I'm anticipating some annoyance from readers when I post this, owing to this being an update, and not a new chapter for one of my stories. But... *points to the title*

I figured I owed you lovely people an explanation for having been absent a few months, especially after I logged in just over a week ago and saw various inbox messages enquiring after my wellbeing.

2021 has just been full of random crap happening. At the beginning of the year, a cousin of mine passed away, in a fashion that wasn't entirely unexpected because of their lifestyle. That makes two Januaries in a row where that has happened; and I'm really hoping this doesn't continue to be a pattern into 2022... *heavy sigh* It sucked, but as said, not exactly surprising, and I tried to carry on with life after the funeral. Personal daily life was attended to, and I managed to get a few fic chapters up.

Around that time, there was an incident for us citizens of the USA, over at the Capitol of our country. I'm sure everyone knows by now about the conspiracy theory addled assholes who went storming the building, trying to overturn the election results, assaulting police and calling for the hanging of elected officials. I usually try to keep politics off this account, but um *points to my user name*. Guess what? That's gotten reeeallly uncomfortable to have after those yahoos tried to have a little insurrection attempt; despite the fact that I've had this user name for several years, and it's originating from the title of a song I wrote for the fantasy series I've been building the world of from the ground up. Completely unrelated, but thanks to those nutcases, I received quite a few private messages on this site and another because of the user name, asking me if I support what they did or not. I don't appreciate having to defend and explain my user name; I have been considering changing it, but I haven't settled on what I would change it to. Until I make that decision, I just want us all to be clear that this author doesn't support what happened.

And then... As I'm sure most of you know, FF did some stuff with their servers, and the site was down for several hours to accommodate that overhaul; but when it was done, for several authors, including myself, this caused problems with our accounts. To FF's credit, they responded to my emails, let me know the obvious problems I was experiencing wasn't isolated, and their tech crew got things sorted out within a couple days.

While that was going on and I was on a bit of a forced break from my fics, I had an unhappy incident happen, in which I received a call that one of my siblings had been in a winter-weather caused car accident. Their vehicle was totaled, they had been sent to the hospital, but thankfully they came out of it alive. So, not a tragic ending, but still scary and requiring some attention to make sure things got sorted out.

A few weeks later, which was mid February, I was finally in a creative mindset again and hopped on my account to go about my usual routine when I've had a lapse in writing one of these stories. Which is to say that I skim over various past chapters to refresh my memory of how the story has been unfolding and where it is currently at; a habit I've developed since that hiatus I took three years ago to make sure that things continue smoothly. While I have a solid plotline in mind for each story, and plenty of notes jotted down to help that be executed properly, rereading my work reminds me of certain nuances I was going for in how the plot plays out, and ensures consistency in character quirks, speech patterns, etc..

...But when I went to do so this time, I discovered something really funky had apparently happened to my stories earlier in the year, and gone unnoticed. I was skimming through, and noticed a grammar error that had existed in my first upload of that chapter, but I was 99% certain I had fixed a few days later when I noticed it. I'm usually pretty adept at editing my own work before posting it for you folks to read, but oversights happen; and when I come back to the work a few days later with fresh eyes and viewing it in FF's layout, I'll register the mistake and get it fixed. Or, sometimes as my skills as a writer evolve and improve, I'll notice on a reread that a sentence structure is, on a technical level, awkward or otherwise less than ideal, and I'll make a minor tweak to it so that the quality of the chapter is subtly improved for the next folks who read it.

Be that as it may, I chalked the first incident up to thinking that I had fixed it, but maybe my memory was faulty and I hadn't gotten around to because of time constraints or some distraction coming up before I could.

No big deal, right? *rueful laugh*

I imported the chapter to Doc Manager, made the fix, and switched out the revised copy... Only to see a spelling typo, two letters in the word switched in position from how they should have been from typing too fast but during initial edits my brain had been reading it as it had been meant, in the next chapter that I KNOW I had caught and fixed more than two years ago... And then another not long after... And then one of those sentences I know I tweaked being back in its original format... And so I skipped to different chapters, and checked the other fics, specifically looking at spots where I clearly remembered certain edits. and my suspicions were confirmed- somehow, all my chapters that had been edited in some fashion after their initial uploads had reverted back to their original states... I am not in the tech industry, I don't know website coding or how info is stored on sites like this. So I have no idea how, when I didn't have old copies of those chapters stored in Doc Manger or elsewhere, when all that was previously viewable from my end had been the new updated chapters, something like this still managed to happen.

Some of you may remember that 2020 was the year of repeated computer issues, and losing some months of being able to type when my computer hard drive fried. I had learned my lesson when I had some issues back in 2017, so along with my original work and media files, relatively recently updated copies of my fanfics had been backed up on a portable external hard drive, just in case some catastrophe happened to my PC and something simultaneously happened to the copies up on FF. Smart of a luddite like me, yes? Instead of trying to hunt down all the various things I've fixed previously, I can just go through and copy/paste the updated versions to Doc Manager, and update all those chapters with relative ease. It would only take a couple hours and things will be back to the standard I try holding my work to...

Ha...

My sturdy, trusty portable hard drive, that I had last accessed just before my sibling's accident, decided that day was a good day to die. Plugged it into my computer, the power light flickered and there was a strange wobbly whir noise, and then the light went out and the device was silent. And no amount of trouble shooting could get it working again. Thankfully for my media files and original work, those had already been copied to the new computer and can be safely put on a new external hard drive for backup, but I hadn't gotten around to these fics because it wasn't necessary at the time.

Which meant that I'd have to manually go through and make those edits/fixes...

And, for those not counting on their own- I've got approximately A MILLION AND A HALF words up between my fics. Just pause and think about how much that is to critically scan and edit...

...Yeah... Um... It's one thing to take a few minutes to edit a mistake noticed here or there on a new chapter shortly after it's been posted, spaced out over years. Trying to redo all that in one go? Gotta say, I was pretty fucking pissed, and it was daunting to think on how tedious that task was going to be. I logged off and went to play some video games to relax. But, after a couple days, the knowledge that subpar work was currently on display started to reeeeally bug me. And with how my mind operates, I can't in good conscience ignore that and simply move on to writing the next chapters.

So, with resignation, I signed back on and started the onerous task of carefully reading chapters and editing mistakes or fixing sentences that I had already edited or fixed. I did a handful of chapters each night, then took a break to do other stuff until crashing in bed.

I was only a few days into this damnable process, when I got a new call... One of my grandparents, who I love more dearly than anyone else still living in my family, passed away. I'm sure you'll all forgive me, but I wasn't exactly in a creative or editorial mood after that call. And details of funeral planning during a pandemic, and some arguments with family members on how to arrange those matters, kept me in a bit of a funk. Escapism and catharsis via video games after my kid goes to bed was indulged again, because at least there I can toss some fireballs and lightning bolts, or shank some bad guys while invisible. Yay fantasy RPGs!

I'd like to publicly give a heartfelt thank you to InDargonWeTrust, longtime reader of my Dragonlance fics, and GameDove, relatively new reader of my Hellsing fic who (as I had been surprised to discover) had been suggested to my work by their significant other-Dargon. They were among those who reached out in concern for the extended lack of new chapters or explanation of that absence; and when I briefly explained things, they asked if I'd be comfortable with them mailing me a sympathetic present to cheer me up. Normally, I'd be hesitant to give my address out, but I have been chatting with Dargon about the Dragonlance fic and other creative topics for several years, so I said sure. And as of a few days ago, I've got the pair of panda stuffed animals that were sent perched on either side of the back of my writing chair. That was very sweet of you both; it's hard to feel down when I've got such cute snuggly panda siblings chilling out with me.

So, yes, that's how the first few months of 2021 have been for me. I'm back to fixing my past work on here as of this morning, as I do want new readers, or long time readers who are rereading, to have an enjoyable experience without those little nuisances of mistakes pulling you out of it. As mentioned, it's a million and a half or so words to scan over, so this is going to take a little bit to get done. But it's busy work that's fine for evenings/weekends, especially with my creativity not being quite restored yet. I'm hoping by the time I'm done re-editing things, that spark will have returned and fully been kindled, and I'll be posting new stuff for you guys shortly thereafter.

I sincerely hope everyone is staying healthy and well, and that the rest of 2021 brings better things for us all.