foxhole7

Lost in Time, my first story, has finally been completed, clocking in at three years and around 130,000 words. It was quite a journey; I hope those of you who read it found it enjoyable.

I'm currently sifting through possible plans for a new story, but I'm afraid you won't see any updates from me for a very long time. As of this entry, I'm less than a week away from the next academic year at my University, and I've learned that I just can't be relied upon to write while I'm busy with school. I tried to when I was writing Lost in Time, and it caused a lot of frustrating delays. I might break this inactivity to write one-shots, since they don't need to be updated, but that's not a promise.

Even when next summer arrives, it's likely that I will not start posting a new story until I have some of the chapters already written. I want to do whatever I can to update regularly when my next fan fic starts, and having some chapters ready in advance will help me do that.

I can't say for sure what I'm going to write next, as my interest in different fandoms changes over time. There are two things I can say for sure, however:

1. Most of the story ideas I currently have are crossovers, since I've always had an interest in that type of story and wanted to write one myself.

2. Unfortunately, I exhausted a lot of my interest in the survival horror genre while I was writing Lost in Time, so I probably won't be returning to Fatal Frame or any similar video game series.

To keep track of things, I'll add a list of the fandoms I'm thinking of writing for below this section, and update it if there are any changes. If you want to let me know which one(s) you prefer, feel free to comment or PM me. I care quite a bit about what readers have to say, so I'll take your opinion seriously, especially if you were a reviewer on one of my other stories. Thanks for your support.

Fandom List:

Live Action: Fringe, House

Animation: Adventure Time, Naruto, Soul Eater, Ed Edd n Eddy

Video Game: Fallout, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed

I know it's not a good idea to devote deviantart journals to fan rage, but since I don't have anything else to update with at the moment, I'm using this one to deliver a warning to all of you. If you are a fan of the Mass Effect series, and are excited about the recent Mass Effect 3 release, I'm letting you all know now that it's not even remotely worth the full 60 dollar price tag. The game had several flaws that I will not discuss here (unless someone asks), but the big issue is the unsatisfactory "endings" that the game presented. It was a non-sensical disappointment that lacked a finale, a resolution, and an epilogue (ie: all the basic elements of a story). It felt like the story that we've been following for years had been brought to an abrupt halt, with no real ending in sight.

Tens of thousands of Mass Effect fans have voiced the same disappointment (it's that bad), so I'm not the only one who thinks this. There's even a fan movement for voicing these complaints constructively: www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/…

Because most of the game's flaws were tied to EA and Bioware putting profit ahead of quality (taking chunks of the base game out, and offering them as DLC instead, for example), I encourage all who are reading this to wait and buy the game used, if at all. That way, you'll get the base game at a low price, saving your money to buy said DLC. Meanwhile, Bio and EA won't get a penny for the base game. Avoid the mistake that I made.

This is just my opinion, though. If you've played the game and found it to be awesome in every way, great for you.

Oh well, at least we got the fairly funny "Marauder Shields" internet meme out of this. :/

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In brighter news, Lost in Time has finally been updated after 8 months. Let's hope the updates can keep coming with college competing for what time I have.

I'm too busy with college work to launch into a lengthy rant about this, but I wanted to say a little bit about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) and, if possible, encourage you to act against them, even if it's something small like signing a petition. These are the titles of two bills being debated in Congress (House for SOPA, Senate for PIPA), which would seek to stop piracy by giving copyright holders (the Entertainment Industry, etc) additional power to shut down sites that contain copyright-infringing content. Since most sites on the internet are guilty of this (including deviantart -- the characters in our fanart and fan fiction are copyrighted, after all), I think it's worth a little effort to stop.

I'm currently one (large) chapter away from finishing a novel length fan fiction. There's no theft in it; all 120,000 words that I've written took effort, and I'll be damned if a bunch of scabs are going to take it from me. Many of you either possess or enjoy fanart as well, so I encourage you to check the links below to give your support:

Learn more about SOPA and PIPA: hq.deviantart.com/journal/Join…

Online Petition: www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_inte…

Google and Wikipedia are both protesting the oncoming piracy "solutions" and have additional information on what else people can do to help. Regardless of what you do, thanks for taking the time to listen.

Hey guys. Quick life update to let you all know that I've had my wisdom teeth removed as of one week ago. For 90% of all people who have them pulled, it's a simple surgery with a simple recovery process. For me, however, an unloving god decided to make it tougher, so I got slammed with a complication known as "dry sockets". Basically, I had some exposed nerve endings close to my mouth, which meant any use of it (talking, eating, drinking, brushing) caused mild to severe pain. Controlling it and enabling myself to continue eating required the use of some strong pain-relieving medicines, including one that is classified as addictive, hence the journal name. Fortunately, the problem has since receded, and I'm happy to let you all know that I'm not dependent on anything. I'm also back to eating solid food, which is nice.

Anyway, while I'm posting, here's some other hobbies-related stuff:

Fan Fiction:

After 1.5 years of updating, "Lost in Time" is finally one chapter away from completion. It's probably the last chaptered story I'll ever write for Fatal Frame, but I'm not sure about that. To people whom I owe contest prizes, I am still willing to give them, but I now must ask that they be one-shots; stories that I can communicate in around 5,000 words or less. Sorry for this partial "wussing out on my promises", but chapter stories simply take too long to write, and I have other things I want to work on.

I'm still not sure what fandoms or genres I'll be writing for next, and I'm open to suggestions. It will very likely be a "crossover" of some kind. My last and biggest idea was a story that combines the game series "Call of Duty" and the anime series "Naruto", but I'm worried about the danger of combining two very ridiculous fandoms together. Too much crazy in one story.

Video Gaming:

Recently, I've been brushing the dust off my Wii console and actually using it, which is rare since most games from Nintendo simply don't interest me. I've been playing Pikmin 2 for the third time and finishing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. After that, I'm not sure what I'll be moving on to. Probably Silent Hill 4, since I own that one now but haven't played it yet. I'm also overdue to give Valve games (Portal, Team Fortress 2) a try. I'll be getting them either for the PC (since some content and updates aren't available on consoles), or the Xbox 360 (since I don't like the idea of using my computer for games, and only do so if a game can't be found elsewhere).

We also had an E3 recently. The only game coming out this year that looks good is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, so there's a good chance I'll end up owning this one eventually. Lots of people, including my friends, don't like CoD and have given me flak for thinking otherwise, but Modern Warfare 1 and 2 didn't make me regret owning them (far from it), so I don't expect that to change with this next installment. I'll just count on keeping it to myself, lol.

There's also an Elder Scrolls sequel coming out around that time, and it looks interesting. Past that, other great games (Bioshock: Infinite, Pikmin 3, Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3) are farther off.

Other:

I'll be out of town for a week, starting this Sunday. See you all around.

Sorry to all of my real life friends, who I couldn't join for game night last friday. My college finals are only a couple weeks away, and my workload is intensifying. Due to this, I won't be able to update "Lost in Time" until the end of May, which means that my other "creative goals" need to be delayed too. Thank you for understanding, and sorry for any inconvenience.