Best Friends Forever

Rules

Hi everyone,

So before I start this book, I want to lay out some rules. When I was writing Unholy Matrimony, there were a lot of comments I didn't like seeing and some things that are just straight-up unacceptable. So, to avoid that happening in this book too, I'm going to outline some things I don't want to see in the comments and might get you muted:

(PS there are spoilers here, so if you haven't read Unholy Matrimony, don't read the elaborations on these)

1) Don't demonize mental illness.

I have seen so many comments blaming Jason for so much stuff, saying very invalidating things about his depression, and overall just being completely ignorant and misinformed about suicide. I get that it's not something that's actively talked about, but that's something I want to change. Him being depressed does not mean he is weak. Him committing suicide does not mean he didn't love Talia. He didn't choose to just "be sad" and he's not just automatically going to hell. Mental illness is just as valid as a physical illness. I don't want to see anyone saying it isn't, and I'm very serious about this. It's extremely invalidating to those who suffer from it to constantly read things like that, so I won't have it.

2) Try and put yourself in the character's shoes before judging them.

All my characters are flawed. No one is perfect, that is clear to see. But at some point, it's obvious that people are just hating without having had considered the character's situation or how this would play out in a real life situation. My stories are trying to be as realistic as possible, meaning I'm not going to magically fix everything for the romance to happen. It's realistic that it took Talia so long to get over Jason. She was traumatized by his death and she loved him more than anything. She isn't going to magically get over him the moment Tobias comes into her life and it's not fair to see all the comments hating on her struggling to get over him. I hope none of you are ever put in her position, but trust me, it's not easy. She will realistically never be over Jason.

3) Stop telling me you skipped things.

I find this extremely rude, to be honest. I put my own time and energy in this book and the last thing I want to see is people commenting about how they just skipped over things that I spent time writing out. I don't just include random, irrelevant facts. Everything in the story is there for a reason, and by not reading it you are a) not experiencing the story in the way it's meant and b) telling me you don't appreciate my efforts. If you want to skip something, by all means, go for it! Just don't tell me about it, it's completely unnecessary.

And these aren't rules, but there are two more things I want to address before starting this:

1) This book is a lot more serious than Unholy Matrimony.

I know that for the most part, Unholy Matrimony was very lighthearted with a lot of joking around and stuff, but this book is less of that. I know that may be disappointing and I'll try to incorporate some humor into this book too, but overall, there'll be less chapters focused on humor than there were in Unholy Matrimony.

2) I will be updating very very very slowly.

I know when I wrote Unholy Matrimony I was popping out chapter every two days which I still don't understand how I did tbh, but that definitely is not going to happen this time around. The fact is, I'm in a very competitive program in a very competitive university, so writing this book is just a hobby that I can't really allow to take up much time in my life. So I would expect maximum one update a week, but more realistically an update every two weeks. I know that's annoying but unfortunately that's the way it has to be.

But now that everything's been laid out, hope you guys enjoy this story!!