Author's Note
Hello. If you're reading this, you've reached the end of the updated/revised section of the story. This note will follow all future chapters as a placeholder between the new and old material.
I started a massive revision to this story a few years ago. The old format was broken up into ~9 chapter story arcs. The new format is single chapters, though they're much longer. When I started the update, my original plan was to fine tune things so it was still the same story, just updated to be more coherent and improve flow and some characterization issues. That would mean you could continue from the new material to the old and still be reading the same story (just with a dip in the quality of the writing.)
But as the revision continued, I took the story in a different direction that better lined up with my future plans for the story. This has created a stark contrast, not only in the quality of the writing, but in the plot as well. I addressed this in my profile, but not very clearly, and it's not your job to scour my page for answers as to why the story doesn't make sense. That's my bad, and I apologize for any confusion it caused. Like I said above, this note will act as a bookmark between new and old material. Any material after this note is "non-cannon" to the story. I wanted to leave it so readers could see what the story used to look, with the bonus that it doesn't spoil the direction of the new material. I've seen some people suggest I should delete the old stuff entirely, but I think this note works just as well. If you're following along with the new, revised material, anything after this note has nothing to do with the new story. You can think of it as a time capsule of sorts to see what the story used to look like and where the plot was going. And if you don't want to read it, then you can stop here.
If you want some info on why I'm doing this, here's a blurb from my bio:
Like my other story, this one was started over 15 years ago. Unlike the other story - which is goofy and nonsensical - I always took this one more seriously, although you probably wouldn't have guessed by reading it at the time. My enthusiasm for the original story was gone before I stopped writing it. I felt like I had written myself into a hole and was no longer telling the story I wanted to tell. The way certain events played out kept me from expanding on them in meaningful ways, and certain characters were handled in a way that pigeon-holed them into roles that I no longer wanted them to play. Like I explained for the Red vs Blue story, I'm not the same person I was 15 years ago. I was equal parts embarrassed by what I had written (and still am to a degree) and eager to tell the version of this story I feel is superior. As such, I'm going back to change this story and bring it up to my current standards. Progress is slow going, but it is happening. What this means for UDP is that I'm going back through and replacing the old chapters. As I replace old content with new content, I'm leaving the old content in place until a new chapter is completed and can replace old content. I'm doing this for 2 main reasons; so that older readers could revisit that content if they wanted, and so that I had a point of reference for where I was in the rewrite.
At the time of writing this note, I am in my 30s. I've been writing this story off and on for almost half of my life. I have responsibilities and creative pursuits that take up a lot of my time now, and this story isn't a very high priority. I'm still working at it, but progress will be very, very slow from here on out. There may come a time when updates stop completely. If you've been involved in any fandom long enough, you've seen at least one creator quietly step away from it and never return. I've experienced my fair share of that too. It stings when there's no closure, but it's my hope that participating in the fandom served as a stepping stone so they could go on to find fulfillment in other areas of life. I don't presume to put myself on the same level as any of them, but if that time comes for me, I'll do my best to offer some kind of closure.
Until then, thanks for reading.