Category Archives: Hot Updates

2025 – Where even to start

I apologize for not updating this more recently. I’ve had some issues with PHP I finally got worked out that made it impossible to do so.

Not that I had a lot to update on. If you follow my work you are familiar with the pattern — once or maybe twice a year, a chapter update. Then a post, shit goes to hell, nothing. Then another chapter.

The reasons for this are kinda… varied. Some of it is that honestly, fan fiction is supposed to be fun to write, and often times this isn’t fun anymore. Some of it is schedule. Some of it is work. Some of it my health. Some of it is my companion, or dealing with my mother’s health.

But a lot of it, I think, was that this work was written on the anniversary of my wife’s death to distract me. And for years, it did that, as I vented poisons out of my soul and skull and ranted in borrowed voices.

It has had an impact on a lot of lives — a lot more than I ever could have expected. Ultimately, I have to continue the work even though the situation and motivation and impetus has changed, because it does impact people.

I wrote out of frustration and frankly the mess at my job in my last post, but I wish to reiterate that slowness is not stopping. I am not even close to arrogant or egotistical enough to compare myself to the guy who writes A Song of Ice and Fire , but the man’s taken eleven fucking years.

Sometimes, it doesn’t come together.

What’s changed since … 2012?

  • Wealth: In 2012, I had a lot of money — enough that I could splurge on first-class trips to visit people. The mess with my mother’s two cancers (and the insipid greed of Aetna) and having to replace the hot water heater, A/C system, dishwasher, washer and dryer, buy a new car, have sewage work done and support various family members and friends (none of which have ever paid me back) means I no longer have ‘wealth’. I have enough to pay my property taxes, but I am still tens of thousands of dollars in medical and other debt. The house and SUV are paid for…but the roof is old, the SUV is from 2012, and who knows what could go wrong?
  • Work: In 2012 I was a very senior analyst and SME at a Fortune 500 company with a $14 million dollar book of work and the ear of the CEO and senior officials. Prior to that, I was a high – priced consultant for a big railroad, both of which paid extremely well, and which also left me with a lot of free time. I would ‘work’ maybe 2 hours a day. Now, I work for a smaller company, and I am doing actual IT work and it varies from eight hours to as much as 14, 15 hours a day — worse during busy times. As we cannot afford to lose our primary client and as the shocks from various acts on the world stage affect us, the workload grows heavier and I am not paid nearly as well. But I cannot afford to quit to find another job and most I look at are not any better.
  • Health: In 2012, I was thirty five. Young. I was in good health. In 2025, I am 48. My knee and ankle hurt. My back has issues. I can no longer really run so I’ve picked up weight. I don’t have time to go to the gym, and while my diabetes is stable it is always a threat. My energy levels are lower.
  • Personal situation: Let’s say in 2012 I was unstable and broken. I am both better and worse now, but not in a way that drives me to write. I wrote so fast back then because I withdrew almost entirely from society and my friends, which you do not need to be a trained psychologist to know is Not Good For You. I’m…not alone but the situation is complex, messy and somewhat causing issues with my friends, who have also mostly moved away now.

The result? Writing is slower, and I am more and more picky about what I write. The earlier parts of OSABC need some rewriting for polish and tone and while I still think TWCD is better, it is not any easier to put together.

The other big difference is the Editing Gang. The first two books were slapdash affairs — nimiraj or Progman would glance at things for tone but not really change much. Now the Editing Gang reviews grammar, tone, the message, lore consistancy, and a lot of other things. More than once they’ve basically said ‘dude this chapter is shit and you are shit’ and I’ve rewritten entire blocks.

While that is good in terms of quality, it dampens your eagerness to write. It makes you go back to the drawing board, where I have a tendency to get stuck at.

Finally…not to put too fine a fucking point on it… a very large portion of my vital energy that once was put into writing this fic is now redirected at a variety of sources — my companion, the RP, Discord, and adapting to the reality that soon I will be fifty.

A witty intellect with less ability to observe than to rhyme left an anonymous review on TWCD urging me to hurry up and write, without grasping (or, to be honest, probably caring) why I had slowed to begin with. If it was as easy as just putting the words down that would be different. But I refuse to simply put my name on some pile of shit that isn’t coherent or worth a fuck to get the random appreciation of people I will never meet. I would rather do it at my own pace, and if that means it won’t be done until 2030, at least you will have something to read.

I’m on PTO this week (and maybe for once shit won’t blow up) so the IDEA is to get a chapter done and to the EG. Probably not published until they edit, but at least moving. I’ll be putting out some smaller pieces eventually, this coming weekend. But I wanted to get all this out there because just saying ‘shit is bad’ does not convey the complexity of why it’s taking so long.

And no, I don’t plan on cancelling or stopping. Nothing infuriates me more than a fucking good fan fic that just dies off, and I may take a long time (2021 to now for the Naruto fic) but I don’t just let them die out.

I hope each one of you is safe, and that you are being your best selves. Or as Ahern would say, “If a motherfucker doesn’t like how I roll that is them volunteering to be kicked out of my way.”

LP, you stupid hack, where is the next chapter?!!?

(Typing this from my phone, so… here’s hoping I don’t break the entire site.)

Unless you are just starting reading my stories (hoo boy), you will have noticed the last main story update was in June.

There’s been a lot going on — the entire series is now also available on AO3, and since I have an archive of everything I will be creating a mass-edition PDF with the entire span of my works. (SoonTM).

But the updates stopped because I am doing something, in the words of my Discord readers, as “completely insane”

To wit, I am running a series of roleplaying scenarios based in the PVME, around the 1-year mark after Shepard’s death. The characters in these will be showing up in the main chapters, as will various bits of backstory.

Some of this is already in Bird of Hermes. BOH2: The Monster with a Hundred Heads, will cover a mess involving yet another secretive organization, the Hecatoncheires, a group devoted to trying to figure out all the messes going on behind the scenes as part of a three-way power battle between anomalous control organizations.

The Xabiar files on the Traverse and Terminus also play a HUGE role as both the Broker Fight and the end game occur there. Once all the support pieces are in place (remember, I hate plot holes) then the next couple of chapters won’t take that long.

I have some other stuff to keep y’all happy, though: more military files from DH and the last half of Bird of Hermes, plus this year’s Writecon efforts and maaaaybe a Lion’s chapter for Christmas. We’ll see.

The yearly Death March is arriving November 28th, but since we already tackled the Apple 14 mess maybe it won’t be so bad. We’ll see.

Well it’s about time

Right now, the next chapter is with the Editing Gang and I am finally working on several other pieces.

Hopefully, out this weekend. We’ll see. It is not as long as other chapters, but I think it’s interesting enough for the length.

Haven’t done much with the site recently… times have been somewhat straining, both financially and emotionally. I’ve never had a good update schedule but I’m aware one update a year isn’t a good look.

Depending on how things go over the next year, I could push out things faster or struggle with writer’s block and other issues until November.

Thank all of you for patience and understanding.

2021 — A year of meh

So, if you are following my work, you know I didn’t get a lot accomplished in 2021. Aside from COVID, there’s reasons for that.

We got a few things done;

  • Richard Manswell file
  • First parts of the Omega Doc
  • The ‘early human history’ document is done.
  • TWCD two chapters
  • Updates to Memories, Order of Battle, and Bird of Hermes
  • Writecon 2021 completed
  • Wave 2 RP completed (at last)

But I didn’t get a lot of writing done for, as I said, several reasons. The biggest of which was the split of the company I work for, which resulted in a literally months-long Death March that (no kidding) ended up with over 20 people dead of COVID, 4 of heart attacks, 40 or so quitting, and a lot of overtime

I think from July to December I never had a full eight hours sleep except on Sundays, and that my average work week went from 40-42 hours to 68-74 hours. And in December and early January that was higher.

Things are FINALLY starting to calm down, so 2022 should see a lot more productive work done than 2021. I am about a third done with the next chapter, but i have to expand on what the Editing Gang has suggested so the chapter will be split in two. That will come out in February, as I have a week off then.

In a few more weeks I will do both the “reviews of the 2021 Writecon” and my usual “Thanks to” piece. I am mostly resting today as the death marches are finally over and we go back to normal hours and rotations.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I got a lot of Christmas Cards from you (the Lethath one was the best) and I might make a mailing list in the Discord for people to exchange cards with each other for Birthdays and things like that.

Please be safe. Please be kind. Please be aware of the needs of others. And please read the fics of Xabiar, Aberron, TheElderOne, PallanMinerva, and the others I have recommended.

THe DEATH MARCH (2021 COVID EDITION)

Unless you live under a rock, you will know by now that

  1. Apple is launching the new iPhone
  2. I work in a business that deals with returns and reverse logistics
  3. Verizon and Comcast have trade-in plans
  4. Everyone wants a new iPhone

This translates into a massive spike of incoming returns to where I work, GXO. By ‘massive’ I mean dozens of 18-wheeler trailers with 20-25 pallets of phones.

Millions of phones.

While we normally have ‘peak’ in late November in prep for Christmas, this year we are kicking off our intense work period very early — the Death March, as it is called, known for 14 hour work days, very short SLA turnaround, and madness.

As such I expect that my time and effort on working on the fic may suffer. I am just now recovering from my back messing up and hopefully this won’t set it off again.

The next chapter of TWCD is about half done. I have several docs by DarkHorse that I can put up as well as a large amount of Bird of Hermes stuff I may get out, but I don’t expect a chapter coming out in September at all.

New chapter is up

Went ahead and pulled the trigger early.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/58/OSaBC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die

As with a lot of TWCD, there’s some significant alterations from canon. I don’t do this just to do a ‘fix fic’ type of thing, but to address serious structural issues in the games that have long bothered me.

Shepard’s return being so low-key and unimportant in the game was one thing but how she was dealt with by the Council truly boggled the mind. Anderson’s reactions (and Udina’s) were also … off. Wrong.

I don’t usually criticize Bioware on actions they took in making the game work that induce plot holes — some things are by nature of gameplay unavoidable. But it felt lazy to treat her return as a button press and a meme about shops on the Citadel.

We’ll see if I made this any better. As for the next chapter, we’ll have to see if work is as calm next week as it was this week.

Between the combination of Father’s Day and Juneteenth I probably won’t get any writing done this weekend, or RP. But I am always open to questions, either here, on my Discord, or on FF.net via private message.

Finally, a new chapter is done

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/57/OSaBC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die

Took a lot longer than it should have, mostly due to work and family events. I am working on the next chapter now, but I was working on this on in February, so…

Yay vacation

Haven’t posted anything in months since my schedule has been so hectic I haven’t done anything in months. For now, I’ve finally caught up on sleep and sent the first half of the next chapter to the Editing Gang.

As always, April sucks, but I’d like to get this done and out by May at the latest. We’ll have to see.