Update Diary: Hell/Dolls (October 15, 2025)

Good mornooning!

I stole that from Akira Toriyama.

Anyway, new month, new update.  As you can see, I’ve been posting more content more often (I posted a review and the next two chapters of HD)!  Now, when you see the stats for the story, you may notice some dropoff.

This is not due to the other content, it is simply because I forgot to write for three consecutive days.

I just wanted that to be clear.  Anywhoozles, here are the current stats for the story (as exported into Word):

Current Chapter: 13 (Bloom and Wither)(Working Title)

Pages: 233

Word Count: 86,385

Well, compared to the difference in the last two updates, I definitely slowed down a bit. 7,000 words to… 5,000-ish.  That’s not too bad, I guess.

In other news, I’ll be trying harder to actually address the released content in these update diaries, since I tended to ramble about life and non-Hell/Dolls information.

First of all, art and designs.  I still want to release a map of the world at some point, and I want to commission someone for the title art if I can swing it, but right now, my finances are not what you’d call “in order”.  I have people in mind for each of the things I am wanting to release (world map, Saruja map, and title picture), but after a session with acrylic paint and a great teacher, I am feeling more confident in making some of these visuals myself.

Secondly, I would like to talk about the first two chapters, which I released back on August 5th.  The first release (Prelude) acts as a setting description and a quick look at the history of the world.  I have looked at other series doing this, as well as their readers, and I understand that this is usually integrated into the first few chapters along with the story.

I am not a professional writer, and I will never claim to be.

I always go with my gut when including scenes or descriptions, as wrong as it may be.  I wanted to present a history of the world early on, so those who don’t really care can move onto the first real chapter at their own pace.  Though the history of Grudia and Uruhsatt will probably be more touched on in future chapters (late Book 1 to mid-Book 2), it’s only currently relevant to those who care about the history of Kiria.  The introductions to the mortal races, Baael, and Essence are pretty important to the story, but I think most people can glean the necessary information reading the main story.

Chapter 1 is where the story really starts, following Vincent’s first steps into his new job, introducing three major characters (two technically for this “Book”), moving us into the major state Saruja, and readying us for the large set that is the stage.  For now, Vesic acts as the driving force for Vincent, while Simon and Regnah will be Vincent’s direct contacts into this unfamiliar city-state.

I realize that I’m still editing these early chapters as I go on (in small doses, but nevertheless editing), but I will try to only update them when I release new chapters, to minimize the amount of back-reading people have to do.  Most of the changes are clarifications that I forgot to include, but some tend to be major points (as I found recently) such as how Vincent knows about the Sealed God.  Again, I will try to minimize the amount of backtracking I do after release, but I can’t promise anything.

On a different note, I do have a separate document detailing specific world notes that I don’t really touch on in the story, so I’ll try to make a point of adding those to these update diaries.  Or maybe I’ll release the sections as their own posts.  I haven’t decided yet.

For now, thank you for reading my story, following my progress, and letting me provide you with a new universe (that may or may not be similar to some anime released last season  GODFKMNDAMNSNINT.

Thank you all!

-Marcosias Isif

News and Life for August 2025

Good evening!  I am tired.

Enough of that though, I wanted to update everyone on my ongoing struggle with the disease called “life”.  It’s been a bit since I talked about life things, so I figured an update was due, especially since I haven’t been posting anything but Hell/Dolls stuff recently.

Health-wise, I’m fluctuating between “healthy” and “dead”, but not as badly as I would’ve expected by this point in my life.  I visit a mental health doctor, family medicine doctor, dentist, and eye doctor regularly compared to how I was the past decade.  Teeth are still in my head, blood pressure and cholesterol could be better, and sleep is what it has been since high school.

My right eye, however, possibly has something called keratoconus, which basically means my eye is distending at a rate that could cause partial blindness if left untreated.  I’m seeing someone in September to confirm I have it, then I get the surgery if I do, hopefully before the end of the year.

I have kept hold of my current job, now making it the longest career I’ve ever held (just passed five years), and I still enjoy the people, coworkers, and the work.  If I end up moving out of my current state, I will definitely look for a similar job.  Unfortunately, a lot of my favorite coworkers (including my direct boss), have either left the company indefinitely or prepared themselves to leave, so there’s a lot of shuffling positions right now, which is a little stressful, especially considering I don’t know who’s going to be filling the holes.  New bosses can always be a hard thing to get used to, more so if they have a different leading style than you’re used to.  Still, I’m holding my breath.

Aside from that, as y’all are (painfully) aware, I’ve been writing a lot more than before in my spare time, mostly Hell/Dolls and supplementary material for it.  I am still greatly enjoying building the world beyond its original design, and redesigning and building new characters and pieces of the world.  I haven’t had this much freedom with my passions in a long time, mostly due to being pressed for time – work, stress, and duties to school and family were always preventing me from committing my thoughts to paper.  Nowadays, I feel like my scheduled interactions with others are more clear, well-placed, and fit with my pace and needs.

I’ve been looking into Fiverr for some high-quality art for my story (mainly for the cover, world map, and possibly a map of the main city), and a couple artists have stood out to me.  If I can at least get a commissioned world map with the details I want, I will be much more likely to release art with the chapters, as I originally wanted.  I may release the first designs I had, but I’m still on the fence.

The last thing I wanted to talk about today was my reviews.  I haven’t really been posting many anime reviews lately, and I haven’t posted a game review since I came back, as much as I want to write them.  I’ve been watching full cours of anime recently, so I’m not lacking review material, but I need to buckle down and think hard to write those reviews in a way that doesn’t sound too repetitive, which I felt was happening with the last few I wrote.

To be honest, I have a few reviews started right now (Metallic Rouge, The Wrong Way TO Use Healing Magic, and a couple of other fun ones), but for me, reviews have to be written after binging the series or while watching episodes.  Otherwise, the details get fuzzy, the episodes blend together, and I forget key points or confuse characters or meanings.  I have never deemed myself a professional reviewer, and I won’t deign to be one now.

That’s all for now, I just wanted to give y’all a quick update on my life.  I hope you all enjoyed my rant today.  I’ll try to get some more content posted.

Thanks for listening!

-Marcosias Isif

Update Diary: Hell/Dolls (April 16th, 2025)

Good evening!

I’m getting very excited as the day of release comes ever closer, so let’s take a gander at the stats of the story so far:

Current Chapter: 10 (Truths and Lies)

Pages: 115

Current Word Count: *54,554

Uh, something I may have forgotten to correct for was the non-story words for the word count (the title page I had set up and the Table of Contents for ease of editing), so I was posting about 50 words over what the actual story was at.  I will try to remember this for future posts, but for now, please accept my sincere apology for the minor numbers issue.

Based on what I said in my first few diaries, it looks like I’ll be releasing the prelude and first chapter sometime in June or July (fingers crossed, knock on wood, all that good stuff).

I do hope that those that have followed this story from its first announcement enjoy the story just as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

Nothing much else I want to say on this, so please hold onto hope until my next post.

Thanks-

M. Isif

Update Diary: Hell/Dolls Update 12/31/24

Good day to all!

Today, I’d like to provide a short update on my Hell/Dolls story, as it stands right now (though, truth be told, I started this article on the 23rd).

As it stands, here are the statistics I have:

Current Chapter: 8 (Talks and Whispers – tentative name)

Pages: 89

Total Word Count: 41,110

So, something some of you may have noticed is that the word count hasn’t gone up much despite entering a new chapter (the last update had 37,185 words, so barely over 4,000 words since the last update).  Part of this is that I went back some days and reconfigured some wording and events, but the other part of this is that I haven’t been able to work on this story as much as I would have liked.  Between a surprise guest in our household and holiday hours at work, the most I’ve been able to do is finish this chapter (a little abruptly), start the new chapter, and review what I’ve written and edit the errors out.

All in all, this is a short update telling you that I have indeed been working on the story despite my personal life.  I have been able to do some work on my reviews during the weekends, but my story has suffered a little due to this.

Update (12/30/24): So, this WAS supposed to come out this morning, but I forgot.  Instead, I’m sscheduling it for the ACTUAL end-of-the-year post.

I did want to address the decision I made regarding the novel’s release – I have decided to release the first four chapters (as well as the prelude) once I reach chapter 10, on FictionPress as I normally do.  My train of thought is that by the time I get to Chapter 10, the wording for the story should be finalized, or at the very least need miniscule changes.  I will also probably do an audio recording at some point, both for myself and for the readers.

What this basically means for the novelization is that it probably won’t be available on hardcopy, unfortunately – I think that releasing the story for free gives more access to people who want to read it, and it gives me less of a headache trying to find a publisher, dealing with fees, and other problems that come with publishing full-on books.

On the plus side, this means that once I feel a chapter is done, it will be available to read (and record).  I won’t (or, will try not to) edit any posted chapters, and I’ll probably start a ko-fi or pull up my Patreon for anyone who wants to support me monetarily.  Both links will come soon.

For now, keep an eye out for the first few releases!  I hope to have them ready by mid-2025.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

-Marcosias the Isif