life during a pandemic · 9:34am May 11th, 2020

Hey guys. I'm still alive and covid-free. I hope everyone is holding up okay during these troubling times. My family and I are managing fairly well. We feel it like everyone else does, but in light of what some have gone through, we've been fortunate so far.

Let's see... In my absence, I've done a bunch of gardening, bought my first compound bow, and I've been doing a bunch of editing for friends. A curious side-effect of the quarantine here in the US is that I've been able to hang out with my long-distance friends more. Since they aren't leaving their houses, they've been doing voice chats, as well as game and netflix parties, which gives me more opportunities to spend time with them. It's kinda neat.

I admit, I got lost playing the Final Fantasy 7 Remake for a few weeks. I beat it on normal mode. I've gotta say, I like it overall, but it's not a "perfect" game. The combat camera frustrated me sometimes. I also thought the beginning and ending portions of the game were rather heavy-handed and blatantly fan-servicey. I think for anyone who hasn't played the original, the remake's narrative will feel strange and even frustrating. And also, I freaking loathed the Whispers. I really think their inclusion was just a poor and lazy writing decision to railroad the narrative down a certain path, whilst 'explaining' some of the plot holes that would have naturally arisen in this more in-depth telling of the story.

I still enjoyed it overall. The combat could be really fun, and I liked the changes they made to the materia system. I thought they did a wonderful job bringing the characters and world to life in such a detailed setting. The soundtrack is freaking awesome. I thought their expansions on the world-building was really solid. Basically, I just can't wait for the next installment.

But enough about games, how about some writing updates? Sadly, there isn't much to say.

After several major re-writes, I have a rough draft completed for What They Expect to Give Chapter 30. I even started Chapter 31. As a result, I hope to start the next chapter for What They Hope to Find sometime this week.

Chapter 4 for Eerie Lantern still hasn't had any progress, sadly. It's sitting at 730 words.

I still have plans to finish my manuscript for my next original fantasy novel, too. Now that I'm not in the black hole that is the FF7 Remake, I'm determined to carve out time for that alongside my fanfiction work. Without games taking up my time, I want to get progress done, but it'll (hopefully) be split between my fan work and my original work.

I'm really, really pleased with the response All The Little Rings has received. Thank you guys so much for the support! I was quite surprised it did so well. Someone on AO3 even asked to translate it into Ukrainian!

Anyway, I hope you guys are taking care of yourselves out there. Please remember, if you want more frequent writing updates from me, follow my pony twitter account. I promise I won't flood your feeds.

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