Update 13/2/22 AND ART!

Hello, all! Good morning! ... I'm pretty sure it's morning everywhere in the world. Anyway! I'm sorry for the long radio silence, but I didn't want to post again unless I had news or something good to preview. But I have both!

Firstly, attached and as seen above, MercyArt has once again gone above and beyond and created some stunning artwork for a new idea I'm kicking around. More on that later. But yes, please enjoy this Fancy Robin artwork and the alts that I've attached below. Be forewarned, some are pretty spicy. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do; they really brightened my day and made me smile when I received them. 

Secondly, I finally got some good news! As some of you may not be aware, Australia is kind of a shit-show right now in regards to their COVID response. Because of that, all the occupational and physio therapists in my city have been in pop-up clinics giving the jab since the end of December. Which has meant that the reason I'm on this 'break', the physical therapy that's supposed to be fixing my munted back, was put on hold. But! I finally got a call on Thursday saying we're going ahead with it, as of next week! Yay! FINALLY! 

So, good news all around, really. It was about damn time. 

Now, this begs the question: "What about the reason we're all here? What about the writing?" It's progressing slowly, unfortunately. I'll spare you the horror stories of the last two months, but it's been hard to focus. Not just on writing, I mean it's been literally hard to focus. But we're getting there. Rather than just be all like "yeah yeah yeah, trust me I'm working on it", I wanted to actually talk about what's going on behind the scenes a little. 

Self Insert Dark: The latest chapter has ballooned to nearly three times the size of a normal Dark one. It's intense, and ties up a lot of plot threads, as well as gets things moving in the direction that they need to be. I won't spoil anything, though. Trust me, it's awesome. 

Canon Self Insert: TheRealOG and MinuteRice have really stepped up and are going to great lengths to help with the planning stage of the next chapter. Seriously, without them, this bitch probably wouldn't be done until July. As it stands, I'm hoping for the end of March, start of April to have a draft finished. Got some good jokes planned, some touching moments, and the start of the politicking to get things moving towards war. Stupid Nintendo and their stupid shallow world building... 

Self insert Apocryphal: Robin's Story: Yes! Ha ha! The idea I've been kicking around, and have, indeed, started working on, answers the question "what if Robin had followed Ben to Baham at the end of Book 2?" Answer: Duchess Robin, as depicted above. Yes! Another Apocryphal to push the rest back further lol. Ugh, shit... I swear I don't do this on purpose, but, given the current state of things, right now when my muse talks, I listen. However, that's not to say this is going to be a single short-story. Oh, no-no-no. I actually plan for this one to be a multi-part shadow to the main Self Insert, kind of like an alternate reality kinda thing. And I can comfortably say that Robin's involvement in Ylisse's politics as SI!Ben's wife is primed to change a lot. I don't really have much of an estimated time-frame for when I'll have a draft done for this one, but I am actively working on it.  Robin Shippers rejoice! 

Self Insert Apocryphals: As for the other Apocryphal stories, I've got outlines done up for Apocs about Tharja, Lissa and Naga (yes, the goddess). Once my back is in better shape and I can sit at my desk for more than an hour at a time, I'm actually gonna throw up a poll  here to see which ones y'all want me to work on first. Eventually. 

Everything else: Blazing Trinity is, unfortunately on the back-burner right now. It's a far more involved writing process than my Self Insert stuff, and I just can't manage it right now. A Matter of Pride, too, has been shelved. I've got a couple other odds and ends floating about my 'Current Projects' folder, but whether any of them get finished remains to be seen. If they do, I'll always post them here before anywhere else. 

Now, this time, for realsies, I'm getting rid of the higher pledge tiers. Right after I finish writing this update, actually. Make sure to adjust your pledge accordingly. 

Thank you all for your continued support and patience. It's really been uplifting during this... I was gonna say 'trying time', but that sounded kinda douchey. Hm. 'Period of Bullshittery'. I like that one more. Thank you all for your continued support and patience with me during this period of bullshittery. I greatly appreciate it. 

Thanks again, look forward to new content soon, and Nagaspeed!