Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck…

It's been some time, hasn't it? Last time I was even a month late, I apologized and gave you guys an update. I'm sorry it's taken so much longer this time for you guys to hear from me, but I'm having a lot of issues with this story. Issues that extend deeper than just writer's block.

An overabundance of characters, for one. Nearly twenty characters (I counted) that I was trying to balance and split a decent ratio of time amongst, only three of which were completely original. Then there's Ruby, put through enough shit to basically be a different character (semi-original, if you will), and wouldn't you know, these few are among my favorites. But all of them feel necessary to place somewhere, if only because their canon personalities and interactions within Black Reaper's own history wouldn't allow them to sit the sidelines and I couldn't think of an adequate excuse to exclude them.

I also gave myself one or two too many plotlines, which I admit is only my own fault. What happened to Ember, Ash's and Camillia's development, Torchwick, speaking to Raven, silver eyes… many of them are connected, and most of the ideas I have for them I still feel are very good. The problem here is that I don't have any idea how to implement all of them in a single, uncomplicated timeline.

The plotlines I want to pursue and the plotlines I have to pursue seem to be in two different camps. The latter camp happens to include the characters actually fighting Salem in the end, which causes HUGE problems out the gate. I'm far more interested in pitting Leid Kale as a dedicated rival for Reaper, and leaving Salem as more of a 'villain mentor' for Kale. This causes a problem for if I were to actually follow through with this thought, I'm sure many people wouldn't be happy to see an OC get more fight time than the canon villain from the source material in the final battle.

I think letting Salem and the canon plot enter Black Reaper may have been my biggest mistake. Since Blake Reaper does follow canon until the Battle of Beacon in volume 3, I felt I had to include Salem and co, because otherwise why did Cinder attack the school? If I were writing BR2 now instead of having already made this exact mistake, I may have found some way around it, but it's too little too late now.

My current lack of motivation may also be tied to how I feel about recent RWBY. To be honest, I haven't even finished volume 6. The last episode I watched Yang hadn't showed up to Blake and Adam's fight yet. But I have heard things. Knowing Adam dies makes me feel like they underutilized his character. Knowing he may have died as an alter to make Bumblebee canon offends my opinion that RWBY canon shouldn't have any romantic focus for the main girls, especially between each other.

Don't get me wrong, I clearly have no issue with lesbian romance, or romance in RWBY because I love Nora and Ren and what they did with Jaune and Pyrrha is nice and bold. The show just felt more unique when the girls of team RWBY were allowed to be just friends. I don't even like the idea of RWBY dating outside the team, because you'd think they have enough to deal with without awkward and possibly ham-fisted sexual tension. I mean, isn't all that what fan fiction is for?

And am I the only one who feels underwhelmed by the actual power of the overhyped 'silver-eyed warriors' and the Godly Relics? Seriously, three questions every hundred years seems weaksauce for an artifact made by fucking gods. I honestly plan to change how the relics and silver-eyed powers work in Black Reaper to be more in tune with my theories from before their reveals in canon, theories I feel still have very solid foundations that the truths seem to have ignored.

I still love RWBY. I plan to eventually catch up on the show, hopefully before volume 7 begins. And the base characters themselves are certainly still interesting enough that I don't plan to stop writing anytime soon. There just seems to be a shift in how RWBY is being written lately, and I'm not as excited as I used to be. Motivations seem to have shifted, especially in the villains, making me question what I was so sure about a few years ago when I started obsessing over RWBY (that obsession being what drove me to write fan fiction in the first place).

At the end of the day, this entire note has been a massive apology for only writing 1042 words for the entirety of act 3 in nearly 3 months. I haven't even finished a single chapter. This apology letter has more words. I hate it. Black Reaper was my pet project, my passion, my baby back when I wrote the first one. The last thing I want to do is give up on Black Reaper 3, or spend so long writing it that everyone still invested gives up, but I just can't seem to bash through this wall I've hit.

I even spent the last few weeks purposefully not writing anything hoping time or reading someone else's fanfics for old times sake (something I stopped doing the more I wrote) would spark my motivation, but I only found myself thinking of other projects, some of which I've had content for chilling on my PC for over a year, and some that are brand new to my head.

Black Reaper is not going to die. If for no other reason than my pure stubborn nature refuses to let me officially put a story on ice, or god forbid, bury it before its time. But it's time for me to admit where I'm failing and realize it's going to take a bit more time for everything to come together in this snowballing clusterfuck.

I want to start putting out chapters again, even if they're not for BR3. I want to get activity on my pages, follows, and reviews again. I want to feel like my passion for writing isn't slowly dying, because I do still enjoy putting my stories out there and receiving feedback.

So here's the deal. Act 3 for Black Reaper 3 will come when it's ready. But I just can't force it, and believe me I've tried. I'm going to work on it, but I'm going to work on other stories because trying to dedicate myself to BR3 has caused my page to come to a slow but inevitable stop and my few regular readers, reviewers, and (dare I say) fans' usernames no longer gracing my email alerts on a weekly basis is largely demotivating in and of itself. I've probably even lost a few by now. I'm also planning to begin cross-posting to AO3 because fuck-it-why-not?

Anyway, thank you for listening to my little rant if you have. Hopefully it goes towards explaining where my mind has been at since I finally started Black Reaper 3, and hopefully you aren't too disappointed. Though it's probably stupid to not expect some of you to drop your follows after I've continually broken my promises of timely chapter releases, but I can't blame anyone else for my own mistakes.

TL;DR : I'm not dropping this story, but new chapters will take some time yet as I'm no longer working on it exclusively in favor of hopefully livening up my page by – gasp - releasing new content.

- Vengfulfate