#I am Xposting on main again. end me lmao

[afniel]

I'm into editing (still 2 chapters to write but we're not talking about that yet) and I'm proud to say that I have divested myself of the old habit of starting sentences with the word 'and.'

Unfortunately! I have picked up using 'quite' all the damn time for no reason, and I'll still comma splice a motherfucker to death, especially in dialogue. So there's that. It's at least easier to wrangle than literally 500+ superfluous uses of 'and,' which is what stopped me eventually from editing my old original novella from like, 2007. It was too much to deal with. I just had to stop.

But like. It's still definitely A Thing that I've got to get under control before I even consider posting. Sigh.

For the most part, though? I'm really enjoying the re-reading part of editing. It's actually pretty solid. I think there's some sticky-uppy pacing edges, but it's not as much the actual pacing and more that I just need to sell some events/reactions a little harder. So that's cool. I'm excited as hell and very hopeful that I'll have it out in maybe a week or so.

And honestly I'm trying to make it interesting sci-fi on its own merits. (I'm allowing myself that one initial 'and,' nobody @ me.) I think it'll still potentially be interesting even if you haven't played the games. There's so much personal worldbuilding, exploration of things that the games never get into at all, and alternate canon that I could almost file the serial numbers off, but I don't feel the need. So if you keep thinking it sounds interesting but eeeeh you aren't into Mega Man X...I dunno, give it a shot anyway?

I put a lot of work into turning it into something that's almost standalone in characterization (the only truly onscreen canon character is X himself and he gets fully characterized in the story outside of his ingame history anyway) and definitely standalone in themes, knowing that I've got friends who expressed interest but haven't played any of the games. So hopefully it'll be cool even if you don't go here at all. If you do go here, there are a few name drops that will help certain events hit a little harder, but it's not at all necessary. Think of it more like Easter eggs. There's enough essential information throughout that you should be able to put it together without any background, and I even resisted just infodumping at random, because that's not usually fun in a story.

ANYWAY. SOON. PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO IT.

Also I'm doing character art and illustrating some of my more favorite moments. Like you do, when you're a weirdo polymath who can do both. So that's fun too.