(Editing Gang Ninja Edit: this stupid bastard sat on his ass drunk for months without writing until we went to his house and beat the update out of him. Don’t listen to his lies.)
The next chapter of That Which Cannot Die is (finally) here, after long months of arduous research, heavy study, and combat against shadowy unnamed forces.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/40/OSABC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die
Once again, by Armesan. Interested in thoughts on the next three.
As you know, I recently mentioned art being done. The first piece, that of Galen Minsta, is ready.
I’m aware an artist already produced a work for this, but there were issues with the design, the presentation and other aspects that made it unsatisfactory.
Please leave your feedback here!
Things have finally calmed down.
I’m back in an office again instead of living out of a box in a meeting room. The chaos at work has died down (after reaching clownshow proportions) and volume is down since this is not a time of the year people buy a lot of phones.
Medical situations of myself and my mom have stabilized, although finances aren’t so hot anymore. Meh.
I just put up remastered chapters for OSABC 24 and 25 (thanks to the Editing Gang) and they are working on 26 and 27 right now. If you haven’t reread OSABC you might want to give it a whirl, as the first 25 chapters have been overhauled quite a bit.
I’ve also gotten 4.4k words done and vetted in TWCD, and I am writing it slowly and having the editing gang fix as I go. It should be hilarious educational for them to see how badly I fuck up when I write the writing process I use is implemented.
Pause for sustained, hollow laughter
I have bits of a Cerberus file update on the Batarians and the Drell (finally). Co-author Jacob has a new and truly fucked up opposing forces document on the batarian SIU while I’m working on doing one for the salarian League of Zero. (No Jacob, you cannot write that one.)
I may or may not have a possible Tech Guide update out this month. All in all, I plan to at LEAST get the next damned chapter of TWCD out, so people don’t think this is abandoned.
So, I’m now on vacation.
Given that even after crashing most of this weekend that I’m still in a five or six hour sleep deficit, that my blood pressure and blood sugar are up and I’m tired all the time, I don’t expect to get a lot done in the week I’m off.
That being said, I’m certainly going to take a stab at getting something done, if only to reassure people that things haven’t stopped. While the next chapter is outlined fully, writing it up is somewhat of a challenge due to the way I’ve structured things.
I’m not 100% sure what the timeline will be for additional stuff. Once I get past the big mess at Ilium it will be easier to write the intervening chapters, but there’s some very ugly consequences for the changes I’ve made to canon and I have to figure out how to write stuff in about them now, not later. We’ve all seen in ME3 how a failure to lay groundwork blows up on you.
I’ve spent some time playing ME:A and had several people ask me if I’d be writing anything about it. So far, I’m very pleased with the much more realistic tone, the mystery of the setting, the focus on exploration, and what not. The aliens are also far more … believable than previous efforts. That being said, anything I would do along those lines would be even more out of phase with canon than OSABC, and frankly the Scourge looks like out of control Godpower, so…
We’ll have to see.
I’d like to reiterate a call for artists — even if you are not one yourself, if you personally know one who is active on DeviantArt or has a public display of their works for view, i would be interested. Please note that due to some issues I’ve had with previous artists, I would prefer they have a public showing of their work on a widely trafficked site.
The past… weeks? Month? have been extremely bad!hectic!messy. The reorganization, several other issues at work (all of them retarded), back pain, financial issues and a lot of other stuff have derailed the update schedule completely.
The Good News: I have material ready from co-author Jacob, most of a Lions chapter, most of a tech guide update, and most of a Cerberus files thing on the batarians, as well as 4,000 words of the next chapter of TWCD.
The Not-so-Good news: My work responsibilities have become a lot more demanding, cutting down on my free time
The Bad News: I don’t know when things will let up.
I am taking a vacation in early April to try and decompress. I may work on the stuff then, or I may just finally rest and work on it when I get back, but it will get updated.
Some of you have donated to the Patreon. We’re currently looking for a new artist after some issues with the old one. Anyone who is interested in making money (a lot, not $5 or $10 but potentially several hundred dollars) who can do artwork is encouraged to contact me DIRECTLY at viley@att.net with your portfolio — we have art waiting to be done.
Aside from that, I’d like to also give a reminder to everyone that you should be reading Aberron’s Living an Indoctrinated Dream.
As you probably have noticed I haven’t been online much — I am sorry for not responding to emails, PM’s, reviews or the chat.
Let’s just say I am not going to be able to do any collaborations, or get any writing done, or pretty much do much of anything except work and sleep and deal with fallout for the next week at the very least.
Work is currently, ah, chaotic and details aren’t something I can go into, but things are going to be messy for another week or so. I really wouldn’t expect much from me until probably the second week of March.
Aberron: Make that two blade servers… one of which is our virtualization, cluster and authentication server. You can explain that to the chat room why I am currently, ah, occupied.
I haven’t been around much (or gotten any work done on the next chapter) due to some busy stuff going on at work due to the re-org — moving offices, changing certain work schedules and on-call schedules, and longer hours.
I’m typically a ‘my company right or wrong’ kind of guy, and I’m certainly not complaining per se — but it does cut into the whole ‘time off’ thing. IT and CS should calm down next week so I hope to kick off Arc II of Lions and the backdraft explosion of the Angstrofuck of Doom by next weekend, with (hopefully) a new Lions chapter out by the end of the month at the latest.
I did (finally) get a pair of books and a set of microfilms I have been waiting on to do some more work on the tech guide and the batarians, but those are pretty low priority.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12355338/1/STG-Investigative-Report-Jason-Delacor
In case you were interested.
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11178712/39/OSABC-II-That-Which-Cannot-Die
“In mere hours, billions will die. Innocent! Guilty! Strong and weak! Honest and deceitful! ALL of them!
They will scream, they will burn, and for no purpose but that mighty Khorne may revel in their bloodshed!
And united in this void of purpose, fear, or duty… we shall at long last be free!
Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! LET THE GALAXY BURN!“