Hello, it's been a long while. This is TheFlyingRedJerk here. 2017 was a rough year for me. It was a year to graduate and not finding success with finding a successful career. On top of depression being at an all time high that hindered any creativity or ideas I had in mind for the story. I terribly apologize for disappointing the many loyal readers with false hopes of a new chapter and never giving an update as to what happened. I got a lot more time on my hands and have been seeking therapy for the past few months to slowly improve myself. A great story like this does deserve to end as it was always near the last few arcs since 2017 (Wew, time certainly does fly). But now to answer some questions.
Will there be any more characters?
Yes, there were some new ones in mind. Even if Sega had been slacking on new IPs and titles for the past 3 years. Silver the Hedgehog will come, the hard part is more trying to write him without involving too much time traveling plotpoints. As for new guest characters, it depends. I do not want to go too crazy since this is a Sega crossover fiction first and foremost, the guests are bonuses because of their roles in some games or relevance to Sega in some way. So any requests for new non-Sega characters will be shot down immediately.
Will there be Sonic Forces/Mania references?
Only a few since the game would be too recent and Infinite along with the Phantom Ruby is long destroyed. It would make zero sense from a story standpoint to bring him back. I love Mania and had mixed feelings about Forces, but it would be hard to fit them anywhere in the story. Plus, some fans have been growing tired of Classic Sonic as a character lately and the last thing I want to be is part of the problem.
Will any older chapters and/or be fixed or improved?
Long answer, YES! While old fans appreciate it for what it is, new ones who give criticism are right that some grammar need to be fixed. This was back when I would be left with Pages instead of Word, which don't have a grammar checking application. What I would like is to make this a good reading experience for everyone.
And for the elephant in the room: Bayonetta. One review in particular points out that she is a Mary Sue with a bitchy personality and hard to like. While I'm all for critique of character writing, let me say this. Bayonetta is supposed to be a cocky, flirtatious, and flamboyant character. I played all of her games and look forward to Bayonetta 3. It's not that I'm biased, even I can admit that it would be hard writing her in a way that is not too overpowered. At the same time, leaving her out would be major disservice to her fans and roots with Sega before Nintendo saved the series. Not to mention she is one of the strongest heroes on the team, I'd say she is on the same level as Super Sonic when she does go all out. I may revisit some old chapters to see what aspects of her were the worst and fix it, but she's been long established in the story to fully revamp her character. And she does have flaws, her arrogance and tendency to play with her foes do lead to underestimating them. Just that she haven't faced someone on her level of strength yet.
The thing is that I want all characters to feel respectable enough that fans of them feel that I did them justice. That's why I try to never make Knuckles dumb (An aspect most modern Sonic fans agree is just too bad of a flaw), make Jack Cayman too unnecessarily cruel (He does take his job as an assassin serious, but making him too disturbing for his allies could lead to conflict), I don't try to make Vyse too reckless for his crew or allies (Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite Dreamcast games of all time), make Beat too immature (There's enough shots at millennials being too irresponsible that I want him to be a subversion of it), and so forth.
Wew, that's a lot. But I'm serious and ready to really take this story to the next level. Expect the next chapter in a week and a half. Since these next few says will be spent rereading and improving certain aspects of the story. It would also help remind me of what plot aspects to remember and build on moving forward. It's good to be back and I hope you all missed me. As for the idea of a QA, I may think about doing it. But only if enough people ask for it via reviews. Then I may consider it only when enough people want them.
This is TheFlyingRedJerk, over and out.
