Author's Notes

September 12, 2021

Well. It's been a while.

Four years, in fact.

I should apologize to the people who actually were following and supporting my fanfic habit at the time. Basically, I decided to edit a massive unfinished story I had been working on (slowly, I'll admit) for a couple of years to bring it more in line with what was revealed in later games (namely DA:Inquisition). That story is, of course, Stars Fade, and I spent a good three months revising it and trying to make it better, and then started to repost it.

And I got all kinds of shit for the way I was reposting it.

And after the billionth (warning: hyperbole bordering on complete falsehood) private message bitching at me about it, I... walked away. Completely. In disgust.

And completely abandoned the story, and fanfic in general, and swore to myself I'd quit wasting time playing in other peoples' sandboxes and focus all my writing effort on my own ideas.

Which I've done, more or (rather) less. I haven't written any fanfic or read any fanfic in all that time. Until very recently.

See, I have this bad habit with my own fic. Because there's only my bestie and favorite collaborator out there to prod me when I'm sulky and cheer me when I'm productive, I've developed a behavior that is essentially me having a three-year-old's temper tantrum when shit gets hard. I get disgusted with myself, throw up my hands and scream, "FUCK WRITING!!" and sulk for six months at a time when I get blocked. And, of course, there's the whole Writing While Adulting thing, where it's actually kind of difficult to make yourself sit down at the computer and type words on a screen when there's nothing actually forcing you to do so (like an academic paper, or work reports, or really anything you really don't want to write but have to anyway so as long as you have to be putting words on a screen you might as well make them more fun words that include lots of swearing and maybe some stuff that's totally NSFW or school).

All this is basically saying that I was spending more time Not Writing than Even Attempting To Write.

Then I started moving all my WIP from an old laptop to a new(er) laptop that doesn't have sudden bouts of the computer version of spacing out for minutes at a time and then asking, "What were you saying?" This happened to coincide (rather serendipitously, in fact) with two other things - first, that I shelled out for ME: Legendary Edition and started replaying the trilogy with the FemShep/Kaidan arc, and having jack shit to do at the full time job but stare blankly at a computer screen for seven or eight hours a day.

And it happened. I got attacked by a rabid fanfic plotbunny. And I started writing a little fanfic thing for the first time in four years. And looked at my old fanfic notes. And then, finally, grudgingly, returned to FFnet.

So here I am. Can't promise how long I'll be writing fanfic this time around, but I guess... I'm back?

I will post the rest of the edited Stars fade over the next few days, and will try to pick (at least) that one back up and get it completed. And there may be updates to my other WIP on the site. There are currently 67 chapters plus a prologue that have been written, of an estimated 70-74 chapters total. Of those, 39 (plus the prologue) have been posted here since 2017.

I will be eventually (end of September or October 2021) moving my stuff over to AO3 as it's more friendly to people who like to write and read erotica (or, to call a spade a spade in MY case, plain old smut) than ffnet is. Personally, I've always felt that's what ratings and warnings exist for, but I understand that some folks aren't cool with that.

I will be leaving my work up here as well, but I don't know if I'll be updating it here. I expect it will come down to demand - if enough people aren't already cross-site users and reeeeeeaaalllly can't live without notifications (as you can absolutely browse AO3 as a guest and read my work there without having to create an account, but won't get notifications without one), I might do the extra upload.

-TB

ETA (13 Oct, 2021): I am finishing the next chapter of Stars Fade now and will be posting once I give it a final wash and brush up, hopefully by the end of the weekend.