Here we are once again, at the anniversary of The DOOM Chronicles launching way back in 2016.
It really bothers me how 2016 is now seven years ago and it truly does not feel that long ago, but at the same time it also feels like two decades ago?
I don’t understand time anymore.
Anyway, 2023 has been a weird year.
I began the year in a weird place and decided to step back from everything for awhile, and I did do that. I just put fan fiction away and didn’t think about it for a good three months. And then, finally, in April, I one day thought to myself, “It would be really nice to write some Bishop’s Lament”.
And I did. Managed to get a few chapters up. And in April, going into May, I found myself thinking that I could pick back up Bishop’s Lament and StarCraft, and that perhaps I could even start working on Episode Four of The DOOM Chronicles in time for, well, this very day.
I actually did some work, planning out the entire fourth episode and making some cover art. Here, check it out.
I know, it’s not the best, but it was the best I could do given the circumstances and it really captured what I will be going for in the fourth episode, which I’ll expand on more below.
Now comes the ‘but’ part. I was gearing up to get back into fan fiction, but…then I found myself in a situation last month, very suddenly, where the other parts of my life abruptly were calling for my attention. You ever prepare yourself to do something at the start of the day, something fun, because although you know you’ve got plans elsewhere in the day, you know there’s time for something fun? And then, suddenly, an emergency comes crashing in, and all at once you know there’s just absolutely no way you can squeeze that fun thing in anymore? It’s just 100% out of the question to make it happen during that day.
Well, that day is 2023 for me, and that fun thing was ‘writing literally any fan fiction’.
Those plans I was toying with abruptly became more or less impossible. There’s just too much to do and the mental workload became too much. Which really fucking sucks, because it’s obvious to me that I still really want to write fan fiction. I get some kind of urge to write something related to fan fiction at least once a day, sometimes just a flash, sometimes strong enough that I consider derailing the day and just working on it.
So, where does that actually leave me for present fan fictions?
For Bishop’s Lament, I can say that I will at least attempt to piece together some time here or there to get a chapter out. Part of the problem there is that I have admittedly lost a LOT of steam for Half-Life. I’m hoping to get it back at some point, given I went through like a three year phase of not caring about Half-Life at all anymore, then I wrote Bishop’s War.
For StarCraft - Survival? I came very close to just giving up on this in May. I sat down at one point and reread everything I’d written so far with the intent to get back into it, and I just…couldn’t. It’s weird because I still look forward to writing certain parts in the future narrative, but when I actually go to do it I just blank out. I don’t know. I guess for this story’s sake it’s probably good that I’m basically tapped out for writing time for the rest of the year.
For The DOOM Chronicles…
I covered a lot of this in last year’s post about the story. I’ll get a little more in detail. I want Episode Four, which will be titled PRISON IS HELL, to introduce Marine Eric Crowe. He’s brutal, savage, and maybe a little sadistic. Like both Jack and Kyra, he was booted out of the Marines for doing the right thing, but unlike them, he really got the shit end of the stick and got imprisoned on an asteroid-based penal colony owned by the UAC where, you guessed it, they do illegal experiments on the prisoners.
This one takes place narratively during Episode One, but it’s a self-contained story and won’t complicate things. Basically, it’s Eric’s origin story. If I had stuck with my original plan, this actually would have been Episode Three, but we are where we are. It’s essentially going to be about Eric escaping the prison as it’s overrun by demons. Pretty straightforward plot.
So far, the games that I’ve played that have taken place in a prison, The Suffering, Escape From Butcher Bay, The Callisto Protocol, have all been really good. Well…The Callisto Protocol was at least decent. I’d say it’s the closest in terms of atmosphere for what I’ll be going for with this episode, and that’s why the cover art is an altered promotional still from the game.
As much as it pains me to say so, I’ll have to indeed wait until 2024 to start posting this one. I’m hoping that I can start writing it in December, and then have at least the first few chapters ready to go, so I can post the first chapter on 01.01.2024, just like I did with Episode Three back in 2020.
Sorry I don’t have better news for you, life’s just busy and I’m also ill-equipped to handle it.