Personal Update Author's Note:

Hey guys, SteinMon here.

I'm basically going to copy-and-paste this to all my main stories; namely Fury (HTTYD), Magicks that Bind (Teen Titans), and Two Halves of the Same Tear: Enrapture (Bioshock); because I don't really have the brain power to craft a unique one for each individual story right now.

Foremost, above all else! This note is not - I repeat, NOT - to cancel or abandon, or take a break from any stories. This is an update and hopefully a method with which to explain what's been going on with my shit-storm uploading schedule.

This year has been... in a word, "Hell". And I thought I had seen it all! 2020 didn't have anything on 2021. I'm sure they even made a meme about it. While it wasn't my intention to fall so far behind on my writing, that... is exactly what happened. Unfortunately.

First off, I'm have officially been in Counseling for near a solid year (receiving, not prescribing, for once in my life). Let's just say, some unresolved issues came up, and I took the step to ensure things stayed... decent. It's going good, but I'm still working through some old hurts that have come up, and the more I work through and properly bury, the more skeletons I seem to dig up. It's not fun.

Second, work has not been kind. I'd go so far as to say, I've been getting boned without lube, and they forgot to say "When". I normally work with a partner. Except that guy became indisposed this year. Since April, I have had to train no less than twenty replacements, all of whom, have quit within the first week or two (one guy only lasted a solid 38 minutes), leaving me to do the job of two (sometimes three) people quite frequently; resulting in long hours (10-13 hours) for a labor intensive job (I'm never not walking while holding or pushing equipment) in the summer heat (hit a high of 117 degrees this year), that had to be done within a weekly time limit, with virtually no breaks. When I say that I was kicking my own ass on a near daily basis... I am not exaggerating. On top of which, my boss promised me a raise for my efforts... to which I have not seen come to fruition, even after asking about it.

Third, my most bestest friend got married this summer, and I was one of his grooms-dudes. Love that guy to death, but if he ever gets married again, I'll kill him. Drove five hours outside my comfort zone (the last half was in the middle of the dark with a broken drivers-side light that I didn't know was out, while half-blind cause no one turned off their brights) right after a nine hour shift; ergo: mental breakdown while driving. Then spent the next couple days helping with the wedding setup, followed by blunt-force exposure to dozens of people and personalities I didn't know. He's now happily married, and I'm hoping to be uncle sometime eventually to somehow justify me driving back down to see him again. Because anything short of his kid is questionable reasoning at best right now.

Fourth, my grandma died. She caught COVID and pneumonia simultaneously, and there was no recovery after how often she'd been in the hospital over the last few years. Honestly, meeting the family again wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Some people in my family had changed a lot, and others... hadn't... yeah. I didn't know my grandma as well as the rest of my family did, and I have no pleasant memories of her, but being there was it's own catharsis.

Anything else after that would mostly consist of me whining (read: bitching). Including - but not limited to - I can now only do my writing from home, since my only-a-year-old computer has refused to hold a charge for longer than twenty minutes without shutting down.

So... yeah. My entire year has consisted of me continuously getting my heart, body, and mind kicked in the dick. Repeatedly. Not as bad as some people, but hence my prolonged and frequent absences from Fanfiction.

In short, it's been a never ending rollercoaster of shit-storms and fuck-ups.

I'm hoping that I can achieve a minute level of routine again, especially since the crazy is still dying down (and the year isn't over yet), so this is just to update everyone on how things have been going, and to (hopefully) explain a lot of my delays. I'm still working on my stories (yes, that includes you my Bioshock Family), everything is just running on whatever dregs I can shake up. I'm hoping that I can start to put out chapters like I used to, but only time will tell.

Thank you guys for your patience, and hopefully, for your understanding too,

Just keep swimmingly,

SteinMon1920518

P.S. I will be deleting this note as soon as I update each respective story with a new, proper chapter.