to get to know the other members of the community better and started making friends, which I suppose is what cemented my position as another follower of The Great Wiki. So thanks goes out to all of my new found colleagues, and I hope to continue being with you guys for years to come. As for the chapters, I’m content with them. I tried doing things a little differently with them than what I had seen others do, which meant contacting/bugging Helel ben Shahaar a lot and asking my retcons were A-OK. I can’t wait to see it completed though, and I’m still more than happy to lend a helping hand to Helel anytime.

The Naughty List: Having returned for good, I decided to try something seasonal. I wanted to see how well creepypastas do when written around certain times, and I guess The Naughty List did well. Six narrations for the holiday season, I was actually shocked it got the attention it did. This is probably the second most proud I am of a story, just cuz I really liked writing about the concept of (SPOILERS!) Santa being a big demon that makes bad people deliver gifts on Christmas to atone for sins. Occultation: While still actively talking with my friends, I couldn’t come up with any new, solid ideas for a story until March. I had always wanted to do something involving space, mostly because I almost never saw any pastas in the workshop making use of it. And eventually, walking back to my place one late weekend night, I thought of the idea of a world with a never ending eclipse. Hence, this story happened. I’m pretty delighted with how this one came around.

Easter at Uncle Danny’s: Another test of how well seasonal pastas do, and this one wasn’t too bad. Basically I just sat down and asked myself, “How can I ruin Easter for someone?” Oh I know, let’s just have the narrator bite into a chocolate bunny and have blood and guts inside. But that alone was just cliché, so I decided to play on the religion of Easter and take Jebus’ words literally.

Herbal Blue: Another story with a vastly different ending than initially planned, but this time I actually like it more. This was my entry for Helel’s Bible Black contest (which is still ongoing as of the making of this blog post), and the song I was given was “Master of Puppets” by Metallica. This was one where I began to retry the longer, more tension building format, while staying within 6000 words. The result was interesting, but it was a hard story to write as I didn’t have any experience with addiction. Thankfully, I got some help from other users, and I think the story has a fair enough progression. The descriptive horror bits were fun to write – creating Hell is always a joy.

Bank Job: And now my latest story. Another shortpasta, but I had an idea so I went with it. No issues here, it turned out just as I wanted it to. That’s all I got.

Of course there were stinkers that didn’t get anywhere, but hey, no one’s perfect. Plus you can learn from the bad ones. Going forward, I have multiple ideas for stories but I just can’t seem to make them take off, so they may come out over time. I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of the people here on the wiki that have made my experiences here all the more chilling and entertaining: to the friends that I make absurdist jokes with and talk on end about related interests; to the kind narrators who’ve read my stories allowing for more people to hear my work; and to the awesome users in the Workshop who give consistent, excellent feedback not just to my drafts but to everyone’s.

Now I did tell a tiny lie at the start; this wasn’t my only idea for my one year anniversary. Little bit of self-promotion here, but I do have my own Youtube channel that I’ve been doing much longer than creepypasta. And after having some of you lovely folks suggest it, I’ve decided to try my own hand at some narrations, and see how it goes. If it goes well, then I plan to read both creepypastas for scares and some crappypastas for fun (as well as for a learning experience). For my first narration, nothing else could fit better than reading the first pasta I’ve written – The Greenhouse Effect. So come over to my channel after this (same name as on here) for cake and creepypasta.

Well, that’s everything. Thanks again everyone, and I look forward to year two, and all the years to come.

Red Nova Tyrant