Hiatus II: September and Everything After
September 7, 2012 - Conchshellthegeek7

Ladies and gentlemen, I am Conchshellthegeek7. I regret to inform you that The RED Cataclysm is hereby put on hiatus until further notice by the power vested in me as its author. Many of you likely know my story as a comedy. I've worked hard to maintain that tone. I've even gone so far as to write updates about the story from the perspective of characters in it, as a parody(?) of the official Team Fortress 2 blog. In all honesty, I was hoping to introduce a fictitious "The RED Cataclysm Team" and portray myself though blog posts as their Robin Walker. However, there's nothing funny about the reason I'm putting Cataclysm on hiatus. That is why, though I kept the format of my earlier blog posts, I've elected to speak to you all today as myself. So I'll get this over with as quickly as I can.

At approximately 10:00 PM on September 6, 2012, my father finally lost a months-long struggle and succumbed to brain cancer. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Cataclysm is as just as much of a comedy as it is a tragedy, and I don't believe I can trust myself to keep the tones balanced properly during my grieving period. Therefore, my narrative is hereby suspended for its own good. I can't, with any degree of certainty, say how long this hiatus will last, but I ask you, my audience, to stay patient. Wait for me, please. I'll never forget you.

And speaking of things I'll never forget, if you'll permit me, I'd like to take this opportunity to speak with you all honestly and frankly. What you're about to read has just as much to do with my father as it does with you, and it is based on a true story. Ahem...

--IN MEMORIAM--

My father knew I wrote fan fiction ever since I first started writing it. Not only did he know, in fact, he read my stories. I remember him reading an old story I'd written and hosted on FanFiction.com. That story was called Friendship is Mercenaries. I'll be the first to admit that Mercenaries is not my best work. It had little to no plot, the human protagonist was written completely wrong, and for some reason, I saw it necessary to introduce a villain halfway through the story with no foreshadowing just to have the hero fight him. I'll just come out and say it. It sucked. But Mercenaries was a very important story. For, you see, it was a crossover; the first crossover I'd ever written. A crossover of a video game called Team Fortress 2 and a cartoon called My Little Pony.

Because of complications from the first time he had brain cancer--and beat it--my father occasionally suffered from seizures. That meant anything with bright colors and lots of loud noises could overload his senses. My Little Pony and Team Fortress 2 fulfilled both of those citeria for wildly different reasons, so he didn't watch the show or play the game. Therefore, there was real no way for him to know who any of the characters in my story were, aside from what he'd heard of My Little Pony from my sister's borderline-obsessive ramblings. He read the story anyway. He began asking me questions about the canons of both worlds several times so that he could try to understand what was going on. This culmanated in him asking if "Mecha Hitler," who only appears in the story in the form of an exposition dump, was really a part of TF2 canon. I ended up explaining to him that cyborg Hitler was just something I'd come up with in order to one-up the way Team Fortress 2 played fast and loose with history.

When I explained that, I remember him laughing.

After that happened, I began working steadily on ways to improve the story. That way, I could entertain more people. Make more people laugh. Not to seem trite or anything, but it was something like discovering my cutie mark. As a result of my efforts, Friendship is Mercenaries gained a new title: Giggle at the Gespenst. Gespenst never saw the light of day, unfortunately, but it was a marked improvement over its predecessor. It included more in-depth character development of the Soldier, the protagonist of the story at the time, and explored his backstory. Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason, I thought it would be a good idea at the time for said backstory to devolve into what I can now see clearly as a re-interpretation of the infamous Cupcakes set in Nazi-occupied Poland. This was somewhat justified in that the Soldier fought in World War II, but that didn't make it any less tasteless.

I eventually dropped that idea and replaced it with a slightly less tasteless homage to Story of the Blanks involving a secret commune of Nazi necromancers. And the story didn't stop growing after that addition was made. Characters were added. Subplots were added. Romantic subtext was added. Discord became involved, whispering insecurities into the Soldier's ear. The story spread out of control at a rate that would make kudzu vines blush. What had begun as a short story I'd cranked out in a week as a whim became a sprawling, epic tale of the Soldier's redemption, with plans to write a sequel that would do the same for every remaining mercenary in Team Fortress 2--all seventeen of them at the same time--and then another where the effects of these revelations were explored as the Teams were forced to band together to fight off a sudden invasion by Discord. I began mapping out everything about the worlds of My Little Pony and Team Fortress 2. I developed fanon, and began incorporating it in my story. I wove a convoluted, infinitely tangled web of backstories ensnaring both the RED and BLU Teams that, to this day, I still can't really understand without consulting one of my own charts. And I began fanatically following both canons to ensure that that web didn't come unraveled. To make sure the story was the best it could be. I'm honestly surprised I didn't start pinning pictures and newspaper clippings to a wall and connecting them with strings.

Eventually, I was forced to take a step back. I realized how insane and convoluted this had all become, and that it had to be stopped. My vision of Giggle at the Gespenst had spread beyond what I could deliver. I axed the project. I felt I had no choice. But I couldn't axe the ideas I'd come up with over all that time. I had them, and I didn't want to waste them. But then, as a sign from Heaven, Meet the Pyro was released. And at that moment, I came to a decision. I'd start over, taking the story in a radical new direction. Everything would change but the very basic concept... including the number of mercenaries involved. It was at that moment that Giggle at the Gespenst became The RED Cataclysm. And yet, it still did not stop evolving. It continues to evolve to this very day, even as I type this.

And if my father hadn't laughed, I'm not sure if any of that would've happened.

My father enjoyed my writing. He was proud of it. He was proud of me. As Friendship is Mercenaries began its steady mutation into The RED Cataclysm, he was there. He would ask me how the story was coming along, and ask my permission to read it when I was done. When I realized I wanted to pursue writing as a career, he understood why. He even brought Friendship is Mercenaries up when I was meeting some of the professors at a university I was considering going to at the time. It was embarassing at the time, of course, but now I realize he only wanted to help me. Friendship is Mercenaries was an example of what I could do, and he was trying to share that with others. Just as I was trying to do. He supported me to the bitter end.

In fact, in the final days of his life, as he lay cancer-stricken on his deathbed, I remember him asking me if I was still writing my stories. I told him yes. I don't remember how he responded. I'm not going to say my only regret is that he never got to see Cataclysm in its final form, but that regret is certainly high on the list.

There's more to my relationship with my father than just his support of my writing, of course, but I feel this story is the best one I could tell in this situation. For this story is as much about you, my audience, as it is about him. You've given me all just as much support as he has, if not more. Each time I see one of you favorite my story, leave your support and rate my story up, my heart soars just as it did on the day my father laughed. The RED Cataclysm could not exist as it does today without him and all of you. You've all given me the motivation I need to pursue not only my fan fiction, but a lifetime of literature. Penning prose professionally. I can't thank you all enough. I love you, my fans, as I love my dear, departed father.

Thank you.

Regards,
Conchshellthegeek7