James_D_Fawkes

CiP: Interlude 8.a: Heavy is the Head

By popular demand (all two votes, haha), here is the first interlude of arc 8: Heavy is the Head. Eidolon gets to wax and brood.

Link is here. Let me know if it's screwed up again.

Chapter 2: Gentle Everyday

Surprise? Again?

Okay, this was about 99% finished, so I just decided to add the last, like, line or two and post it. I figured there as no reason to really hold onto it, which means more Recursive Wisdom stuff for you guys.

Rin is so much fun to tease.

Anyway. Here it is. I hope you like it, because it'll be back to Essence after this.

An Alternate ???: Hail to the ???

I've said there was going to be a special short for Christmas. I never said it would be a Christmas short.

Although maybe I should...?

Anyway. Welcome to the first real look at Project Nietzsche. If you're confused and don't quite get all of the things talked about in here, don't worry: I was trying super hard not to spoil stuff.

In fitting with the other "An Alternate Essence" shorts, the Taylor here is actually canon Taylor, up to about late February-early-to-mid-...

CiP: We Have Come to Terms

Surprise!

Okay, so this is an idea I had a few hours ago.

Elevator pitch: Something happened about ten years ago that wiped out everyone's memories. In this world of amnesia, Taylor Hebert performs a much-needed service — as a negotiator.

In other words, the Big O! and Worm crossover that everyone didn't know they wanted and no one asked for.

That's almost literally all I have for it, right now. I haven't brainstormed anything for it past that initi...

Better and Worse

So, those of you who are on the Patron Discord server or follow Essence on SV or FFnet will have already heard: my grandmother passed away last Wednesday, and the memorial service was this Monday.

Things got a little...off track as a result.

I'm okay. My family is okay. This was...a little sudden, but not entirely unexpected. She was in the later stages of Alzheimer's, and it was just a matter of time. All of the events that followed her passing did throw me off a little,...

Depravation 8.5

Taylor Hebert vs Glenn Chambers!

Round one!

FIGHT!

...Right. Starts with some fluff between the girls, but after that, there's that headbutting with Glenn that was promised last chapter.

Glenn...was actually easier to wrap my head around than I thought he would be. There were a few moments that I wasn't sure about, but for the most part, he came out without much effort.

I'm a little scared what that says about me.

Also, there were, like, five people camped ...

CiP: Depravation 8.5

Since things moved a little unexpected last chapter, in that I didn't get as much into it as I wanted, an extra chapter was kind of needed. 

Link's here.

The previous 8.5 has been moved back to 8.6, and the CiP title has been changed to match.

Depravation 8.4

So, this wound up going...not quite how I expected it to. Not in a bad way, actually, but still not the way I expected it to.

I expected it to have a second scene, for one.

In any case, I'm fairly satisfied with where this one went and how it ended. It got frustrating at some parts and I got a little stuck on others, but nothing near as bad as arc 6 was.

This does add another chapter to the count, though, so I'll need to go in and move the original 8.5 to 8.6.

CiP: An Alternate ???: Hail to the ???

So, I did get some work done, last week, and though some of it went into 8.4, a not insignificant amount went here instead.

I raised the idea with my editor of making this a special for Thanksgiving, and unexpectedly, he agreed, rather than telling me, "It's too early for this."

Well, I didn't quite finish it in time for Thanksgiving, so I'm going to release it on Christmas instead. Patrons will, of course, get it early, although how early depends on when I finish it. It'...

UPDATE: Google Doc links

The problem with the Google Doc links on the recent CiP posts has been fixed. There was a strange error happening that added an extra "http://" to the front of the link that made it break, so I removed it. The links should be working, now.

Knights of the Round: Clan Fiction

Not sure how much you guys care about this stuff, but I figured I'd post it here so that you have it anyway.

This is my "Clan Fiction" for Bungie's Destiny. What's clan fiction? Fanfiction for my clan, head canon for our characters, stuff like that. Most of it, inevitably, was written by me, although my friend, clanmate, and the leader of our clan also has editing permissions to add stuff he's written or other clanmates wrote. 

The format, for those of you unfamiliar...

CiP: Depravation 8.6

I'm telling you guys ahead of time, this chapter might get pushed back to 8.6 or 8.7. We'll see. It depends on what all gets squeezed into 8.4.

For now, though, you can find it here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lSmrFajAnQOQeHpS7bl77_WA7yYn_esXqy0kCnQPwTw/edit?usp=sharing

Yes, there are larger scale consequences to Taylor's actions. I d...

CiP: Depravation 8.4

I have to get better about tagging the Lucky Numbers posts.

Anyway. There's not much to it, yet, but you can find the link to it here.

This is chapter 57 (again, excluding interludes and Pendulum), so Lucky Numbers 3 and 7 apply. The next two chapters will be for Knights ($13+) only.

EDIT: Okay, I think I've solved the problem.

CiP: Bleach: Cast Down the Sun - Prologue

So, Essence wasn't the only thing I worked on this week.

Um, no, maybe I should lead with...I can't get my mind off of Ryuugi's Arana? Hm, that's not really that much better, huh?

Well, both are true, and this was spawned as a result.

I...don't know if it'll go anywhere. I'm not sure it'd be a super long story, if it did. Certainly not the 300K+ monstrosity that Essence has become. Or are we up to 400k by this point?

Anyway. As a special treat (and to gauge interest), ...

Depravation 8.3

A little longer than I would have liked to get this done and a little shorter for all the time it wound up taking, but here it is.

The continuation of the murder mystery!

Yeah, I won't be surprised if everyone already knows who did it, but I threw a few red herrings in to try and throw you guys off the scent.

Depravation 8.2

So, this gave me a bit of trouble and I took a while to get started on it. Then, I went and wrote almost 4700 words for it in about 5 hours and brought this thing up to 6k.

Things start to pick up. The main plot of this arc and the arcs that follow it are slowly revealing themselves, and we get to see the beginnings of discontent.

Also, Taylor having friendly interactions with people is fun as all get-out to write.

Depravation 8.1

Setup, ahoy!

So, there's some catching up done in this chapter, some setting up of the situation the city is in, and loads of foreshadowing. Some of that foreshadowing is a bit heavy handed and obvious, true, but there's tons of stuff being hinted at, especially in the latter half of the chapter.

Also, that callback at the end. Anyone remember it, now? Geez, that was forever ago when that was last used.

I wish I'd had a better grasp of where I was going with Arc 8 sooner so ...

CiP: Depravation 8.3

Fair warning, there's spoilers for what will be at the end of 8.2 in the very beginning of this chapter, so be prepared for that.

Link is here. 

This will be the 56th chapter of Essence, not counting Pendulum and interludes. That means it's Lucky Number 7, this time. $7+ patrons get access to this one.

Update (10/31/19)

Things got a bit...rough, this month. For several reasons. One of them was just the natural consequence of the fact that Essence was never planned to go beyond Leviathan, so piecing together where the story goes from there has been a bit of a trial.

The other part is, late last week, a friend of mine died. He developed a pretty aggressive form of cancer, and it metastasized and spread rapidly. It was all over and done with within three weeks. The viewing was Monday, and I went and paid ...

CiP: Interlude 9.b: Faustian Antithesis

I'm confident about how late this interlude will be. I'm not confident it'll be in arc 8. In either case, I'm being careful about when and how much I work on this, because there's a massive spoiler for the direction of the story that's going to take place fairly early in.

Link is here.

EDIT: Moving this to arc 9, now. Arc 8 was way too e...

CiP: Depravation 8.2

Things start to pick up a little in the second chapter of arc 8. Link is here.

This is where we get a bit of the conflict hinted at. Well, we will, once I've gotten to writing that part of it.

CiP: Depravation 8.1

The first chapter of arc 8. You can find the document here.

Not counting interludes and Pendulum chapters, this is the 54 chapter of Essence. With the new Lucky Numbers system, that means $3 and $7 tiers also get access to it.

This is probably going to be a fairly slow and fluffy chapter.

Pendulum 0.4

The...well, probably the last Pendulum chapter. One more might be done to cover the more immediate aftermath of her Trigger, but that's a maybe, not a definite thing. If you guys want it... I mean, I can't imagine it'd be super interesting, but if you want it, I'll write it.

In this one, it's all about Installs and Taylor's first overcoming her fear of them. It's more fluff and backstory than progress or character development, and if it weren't for the thing about Endbringers, ...

Interlude 7.b: Blood of the Crusade

And here, we transition towards the beginning of arc 8.

This interlude gave me a lot of trouble. It frustrated me so much, I thought I was going to have to take another week to work on it. And even though I finished it, I wasn't even sure it was gonna crack 3k, and I'm not surprised it wound up kinda short.

Ah, anyway. The twist I was expecting to put into this chapter...didn't happen. That had a lot to do with the fact that the twist I planned to use relied on a state in the stor...

CiP: An Alternate Essence: Advaita (Okita-chan's Portal Misadventure)

The premiere of the inimitable Okita-chan! 

Well, okay, I've teased her before, with that concept art I showed to you guys. But this would be the first time she gets any screentime, and wow, is she fun to write for.

You can find the link here.

CiP: Interlude 7.b

Don't...actually have a title for this, yet. I'll have to come up with something witty and clever, because I don't want to default to the "Sabrina the Teenage Nazi" joke.

This one will get twisty. It starts off a certain way and sets expectations, but I think where it ends will surprise a lot of people.

Link is here.

Promise 7.11

Where'd the week go? On Monday, I was discussing a pivotal detail about the chapter with my editors, and then when I next looked, it was Thursday night and I still only had a skeleton of a chapter. Where did Tuesday and Wednesday go?

Ugh. Okay. I need to get myself back on track.

So, some aftermath. I...can't really explain more without giving too much away. Just...it's a lot more personal than public? Yeah, that works. It's some (relatively) quiet moments between our favorite cha...

Promise 7.10

This is much, much later than I wanted. That, in part, has to do with my FGO woes trying to get Bryn, which everyone on the Discord Server is very much familiar with, but it had more so to do with just how little sleep I got, last week. I was averaging 4 to 6 hours every day, and had absolutely no energy to be writing this chapter with.

Here it is, however, done, finished - and, officially, the Leviathan fight with it.

After this, 7.11 for the aftermath. Maybe, depending on if I c...

CiP: Promise 7.11

And here is where the aftermath will be.

Link to the post is here.

Cip: Promise 7.10

The conclusion of the climactic battle.

Find it here.