I like to use this space to comment on recent stories-- their genesis, who I went about writing them, and so on. Unfortunately, it's gotten to the point where I have so many stories I can't cover them, or even the most recent.

I'm finally done with my new title-holder for longest fic ever: "Abyssal". This story took a calendar year out of my life to complete. All things considered I think I did very well by it, especially considering that my previous longest-story had a much more derivative plot whereas "Abyssal" was original. I suppose if I was going to do Alternate Universe I was going to do it hardcore. It was so consuming I had to detox with two much lighter fics, "What's In a Name" and "Thanks For Nothing, Dad", that dealt with themes raised by "Abyssal" in much friendlier, more approachable terms.

Considering how thin the plot tends to be in Mega Man games, it's proven to be quite fertile ground for me to write in and tackle heavier issues. Or is that more a function of my experience growing? Hard to say. Maybe it's a matter of universe. My primary inspiration in past years was the Sonic universe, which I cast in mostly heroic terms: the struggles there are intensely personal struggles of will. The stories I've written for Mega Man have contrasted with this. The X games, in particular, have always seemed to incorporate a dynamic wherein all the heroism in the world can only tweak the course of history rather than truly change it. This vibe is strongest in the music of "The Megas", a group I've quoted freely and shamelessly and which propagates the theme of "History Repeating". By their nature, then, my Mega Man stories have featured broader issues, social awareness, and a keen sense of desperation.

In my Sonic stories, particularly those based on the SatAM-verse, the idea is best captured by the notion of "This is our city-- and we're going to get it back!" (Credit to the immortal Dan Drazen.) The heroes know the battle will be hard, but it can be won, the challenge is clear, and they believe it's achievable. When I write for X, the predominant image is that of people trying to hold together a world that's coming apart at the seams.

I enjoyed "Teen Titans" when it first aired, and I had some story ideas, but for the longest time I wasn't able to translate any of them into a fic I actually wanted to write. To be honest I don't quite recall what changed to make "Purgation" possible, but I'm glad it did, whatever it was. Awkward teenage non-romance never gets old. I'm much clearer on what happened with "Parenting No Jutsu": Hyuuga Hinata is my second-favorite character in "Naruto" after Nara Shikamaru, I wanted to give her a Moment of Awesome that she never really got, and as I age I find different things funny and interesting. This is a clear trend in my writing: as I've become a parent, issues of parenting have crept into (or taken over) my writing. It's a process that got started with parental angst in "Robotnik's Mercy" and became very prominent in, well, half of "Abyssal".

My Mega Man X library has gotten quite extensive. My stories are what I call "canon plausible"; while they depict events that aren't depicted in the canon, necessarily, they fit in with the proper canon. I've tweaked things in X enough that people are starting to ask if "my canon" has a name. Okay, I'll come clean: I do make a few changes, one of which isn't obvious until the X5 timeframe, and the other (the lack of teleportation) is a mechanical change more than anything. If I were to give "my canon" a name, it would probably be "The Legacy of Cain", secondarily because of the importance I place on Dr. Cain as the disruptor in history but primarily because it's a joke for Laryna6.

My trouble is that, as time has gone on, I've written stories out of chronological order. I wrote the final story in the series, "A Heavy Load to Bear"... and then came back to the well, and back, and back. The universe has grown richer and more detailed, but AHLtB is stuck in time without that input. If I were to rewrite AHLtB, there are things I'd do differently (and there are *definitely* things I'd do differently with my first story, "Lost in the Land of Nod", even though it's still the purest distillation of my X-series thesis). However, I'm extremely hesitant to do that. A story is in no small part a reflection of who you are, and AHLtB, for better or worse, reflects who I was and what I was thinking at the time I wrote it. No do-overs. Besides, no one wants to draw unkind comparisons to George Lucas.

The actual timeline goes like this:

End of Classic: Supernova
Pre-X1: Impertinence, Red Awakening, Standard Deviation
X1: False Dawn, Lost in the Land of Nod
Post X1: A Foundation of Sand
X2: Fratricide
Between X2 and X3: Maintenance, Move, One Link In the Cable, Imposters, Credo, Downtime
X3: Zero Sum
Pre-X4: Broken Glass, Cheesecake, Hearing Voices
X4: Shattered
PostX4: Consequences
X5: A Heavy Load to Bear

AU stuff: Abyssal, All That Is Required, Worse, In the Musem, Unclean Spirit, Of All Things Great and Small, Thanks for Nothing Dad, What's In a Name, An Imp's Breakfast