After four Stern Partner fanfics, time to get back to what you more likely started watching me for, if you are indeed watching me: Pregnant furry stuff, most likely of the slice-of-life variety.

Decided it was about time I started posting some stuff I've been holding in reserve for a while, and I can't believe I HAVE any backlog to post.

Possibly more to come later, but for now, happy 10 years of Undertale.

A year ago today, Gammainks, an artist I'd been quite a fan of for a couple years by then, started the comic Stern Partner https://e621.net/pools/42852 . It went on to become a comic that broke all expectations and limits of what Gamma's characters and stories are and can be, ultimately concluding earlier this month.

I never would have thought I'd end up writing a fanfic about it, which was "Stern Partner - The Truth," posted this Monday. Or more accurately, helping another fan write theirs.

In other words, given the comic itself is based in Pokemon, you could call the story a fanfic of a fanfic. Maybe add another "fanfic" layer in my case if it counts that I helped with it but didn't write the base story. Fanfiception.

The story in question is a Grim Dawn fanfiction, and while there's plenty of nonhuman stuff in Grim Dawn, this story in question has almost none of it. Not enough to warrant being on a furry website, anyway.

If you're interested:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/68670686
OR
https://www.deviantart.com/evertide.....r-1-1225904759

And with the posting of the final chapter of Jeremy's Day, the series of Never Too Late is finally finished. At least, for now. There's no other parts I've been holding in reserve, and no concrete plans for any further continuations. And just in time to end Mayternity 2025.

Final word count, as far as I can count: 121,315 words.

It became far, far more than I ever expected it to be and is a very personally important accomplishment to me. If any of you enjoyed it too, it's been my pleasure to have shared it with you.

Thank you, once again, to GimmeABigPush for inspiring the story, inspiring me to write so much, and for such wonderful work on what Maki's labor and birth story became and then bringing everything to fruition with Full Circle. Without you, it never would have been what it became.

I have a couple of stories I've been holding in reserve that would be appropriate for Mayternity and I've been debating which one I should share, if either.

But thanks to being very moved by a story I've been following since the end of August (and for my future self, that story is Stern Partner) building up to the finale over the last month, my heart has been set alight and I'm motivated to go for it.

You may or may not remember this preview I shared back in September, just happening to be a little after the aforementioned story started: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/57960253/ . It's been held onto long enough.

We're going to get a look at the maternity experience, all right, but we're going to look at it from a point of view that is, in a couple of ways, a point of view that's rarely seen, and yet it's absolutely part of the experience.

We're going to see it from the point of view of Jeremy Jacobson, Registered Labor and Delivery Nurse.

Four years ago today, I started something that I never expected would be what it became. What was meant to be a short break from video games so I could focus on something more important turned into a self-imposed challenge to do something I would long have thought was impossible: Not play games for much, much longer than I originally intended, and more specifically, doing so WILLINGLY.

Let alone happily.

Even fulfillingly.

I said a while back that I'd done it and that more detail would be coming. I've had long enough to reflect, and so I did. I wrote a little something taking a look at what I've learned about myself. I tried to make it read like something meant to self-analyze without being self-aggrandizing, to really take myself seriously.

So, despite that, the fact that I'm posting it publicly is kind of self-indulgent, but I feel like I've earned the right to feel good about myself, which isn't something I can always say so I make use of every time I can. If that doesn't interest you, you're not missing anything by skipping this journal. I'll still be happy, though.



Written March 8, 2025

As I mentioned in a journal here ( https://www.deviantart.com/evertide.....ays-1010524255 / https://www.furaffinity.net/journal...../#jid:10780894 ), on January 12, 2024, I completed a self-imposed challenge of going 1,001 days without playing a video game. I said there would be "more to come when I've had time to think," and then more never came. Enough time has passed that I should fix that, especially since I now have more perspective.

First, one may wonder why I would do that in the first place. After all, I've owned game systems since I got a Sega Genesis for my eighth birthday. At home and on the go, I've played games. I've heard more than once from my parents that I played too much and needed to go outside and find other things to do.

In this case, it came from how, after playing HuniePop, I was so inspired and motivated that, after three years when I couldn't write anything that could really be called a story, I finally, finally had started writing again. I knew what I'd started would be a milestone for me and I knew I needed to do whatever I could to keep it special. I felt like myself again as I hadn't felt in a long time.

After finishing that game, I picked up the sequel which happened to have just been released. Had fun but then hit a roadblock at the end. That day was April 16, 2021. I decided to take a break from it to focus on the story, especially since my birthday wasn't too far away. I then decided I would finish the story in time to post it as a birthday present to myself, and I did. That story became "Guide to Dating an Alien," a story I'm still quite proud of, especially since it was the first of several stories that helped me reaffirm that I'm right to call myself a writer.

And that started something I couldn't have foreseen. To my amazement, I went a month without playing anything, something that I wouldn't have believed I could willingly do since age eight. I'd watch people play, sure, but I didn't play. I'd never gone that long without playing video games since I started, and it made me wonder, "I had a reason for doing this and I was right to do so...but I didn't know I had the discipline to take myself so seriously that I'd set such a personal goal, one that only I would really care about, and still see it through. It feels good to know that I can do it, but...can I do it again, just to see if I can?" So, I did.

Then I kept doing it and challenged myself to go for a year.

At some point, another thing occurred to me. I had this thought, when I was writing stories, I was doing things that don't just make me happy: Other people enjoy them, and it makes me happy that they enjoy them. Not just that, but taking time off from games meant I had more time to write them, and what was more, I was making good use of that time. When I play a video game and beat some big challenge in it...who cares? Nobody but me. Now, maybe nobody but me needs to care, and nobody would care but me that I wasn't playing games either. But it matters less because games are just me enjoying some make-believe, whereas writing is much the same except I'm doing things to better myself and validate my unique worth, however small that is.

Whether that thought was right or wrong, I wanted to get the perspective I needed to find out.

But I still wanted to get back to games. I even had a plan for how I would reward myself: First, I would hook up the good old GameCube, the same one that I owned growing up and brought with me when I moved out, the one that had been in storage for over a decade. I was going to play one of my favorite games of all time, Metroid Prime, and then its sequel and finally 100% them so I'd know I'd beaten all they had to offer. It might be the last time I played anything on it, so I wanted to give it a proper sendoff. After that, I would start resolving some unfinished business: I would play, and 100%, Prime 3 to see if it lived up to all the hype I'd heard over the years (and so I could validate myself as a Metroid fan), which meant buying a refurbished Wii. Then I'd clear Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny, some of the earliest games I can ever remember playing and that I enjoyed but was not very good at on account of how I was...you know, like, seven years old, so I'd resolve my oldest unfinished gaming business. After that, Twilight Princess, a game I'd had a great time playing but never got around to finishing.

And, on the day I had gone a year without games, I got a call from my mom (who was visiting at the time with my dad) a little before I was going to start playing: "Want to come over for dinner?" Me in my head: "No, I have something really personally important to do, but if I say no, then I'll think back on this with guilt and not triumph." Me out loud: "Okay." So, fine, I'd do it the next day: "A year and a day" sounds just as good. And what happened the next day? My dad called in the morning: "Want to go to the baseball game today?" Me in my head: "JESUS GOD, NO! But I'll feel bad again if I don't." Me out loud: "Okay." With my timetable ruined, I somehow got it in my head that I should just not bother trying and see if I can go a second year without games.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, I never forgot that I wouldn't have done this without you, and you didn't even know what you were setting me up for. They never knew until I told them around November 2024.

So, I did it again. Then I said to myself, "Okay, final challenge: A nice, even 1,000 days. That's plenty. If you can commit to that, you can commit to anything."

And, ta-daaa, I did. But I gave it an extra day just to make sure.

It almost felt like the end or beginning of an era when I fired up the Cube at 6 PM on 01/12/2024. Feeling like I'd come back to a second home that I had left behind after a while. I'd proven how seriously I could take myself and had accomplished some major writing milestones since then. Now it was time to do things just for me. And it was just as classic as I'd remembered, along with Prime 2, and reaffirmed their spots as a couple of my favorite games anywhere, ever.

Finally, it was time for something familiar but new: Prime 3. At almost every turn, it lives up to its reputation I'd heard so much about for so long. Such a great game that I'm actually a little bummed to see that Prime 4 might actually come out yet. I might eat those words if it comes out and it's as good as the trilogy, but a recurring theme I've seen in games, shows, and many, many other things is that there's a lot of value in just leaving well enough alone. As the saying goes as of now, how many times has something been rebooted, remade, or otherwise rereleased and everyone regretted it, especially when it's "updated for modern audiences," which has become the magic words for a modern curse. Sometimes it works, but it fails enough that I'm usually of the opinion that the odds are better to not risk it. But we'll see how that goes, and I'm holding my breath that it'll work out; even if it doesn't, it won't spoil my opinion of the trilogy.

Once that was done, it was time to party like it was the early 90s. Youtuber Civvie 11 once said that Wolf 3D is the FPS genre distilled into its purest essence, which is just as well since it's the direct predecessor to Doom. I always remembered when I was a kid, my mom sometimes nicknamed me "mein lieben" after the SS death cries. Playing them for the first time since the early 90s and finally conquering them felt like one of the first chapters in my gaming history had been returned to and finished. It didn't take me long to go through everything twice, but Wolf 3D and Spear of Destiny are still must-plays for everyone at some point.

Then the last bit of unfinished business: Twilight Princess. My first time through, I'd played it over a summer when I was home from college, but then I had to go back before I finished it and even though I went home most weekends, I didn't have the patience to finish it. Not long later, I tried it again and got to the same point as before when somehow, my interest just died. For those familiar with the game, that was just after finishing Snowpeak. It kept nagging me that I played so much and remembered so much of the game but didn't finish it, and it was time to clear that off the long-awaited to-do list. I still had great memories of the game: Midna had some huge shoes to fill since I'm pretty sure everyone who ever played Ocarina of Time (and even most of us who didn't) were all still sore about Navi, and yet she not only endeared herself to me right around the time she was starting to warm up to Link despite being a cheeky pest at first, but by "that point" of the game (you know the one if you've played it), I had started to come around to her and was genuinely worried that if I took too long to save her, she would die and I really didn't want her to die, and after that, she keeps getting better. Running around Hyrule Field on Epona just for the thrill of it while that music plays (which has been on my generations of iPods for over 15 years) gave me a rush normally reserved for dreams where I can fly. Reaching Hyrule Field was when the game went from "good" to "great," and Midna's Lament is when the game went from "great" to "unforgettable." Yet again, just as great a game as I remembered, and so satisfying to see it through to its conclusion. After that, I did something I'd never done before: A three-heart playthrough. To be fair, this isn't a hard game to do that with, even if you're also giving yourself "no bottles" and "no magic armor" restrictions. Still felt like I'd done all there was to do. (Except Rollgoal but I don't care.)

I didn't plan on this, but I just happened to finish Twilight Princess one year after ending my self-imposed video game hiatus. Waiting to get back to games in the hopes that they'd be that much better was still 100% worth it.

So, a couple of months after that, we finally come to the point of this introspection. I started taking a break from games to do something else that was special for myself so that I could feel like myself again and to just plain like myself again. Then it became a personal challenge. Then it was to understand myself better and gain some perspective that may stick with me through the rest of my life. The reasons for doing it changed, or more accurately they were added onto, but the base idea was the same: Personal growth. Now I've gone 1,001 days without playing video games and finished a year where I played them again, and had a couple of months to think.

The final question and arguably the one I set out to answer when I started this challenge years ago: Was I happier without video games than I was with them?

The answer: Overall? Yes.

I have no intention of quitting gaming or taking another super long hiatus, but while there have been days when I couldn't play games due to other commitments or I just didn't feel like it, I've gotten more overall satisfaction from writing, as shown by how, with a one-day exception, there hasn't been a single day since August 31, 2023 that I haven't done any writing at all. Games make me happy and I like being happy, and they're sources of inspiration (and sometimes some darn good reading) too which I can always appreciate, but I'm very aware now that I get more out of writing, both on a personal level and because, when I do well with writing, other people enjoy it too, whereas playing a game is just for me. In both cases, I do things that are good for me: I love it when people enjoy what I write, but I write because it makes me feel good in more ways than I can put into words. I play games to enjoy them, but I write because it's in my very nature and I love that part of myself.

I've known for a long time that sometimes people moderate or abstain from things because however good they might feel, they're harmful in excess or in the long run, and other times they abstain from things not because they're bad but because they seek more long-term growth elsewhere. It feels like I've learned to appreciate games more now that I've learned to balance my life with them better and I've reaffirmed what I already knew about myself: That they're great to have but I can be (and still am) fulfilled without them.

In fact, right here from sitting down and putting my thoughts into words, I get that same feeling all over again. And being happy with yourself, and knowing what you need to do that, is a reward that's both the journey and the destination.

It's been a really long week for me, and today was the worst. I was ready to spend another evening basically hiding from the world until I could go to bed and face the next day.

And then...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ6J55S1sVM

Rarely has "The Sun Rises" played at a more perfect time.

And what might be even better? Even if only barely? This means...

Viewtiful Joe 3 just might have a chance.

I meant to put this up a couple months ago, and true to form, I keep one writing commitment while not keeping another.

But this last August 31, when I started writing Never Too Late, makes one year of writing at least a little bit every day, with a one-day exception when I was feeling too sick to stay awake.

I've kept that streak going ever since, whether writing a little or a lot, and when I got back to playing video games last January, some of what would have been writing time was lost. Still worth it.

This is more of a "pat myself on the back" journal, but I take what I can get. Or more accurately this time, what I can make myself.

About a month ago, after the last chapter of Never Too Late was posted on AO3, GimmeABigPush and I were asked a very thoughtful question by an anonymous reader:

"🌺 - So glad you finished Never too late! I'm sooo gonna miss refreshing your a03 to see if a chapter has been added. What was your favorite part(s) of writing it? Keep up the great work!"

And it was such a lovely thing to ponder and answer, because I don't think anyone's ever asked me something like that.

I'll let those interested see what BP said here https://www.tumblr.com/gimmeabigpus.....o-late-im-sooo , but with it having been a month since I posted the last chapter here, I wanted to share my own answer:



I know that feeling, when you’re enjoying something in installments so much and then it’s over. That’s why I mentioned, in the last epilogue’s notes, one time I still empathize with someone who knew every story has to end but sometimes you’re not ready for the story to be over yet. I’m just plain delighted by everyone who stuck around to read the story.

Speaking only for myself, that question of yours is a tough one to answer and it’s been on my mind for a couple of days. It’s kind of like asking me, “What’s your favorite part of going to a park full of happy, playful dogs?” Or, “What’s your favorite part of having a purring cat in your lap?” Or, “What’s your favorite part of learning about something that captivates you? Not your favorite thing you learned, but your favorite part of learning it?” It can’t really be put into words, because there IS no real answer. But since that’s such a thoughtful question to ask, and one I almost never get asked (let alone for a specific story), I’ll hit a few highlights.

For one thing, at the time I came up with the idea, I was going through a pretty rough patch in my job and had been for quite a while (and, while it’s wavered between better and worse, it still is). Without giving too much away about myself, there had been a period of about six months that I couldn’t write anything, I just didn’t have the energy or a way to vent all the stress. That’s not the longest dry spell I’d been through, there had been a three-year period of that once, but once I realized that I NEEDED to do this, to finally get back to writing and to finally turn stress energy into writing energy and to see something I really wanted created done by my own hand, I broke personal records when I wrote ~25K words in only 38 days. I finally felt like...MYSELF again, just like when I ended the aforementioned three-year period before. And as of now, I’ve written at least a little bit every single day since (with one exception due to illness).

Speaking of which, the next thing was how validated BP made me feel every time I presented her with my work, both with the chapters I wrote and the ones I expanded on. Each time I shared it with her, I was more than ready to take criticism or need to make corrections, and I was especially interested in how much I kept Sara in character since she’s not mine and, in this case, I was getting direct feedback from her owner. Plus, this wasn’t just my story this time and I needed to write things we’d both approve of. But when I heard so much positive feedback, it once again made me feel like I was right to feel so good about what I was doing because the one other person I wanted most to approve of it did, indeed, enjoy it. I loved collaborating so much with a writer whose work I’ve admired and feeling like both of us were better off as writers for it.

After that, as I mentioned several times in the author’s notes, these characters had so much great chemistry that was so much fun to play with. I loved getting in all three of their heads and thinking of how they’d react to each other. Their teamwork that’s strengthened more and more as the story goes on made it feel like I was watching them develop right before my eyes. It’s not for nothing the “Team” aspect became such a leitmotif, and I’m glad BP brought that up because that relit the fires of inspiration for me all over again.

And, in closing, while this doesn’t exactly have to do with my favorite parts of writing the story...let me just put it this way. You ever played a video game that has “And YOU” in the “Special Thanks” section of the credits, or anything else that thanks you for enjoying it? Well...feedback like yours is something I never take for granted. I write because it’s in my nature to write, but when I have an audience that enjoys my work, that feels pretty good.

I could go on for even longer than this, but...I think you see what I mean. I can’t explain what my favorite part is because writing this story had me feeling like I was creating something that, as BP has called it many times, special.

That's how long Never Too Late, which in its planning stages was only going to be an 18K-word commission, ended up becoming. GimmeABigPush's part was still commissioned at that many words, but as you may have seen, it sure didn't stay that way. Heck, by the time she was able to start her part, I'd already put in about 25K words.

That ended up being one of the best ideas I ever had and best writing decisions I ever made.

I'm not saying there won't be more volumes of the story added later, but that's for another time. For now, I think BP and my thoughts in the epilogue's credits (with a tiny edit so as not to spoil the ending if you haven't read it yet) sum up how we feel about this story, so I'm just going to repost them here.

GimmeABigPush’s Notes
I’m so glad that her story is being read and enjoyed now, because, at risk of being too punny, it truly was a labor of love.

I adore working on character-driven stories like this. It’s legit one of my favorite things to write, and I thank Evertide for trusting me not just with Maki, but also with Jeremy, who I think surprised us both in this story by showing his stuff. I fell wholeheartedly in love with “Team Hana”, and I’m just…so, so glad that other people are enjoying this story too. These characters really anchored the story down, solidly, and made it something compelling to read, but also to work on. Maki definitely wrenched my plans away from me a couple times, just like we wrenched hers from her. Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.

Something that I want to mention here is that, as readers of my other work will know, I tend to focus on the happy, fluffy, soft, and more gently kinky sides of this community!

But this story? Getting to explore something more…grounded in reality? Showing more of the tough side, the mental exhaustion side, the “what do we do when things don’t work out the way we planned and we’re ready to tap out” side? It really stretched me as a writer, and I loved doing it. It was a fun semi-departure from my super cuddly and fluffy and, y’know, “orgasm the baby out” type stories. It was SO FUN to work on.

And it was even more fun to see it grow with Evertide’s additions, and added sparkles, and added chapters.

It really turned into something super special, I think. And I hope you all think so too!

Thanks for reading. <3

Evertide’s Notes
When I wrote this, after finishing all my edits, expansions, and so on with the birth story, I felt kind of sad. It at last marked the end of half a year of work. Writing this story had blown all my old writing records out of the water, and it made me feel kind of like, after this...what if this is it? What if I’ll never go this far again?

Every time I come to the end of a story I love, in any setting, whether it’s my own or someone else’s, I remember one part from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance that really struck home with me a long time ago. The game takes place with the main character and his friends sucked into a fantasy book and being characters in this world, and how they react to this varies between them. But the main protagonist wants to leave and go home, and that can’t be done without all of them leaving the world, which the others don’t want to do. Sometimes they cooperate, sometimes they oppose him. At one point of the game, one of his friends stands ready to try to stop him. He tells her why he wants to leave, and she agrees that this world is a story in a book and maybe it’s not real...“But sometimes you’re not ready for the story to be over.”

I’d put too much time and too much heart into Maki’s story to not end it properly. I knew this epilogue had to be done. After so much buildup, and after BP brought the big-hearted finish of Maki’s birth story, I had to make sure her story didn’t just have a happy ending, I poured my heart into it.

But I also had a lot of fun with it. I already loved writing Maki’s call with her friend, but Maki’s mom is just so damn fun to write, despite writing her so little. I can play her up like a sitcom mom. I can have her overact, overreact, be overbearing, be nosy, and more...and yet, despite that, I wanted to stress that while she’s been like this a long time, and she and Maki haven’t always gotten along throughout Maki’s life, there’s absolutely nobody who’s always loved Maki (and her barely-mentioned sister) more than her mother does, and the only person in the world who’s happier for her baby's birth is Maki herself.

I let myself go crazy on the fluff, and I’d been looking forward to writing this last scene for months, despite knowing that once it was done, that was it. The post-birth cuddles, the call with Laura, Mom barging in, the heartfelt thank-yous to Sara and Jeremy, Grandma getting to meet her grandbaby, Maki showing that despite this not being planned she was glad her mom was here...

And, the final bit of Maki going to sleep was a way I could think back on my own experience while she thought back on hers. This is one of the biggest writing accomplishments of my life. I don’t know what will happen next, but I’m a better person for it.

And what better way to bring it full circle than by the closing line directly referencing the name of the story?

My thanks go out to everyone who read and gave feedback on this story. I hope I can thank you properly by continuing to produce stories that you enjoy. I write for many reasons, but knowing what I do is liked by others...it just feels good in ways I can’t put into words.

And, most of all, I thank GimmeABigPush for inspiring the seed of the idea that grew into this, for driving me to become a better writer, and for being someone I’m glad to have written this with. I’ve said it in the credits before, but I’ll say it once more: Without your encouragement, this story would never have been what it is.

See you later.

It finally hit me what "ecchi" fully means.

I've known it's synonymous with "hentai" for a real long time. But while getting ready for work this morning, for no special reason, one of the "Stu makes chocolate pudding at 4 AM" memes popped into my head, one in which everything is dubbed in AI-made Japanese. His scream at the end of "AAAARGH" is dubbed with the Japanese pronunciation of each letter.

I first saw it, I don't know, some 13 years ago.

Only this morning did it hit me while I thought about that:
* "H" is pronounced like "aetchi," which sounds like "ecchi."
* "H" is for "hentai."
* They're interchangeable because one is the first letter of the other.

As my friends can tell you, this is pretty standard fare for me to suddenly figure obvious shit out, completely unprompted.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get to an age where I stop amazing myself at what I notice and what escapes my notice. It's yet to happen and I'm in the neighborhood of 40.

As I recall, when I took down the preview of "Never Too Late," it had 6 favorites and 1 comment after being up for 10 days. As of now, with the full chapter 1 up for 8 days, it has 3 favorites and 1 comment. More accurately, each was commented on by 1 person.

Comments almost invariably go further than faves, so those are what I'm most grateful for. Still, I compare the favorite count in a similar period of time and wonder...

You're really this disappointed in the actual story?

I wasn't going to say this, but...

Too bad! Because what's been put up so far isn't even the first QUARTER of the full story in terms of chapter and word count!

8D

Enjoy the previews of stuff I'm intending to put up. When I'll put them up, I'm not sure, but at least one of them will start going up soon.

Without playing a video game.

And that streak, at last, comes to an end now.

More to follow when I have time to think, but putting this here for now as a placeholder so I can mark the day.

Two hours of Metroid Prime later for the first time since the late 2000s, just like I planned years ago...

It hasn't lost a single bit of its appeal.

Still my favorite single-player game of the decade and tied with EverQuest for overall favorite of the decade. (Yes, EQ came out in 1999, but I didn't play it until 2002, and it had so much expansion content by then...you get the idea.)

I feel like I say this a lot, but what a fucking year.

First, the main thing that dragged the year down: Work.

Talking about work on the Internet is one of those "I can't speak or I'll be silenced" things, but to say the least, work this year has been exhausting in so many ways. I know there are many who would be grateful to have my job and I don't mean to imply I'm not, but there was a certain negative trend that started in 2022 that continued into 2023 and got much worse. All I got out of it was over half a year of starting early, working through lunch, and leaving late almost every day, PLUS coming in on weekends, both days, just to keep pace. There were several points this year when I confirmed that I couldn't feel good about anything I did at work anymore. I didn't always feel bad, but breaking even was the best I could do. I even said as much (though only when they specifically asked me) to more than one person above my boss's level. My current boss, anyway.

You might say, "Yeah and you got paid for it, you got that out of it too." If you did say that, I would stop you mid-sentence and say, "Fuck the OT. It wasn't worth it." And, not that I haven't felt this way before, but looking back? No. It wasn't worth it. It never was and I always knew it. I haven't been vocal about it at work and when I do speak up I'm tactful about it, but I've never pretended I wouldn't rather just have normal hours again anytime someone else has brought it up.

HOWEVER.

It's also been a year of personal triumphs, I just had to find them outside of work. Many of them came from my writing.

I took a hiatus from writing somewhere around March until, specifically, August 31 of this year, but when I sat down to write again, I broke a personal record of "finishing a story of this length in a certain time." In other words, from when I started a story to when it got the point of "finished enough, this is the beta version, now what's left is proofing and editing", the average number of words per day I wrote, as noted here: https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10706031/ . That record was established with "Three New Lives" way back in 2012. And guess what? The person I'm collabing with finished their part of the story and I'm working on my revisions and additions. That's going to take a while and, while my additions are subject to my cowriter's approval, I'm not getting impatient and compromising length just to get it done. I have no idea how long it will be when all is complete, but assuming you count my additions to their work (which is questionable if they can be counted or not), it will easily be my longest story ever. So far. It's easily one of the best ideas and best things that happened to me last year.

Long story short, pun not intended: Writing that, especially during a time when I was struggling to feel good about myself since it was obviously too late to feel good about my job, doesn't just make me feel like myself again. It makes me feel like I was a better me.

Speaking of writing, I also collabed with another great writer. Remember what I just said about "Three New Lives" and how it's one of my writing milestones? It was written in the first place thanks to him, something I've always been grateful for. It took until a couple months ago, but we did a collab story that he's put up, found here (but I warn you, the subject matter, which involves male pregnancy and, more importantly, male birthing is VERY niche even by furry standards, so if you're not inclined to read this from the keywords alone, you're probably right to feel that way): https://www.furaffinity.net/view/54950953/ . I'll put it up myself this year, I'm just debating on whether to get an illustration or not.

Another, shorter note on writing: I also finished writing a story with a full-on sex scene for once! I made a woman moan! Two women, even! https://www.deviantart.com/evertide.....desc-927799963 / https://archiveofourown.org/works/4.....ters/103866483 / https://www.fanfiction.net/s/141303...../Oh-My-Goddess . I talk a little more about why that matters in the author's notes, but it's an accomplishment nonetheless.

And lastly, one other note on the writing front, I know there's been a shortage of material here over the last year. I fully intend to correct that over the course of the next year. Many of the stories I intend to post are collaborative works that are already up elsewhere, but some of it will be my own work. It's going to get furry, pregnant, or both all up in here, just like my roots would suggest.

As for other personal highlights?
* Went another year without playing a video game. On January 10, I will have gone 1,000 days without playing a video game. Watching others game, totally, but not playing. That's as far as I'm going to go before I pick them back up again, but with all the gushing I've done over my writing, I'm going to have to find a new balance between work, writing and gaming without cutting friends out either.
* Had a big family reunion during the summer, the first I've had since I was a little kid. I've had family gatherings over the years, oh yes, but nothing of this magnitude. Was a great time, saw a lot of people I haven't seen in many years, AND won a scavenger hunt with my uncle. While I have a competitive side, it's rare that there's something I both want to win AND feel like I can win, let alone actually do it. That memory is the real prize.
* After five and a half years, my parents got another dog. She's kind of nuts. My personal opinion: They made a mistake getting a puppy. Even a one-year-old dog would have been better so they'd have more of an idea of what they were in for...but I still love her.
* A close friend of mine was finally able to move to his own apartment. If you're reading this, you know who you are. I don't mean to get emotional or anything, but I just want you to know that after waiting so long and putting in so much hard work to get there...that I'm proud of you.
* It snowed once, towards the end of October. Then it took until today, the end of the fucking year, to snow again. Some winter.
* I went to my first football game EVER. Got the VIP treatment even.
* More to be added as I reminisce and think of them today.

Good luck to all of us in 2024. Don't give up. Stay determined.

I've been working with another writer on something, by which I mean "I commissioned a story, wrote up a bunch of notes, was a ways down in the queue, and then got so antsy that I decided to end my self-imposed break from writing and write the intro and a couple of scenes myself."

And, in several ways, exceeded my expectations by a crazy amount.

I don't know if it's more appropriate to say, "Oops, I meant to write the intro but I ended up writing a ~8k word story in 10 days."

Or, "Oops, I meant to just write something skimming over just one scene but I ended up writing a 13k story."

Or maybe, "Oops, I meant to write just these three scenes building up to the real story but ended up writing something that's ~25k words long...in only 38 days."

Either way...oops, I sat at the center of several ley lines of inspiration for the last month-plus ^_^

So the other day, I had a dream that impressed me with what my subconscious could come up with. Maybe it's from being so stressed for so long.

It was one of those dreams that bounced between topics with no rhyme or reason, almost like multiple dreams in one. In one of them, I was playing Doom. Like, Classic Doom. So that was a fun part of the dream, as you can guess.

Then somehow, it occurred to me, "What if I tried to find new cheat codes?" And of all the things my subconscious thinks to put in, it comes up with...

oopsallarchviles

Wanna guess what it did? Time's up, it turned every enemy in the level into an Arch-Vile.

Which was suitably fun and crazy but it did make the game kind of unwinnable. It was as nuts.wad as it sounded. So nuts that I had the bright idea of trying to make it easier, and my subconsciousness's answer to that?

oopsallcyberdemons

Which in general is actually easier. To survive, if not kill everything.

So yeah, that was wild, and fun during a time when fun has a tendency to not last long when it happens at all.

What else was wild is that for some reason, there was a cutscene somewhere even though Doom didn't have cutscenes. I don't remember the details but it turned everyone in the cutscene into an Arch-Vile too.

For posterity, since fads come and go and it's only a matter of time when this won't make sense to the youth: This is a reference to the "Oops! All Berries" cereal, aka Captain Crunch but it's all Crunch Berries.

I've had to spend a lot of time avoiding social contact lately due to work burning me out. But it's given me time to reflect on some words of wisdom. Combining something one of my calendars said recently, plus a quote from (of all things) Mortal Kombat 11...

"Whether turning the page or closing the book, the ink needs time to set."

I haven't taken a lunch break or left at my normal time at work since early May, to say nothing of how few days (including on weekends and, on one instance, a holiday) I haven't had to go in and get work done.

Today, I did both, and started at my normal time too. So this was the first day I worked completely regular hours with no overtime in any way.

I already didn't take my personal time for granted, but boy does this feel good.

This week has put me through the wringer at work in such a way as no other week at any other job has. Starting some two months ago, we'd lost so many people that we started being short-staffed, and then we lost more one month ago, and it's not gotten much better. Now, this week, both of the people I'm supposed to be backing up are on vacation and despite having some help from other sources, I've put in ten and a half hour days from Tuesday through today. I even was able to get special permission to work on the June 19th holiday so that I could get a head start, and it's not easy to get that permission.

From Sunday through today, I've put in a total of 57 hours, breaking my old all-time record of about 55 hours, and there's still Saturday. I've had so many emergencies to deal with, some of which from work that I barely know anything about, that I've fallen way behind on my own work.

I started feeling physically sick from stress by Wednesday, and it's been a while since I've dreaded coming in every morning this much.

But just after I got off the bus when I got to work this morning, a butterfly fluttered around me, then landed on my arm, right where I could get a good look at it without moving. And look at it, I did. It only stayed there for about ten seconds before it flew away.

And I tell you, for those ten seconds, I felt completely worry-free, my mind not in the least on the many things bothering me, just feeling grateful that such an unlikely event. Afterwards, I felt ready to face one more day.

I've made use of the short time I have these days in the evenings to calm down and prepare for the next day...

But this was the first time I felt so much like smiling in too long.

(Questioned about posting this here too since it's not furry writing but thought maybe I should, so it's a bit late, but while it's a day late for Memorial Day, oh well.)

Today, I'd like to share a different kind of writing. Writing that's not by me but was told to me so that I could tell it to others. The autobiography of my grandpa's time in the Korean War, as told to me.

I don't think I knew my grandfather on my dad's side was in the Korean War until I was somewhere in my mid-late 20s (for reference, around the early 2010s). I didn't really have much reason to know it: He never brought it up (nor did anyone else, pretty much).

Half a year ago, I took a short vacation from work to visit him and my grandmother for a few days, and before I went, I knew one thing I wanted to do: Write down his story. I'd heard from both him and my dad that it wasn't a horror-story kind of war story, he didn't get to Korea until only several months before the end of the war, but he was happy to tell it to me.

A couple of years before, he'd written some of this himself and sent it to the family in the form of a short piece called The Last Patrol, which detailed the last patrol he went on just before the armistice was signed.

I wrote down everything else, as he told it to me. So now, since it's fitting for the holiday, I'd like to share it.

Some names have been changed or removed from what I sent my family, and as noted above, don't expect any big military epic. But it's here all the same.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing

As of just about two months ago, I had some IRL stuff that forced me to put a pause on writing so that I could focus on fixing my problems. Or, more accurately, I forced myself to stop, so that I wouldn't pretend nothing's wrong or that I could "just deal with it" when what I really needed to do was un-fuck something important.

I've yet to succeed, and events over the last couple of weeks and especially the last couple of days have hammered that home. I think I'm losing my mind from losing my outlets, but maybe I'm the one who needs to change first.

Just saying, those who are still watching me (and new watchers who I don't know why you joined when I don't post much here anymore), don't expect much output for a while.

Just like it says.

I've WATCHED others play, just haven't played them.

I was going to pick games up again, but IRL interruptions the day I was going to, and then the day after, made me put it off until the next weekend, and...I don't really know what happened from there but I just couldn't get back into it.

Okay, I do know what happened. It's something that I came to a growing realization of during the first year of being game-free, something I wasn't happy to learn: I don't really have time for them anymore, at least not like I used to.

At my previous job, I did most of my writing at work, during the first half hour to 40 minutes before starting my day and then again for another 40-odd minutes at lunch, because it took less time to get to work, it was easier to transport my laptop, and I had a long enough lunch break that I could eat and get some writing done on weekdays. Evenings and weekends were for gaming, friends, both at the same time, or whatever other stuff I had to do.

When I started a new job in the summer of '20, I lost that extra 60-80 minutes of personal time each day, so in order to pick up writing again a couple years ago, I had to give something up in its place. Between friends and gaming, it wasn't a choice. But over time I've found other things to fill the time when I don't feel like writing. Starting last summer, I went for long walks every weekend to clear my head, enjoy the scenery, and keep physically active.

The other side of that is something I learned during the first year: It feels like they can't really make me happy anymore. At least when I'm writing, I'm creating something others may enjoy and I enjoy doing it. Beating a game? Nobody knows or cares but me, and now I don't know if I can even get that.

I don't regret it. I just think back sometimes of when I didn't have to give up things I liked to do other things I liked and I miss it.

We'll see if I can make it to January 11, 2024. 1,000 days.

(Disclaimers: 1 - The following is meant in a "it's satire, laughing at yourself is priceless" way, not to be taken seriously*. 2 - Yes, this is inspired by "The First Person to Ever Have a Spell Countered" on YouTube. 3 - I don't play Magic but it's fun to watch lists about it.)

1: "Okay, we've made new decks, and I'm ready for you this time! I cast this sorcery!"
2: "I will Counterspell."
1: "...Great. Then I summon this creature!"
2: "Creatures are also spells. I Counterspell again."
1: "Ffffine, then I play this artifact."
2: "Them too. Counterspelled."
1: "Then I play this, which specifically cannot be countered!"
2: "(plays something like Discontinuity or Summary Dismissal) No. And, especially for Discontinuity, here is a rules lawyer-y explanation of why that is not countered but it is."
1: "Yeah, awesome, this is fun. I get that TCGs are like golf: The specific goal of both is to play as little as possible, what a thrilling game. No wonder so many old and fat people play it: They don't have the time or athleticism to spare. But Blue takes that a step further by not 'playing the game' at all and preventing the other player from playing either, and yet, you're still considered the winner. GG."

(* ...Mostly.)

For those who know even less than I do about MTG, this whole video is great, but this part should summarize what I'm talking about quite nicely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGr.....K9VZ10#t=1m47s