I finally got the next chapter to the Editing Gang, albeit a week late. I strongly doubt it will be ready by Christmas (although certainly by New Years.)
To make up for my failure, here is our annual Cthulhu Christmas Carol :
Category Archives: Ahern says shut the fuck up and be merry.
Next chapter of TWCD with the eDITING GANG!
Right now, I’m hoping to have it ready to go by Saturday night, or at the latest Sunday. Then I’ll do a bit more work on the STG Guide and Tech Guide before another chapter release before Christmas.
New Chapter Out
And as a bit of exclusive for those of you who are loyal enough to pay attention to this site…
“I suppose, honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised by this.” The arch tones coming through the speaker held a hint of anger and confusion, emotions which Maliki could fully understand.
“Kiongozi, I assure you this is not a problem that cannot be handled. We have many assets and the full might of the Alliance behind us, even if it is not as open as it could be.”
The voice of Richard Williams took on jagged edges of sardonic anger. “And exactly what in the fuck are you going to do, Mailki? She just killed the most dangerous assassin in the galaxy, throwing down with him directly!”
Maliki gave a sigh. “Yes, kiongozi, she did — after he’d been fighting for hours and had already defeated dozens of Black Blades, Dancers, Deathwatch and who knows what else,and she barely survived. I am inclined to think she did not do so unscathed.”
A second voice sounded, female, mellifluous and yet hard. “With the greatest respect to your skills, Maliki, so what? You seem to forget she came back from the dead, and as far as I can tell dying only seems to have made her even angrier, which to be honest I did not even think possible. Neutralizing her will be much harder than merely killing her.”
The dark-skinned assassin thought furiously. “In the short term, we will have to wait and see what plays she makes. She does not and cannot know the truth about us, or how far reaching we are — and she appears focused on the Shadow Broker, who is also a threat. Perhaps they will destroy one another.”
“Which still leaves the snake Harper. And don’t doubt for a second he’ll use everything he can to smear us along with the Broker. Assume she’s killed. Even if Cerberus is utterly destroyed, we cannot afford to even be connected to such a fall. She was made a Saint by the Neo-Catholic Church and has been built into a propaganda casus belli against the geth for more than two years. We can’t have her killed.”
Malaki had not considered that angle, but as he did so an idea occurred to him. “Then perhaps we are looking at this from the wrong direction, my lord. Shepard has always directly moved to combat any threats to her very few important people. I cannot imagine crossing back from the land of death is good for the psyche, and if we were to, say, frame certain parties for killing people important to her…”
The line was silent for long seconds before Richard spoke. “A possibility indeed. You have a plan for this?”
Maliki opened up a file on his omni-tool, displaying the image of a dark-skinned girl with cool blue eyes that were dead to the world. “I believe we have at least one person already in our grasp who would be very useful in that regard… her sister.”
The line was silent for long seconds, but Maliki smiled as he heard Richard Williams and Helga Manswell’s soft, mocking laughter.
The Angstrofuck is complete.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/44/OSaBC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die
Enjoy, my friends. Thanks to the Editing Gang, and for all of you who read and review.
Very long overdue update
Admist all the chaos of this year I let myself fall out of the habit of updates.
Given TWCD hasn’t updated since February, and since I just finished up the climax of the Angstrofuck of Doom tonight, I thought an update would be in order.
Progress of the main fic: The next chapter is (finally) done, although of a monstrous size — very close to 30k in word length. The chapter after that is mostly fleet battles, reactions and aftermath, and the one after that is mostly positioning for the assault on the Shadow Broker.
After that is another few chapters on findings, the Citadel Council, and Shepard employing Jack Harper levels of sneak and snark. Then shit goes completely off the canon rails once and for all.
Progress of the side fics: Work is continuing on the krogan and volus pieces by other authors. I am in the process of gathering up what I need for the drell. I have all the stuff I need for vorcha, and the yagh, well… we’ll have to see.
After a couple of more updates to the Special Ops guide, once these races are done the Cerberus Files will (finally) be complete, except for the human one which has two more chapters.
I plan to finish up the Encyclopedia Biotica, the Tech Guide, and Ahern’s Guide after that. Once those are wrapped up I can work on Lions.
As usual Naruto fics aren’t officially on the schedule for years yet, although I will do sporadic updates.
Other issues: work is taking up more of my time as we have more contracts now (Comcast, Charter, Nike, and two more I can’t say anything about). Things are somewhat calming down, but they’re doing another set of reorganizations. While these reorgs won’t target my people or business unit, they are affecting the teams that provide support, DBAs and assistance to our team, so it will make things harder in the short term.
My health is… fair. My knee is beginning to cause me problems (I hurt it twenty years ago, when I was in the Navy, along with my back) and I’ve started using a cane when doing my walking exercise. My back is behaving itself — a few times it has hurt a little or felt stiff, but it went away.
My mother’s health is stable.
My finances are not so hot. I’ve had a rash of appliance issues and other problems this year already, not to mention issues with my car. This is the first time in my life I’ve carried more debt than I can simply pay off without ramifications and I find I dislike the experience intensely. I’ll wait and see what happens as the year develops after reviews are done — a raise would help.
Status of the Editing Gang: The EG seems to be doing well, although several of them are having issues (health, financial, mental, or punctuation insanity related) of their own. We haven’t put together a new crackfic eruption yet but give it time. Our listed specializations now include :
- particle and spatial physics
- advanced math
- chemistry (inorganic and some organic)
- metallurgy and ballistics
- psychology (aberrant and clinical)
- medicine (from an actual doctor, not a hack like me)
- biochemistry
- cultural anthropology
- geology
- meteorology
- polandballs
Patreon and Art Efforts:
So far the Patreon is much appreciated and we are on target for all three of the quoted prices for the main art pieces this year:
1) An image of Shepard facing down Tetrimus at Ilium
2) An image of Tazzik, in the same detail as Tetrimus
3) Line art facials for five or six original characters as well as some canon immigrants (Rasa, Brooks, Pel, Kai Leng, and Ezno).
The original fiction is on hold, but the money has already been invested in the software, research books, and equipment I need to produce and if needed self-publish it. I don’t have a good ETA when I’ll restart it, but if I can get things steady I can give a shot at it by next year.
As always, if you have questions or concerns you can reach me by :
- Messages here or on the forums
- PM on Fanfiction.net LogicalPremise
- Email (viley at att dot net)
- Our official discord
I am giving serious thought to a subreddit, although I certainly won’t be the one setting it up or administering it.
Thank you all for your messages of support and the next chapter will be out as soon as the Editing Gang removes all the pieces I fucked up and makes it all shiny and chrome.
TWCD Updated
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/43/OSaBC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die
Go wild.
Holidays and Updates
First off, the traditional Cthulhu-themed Christmas Carol!
As for updates to the fanfic, I’m afraid I have some bad news.
No, not I’m not quitting.
But my team at work is in a death-march of patches for our client, and I am pretty exhausted and very unlikely to get anything out before the New Year. I *might* get out an STG report tomorrow, but we’re having to work today and tomorrow so no promises.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season (regardless of your religion or lack thereof) and that you please remember those less fortunate than you and donate something to a charity that isn’t full of shit.
The next chapter of TWCD is (finally) out!
Here you go:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/42/OSABC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die
Updates to the STG Files
While I haven’t updated the main story yet, I do have a pair of new STG files up : Trellani and the Illusive Man.
More updates to come in the near future.
UPDATE : CYBERNETIC CAT-HOUSE CONVENTION #5949
As a note, I am not anywhere near Hurricane Harvey.
My back is… improving, finally, after long adjustments and an unbelievably uncomfortable laparoscopic procedure to literally carve out a piece of disc material.
The good news is the supplements are working, as the microfactures in L4 and L5 have healed up (due to being fucking immobile). L2 is still… shaky, but I can deal with that later. The upshot is that I am not stuck in backbraces and traction all the time now and can (hopefully) get both work done and some stuff done on the fiction.
The bad news is that (given it’s already the 27th) it’s extremely unlikely TWCD will be updated before the end of the month. That being said, I will hopefully be able to write some next week, clean up some OSABC chapters and dump out an update to Liara’s piece and Ahern’s stuff.
I’m going to be having a couple of more art pieces done, although no good timeline on when that will happen.
I am appreciative of all the comments, IMs, emails and texts people have sent me. Thank you for your support. 🙂