I have never worked harder in my life. Teaching math has shifted from quadmesters (2020-2021) to week-on-week-off (Fall 2021) to regular classes wearing N95s (Winter/Spring 2022). This last for some students who hadn't seen math for all 2021 (having had it first quadmester 2020). Meanwhile I got a new prep, from a mix of losing other teachers to virtual school and to the new destreamed Grade 9 curriculum. And of course in June, Ontario still put Ford in charge, so nothing will get better (in fact, it will probably get worse).

And yet, I did do what I could to keep things running here. Thanks for sticking around.

In August 2021 I queued up all the QL/Hopital Parody Posts on this blog through to Dec 2021, making only slight post modifications as time went along. (Those did include a brief update at the end of my "l'Hopital Bonus Post" in mid-November, if you missed it.) I queued again to start January, enough to get to mid-March, then on the March Break I queued up right through to last week, while somehow making time to create the silly Sinefield logo.

That buffer's gone. Where to now?

Well, I put up an informal poll on twitter last week. The results were 75% in favour of old Sailor Moon Fics and 25% in favour of Epsilon... meaning it's become a formal poll, and we're doing the former. The added benefit of reruns is, it gives me more time to write the "Time Untied"/"Time Denied" sequel, which I'll mention a bit more about later in this post.

SAILOR MOON FICS

My first completed fanfic from 1996 was "Dark Slide of the Moon", a Sailor Moon/Sliders crossover taking place in early Sailor Moon S/Sliders Season 2. I then wrote a Sailor Moon R story in 1997, "A Stitch in Time" featuring Ami and Setsuna tying up loose ends from the original anime show (involving the rainbow crystals, etc). And then was the most popular Sailor Moon fic I ever wrote, "What Evil Lurks", a shifting POV retelling of the original anime, if Mercury had been evil. That was 1998, so before the Dark Mercury saga of PGSM (the live action in 2003).

I won't be reposting those yet. Instead I'm going to hit you with "Marmalade Mercury".

While "Sailor Moon" was my first exposure to anime in early 1996, "Marmalade Boy" was the first anime to really captivate me, as I saw it at the first anime showing I ever went to (in Ottawa) later that year. Ever heard of it? Well, as Tuxedo Unmasked wrote, it was once an anime predicted to be the next Sailor Moon. It had collectors cards, a live action version and everything.

If you're wondering what was it about, hold onto your hats.

The fanfic I wrote was a fusion fic. That's where you take the characters of one story, and mash it up with the plot of another story. Meaning to say more about the plot of "Marmalade Boy" would be a spoiler. But I suppose I'll give you the title of the first episode: “There is Love, He’s Handsome: But I Can’t Forgive Them”.

I started it in December of 1996, then started gradually posting it to a local bboard, where I got some feedback. A year later, to end 1997, I had reached Episode 9. Then things slowed. I sent out Episode 12 in 1999. I finished Episode 13 in 2000 but didn't release it. At last, the whole story was completed in 2017, after a 17 year gap, because I hate to leave a work unfinished.

This means that actually only one person has ever read past Episode 12, namely the fan who heard me on episode 59 of Zannen, Canada's podcast in 2019 and asked if I had anything else on Mercury to share.

The rest of you will have to let me know what you think. It begins next week.

TIME DENIED

Speaking of old stories, some may recall that "Time & Tied" (formerly "Time Trippers") began around 1999. Ten years and 44 parts later, it was completed. It then underwent numerous edits (including splitting each part in two) before finally being posted to this site (and RoyalRoadL) from 2015 to 2017.

If you didn't know, and like time travel, do check it out.

I started work on the sequel "Time Untied" (formerly "Time Spinners") in 2014. The writing only began in earnest in November 2017. After several years, once it reached 150k for words, I splintered it off into the sequel's sequel "Time Denied". (In fact, I submitted that new start to Ink&Insights in the summer of 2021 for feedback.) I'm still working on it even now, for Camp JulNoWriMo. The lesbian love triangle is sort of taking over.

Give it another year, and we might be there.

In related news, coin tracking. Recall that to end 2015, I had 42 coins from that year. During 2016 I got 37 coins minted then (some in BC). During 2017 I got 20 coins minted that year (some before June). During 2018 I got 21 coins minted that year. During 2019 I got 17 coins minted that year.

During 2020 I got one coin (a twonie). Because pandemic, and not much in the way of cash payments. I got a second coin in early January 2021. To follow up now, in 2021 I got one (loonie) coin from said year. Again, a second coin was a quarter, this time in early February of 2022.

However, so far in 2022 I have FIVE 2022 quarters, all obtained in early May from a couple trips to the same store. So apparently this is a good year for time travel... but we'll see how things hold up as time progresses. (Do you ever check the dates on your coins?)

SITE STATS

After over 7 years of posting very regular content to this website, with over 360 posts to choose from, we had the worst ever statistics for 2021. Only 402 visitors generating 1,394 page views. (In 2020, it was 670 visitors generating 1,635 page views.) Granted, subscribers don't count in those totals, and I think I might still have a half dozen of you? Not sure.

There were only 11 page views towards the end of Epsilon's sixth serial. Quantum Loop only saw 6 page views at its end, which admittedly beats l'Hopital's single view. Ouch.

I just don't have the time necessary to publicize this site; there's an automatic tweet that goes out, because I can schedule it along with the post. That's it. I mean, it's not like I didn't do lots more publicity years ago. That lack of visible payoff is playing into my motivations now.

If you're able to recommend my site, please do so, though at this stage a simple ReTweet would go a long way too.

On the plus side, there did seem to be someone in 2021 who read the whole Time&Tied archive, in September. And for 2022, thus far we're at 660 pageviews, meaning there's a chance we won't backslide even more. And I'm getting a lot less spam comments in the blocker. Yay?

So that's where we are. My thanks to John Golden for his occasional comments, which keep me on my toes, and to Scott Delahunt, for the occasional character-centred Discord chat. And also to you, for taking the time to get to the bottom. I hope you are well. Take care, and happy reading.

There’s actually a lot that went on behind the scenes of “Virga Mysteries”, featuring university witch Melissa Virga. Not so much in breadth, but in depth, as far as the writing goes.

So to fully wrap up the Virga Mysteries saga, I thought I’d do one more post about how it all came together. Note: There are spoilers for some plot points. Enjoy!

EARLY CASES

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

I had the first story done by May, so after graduation. I’d basically had the idea of an imaginary friend come to life, and wanted an eccentric female detective to deal with it. Sherlock Holmes was likely an influence.

The characters were revisited a year later, in June 2004, when I was in the midst of some confusion surrounding my relationships. That’s why the second story has a romantic undercurrent in it, along with the technological aspect. (The initial note for the story simply states “computer site, evil script”.)

I feel like the writing helped me work through some things. I subsequently changed elements after the first draft, and then modified things even more before putting that second case online here.

I must have been treating the story more seriously then too - I actually had some text files of latin phrases for use in 2004. And a vague third story idea, “Love of a Star”… that never materialized. Instead, the third (and last) case came about in 2008, after a four year gap.

It was my grandmother’s death that prompted me to mess around with what actually became that third story, “Borderline”. I don’t remember if it was a conscious or unconscious decision to bring back Melissa, so that I could work through some personal issues.

I was quite close to my grandmother, and incidentally was pleased she was able to meet my soon-to-be wife before she passed on.

Since this time the afterlife issues were of impact only to me (unlike the second case with relationships) there was less overall editing. In fact, the story was unfinished (lacking concluding paragraphs) until 2010 (when I did the extra edits to that second story). That’s when I decided it would be a trilogy and called it there.

I hadn’t really had any plans to put it online, but I hadn’t had any plans to not do it either. Which could be said of much of my writing.

BALANCING ACT

July, by comparison? Relatively quiet. So when I saw the JulNo tag somewhere in June, I decided to try for 50k. But what to write? Well, why not a new Melissa story, incorporating as many weird supernatural things as I could? Including callbacks to the original cases.

Since this was going to be novel-length, I decided it had to be at a pivotal time for the characters, hence James' graduation years later. I did my own personal tracking (they have websites for this now), reaching 10k on July 6th, 20k on July 17th, 30k on July 21st, and 40k on July 25th.

There were a couple of 0 word days in there (when I NaNo now, I try to avoid this, always having at least something new in the document) including on July 29th. But on the 30th I powered through with almost 4k words to get 50,085. (It wasn’t even the highest day, I had two previously where I exceeded 4k.)

I then wrote the conclusion on July 31st (including Trixie’s “Post Epilogue Thing”) to get 51,382 words in total. This was spread over two files: Events up to the end of Amy’s part, and from Melissa’s parents onwards.

For the record, my writing style tends to be having a particular goal in mind (in this case, Melissa’s ascension) with smaller arcs created along the way. I find I can’t write the goal first, because I’m not sure what the mood or reactions of the characters will be at that time… it will depend on whatever comes before.

So that’s why there was that big time skip after the bit with Melissa’s parents. I realized I was approaching 50k, and so decided I’d fast forwards and wrap up the faction stuff rather than draw things out even longer with cases (which I probably could have done).

I feel like it still made narrative sense, but maybe that’s me?

Once done, I figured the story would need edits… but maybe not too many, since James wouldn’t get to edit this story to match with the plot, right? And Trixie self-described herself as no good at it. ;)

VIRGA ONLINE

The initial cases were easy enough to separate into four parts/acts each, as I’d written all cases to be roughly the same length. I mostly did final edits as I went along, usually in the days right before posting.

“Balancing Act”, which began its run on this blog in late January of 2019, required rather more effort.

[caption id=“attachment_2345” align=“alignright” width=“186”] TRIXIE
Commission from Sen Yomi[/caption]

I initially split the story into Four Acts (as I had the previous cases). I did edits on Act 1 as posting began. By March 2019, I realized that the second act was going to be 8 parts, more than the initial 6 parts of Act 1.

It had made sense to put the split in when Amy fell asleep, separating by event, rather than by length. But I wasn’t sure I liked that, and suspected similar issues would come up with the remaining two acts.

It was after March Break (with my wife and daughter still in France) that I revised “Balancing Act” to Six Acts. But they still weren’t equal size, the third act was only two parts (splintered off of Act Two) and the fourth was four parts.

Tweaking occurred, putting the last (now sixth) part of Act Two into Act Three as well, giving part lengths of 6-5-3-4-??. By the end of March, I’d even decided to go with 6-5-5-???, splitting Act 3 in the middle of the dinner with Melissa’s parents. Perhaps a bit awkward, but I think it worked?

By early April I had edited things as far as June. I don’t upload right away in such cases, to give me time for a final pass, but that seemed to create a lot of inertia. Act Five took a lot longer to mess around with, editing-wise. I blame parenting, and so forth.

It wasn’t until near the end of JULY that I got Act Five done. Seriously, I look at my edited files and there’s a jump from “Mar 21” (Act 4c) to “Jul 22” (Act 4d, possibly just a renumbering).

In the interim, I got an art of Trixie in May at Anime North 2019, just so that it wouldn’t be Melissa all the time as the image for the posts.

FINAL EDITS

Around this same time, I was completing the equivalent of an entirely new part (to fill in the time skip gap a little better). That’s when I realized the parts could be 6-5-5-5-?? and most of the acts would become five parts.

This new work in late July, by the way, also let me flesh out Trixie’s backstory a little more. A process I’d started earlier, as in the initial writing, she had been interested in bothering Melissa by trying to hook up with James.

I nixed that early on. (Hello past me, we really don’t need two women with a thing for the narrator.) It morphed into more of her annoying Melissa in other ways, and not taking relationships seriously.

So the discussion between Trixie and James (in 4D) after their dinner (and just before the time skip) was all new - originally just a two paragraph summary.

I frankly like Trixie much better this way. The original writing had her drop her interest in James after the illusion spell making her look like Melissa went nowhere (the bit with Zamboni). This now morphed into her questioning her desire for a perfect relationship (as a counterpoint to Zamboni).

I’m still not sure if it works, but it definitely works better than what was there before.

At any rate, to keep the 5-part structure, I decided to put the Wrap-Up of the Zombies in the start of Act Six (as 6a)… and it just so worked out that Trixie’s addendum in Act Six worked well as it’s own part, extending what would otherwise have been another five part pattern.

Meaning an overall structure of six acts, the parts being 6-5-5,5-5-6. Almost like I planned it from the start, or something.

I do like how it kind of foreshadows Trixie’s extra “Post Epilogue”, if you remember that Act One seemed to have that extra part to it.

The entire editing process was done on Tuesday, July 30th. There were some minor updates in October 2019 as I uploaded to the blog, and again in mid to late February 2020. I had toyed with the idea of splitting “Balancing Act” into two (a bit like I did with Time & Tied’s four books), but September 2019 promised to be busy, so I nixed that.

This post was written the week of April 20th, after spending the previous week on the Epsilon Summaries, and there you have it.

Did the process go at all like you thought it did? Do you have any thoughts about the characters, either the three mains (including Trixie) or the individuals? What about bringing back information from the other case files, bad plan? I’d be interested in your thoughts, as always.

If you liked the story, perhaps vote for it at TopWebFiction, so more people see it? (By clicking on that link?) It took a while to clear their queue, and then I never remembered to suggest that link until now. My marketing fu is weak.

Next week, we’ll see how Story 6 of “Epsilon” goes. You still have about a day to vote, if you want input on the genre and characters. Thanks for reading!

This is a summary for the Epsilon Project serial… complete through to the end of STORY FIVE. For while every story can stand alone, there is a thread running through the parts. I’m hoping this post will help jog everyone’s memory (including mine) and get people more enthused for some upcoming voting. Which is also happening in this post.

First, a reminder about the Epsilon Project itself, paraphrasing from Alice: The station was designed to react to dimensional anomalies. The crew could then make almost zero alterations fixing them (hence Epsilon, a tiny value… it’s not the fifth station). Clarified later by Beam to be handling of rogue anomalies, not individual human error.

Most of their missions were reasonably successful.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Feel free to vote at the bottom based on the backstory, you don’t have to have seen them in action.

1. Alijda Van Vliet

Originally a role-play character in a play-by-mail RPG, “Powers” (2011-2012). Played by Katja Herbers. Female, in her mid-thirties.

[caption id=“attachment_976” align=“alignright” width=“168”] Alijda van Vliet (chibi).
Commissioned from: Shirochya[/caption]

First met while using the pseudonym Alison van der Land. Has the ability to teleport in a cloud of purple and black smoke, thanks to an incident involving Marshall Biochemical Engineering some time after she turned 24. Needs a visual reference to teleport (which can be a photo). Teleport preserves relative velocity, and she can carry up to 300 pounds.

Grew up in British Columbia; parents moved away after she went to University. She dropped out and checked herself into a psychiatric unit due to issues with depression; that’s where she met Mason and got prescription medication. Has a way with computer software, to the point of hacking alien technology. Is mildly paranoid.

Fled to Seattle after embezzling money from a corrupt company and bought a house. Worked as a secretary for a college professor named Singh. Had romantic feelings for a police officer named David Rose who had also been in the MBE incident, having gained super speed. She tends to nickname people (like “bunny girl” for Para) so she doesn’t get attached. (1)

After the first mission, started writing fiction and putting it online, but after a year she was still getting low readership. Born in the Netherlands, knows some Dutch. Can be impatient and is annoyed by references she doesn’t get. Shrank (temporarily) due to her teleporting in a density suit, until she was doll size. Sees Para as being child-like. (3)

Returned to the station after six months. Wanted to know Kat better. Will challenge Alice’s opinions (to a point). Does trend to black/dark humour, wants to stop hurting more than she wants to die. Had dinner with Kat after the couple days of testing, which followed the Fate mission. (4)

2. Para Bola

[caption id=“attachment_848” align=“alignright” width=“219”] PARA
(Commission from Michelle Simpson)[/caption]

Originally one of my personified math characters (2011-present). Female personified quadratic graph who has bunny ears on a hairband, attuned to her moods. Blonde hair, pink dress with a bow.

Self-conscious about human interaction and once cut herself on the arms. Can fly by spinning her ears. Was a late addition to the first mission (but arrived first). Trusting to the point of blurting out information she possibly shouldn’t. (1)

Returned to the station to set up a square-cube program, and vouched for Alijda to get her programming help. Immune to fairy knockout dust, and doesn’t ‘sleep’ the same way as a human. (3)

Brought to her third mission by Chartreuse, adopting the guise of an educational assistant. Was willing to believe rumours, given how Fractal City had proved to exist in her mathematical network. Used a metronome to calculate when a room would fill with plush animals. (5)

3. Katherine “Kat” Conway

Originally a character in the online RPG “Doorways” via IRC (2011-2013). Male, played by Colin Ferguson. Thirty-something Sergeant in the Canadian military, assigned to the “Doorways” project out of Nevada (that allows travel to alternate worlds, out of Epsilon’s reach).

[caption id=“attachment_2005” align=“alignright” width=“181”] KAT CONWAY
(Commission from Jakface)[/caption]

Personal interest in the occult owing to his pyrokinesis. Carries a matchbook. Seeking a girl he knew in high school named Fate, but never goes in depth about why.

Name is because his mom died giving birth to him (not in a hospital), and they thought he’d be a girl. Has an eye for the ladies but doesn’t take relationships seriously. Tends to make jokes when under stress. Tried to better understand Alijda, hoping she wouldn’t give up on herself. Is good with configuring computer hardware (not so much with hacking). Fire control is limited to what might be in a fireplace. (3)

Returned to the station after only a few hours, which helped him recall Chris' communications spell. In the military because his father was lax and felt like Kat needed more discipline. Recognizes a few occult symbols. Fate was his first serious relationship in high school (after her rejection of him); they went to prom and corresponded while he was at military college (until it suddenly stopped). Was willing to bend rules to get Fate back. Opened up to Alijda. (4)

4. Chartreuse Vermilion

Originally a character in my “Time & Tied” serial (2000-present). Female teenager who says ‘like’ and ‘you know’ after having succumbed to mystic forces. Dyes her hair pink. Bisexual.

[caption id=“attachment_1093” align=“alignright” width=“222”] CHARTREUSE VERMILION
(Commission by Ruuari)[/caption]

Required a day to align herself to the cosmic forces of a new world. (Azure showed what happened without that day.) Uses crystals to see into the future (if she has a focus), and can get flashes from people or their auras. Technology can interfere with that.

Dating a girl named Carrie, who can stop time/has time travel abilities. Has a thing for blondes. Her younger sister named Azure (who is more verbally direct) can see into the past, using cards. Their family has worked with the Canadian government in the past. She’s not a great cook. (2)

Returned to the station after two weeks (still her summer). A jade ring artifact (obtained by Beam) was meant to reduce ill effects of dimensional alignment; Chartreuse still got queasy. Later took it off to help receive impressions. Insisted on neon red stockings to go with the drab school uniform disguise.

Used a piece of quartz to divine a hidden panel. Doesn’t think ‘brainwashing crystals’ are a real thing. Got sensory stunned saving Para from a ray gun. (5)

[crowdsignal poll=10539447]

STATION CHARACTERS

[caption id=“attachment_929” align=“alignright” width=“185”] ALICE VUNDERLANDE
(Commission from Cherry Z)[/caption]

Originally a role-play character on the BuffyMUX (2004-2005), full name Alison, female. Prone to making pop culture references (and saying ‘awesome sauce’). Former secretary to Angel Investigations, rescued from a Hell Dimension by the Epsilon Project’s “God” (a female). (1) Possibly that involved an actual Angel. (4)

Claimed she couldn’t leave the station (2); it was later revealed that she used to do solo missions until the station required maintenance (such as for power problems). (4) Had worked with the project less than a year before seeking recruits. Enjoys morning exercise. Has an eidetic memory and analytic mind. Was fired for creating a dimensional rift to help her team, and ended up moving in with Alijda, on her world. (3)

Returned to the station after six months. During that time, made a pin based on Steins;Gate to commemorate her Epsilon time. Can get manic when given alcohol, and overshares bedroom stories with her friends. Not great with social cues. Enjoys music while working, and is good at creating devices. Mentally junked a lot of her hell dimension memories. (4)

Her ability to free associate terms allowed her to defeat a truth serum. Used to do karaoke when first recruited to the station, though is not the best vocalist. Good at recognizing pieces of devices, and dimensionally related items too. (5)

6. Beam

[caption id=“attachment_1997” align=“alignright” width=“202”] CHIBI BEAM
(Commission from Gen Ishihara)[/caption]

Originally a character in an online MUX (2009-2011). Female, long blonde hair, early twenties. An autonomous hologram with internal batteries and a charging port in her hairband (her control mechanism, and a weak point, along with her earrings). Mostly light, so has no bones to break when falling and her blood is a simulation. Can run faster than a normal human. Lesbian.

Beam’s first memory is of waking up in an alleyway, knowing only her name and basic programming. Taken in by a non-redheaded woman. Part of her programming is to repay debts to girls who save her life. Has trouble differentiating between girlfriends and girl friends, partly because her world advocates free love regardless of gender. Marriage is for procreation.

Saw her recruitment to Epsilon as being escape (from a place where her rejection of males was peculiar), versus abduction. Her first mission was a tech world with a magic amulet, accomplished by seducing a female archaeologist. Upgraded the station sensors; never knew about Mr Smith.

Can transition to an insubstantial state (and back) using her earrings, though it’s a power drain. Takes items on her person with her automatically, but they cannot be used. Tends to overshare, much like Alice (perhaps due to them mostly working alone).

Classified Rose as her first girl friend, thanks to Kat. Knows kung fu and acrobatic self-defence techniques. Rules oriented, has trouble deviating from protocol. Now works with Alice, under Fate’s command. (4) Injured on a mission with Alice, but got information to hack a high-tech school. Likes all-girl group hugs. (5)

7. Fate Wallace-Wray

Originally a character in Kat’s backstory (same online RPG; no photo). Blonde hair, now long and in a side ponytail. Tends to wear black (like Alijda). Was dimensionally abducted by Compton Sr, but her occult symbols made her immune to his mind scrambler. Decided she was resigned to living out her days on a world where magic was regulated and where her occult symbols worked more tangibly. Adopted the name Destiny and specialized in potions.

Tried to find people with not-quite-right powers, and dimensional weak points. A cyber arm found at one such point she imbued with a desire, lest it phase back to her own world; it was retrieved by Beam. Tortured briefly by Compton Jr, who was trying to resume his father’s illegal dimensional activities. Weird sense of humour.

Defeated Compton Jr (with Rose’s help) and learned Compton Sr had been fed the knowledge of dimensional travel. Accepted command of Epsilon as a transition before a possible return home. (4) Recruited Chartreuse by having the station do some temporal shifting. Seems to be “all business” with reports (possibly Beam’s influence). (5)

[crowdsignal poll=10539451]

MINOR CHARACTERS

Originally a character in my “The Girl Who Speaks With Algebra” serial (2016-2017). Red hair with freckles, teenager in university.

[caption id=“attachment_1919” align=“alignright” width=“196”] ROSEMARY THORNE
(Commission from Lia)[/caption]

Mistaken as being a math genius by Beam; Rose claims her blonde girlfriend Paige is the math and techno-girl. (Also mentioned Paige had father issues.) Babbles when nervous and resorts to humour to stay calm, like when she was given control of the Station. Avoids social media for those reasons.

Musically inclined, sings alto, can play piano and cook. Wears pun shirts. Tends to say flûte, as a way of feeling closer to her french girlfriend. Used to lie to herself about her sexual preferences. Knows basic self defence. Will second guess herself, doesn’t like being in charge. Learned about both Kat’s and Beam’s first missions', and tried to teach Beam about boundaries. Had stronger magic potential than Kat.

Gaining tracking magic in her nose briefly made her drunk, and she talked about Angie, a girl she liked in high school - with the opposite problem to Beam, in that Angie pulled away. She envies how open Beam is about being a lesbian. Later considered them being pen pals.

A mystic shockwave gave Rose the power of doubling, which she linked back to multiplying emotions once, under the guise of ‘Algebra’. She used the power to double Compton, who was set to reflect, and hence became copies of herself. She also used it to amplify Fate’s mind scrambling spell. It wouldn’t carry over to her normal reality. (4)

9. Simon Black

[caption id=“attachment_164” align=“alignright” width=“113”] Jensen Ackles[/caption]

Originally a character in my “Last Magical Girl” unfinished serial (2003/2010). Played by Jensen Ackles. In his mid to late twenties. Knows someone named Becky from his reality, had to leave her behind once. Also someone named Keith who does technology; Simon isn’t a fan.

Works as a magician, knows misdirection/slight of hand and basic hypnosis. Is a pretty good cook, partly because his mother died when he was young. Was briefly turned into Simone on the mission. Mild obsession with magical girls, and watches anime. (2) Was sent to the small scale world a year before that third mission. (3)

10. Mason

[caption id=“attachment_13” align=“alignright” width=“125”] Morgan Freeman[/caption]

Originally a character in an online RPG via IRC (2006-2008). Played by Morgan Freeman. Is a time lord who likes to keep his TARDIS in the form of a 1950s London taxicab (the “for hire” sign strobing upon materialization).

Arrived by tracing an inter-spatial call for assistance. Used to go by the name “Chief”, but now considers himself more of an observer.

Uses a device he calls Bardiche which has multiple functions (like a swiss army knife). Was taken aback that pieces of his history existed in a science fiction show for a particular reality/dimension. (1) The fact that his race was copyright of the BBC there meant Alice got a ‘cease and desist’ letter. (4)

[crowdsignal poll=10539453]

SETTING

The station’s computer intelligence is female, Alice calls her Ziggy. There is also an independent system in the auxiliary control room named Mr Smith (who is male). While usually somehow out of phase with the worlds of each mission (including the ability to temporally jump), the station can be parked in orbit around a planet.

[caption id=“attachment_2012” align=“alignright” width=“148”] From Story4, see the station at the bottom.[/caption]

The station’s in the shape of a wheel. The name for the central control room is the Hub. It’s large enough allow a person to park a car in front of the main view screen, and the room is shaped like a cylinder. Across from the main screen is a large wall of computer banks, while the other compass directions include a meeting place, and a storage area.

A large ring device with lit chevrons (think Stargate), located in the middle of the Hub’s floor, can send people to different dimensional realities. It’s kept irised shut until the ring activates; blackness can be seen before the whirlpool appears. Access to the Hub is from the ceiling, with another irised door; there is a ladder, or more usually gravity can be turned off.

Other rooms include: a fitness room, holography deck, small cafeteria, auxiliary control, artifact containment, override room, and a personal room for the commander (where they can sleep and such). A few places can be shielded from detection by sensors.

Communicators in the form of digital watches can communicate back to Epsilon (not between each other, except via the station with an open channel). They can teleport people onto the station, but prefer to whirlpool them off. They have the technology to synthesize component elements, but limited power. They are able to shore up a planet’s dimensional weak points.

The project only pays people “in adventure, a better life, favours to be named later kind of deal”. The female God Alice has referred to would seemingly veto a male administrator, as their egos are deemed “too fragile”.

PLOTS

Plot for Story One: Numbers Game (2014): People with powers learn that someone is messing with clocks. This turns out to be Phillip Denomolos, aka “the Denominator”, a 20-something tech genius. He was being influenced by Lissa Jous, in his dreams. This allowed her to rewrite his reality and dimensionally jump from her own.

Plot for Story Two: Wish Fulfilment (2015): An artifact is granting wishes on a fantasy world. Wanda, apprentice to the wizard Qifarihm, was tired of male beliefs affecting their magic reality. (Females need a focus object to control spells.) With the artifact, she took over his job. Snowball, the white cat, became a pink unicorn, while a (formerly) imaginary elf named Pelinelneth became Wanda’s companion.

Plot for Story Three: Full Scale Invasion (2016): A small scale world is being invaded by large scale objects. The Department of Extradimensional Objects (with Larry Appleson and Bonnie DuChessy) knew of previous smaller anomalous objects, and worked with tech. Meanwhile the Magic Users Club (with Michaela and friends) used fantasy items. Queeny (and City Hall) tried to clamp down on everything, and it took Cure Axiom to learn their answers were with Clyde, former DEO head.

Plot for Story Four: Epsilon Delta (2017): The Epsilon station in the multiverse is in trouble. A cyber arm Beam brought back went rogue, trying to crash the station. A parallel planetary investigation with Firestorm led to tracking a woman named Destiny - even though that became outside the scope of their mission. Dealing with her abduction by Compton (Jr) revealed multiverse issues with his father.

Plot for Story Five: Chanced Erasures (2018): Infiltrating a school that knows about the multiple dimensions. Chartreuse (there to rescue Alice) was mistaken by Sam Depas for being in the ‘work elsewhere in multiverse’ club, aka ‘Clover Club’. Sue Morts (limited invisibility power) and Sir Thred helped investigate. Mind manipulation and ending dimensional travel (to halt immigration) turned out to be involved.

Do you have a favourite story so far? A reminder you can answer simply based on the summaries, you don’t have to have read them all to vote.

[crowdsignal poll=10539455]

The only real thread through stories 1-3 was Alice, who was subsequently fired. In story 4 we see someone still wanted the missions to continue solo, recruiting Beam. The crew then determined that a shadow group was spreading dimensional knowledge to various Earths, their only clue being a clover shape. This led to discovering the existence of “Clover Enterprises” in story 5, a seemingly nomadic organization taking money in exchange for information or favours. Possibly manipulating the progress of worlds.

Where do you think this might be going? Did you want a revisit of any prior worlds?

IN CONCLUSION

The votes above (in this entry) will give me an idea of whom you might like to see more of. And the usual way I write is to shift point-of-view every chapter, so this way the preferred characters might get more POVs. But of course, I make these stories up on the fly, so we’ll see what works with the narrative as well.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, for plot or otherwise feel free to comment. For instance, I’ve been debating bringing Trixie on board, now that anyone who read my last serial is aware of her. But do I have too many female characters already…?

Until next time, I hope you were able to do some voting here, and please do spread the word… I’ve had 10 days with zero pageviews on this 300+ story entry site so far in April, maybe we can do something about that. Thanks!

At the end of “Epsilon 4”, I did a “Paths Not Taken” for some additional notes. Here at the end of “Epsilon 5”, I’m going to do a “Behind the Scenes” post instead, as there’s more here about statistics and, well, behind the scenes stuff. (As opposed to individual poll results.) In particular, I’ll go through the various anagrams I used for the names, so if you want to figure those out on your own, read “Chanced Erasures” first.

Back in July, when “Surveillance Mission” and “Rescue Mission” tied on the initial plot voting (3 votes each), I considered calling the fifth Epsilon story “Search and Rescue”… only to notice that Part 13 of the previous story had been named “Search and Re-Skew”. Also, Part 30 of Time & Tied had used the S&R title.

So, I decided to look up anagrams. Options for those letters included “Cascade Her Runes”, “Arcane Cues Shred” and what I went with, “Chanced Erasures”.

As I said at the time, Chartreuse was always a given to return, and then Para was voted in (only 3 votes total on that poll, no idea why half of people didn’t read that far down). Alice, as the person to rescue, had actually been flagged for either a physical, mental or magical battle right from the start (which was the poll that would end part three), but I hadn’t intended for her to end up with a role as large as the one she got. How did things evolve?

FIRST HALF

The statue of the guy who started the school was Fenduro (Founder). I also planned for their trek through the school to trace out “ERECTS”, an anagram of “SECRET”, but starting in the Clover Club with the R (with “E” being in the gym, Sue’s intended starting point, that we never saw).

Part four introduced Shay Milds (Slim Shady) though his last name was only spoken aloud in part twelve, as well as Usa Staling (Assaulting), the head of security. Part five was when I mused about a second interrogation, leading to Marlin in part seven. He’s NOT an anagram, nor is the catgirl Mary-Lynn Emrys (from part eight, named in part thirteen). Both are plays on “Merlin”, from Arthurian lore, since the throwaway line about the burial ground/magic wars was becoming plot relevant.

Part six gave Sue “Storm” her invisibility. Part seven is when the “chanced erasure” title finally connected with the idea of erasing memories (in considering Thred being a victim). And that’s also when I had 30 consecutive days on the blog with fewer than 10 page views, meaning the WordPress scale reverts to decimals. Leading in part to a delay of a whole week in posting the next part, because why am I even.

That was actually the second delay - recall part 3 was delayed by a couple days. (In that case, I was playing with “Time Untied”, to submit it for the Ink & Insights competition. It placed 68 out of 146, so in the top 50%.) What this other delay meant was I only posted once for all October 2018.

SECOND HALF

November involved work on nine, ten and eleven, even as I did NaNo for “Time Untied” (made it past 25k). By part nine, I wanted the mystery device to use anagrams somehow, what with it being the underlying theme. Part ten included the name “Polsit” for “pistol”, and twelve solidified that I’d need two more parts. The “No Antidote” button in part thirteen was for “Detonation”; an “Oyster D” button (to destroy) was scrapped.

It’s worth mentioning that I’d normally draw a picture at around the halfway mark; in this case, I only did it after the second last part (at the end of 2018). It’s the image above with the star. The delay was partly due to no time in Oct/Nov, and partly because I’d been hoping to start digital drawing - which I also didn’t have time for. Fun fact, after adding the image to the index page, it got automatically added to the tweet pinned at the top of my twitter timeline.

I think the only other thing worth a mention is how some of the current events stuff in the plot (immigration to a dimension, corrupt CEOs) was put in on a whim towards the end. I’d also considered having Alice save the day as an option to end part thirteen, but she’d seemed so popular I worried it’d be an easy win. So I went with Marlin, Sue and Sam instead. As I said in part fourteen, perhaps even that poll was predictable, leading us to the so-called “bad end” of secrecy. I didn’t want any end to be truly “bad” though.

The final character results split Alice and Chartreuse with 1 vote each. Because the last two polls got only two votes total. (Part five also saw only two votes.) Contrast the end of “Epsilon 4” when I was getting 7 votes towards the end, also in a December. Ouch. Was it the story itself? Was it weaker marketing? I don’t know, but let’s delve into that side of things.

STATISTICS

I had only 2,429 page views, as compared to 6,998 in 2017… marginally better than 2015, the first full year the blog existed (2,208 page views). Granted, 2017 had a huge spike from a guest post (a couple actually), but few people are sticking around. Or so it seems.

I’m open to suggestions. Part of the trouble is I don’t have time to market, my seven month old daughter (and family) takes priority, then there’s my teaching job (I was part time, now returning to full time), then there’s the writing, then there’s reading (which is months backlogged right now), then finally at the bottom is promoting. Did I mention some nights I only get five hours sleep?

As far as bright spots go, there is that little bump from July 2018, when I got over 500 page views. Someone did read through Time & Tied that month (silently). The final part of T&T (96b) now has 21 views. (Someone read through a bunch in December too.) And while the last parts of “Epsilon 5” only have 6 views, there were three different people commenting for the duration. I also got a shout-out from Joseph Nebus in the math carnival back in October.

I suppose there’s also how my site has now been protected from 6,276 spam comments. Spammers still have their eye on me? Does that make me important? Anyway. Also, as of today I’ve managed to get an additional quarter, loonie and toonie from 2018. Just for the record.

I think that’s everything I had to say. The plan is to continuously run Melissa’s story through 2019 - it started last week, if you missed it. After that I might return to Epsilon… we’ll see where things are at. Progress on “Time Untied” is slow, but gradually coming together. And if you didn’t know, I have been writing monthly columns for the “Time Travel Nexus” as well. Here’s hoping you stick around to see more of what I’ve been putting out there. As always, thanks for reading.

[caption id=“attachment_2286” align=“aligncenter” width=“150”] December 2018[/caption]

Number four! This site’s first two “Behind the Scenes” talked about how I fit writing the first Epsilon serial into my busy teaching schedule. The third such post, from the third Epsilon serial, talked about a rough patch in April (third busiest teaching month of the year).

I won’t really be talking about writing timelines here, but with this being the start of September, and being at roughly the midway point of Epsilon Story Four (when I would normally do a “Paths Not Taken”, which is now integrated into the posts), I figured it was time for another one. To keep you up to date on things. The TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) is at the bottom.

First of all, I’ve finally decided to consolidate my writing on a Facebook Page. My “Epsilon” updates, my “Any QBars” math webcomic updates, and any non-fiction writing I’ve been doing, I’ve been posting up there for the past month. I’m pretty sure Facebook’s algorithm sabotages any attempt to see it in a FB timeline, because I don’t pay, but it’s there, at any rate. That said, twitter (@mathtans) tends to be the first place I post.

[caption id=“attachment_1997” align=“alignright” width=“202”] CHIBI BEAM
Commission from Gen Ishihara[/caption]

Second, I went a bit crazy at ConBravo 2017 this year with commissions. (After not being sure if I would go.) You should have noticed the new pictures for Beam and Kat, featured in recent “Epsilon” updates. I also got art for two characters for “Time Untied”, Sherlock (seen briefly in the Book 5 Teaser) and Peaches (you haven’t met her). I plan to include those images in my ConBravo recap, which will be flagged on the aforementioned FB/Twitter.

Third, I’ve just launched “Any Qs” (my personified math comic) on Tapas. So if you don’t know what that is, and want to follow that storyline along from the beginning, you can check it out here. (Alternatively, binge on my other blog site.)

Finally… where is this site headed?

A LOOK AT 2018

This takes us to late(?) December 2017, which works out well. It means I can rerun content in January, the second worst month of the whole year. (Seriously, there is zero turnaround between marking exams and second semester, yet report cards still magically have to be completed.) What will I post in January? Well, I’m going to toss that option back at YOU, my readers. There is a poll below. Note we’re not setting anything in stone yet, it’s just to get a sense of what I should be cleaning up over the next couple months.

I am also not certain whether I’ll shift back to weekly posts or not in 2018. It will depend a lot on my mood in four months’ time, along with how well this site (and my writing) is doing generally. At any rate, here are the options.

OPTION 1: ROSE ORIGIN STORY

Rose seems to have become the lesbian darling of the latest “Epsilon”, which is impressive considering she’s less than a year old creatively. She’s part of a 90,000 word novel I wrote in Nov-Dec last year, “The Girl Who Speaks With Algebra”, which I re-edited in April. It’s a 31 part story that blends a mathematical fantasy land (and math facts) with Rose’s coming to terms with liking girls during her first year at University. It’s written in first person.

On the up side here, more Rose. On the down side, at 31 parts, I’m probably going to split it. I’d run 16 parts (which could mean 32 weeks, into summer), take a break for another “Epsilon” story, then run the last 15 parts. Well, unless a majority of people think that’s a terrible idea generally. I also suspect it means Rose won’t feature in that middle “Epsilon” story, because yes, she’s a-dork-able, but I don’t want there to be too much of a good thing. (I might bring back Chartreuse instead.)

OPTION 2: VIRGA MYSTERIES

[caption id=“attachment_2011” align=“alignright” width=“202”] MELISSA VIRGA
Commission from Shirley[/caption]

Back in 2003, I created the character Melissa Virga, an upper year University student who is also a witch and who takes on supernatural cases in her spare time. The story is written from the (first person) perspective of James Conway (no relation to Kat), a first year student who ends up rooming off campus with her. So effectively Watson to her Holmes. I wrote three cases, each of which splits into 4 parts, meaning it would run 12 (or 24) weeks.

On the up side, you get to see some new characters - and in fact, there was a SEQUEL, written in 2012, that we could then tackle at some point further down the road. (The sequel is “Rose Origin” levels in length, as it takes place as James graduates, and he has to decide whether to stay with Melissa’s agency or not.) In case it’s incentive, selecting this also means Rose is more likely to return for the next “Epsilon” (even meet Chartreuse). The down side? Well, supernatural might not be your preference, there’s no math, and the writing is less polished than Rose’s story.

OPTION 3: OLD FUSION FANFIC

This option will take some explaining. One of the first stories I ever wrote involved taking the characters from “Sailor Moon” (specifically its second season), the plot of the anime “Marmalade Boy” (and its relationship polygons) and fusing them together. I wrote 13 parts over the span of four years (1996-2000). Then last month, August 2017, I wrote two more parts to complete the series. Meaning “Marmalade Mercury” would run for 16 parts (there’s a backstory entry too).

The good news for you is how it DOES bug me when things are incomplete (I’ll discuss more T&T below), and this would be an interesting window into some REALLY old writing of mine… along with what happens when you revisit a story 20 years later. On the down side, if you’re expecting action and magical girls, sorry - again, I used the plot of a relationship-heavy anime (in fact, “Marmalade Boy” was relicensed this year). Meaning this is more Rose levels of angst, played out with Ami Mizuno and her friends. (Melissa Virga would have been your magical option.)

OPTION 4: OLD PARODY STORIES

Back in University, I used to write for the campus math newsletter (and even edited a few terms). This included the serial “General l’Hopital” (5 entries in 1997, 6 in 2001) a soap opera parody full of every math pun that exists, the serial “Quantum Loop” (6 entries in 1998, 6 in 1999) a parody of “Quantum Leap” which was somewhat more mathematically educational, and “Sine Field” (4 entries, sporadic) a sendup of “Seinfeld”.

This option is the most flexible. We could run all the “QL” for 12 parts, leave for an “Epsilon” story, then come back for “l’Hopital”… or not come back at all. Or do one of each for 12 parts, to see which one you might want more of. Or we stick “Sine” on the end of 12 parts to make 16 parts. Or not. If this is selected, there would likely be a sub-vote to gauge preference (meaning you’ll have some input, even if your top choice wasn’t picked). On the down side, these stories are shorter, and rather silly.

So there are your options. I’ll simply leave this poll open for a while (so if you REALLY can’t pick, come back in a couple weeks and vote for your other preferred choice). In December, I’ll do some sort of runoff vote (of the top two choices?).

[polldaddy poll=9821963]

CURRENT WRITING

I am pretty sure “Time Untied” won’t start a blog run until 2019 though. The in-universe timelines for it are… messy, to say the least. Fabulous, but messy.

Also, know that for the last six months, I have been putting “Time & Tied” on the RoyalRoadLegends (RRL) website, daily. It hasn’t changed too much, aside from edits to remove extra exclamation marks, tighten dialogue, and remove instances of ‘mama’ so Carrie doesn’t sound like a Southern Belle.

However, I did change the “Woodlands Detour” segment to place it at the end of Book 3, which I think I like better. There were a few changes to make that work. Also, I streamlined Book 4 so that each part didn’t have it’s own title. In case anyone wants to check that out (it has some character polls too). It’s currently on pause after ZERO comments through Book 4. Like, I think people gave up reading entirely.

I’ve put in a timeline for my RRL rankings at the bottom of this post.

And then, of course, there is “Epsilon”. I imagine my habit of banging out a new episode whenever I feel like it from Sun-Fri will need to change, what with the teaching. I do have the new graphic for Story 4 though! It’s usually around the halfway point when enough has happened to crystallize an image in my mind. What do you think?

On the plus side, we see the Epsilon Station for the first time. I had very vague sketches back with Story1 - the reason the main room was called the “Hub” was because the station was circular. I’ve now fleshed it out. There’s a vague “Deep Space Nine” vibe which I noticed after the fact. (Also, Beam’s appearance gives me a Carrie vibe, but wow are they different personalities.) On the not-so-plus side, the ONE guy (Kat) gets centre stage. But I do see him as the link between the lesbians on our left, the ladies to the right, and the problems on the station below.

It’s also occurred to me that I do put a fair bit of thought into the poll options that I create, which might not be obvious to anyone but me. I bring it up here in case anyone might want to try this sort of story themselves. For example: in the previous vote? I mentioned that Rose would be the person who would be deputized by police. Yet I wondered, was it wise to do that, or should I have kept it vague? Because I could just as easily have had it be Kat, or Beam.

I chose to mention Rose, because (as I said earlier) she’s kind of the lesbian darling character, and as such it might sway some people into picking that option, which they wouldn’t have otherwise. By the same token, I needed to match the Rose choice with a consequence (leaving Firestorm behind), so that it wouldn’t be picked out of hand and feel like railroading. A lot of my thinking is trying to create balanced options.

In fact, I probably overthink some of these vote choices. Only the readers can tell me if I’m succeeding in crafting something that makes them pause to think before they click “vote” though.

STATISTICS

You can see peaks where I guested on other sites though. July 2016 (technically end of June), December 2016 (somewhat coincidental), and May 2017. May is also when I got a boost from Tartra’s review at WFG. (I think that’s it; I peaked. It’s all downhill now.) There was also April 2017 (the April Fool Swap), and February 2017 (guest post on a time travel site)… these apparently helped preserve status quo more than anything.

As far as the “RoyalRoadLegends” site goes, RRL allows overall rankings (max 5 stars), review+ranking, and full ranked reviews in categories (for character, plot, etc). I began posting on February 23rd with Part 1a. At the end of the month (6 days later), February 28th, I was ranked #8430 with no followers or ratings. From there:

-March 2nd: First rating (5 stars) which ranked me #4250. -March 3rd: First full review (all categories) by someone with “free time on their hands”, which put my average at 4.75 and ranked me #2688. -March 26th: Over a month in. Third rating, which overall ranked me #2213. -April 1st: Guest post (Apr Fool) at Fantasia, at a time when I had 7 followers. Also applied to “Order of Phantasmal Architects” (went nowhere).

-April 6th: Having briefly peaked at 12 followers, dropped back to 10. A poll on Part 23b managed 3 votes (one came via Fantasia). -April 16th: Into T&T Book 2. Still only 3 ratings, rank down to #2275. Only one person commenting semi-regularly. Had never posted much in their forums, soon stopped monitoring altogether. -April 25th: Two months of daily posts. Rank #2328, no new ratings or favourites for April, average Rating 4.83. -May 1st: Existing rating was revised higher, jumped to #1942. -May 2nd: Second full review, jumped to #1230.

-May 15th: Fifth rating, jumped to #1155. -May 31st: Into T&T Book 3, halfway (three months) produces A SECOND favourite (first was in March), now 17 followers. -June 9th: A THIRD and FOURTH favourite, rank having slid to #1208. -June 14th: Sixth rating, jumped to #1004. -June 15th: Existing rating revised, jumped to #905. 21 followers. -June 19th: Third full review, jumped to #611. -June 20th: Eighth rating + review, plus a message, jumped to #511 at four months in. Average Rating 5. It’s downhill from here.

-July 8th: Existing rating revised down, slid to #676. -July 16th: Into T&T Book 4. Ninth rating, boosted back up to #599. -July 31st: A FIFTH favourite, now at 25 followers. Five months in, I’d started automating posts by this point. Average Rating 4.94. -Aug 1st: A SIXTH favourite, 26 followers, rank #613. -Aug 8th: Tenth rating, rank back to #605. -Aug 24th: Cannot seem to maintain 30 followers, keeps sliding to 29. Average Rating 4.9, rank #624. Most recent poll (July 12) has only 1 vote. Only 1 comment in the last 30+ posts/days, on an early post; nothing about Book 4. The post from Aug 1st has 36 views.

At that point, with twelve days worth of posts remaining, I stopped posting daily. Then I stopped posting altogether, saying if anyone actually cares to see the edited finish, just leave some kind of comment, anything really. The “mathtans paradox” (term from grishnax, for if a consistent writer is never noticed) may be in effect. I can’t market. The T&T story isn’t normal fare for the RRL site though.

So, I’m kinda depressed! But that’s standard fare for me. Though this site has only been going strong for three years, I think you need ten before anyone’s talking about you? To close things off on a SLIGHTLY brighter note, the song parody I did for the cubic formula is up to 900 views (as of Sept 1) on YouTube, after 14 months, which is unprecedented considering my holiday videos can’t even claw their way to 100. So something I did is getting traction.

Thank you for reading to the end! This post got away from me a bit. O.o

TL;DR: Math comic’s on Tapas, T&T isn’t forgotten, vote for 2018 content, and new “Epsilon” in a week. Spread the word.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 94-96

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 12, 2009

2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa

3. Changes of note: -Chartreuse’s time car talk had been more cryptic (stone skipping) -Convention of “young Carrie as Buffy, adolescent as Betty, adult as Liz, old as… Eliza?” (totally dropped) -Laurie and Tim briefly flickered out of existence too -Carrie thought of gassing the control room, not Glen -Elizabeth was going to give up sooner, and send the others back -Buffy’s second appearance with the apple (was recall only) -Carrie somehow blew up the Miami time car by thought alone -Buffy’s final battle had her as “Betty” (adolescent) -Carrie made a case for inevitable victory, being part of her own past -Elizabeth/Buffy forgiving Glen and Carrie (simply knocked them out) -Timeline branching! (was cutting the time loop, restoring in present) -Elder Carrie being temporally frozen (had been in imploding building) -Chartreuse having a battery (had merely grabbed gun from Tim) -Lee knocking out guy with dictionary (had been fly bar inside bldg) -Julie and Corry were at library, Corry getting stabbed -Chartreuse now in hospital with Carrie (had been Corry) -Hank Waterson had asked Carrie about his wife/her mom (she initiates now) -Chartreuse’s work with Beth and “vision plus” (had been all Carrie) -Carrie’s quip she could appear with a new gun, apple-style (gone) -Laurie as valedictorian (hadn’t been specified)

4. Additions of note: -Elizabeth now interacting (briefly) with future resistance people -Tim and Laurie got middle names! -All talk of Theresa/Mindy’s fate and her role in things -All talk of resistance forces (including lockdown references) -Brief physical fight was added (before Carrie flinging time energy) -Foreshadowed timeline branching, using wall circuits -All scenes with middle name people during battle (including Glen knockout) -New inner dialogue of Elizabeth’s powers pushing back at her -Chartreuse explaining to Luci & Lee before firing the gun -Carrie/Chartreuse girlfriend banter was new -Talk of the alien artifact as being a fixed point

MAY DAYS

[caption id=“attachment_1932” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] Begins May 4th, 2 views. (Comments includes Pingbacks.)[/caption]

The first, a review written by Tartra for Web Fiction Guide on May 6, 2017. That led to a new max page view count (143 on May 7th) as someone from Hungary binged through the entire archive. Her review also prompted something else - a massive revision on my part. Some of the feedback I get, I can only nod and shrug at (“Carrie’s a bitterly unlikeable protagonist”). Other feedback makes me realize changes are necessary (using ‘mama’ makes Carrie sound like “a Southern Belle from Texas”).

Along with the ‘mama’ issue was fact that there is “no reason why they all sound like they’ve been academically peer-reviewed”. Huh. Yeah, I am bad at synonyms. There truly IS no reason for Laurie to be using a word like “transcript” or Clarke suggesting they “circumvent” things; it doesn’t fit their personalities. Blindingly obvious in retrospect, but it flew under my radar. And once I knew, I couldn’t just let that sit… if it was disrupting Tartra’s reading experience, it was surely doing the same for others.

Starting May 13th, I went back to do a massive overhaul from the beginning. My energy started to peter out late in Book 2, but even so, ALL parts up to 47 have now been revamped, a number of them for the first time since their initial posting. It doesn’t fix everything. Frank gets a free language pass, as he’s supposed to be socially awkward, and so did Julie, trying to be a CEO. Corry and Luci (as their foils) also got latitude, to keep it manageable. Everyone else? Smacked with a thesaurus… in their dialogue, not in narration. Is it any better? We may never know.

The second reason for the viewing spike last month was a Guest Post at Drew Hayes’ site. His “Super Powereds” story is in the top 10 at “Top Web Fiction” with over 150 votes. He posted in the WFG forums about being away in late May, two months in advance, giving me plenty of time to think about what to write. (And I thank him for accepting me, despite how I knew my serial would be winding down.) I considered doing another story prior to “Book 3”, like I’d done with Jim, as well as something after the Epilogue, in the summer. That likely would have involved Carrie doubling up an artifact to prevent some sort of fireworks explosion, and at once point was even tentatively titled “Minute Waltz”.

It never quite gelled. Then, in late April, I had the thought of building to the main characters through some secondary characters. I felt they’d need to still be in high school for that. Azure was the natural choice, and with that, everything else came together within a few days. Using a bank robbery was a bit cliche (Jim did one in his guest post too), but I didn’t want to go with a mugging. Hence, a part in between the hospital scene and the graduation. There was the thought process behind that writing.

The day after my post on Drew’s site, my maximum page views leapt from 143 to 458. The Thursday also saw a count over 250, before things settled down to about 100 in a day (still way above normal). It’s usually trivial to see when one or two people are going through the archive (like it was last December). Now, for the first time, with a number of people in different places, I honestly wasn’t sure how many there were. There were 131 referrals in within a week, and I think at least a half dozen people made it to “Book 2”.

It’s a nice note to go out on. Another thing I now recognize is that my writing is pretty clinical and structured, and likely needs more emotional resonance. Something I’ll need to work on, assuming I’m able to fix it. (I really am very structured in my thinking.) So yeah, I’m still a bit in the “I suck” phase, hopefully the new “Epsilon” shows promise. One last shoutout now, to Rev Fitz, who reviewed the site on May 21; there was a slight bump before Drew’s post, which I’ll credit to him.

And a few final notes before we get into the last of the T&T Analysis: -I have six 2017 coins, quarters and nickels, and have had them for over a month now. I think part of the reason is it’s Canada’s 150th “birthday”, prompting the earlier rollout, but I’m still sure there was a year I got two current pennies back in February. Anyway, it can happen before summer. -A few interesting related news articles that I found but never linked to: The idea that the Future Can Affect The Past (related to observational states), how Befriending Your Future Self is good for your health (literally what Carrie does), and Physicists With a Model for a Time Machine (it needs exotic matter). -“The innumerable possibilities…” line, spoken by Frank to start what is now “Respite II”, is in fact a call back to the SHUFFLE! game OP, which you may recall was music I’d decided might fit in with my “Season One” opening sequence. It all comes full circle. (The next “Shuffle!” theme to use might be “Really? Really!”. “There is one more possibility…”) Carrie’s response to Frank is a much vaguer callback to Steins;Gate.

SPOILER SECTION

As far as pacing goes, if we’re talking “3 act structure” (meet in act 1, tear up life in act 2, resolve in act 3), I like to think Book 4 works… except, of course, Carrie isn’t even THERE for most of the “tearing up” part; Chartreuse and the rest have to deal with Theresa being Mindy. (Also, a number of characters entered into act 1 already “broken”.)

Does it work, having the main character GONE for such a large part? And with call-backs to earlier books? I hope so? Certainly the plot as a whole feels like it works for me, temporally. It may help if you envision Future Carrie as being the present, what with Mindylenopia going back sparking the entire rewritten history, and hence why “our Carrie” became “Elizabeth”. Related, I suspect Tim’s new middle name subconsciously came from the “Piers Anthony” books on my shelf, while Amelia is from “Doctor Who” (Amelia “Amy” Pond).

Speaking of characters, let’s switch over to them. To make it interesting, I’ll list the twelve mains in my personal preference from least to greatest. Feel free to speak up in the comments, about my order, or any differences you have on my personal takes.

TIM: He never fully gelled for me. I never even settled on a medical condition. Very underused in Books 1 and 2, because there wasn’t much linguistic going on (the lawyer connection helped keep him involved). His arc in Book 4 basically involves him fitting in without being taken advantage of, knocking out Glen being the cap on that, but that was a late addition.

GLEN: Kind of a slave to the plot, plus has this unhealthy obsession with Carrie, who is all but a confirmed lesbian (something he’d know in the future). I didn’t want him to be an overt villain, but despite sticking to his internal morals, I feel that’s what he was reduced to in the end.

CORRY: The antagonist for Julie, meant to be a decent guy deep down, but we never saw a lot of that. Which itself is fine (and he is a self aware jerk) but when the school plot finished, basically, his plot did too. He became a catalyst for Laurie. We got some insight into his past with Book 4, but that was only because the original writing for him there didn’t work.

CLARKE: The conscience to Julie, and in a way, he suffers the same fate as Corry. We don’t get much of him unless Julie’s involved. His Julie fixating was handled (I hope), in the conversation before their work on the car, but while I felt like the relationship angle did tie up decently? There’s not much more to him, aside from being a nice guy.

MINDY: Another jerk-style character, but with a better conscience than Glen or Corry. Her time as Theresa helped with that, but even Future Mindy displayed some perspective on her role. Possibly the first character I’m truly satisfied with (which holds for the ones below too).

LEE: The satellite member of the group, his arc peaked early, when he willingly became involved to help with the chip. Which Carrie messed with. Still, his immunity kept him relevant, his family is interesting, and despite his penchant for nicknames, he cares for the others and follows through on that with actions.

LUCI: I’m a bit surprised she’s not higher, but the adoption and ties to Frank ended up defining a lot of her character (we never even see her parents). I wish I hadn’t given her the extra sexual trauma, but didn’t know what else to use as I did edits. Still, over the span of the story, she came to terms with her emotions, with failure, and it felt plausible that her Future version managed to keep her life together.

JULIE: She wants to do the right thing. In Book 1, she thinks the right thing is winning her parents at any cost. In Book 2, she thinks vanishing completely is the necessity. In Book 3, she tries to help her friends, the only way she knows how. Now in Book 4, I feel Julie’s finally grappling with her own fate. With not being manipulated, overtly or otherwise, and admitting to Phil about their relationship. And while Future Julie was mean, her actions did come from a place of caring; I put her through a wringer. She makes it into the Top 5.

LAURIE: Laurie, sweetie, you managed to surprise me at every turn. A naive and sobbing counterpoint to everyone in the early drafts, you started to take control with every revision, and ended up literally kicking ass in a new addition. Your babbling became passionate speeches, and somehow, despite the insanity around you, you never compromised your principles. You are truly a Veniti (as well as a valedictorian). I foresee a different, brighter future for you in the new timeline.

FRANK: The only male character to rank highly, I will admit he is a bit of a self insert. So maybe the blinders are on. While most of his arc towards getting along with people was back in the first Books, the biggest setbacks he faced were in Book 4. One could argue he was forced into the hard situations, like mediating between Future Luci and Future Julie, or telling Mindy about her inevitable death, but even if his options were limited, he stepped up to the plate. In some sense, he ended up as the glue holding everyone else together.

[caption id=“attachment_1933” align=“alignright” width=“203”] Carrie Commission (2014)
By Kai-Shii[/caption]

CARRIE: For all her flaws and inconsistencies (including apparently being a tsundere), I do like her. In Book 1, she was out for herself, lashing out physically. In Book 2, she accepted she wasn’t the centre of the world - even as events showed she was. In Book 3, she was beaten down, and pushed into a journey of personal (and sexual) discovery. In Book 4, she tried a Julie-style sacrifice, and when her friends wouldn’t let her, she found a better way. Her speech at the end, about coming to terms with mistakes she made and will make, to me, that’s key, and is what this whole story is about.

CHARTREUSE: Like, ohmigawd. She got herself a girlfriend, the hard way, via the hospital. Grappling with temporal theory on the way. So many of the new scenes involved Chartreuse somehow, and even in edits she stepped up to fix plot holes, left, right and centre. All my guest posting incorporated her, and heck, there’s probably a reason I put her into Epsilon even before all of this went online. She’s also the mystic and fantasy entry into a mostly sci-fi world. And she makes me smile. Well done, Chartreuse, you came far from very humble beginnings.

Do you agree with my choices/reasoning?

The plan for “Time Untied” is to keep those last two together, but have Carrie at the University of Ottawa and Chartreuse at Carleton University, in the same city. Because I wanted Chartreuse, but didn’t want her and Carrie too close; their interests are different, plus being forced apart will allow their relationship to grow (or falter) as needed. Also, the only other city with two universities I know well, Waterloo, is more tech-oriented… Frank’s liable to be there, and I do want to pull away from him.

Speaking of the sequel, I mused through a few other titles before settling on “Time Untied”, including “Time Release” and the related “Time Re:Leased”. If you read the bonus post from last Friday, you’ve seen that it will involve the existence of at least one OTHER person who has powers like Carrie. (Hey, it’s a second timeline, after all.) That’s why the whole story needs to be pre-written, later elements are SURE to impact earlier parts (much like Book 1), and it needs to be internally consistent.

At the same time, if you squint, there’s other details that were never really explained. The pocket watch Elaine had, which somehow seemed to synch up with time travel. The relevance of Mr. Veniti doing genetics research in the past. Why Frank only gradually faded from existence in that Timeline Three. All threads that have vague explanations in my mind, which may or may not be pulled on in the sequel as needed. (You’re welcome to hypothesize by commenting here, in advance.)

Anything else? Well, quick shout-out to the guy in the future control room being called “Walter”, a reference to “Stargate SG-1”. Also a shout-out to Mez, since my first revision of Part 96 removed all references to Carrie’s mom, and it was his comment on the earlier part which prompted me to put some of that back in. And a final thanks to Scott Delahunt, John Golden, and Chris Burke, for their support over the years (giving us Principal Dell Hunt, Julie’s psychologist Doc Golden, and the teacher Mr. Burke).

Maybe this universe will be back. Time will tell.

Parts 94/95/96 were originally “Endgame” which became the title of 95a. Remember you can still VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction”, any time, so that others might find the story. Thank you for reading.

Coming This Sunday: “Epsilon Project” continues. The vote in Part 1 is still open!

“Time & Tied” PARTS 88-90 1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 27, 2009 2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa 3. Changes of note: -Originally went to Carrie’s 45th birthday, specified as 2029 -Constant attempts to upgrade Clarke’s “phone” with every edit -Future Luci is now in medicine, was teaching -Luci waited in the cafe and at first spoke only with Frank -Luci used to have tech-tech glasses (Julie gets them later) -Now in “Timeline Three” (was a technobabble “spiral time loop”) -Luci gave alien probe backstory in the cafe (not later) -Laurie only protested helping Mindy after they met future her -Luci gave Frank and Tim disguises to meet with Mindy

4. Additions of note: -Laurie’s perspective, with her backup plan in Miami -Inserted Chartreuse communicating to Carrie via crystal -All “Frank being dead” reactions (it hadn’t been “Timeline Three”) -All “prototype temporal gun” references (they’d brought the gun) -New flashback with Tim, where Chartreuse said she had the gun -Luci’s explanation of ways Carrie can temporally mess with them -Luci connecting that explanation to prejudice towards redheads

“Time & Tied” PARTS 91-93

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 30, 2009

2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa

3. Changes of note: -They’d met Julie in a limo outside a pizza place, with Luci -Julie had argued Mindy would die whether she helped or not -Laurie asked about Corry, prompting Julie’s revelation -Julie left; Frank never stopped her -Mindy claimed it was Glen’s idea to create Carrie -Carrie/Chartreuse scene had been Carrie/Glen & much shorter -Had been no fireworks to draw attention to Laurie as Mindy -Frank fired the temporal gun once, to help Mindy -Activation of Mindy’s time jump was different

4. Additions of note: -New discussion of predestination among time travel group -Julie’s remarks about Luci doing genetics work -Entire Julie/Luci reconciliation scene -Frank’s talk with Mindy about her destiny -All Lee scenes (including Megan, Tim & Glinephanis refs) -All Laurie/Chartreuse talk (including Linford’s son) -All of the “Redux” bleedthrough, up to Carrie in Miami

FIGHT THE FUTURE

Back in Commentary 24, I’d mentioned this story existed online with my old “Sympatico” website (in 2006). That index was updated in late August 2009 to list all 44 episodes (45 with the Pilot), along with a link to information about “Seasons 3 to 5” which I’d decided weren’t going to happen. After TEN years, the story was complete. It was then shelved indefinitely. I decided it had no future.

What first fought that future was “Harper Voyager” looking for new book submissions three years later. No agent needed. This story was the closest thing I had to a publishable work.

So, I spent the start of October 2012 pulling together the first 12 entries of then “Time Trippers” into an 80,000 word novel, “Awareness”. In the process of pulling it together, I edited to remove all mention of hard dates (1999, 2029, and so forth), also FINALLY changing the first sentence from “At the back of a rather nondescript two story house, a window rose.” to “A time machine. That would solve everything.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Here was my submitted synopsis:

“The mysterious arrival of a time machine into a small town acts as a catalyst for a group of high school students. It brings to the forefront a number of issues, chief among them how Carrie (the girl who discovered it) was affected by the disappearance of her mother, the numerous difficulties involved in the taking of time trips as raised by her unlikely companion Frank, and the disturbingly obsessive actions of her best friend Julie. As the story progresses, centered almost entirely upon a set of teenagers at the school, friends and enemies begin to turn up in the unlikeliest of places, which results in new allegiances and more questions than there are answers.”

[caption id=“attachment_1734” align=“alignright” width=“210”] Old picture of an older Luci. From “Escalation”, Part 29. No idea why the drastic height change.[/caption]

Nothing came of that (obviously; I heard back Jan 23, 2013). But it did pull the story back into my conscious mind. In March 2013, I re-sketched all the characters. By February of 2014, I had completed similar edits through the rest of Season One, with a second novel, “Escalation”. (That effort was modified more, in that it started with the characters in Grade 9 before blending in the “Luci Pilot” and chopping it’s size down for use as Chapter 2; see Commentary 13 for more.) Then I started into Season Two edits.

At “Anime North” (May 2014), I commissioned art of many characters (Carrie, Frank, Luci, Chartreuse). In July 2014, I posted Chapter 7 (the “Back to the Future” tribute) to my personal blog. By July 10th, I had completed edits on Book 3, “Destruction”, and by Sept 2nd, on Book 4, “Resolution”. (Which did not have the above edits yet.) In fact, before finishing the Book 4 edits, in the summer of 2014, I’d started work on the sequel, “Season 3” - in part because I’d just given up on my personified math serial (after 3 years of seemingly little interest), and yet I wanted to keep writing.

The epiphany hit a few months after starting this very blog. Time & Tied’s “Season 3”, with Carrie at University, was going to be SO much better than what had come before. And it would make no sense to put that story out FIRST and then these four “prequel” books AFTER. Rather, I needed to build towards “Season 3” aka “Book 5”. Even better, any feedback I got on the old stuff could only help me move forwards.

I began running “Time & Tied” here in April 2015.

It flopped. HARD.

Needless to say, the “Season 3” sequel hasn’t been touched since July 20, 2015.

FINAL STATISTICS

No one wanted to read the story, even with a decent review. And the few who were already reading couldn’t seem to pull anyone else in.

As I said in Commentary 15, “thank goodness I restarted personified math (as a webcomic) in August [2015] … it keeps me going”. (Personified math isn’t working? Try “T&T Season 3”. T&T isn’t working? Guess it’s back to reinventing personified math.) One of these days, I thought… one of these days, I’ll write something that others will enjoy reading and sharing. I stopped T&T here entirely after Book 2, and went back to “Epsilon” for an arc. Seeing voting helped morale.

For current statistics, we’re now well over two years in, and I still have a “zero view” day on my blog - March 12th, 2017. Amusingly enough, that was the same day my “best ever” view day was restored to 113 views from 108. (It’s a WordPress daylight savings time glitch. June 28, 2016 had been knocked down by 5 views, as WP seems to simply slide their timing forward and back, meaning hits between 12am to 1am slide between days.) But we shouldn’t be so granular! Right?

Above, you can see what things look like monthly (April 2017 is highlighted, as it ends today). Note November 2016, two years in, and two months after I started publishing twice a week instead, was all the sadness. So many more posts. So little interest.

But, contrast in December, when Mez and Tartra started reading, giving a massive boost… so if we average those, we do seem to have levelled off at 400 or so views in any one month. Which STILL represents no growth over a full year, despite the increase in volume (implying a decrease in readers) with me never missing a post. (For reference, this is post #225.)

And yet, despite the generally dismal reception, there are occasional bright spots.

The fact that YOU’RE reading this, for one. Heck, the story now has three decent reviews at WFG, and at least some people here I’d call regular commenters. That’s a change. My reposting at RRL has a regular commenter too. (We shall not speak of Wattpad.) And just this past week, I suddenly had two consecutive days with over 40 views, as one person went through the archive. (That hadn’t happened yet in 2017. Meaning I reached 10k views before my birthday, unexpected.)

Perhaps it’s little things like this which explain why, back in Summer 2016, I kept going. Stubbornly editing into Book 4. The new Chartreuse parts at the start (referenced in Commentary 23) were done in August 2016. I even set Personified Math aside to better focus, and completed all of the new work you’re reading now in October 2016. (Right before that month of sadness, AGH. Is fate trying to tell me something?)

In conclusion? Aside from some sketching for this final run, and minor edits for RRL posts, I haven’t done any work on T&T since last year. It’s all reposts. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know I’m just one more cis white guy in a sea out there, and there’s many other individuals and stories which should probably get more attention than this not-very-diverse tale does… and yet. I keep getting pulled back into this story. Am I the only one that deeply into it?

I did at least reread “Season 3” this year. With it’s 12,000+ words, plot info, and character sketch. In it’s 2015 archive. Does that T&T world have a future worth fighting for? I used to think so. Maybe I’ll think so again. If it materializes a year from now, would anyone here still be around? Would anyone new even care to read it? I honestly don’t know. Which I guess is better than being sure the answer is “no”.

SPOILER SECTION

I’ve now included “Additions” to my tallies above, because there’s so many things that weren’t mere “Changes”. The original two-parter from 2009 had been four entries, or 8 halves (#42 and #43, roughly 13,000 words). It’s now SIX entries, or 12 halves (roughly 24,000 words) of which we’ve seen five to this point. (I know we’re not at Episode 93 yet, I’ll avoid talking spoilers for that.) There were two reasons for the massive expansion.

The first reason was the “Timeline Three”/“Timeline Four” talk that was placed into earlier parts (in Book 3), which was extended here. I think it works better than random “clouded time loop” technobabble. The second reason is something Frank literally said in Part 91a, to Laurie: “I admit, to this point, I was looking at this whole situation as being a broken timeline for us to fix. But Luci’s made it feel… real. With real people.”

The original 2009 writing was “broken timeline”. This time, I reasoned that Julie should be more than a simple cameo, her dispute with Luci should be more real - and be resolved. And then Chartreuse elbowed me, saying “I must exist here too”, and having her there led to Lee, and even a reference to Glinephanis being in Australia. In a sense, I fell down the rabbit hole. (It’s like I ended up in the Season Four “Agents of SHIELD” Framework, wanting to save the world, even though it wasn’t real.)

One thing that happened in all the newness was Glen getting edited OUT. Carrie had originally been talking to him before her party (not Chartreuse), but it was very unclear as to whether this was the Glen she’d left town with, or a young Glen, from before she sent him back in the first place. And how did that then fit in with the Glen from Miami? So I edited him out of the future completely. When that felt like a plot hole, I tossed him “down under” with Future Tim.

Meanwhile, the addition of Chartreuse to the future let me fix a dangling thread that had always bothered me - that neighbour “Linford” who had tormented Luci, and gotten away. Reincorporating him hadn’t fit with the present timeline. Now? Future timeline. I could have Laurie save Chartreuse from the guy, finally giving that jerk some divine justice, and Laurie a broader character arc. I wrote the scene, read it back over, and thought that Laurie beating up a 70 year old man was kind of pathetic. Subsequently altered to be his SON, who references the fact that Linford got put behind bars. Much better.

Speaking of character arcs, Frank’s come a long way since the Luci/Carrie arguments of old in Book 1 too, managing to be the one to broker a peace between Future Luci/Julie. That felt right. And Tim’s also gaining confidence - he will gain one last little hurrah in the final parts. All new. The Temporal redheads thing, by the way, WAS there in the original writing, though it wasn’t explained to the same extent. (And kudos to Mez for his thoughts on the genetics back in Part 85. Hopefully everything’s held together.) Incidentally, here’s a website noting not all redheads are in Ireland and Scotland.

A couple final things about the original writing. At one point, I’d entertained the thought of Glen being an actual alien, and the group ending up on a spaceship - changed to just having an “alien probe”, both in the original writing and here. Frank had also wondered if he was married to Luci (with him not being dead and all), following her idly referencing “The Time Traveler’s Wife” movie (from 2009, referenced in prior commentaries). And everything since Commentary 26 had been designed as the only two parter since that “Back to the Future” tribute – meaning a “Coming in PART II” clip! For your entertainment, it was:

Coming in Part II: [in back of a limousine] “By all means,” Julie stated, “let’s have her die right now in her present attempt instead.” [outside, in the dark] “I’m not about to ditch you,” Mindy said. “But before we reach the building, there is one other thing to discuss.” [driving a car] “Here,” Carrie hissed, her golden eyes flashing, “Here is a real challenge at last…”

None of those quotes survived. (It ends where we left off with 92b. Granted, it won’t actually ever be made clear now whether Carrie in super-speed mode also includes driving a car or not.) Onwards!

Parts 88/89/90 were originally called “Fight the Future” which became the title of 89a; the previous parts were still revealing that future. The following titles (“Insight the Future”, “Reunite the Future” and “Rewrite the Future”) were riffs on that. Parts 91/92/93 were originally “Fight the Future, Part II”, so I just came up with new things. I’m rather proud of “Veni Vidi Veniti”.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis, and with us nearly being done, this may be the last chance for anyone to lay eyes on this thing. I hold no hope of anyone voting while reading the archive years later. ^_^

Coming This Tuesday: Carrie versus Carrie, but likely not how you think.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 84-85

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 20, 2009 2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa 3. Changes of note: -Now a bigger speech by Laurie, also teaching Beth cheerleading -Scene with Mr. Waterson was new (previously offscreen) -Beth spoke with a random student, not Chartreuse -Scene with Clarke and Theresa was new (going to Julie’s) -Beth had approached Megan, not the other way around -Megan’s motivations (women’s lib used to be Claude’s birthday)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 86-87

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 25, 2009
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Frank’s mental flashback with Tim moved a bit earlier -CSI:Miami reference had included talk of “upcoming spinoff show” (NY) -Glen originally escaped before they arrived at the airport -Tracking device on Glen was new (had followed sound of a scream) -Carrie had dressed like a stewardess rather than her mother -Question for Question format now tried to make exposition interesting -Had cut away for truth of Carrie’s mother; audience learned later with Frank -Now a longer scene with the Elder Carrie -Frank had lamented leaving the temporal gun behind

“Time & Tied” PARTS 88-90, completed by AUGUST 27, 2009 Information to follow in next Commentary.

CHARGING TO THE FINISH

More on that future next time. For now, a quick look back at the parts involving Beth. I’d made a habit of starting into the next serial entry (“episode”), whenever I’d finished the last one. That way, I’d have a sense of where to go next, in case it was months before I got back to the story. So Part 84 (half an “episode”) was basically completed by March 21, 2008. It was dusted off over a year later, and finished through Part 85 (“after commercial break”).

The note I’d left myself in 2008 was that I wanted to include Beth’s point of view, and somehow wrap up the Megan angle, which had gotten away from me prior to the talent show. So it made sense to have them talk. The content was different with that first effort, as I referenced above. I prefer the new rewrite (see spoilers below for why).

Continuing on, I’d never been to the Miami International Airport (MIA) as of 2009, but WAS there in December 2014 (hence the photo in part 86). They lost the bags for our family as we went to a connecting flight (all but one bag, actually). This despite my in-laws upgrading us to first class. Not impressed. Yet the first hand experience didn’t cause any real change to the content of those parts in edits. I suppose I did pull up maps for reference, to avoid blatant mistakes.

As far as a car being left at an airport for three days, I didn’t do any research at the time, but (once again) stumbled on something later. Namely this article a couple years back: “Edmonton International Airport parking lots, home to 100 plus ditched cars”. So there is precedent. Alternately, here’s a hilarious tale of a BMW, lost in a UK parking garage for six months.

Even if later experience didn’t change the framework, you might have noticed the “changes of note” list is getting longer. That’s because lots of new elements are being draped onto that older skeleton. In fact, there are only two and a half episodes remaining in the 2009 material, which would mean five episodes - except there are, in fact, EIGHT upcoming (meaning 16 updates). Before discussing the repercussions of that in spoilers (below), an aside to talk about temporal inspirations.

TIME TRAVEL TV

Needless to say, “Quantum Leap” (1989-1993) was a huge influence on me, growing up. (Luci’s remark from Part 84, “Is that ethical? That can’t be ethical.” is another homage. The response in QL was “No, it’s television.” See also Clarke’s tow truck, “Sam & Al’s Garage”.) But there was another show influencing me back then too. “The Girl From Tomorrow” (1991-1993), an Australian television series that was shown in Canada.

That show has a teenager from the year 3000 (Alana) becoming stranded in the 1990s. She’s taken in by a family (which includes another teenage girl, Jenny), and the two work to retrieve her “time capsule” from the villain. The second season has them trying to fix a time error in the year 2500, introducing Nik (a teenager from that year) and the “time gate”.

Teenagers and time machines. Was my “Time & Tied” story all but inevitable? (And hey, speaking of inevitability, I wrote a guest post at the Time2TimeTravel site in March called “Models of Time and Fate” you can check out.)

Another show worthy of mention: “Seven Days” (1998-2001). In that show, they can go back in time and change things, but the trip is always seven days. I don’t think I ever caught this show as regularly (being at University), but you’ll see it took place as “Time & Tied” was first coming together. A sign there was a market. And I did use it’s theme music to make this Anime Music Video. (The anime was an OVA, “Natsuiro no Sunadokei”, or “Sandglass of Summer Colours”, about a boy living his summer out of order. Based on a video game.)

And another show: “Being Erica” (2009-2011). A Jewish woman in her thirties undergoes therapy, which allows her to literally revisit (even change) past experiences, by walking through doorways. This Canadian show actually began in January of 2009, meaning it was an additional kick towards getting the T&T story done in that year. I actually wrote the initial TV Tropes page for this show, after seeing that it didn’t exist yet. Further, an episode of my math serial (“Being Parabola”) was influenced by seeing it.

I suppose “Doctor Who” should also get a mention. I started watching it in the late 1990s, in reruns, while at University. (Third and Fourth doctors, if memory serves.) I caught the return in 2005, and have been following it since. Curiously, despite it being a serial itself, I don’t think it’s been as big an influence on me. There are also individual episodes of other shows that tackle time travel - in fact I created my own “TIME LOOPS” TV Roundup Page, which I maintain to this day. Let me know if you have a new entry.

In 2017, during this republishing, I’ve been watching the new “Timeless” show (shady organization tries to preserve their control of history). In fact, there’s a LOT of time travel TV out there now. “Frequency” (based on the movie of the same name). “Time After Time” (also based on the movie of the same name). “Making History” (a comedy on Fox). Plus “12 Monkeys” is in season 3, while “Legends of Tomorrow” and “The Flash” are established superhero shows doing time travel. Seen any of those? (I only caught “Time After Time”, until it was cancelled by ABC without airing filmed episodes. Not impressed, ABC Network!) Are there any other time travel shows that you have enjoyed, or which have influenced you in some way? Let people know in the comments!

SPOILER SECTION

As I mentioned, we’re heading into this storyline’s future. So, with the majority of the remaining action taking place there, it meant the present had to be wrapped up (mostly) with the conclusion of Part 85. I don’t want to say too much yet (there are flashbacks and the coda to come), but if something sticks out as a “loose end”, now would be the time to warn me. It’s why I had the new scene of Julie inviting Clarke to help out (via Mindy), for their relationship.

Regarding the school… I realized at the start of March (2017) that I had never drawn Megan Falls before. Ever. So that image of her is completely new. Did you see something different in your mind’s eye? (For any of the characters?) Megan’s feminist point of view (in conversation with Beth) was also new, but made a lot of sense, in my opinion. It harkens back to Julie’s parental issues, and certainly felt like a better reason for her hesitation on hooking up with Claude than in the original writing (concern over a birthday gift). It’s also in line with her hate on Corry. In general, I’m satisfied with how her character, and the school plots in general, closed out. Are you?

In terms of who would go after Carrie, the only primary characters who hadn’t time travelled yet were Tim, Laurie and Lee. (Chartreuse only had the single round trip, knocking her out, but it counts.) Laurie was a given here, Tim needed a chance to shine, and Lee, well, he was always the “satellite” member. Too bad for him. I didn’t want to overload the group, so “understanding Temporal” was selected as being more important than “being immune to Temporal powers”. Thoughts?

As to what happened in Miami, Laurie’s insecurities were a lot worse in the original writing, particularly when her father turned up in the airport. (A touch I couldn’t resist. I like how Mez picked up on the genetics.) Laurie’s mannerisms got tightened up here; her week of being in charge of the cheerleaders was apparently good for her. The bit with Carrie’s mother being pregnant, that had been the plan for a while, though I can’t give a specific date for the idea (probably by Book 2, given how it ended). “Anne” at the Miami hostel was a VERY subtle reference to Buffy (Season 3).

The other thing that deserves some mention - it’s Future Carrie! I’d always envisioned Carrie vs. Carrie, and it seems the elder version wins Round One. She numbed herself, and would have managed to strand the time group in the past, if not for Mindy’s efforts. In fact, with the “April Fools” update (you read that entry, right?) by Michael Fitzgerald, he portrayed her very well: More experienced, with better control, and a darker personality. How do you fight that? Well, first we’ve got to get a clearer picture of the future itself. Stay tuned through April, and thank you for all the recent comments!

Parts 84/85 were originally “Powering Up” which became the title of 84a, since we don’t even see the powered up time car until that part. In fact, “Powering Up” was meant to be the entire theme of Season Two, the same way “Coming Together” was meant to be the theme of Season One. Parts 86/87 were originally “The Plain Truth”, which became the title of 87a, because that’s where we learned about Elaine’s pregnancy. It’s a deliberate riff on “The Plane Truth”, the title of Parts 3/4, when we first met Carrie’s mother - get it? Parts 88/89/90 were originally called “Fight the Future”, and we’ll get to that in due course.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I’ve added a “science fiction” tag there for more visibility. I’m also now publishing from the start on Royal Road Legends (slightly re-edited, currently nearing the end of Book 1), feel free to give me a ranking there if you’re able. Phew, this was a longer Commentary than usual, thanks for reading!

Coming TOMORROW: It sinks in where the time travellers truly are.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 80-81

[caption id=“attachment_1584” align=“alignright” width=“232”] Old sketch of Chartreuse & Lee[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 30, 2006
2. What I Was Doing: Part-Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Almost everything with Chartreuse was new -Working out where Carrie was going, bumped back into this part

“Time & Tied” PARTS 82-83

1. Original Date Of Completion: MARCH 18, 2008
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -More Chartreuse; her timeline work was new -Some of Mindy’s backstory with Linquist was tweaked -Added Lee preventing further physical acts by Glen -Inserted explanation of time travel by Temporals -The language, now “Temporal”, used to be called “Sectoral” -Added Julie/Clarke scene, to handle their relationship

EIGHT YEARS LATER

“TimelineUsed” was the last such text file I left behind, dated Dec 10, 2006. It got a lot more in depth than previous versions, by flagging more obscure names like Tracy Irving (Corry’s contact in England who knew Julie), by inserting Carrie’s departure from the present (then “Late May 2002”) and by pinning down Mindy’s identity (more on that in spoilers below, in case you didn’t catch that key part).

Despite the detail, eight years later, I was still trying to decide where to take things. And the writing was slowing down. Initially, I’d envisioned a five season (10 book) epic. By 2008, I wasn’t even sure if I’d get season two finished. Except I couldn’t set it aside completely, because I wanted people to read it, and I asked myself, who would read an unfinished story? That’s where I was at, mentally.

Then, in August of 2009, I saw “The Time Traveler’s Wife” when it first came out in theatres. (Which is rare, normally I give movies a few weeks.) That energized me enough to work through the remaining five episodes from this point forwards (which, after edits, will become 13 parts, not the usual 10). Ergo, before we continue into those final two arcs, let’s look at stats, and wrap up the Mindylenopia connection.

RANDOM STATISTICS

[caption id=“attachment_1585” align=“alignright” width=“188”] Old sketch of Theresa & Tim[/caption]

Individually, only 7 people have seen Part 80 (“Vanishing Act”), posted back at the end of January. As Lightdefender has reminded me, by following the RSS feed, no page view would register… but I think it’s clear this story is gaining zero traction. The last time anyone looked at the start of Book 2 (“Missing Piece”) was back on Feb 4th, and a view for the start of Book 3 (“Talking to Herself”) requires tracking back even further.

The frustrating thing is that I know there’s interest in time travel out there. The TV show “Timeless” wrapped up it’s first season last Monday, and I was live tweeting along with tons of other people. There’s a new comedy time travel show, “Making History”, coming out in March. The movie “Arrival”, which has time travel as a theme, was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Why can’t I tap into this?! I’ve given two interviews in two months (a local author’s site, and a serial page on Facebook) and it hasn’t seemed to help at all. Is my story that bad?

Now the good news. In the past week, Paul Wandason has approached me about writing a guest post on his time travel blog. (“Time2TimeTravel”, find it there.) It could help, and has added a “like” to my Facebook page, bringing us to 15. I also have eleven blog followers, up two from 2016 - hello to sweetmotivational and cuteanimallove. John Golden commented this month. And I am still getting mentions out there: k-fish of Redwood Crossing offered an unsolicited plug back in December (that I only recently saw, oops) and Scott Delahunt posts me regularly to Facebook.

I have also, as of Feb 23rd, started posting Time & Tied on the site Royal Road Legends. (The turnaround for approval was surprisingly quick, a little over 24 hours.) I’ve reformatted Book 1 to split all parts in two, the way I’m posting now. I fixed my possessives (I hope), cut back on my overuse of exclamation points, and made a few other minor changes. The plan is to post there daily for the next half a year. (Yes, this tale is over 183 half-parts.) We’ll see how that goes. If you have any pull over there, maybe give a ranking? If not, it’s cool, thank you for simply sticking with me.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that some of the early parts, previously published on this very site, have been edited as of the week of February 5th, 2017. (The Facebook banner was also updated then.) Notably Chapter 1, streamlined to have some better grammar, and Chapter 11, to include a brief appearance by Theresa. Honestly, I’d thought she was already there, alongside the first cafe reference. Somehow, I’d made a mental edit in my head. It doesn’t really make a difference, although Theresa has become a relevant character in the midst of Book 4. Speaking of…

SPOILER SECTION

At what point did the Mindylenopia/Theresa plot point come together? From the point of her banishment, I had it in mind that Mindy went back less than 20 years, and that she would be mixed up with Linquist, driving his alien vendetta (first seen in the abduction of Luci). The subsequent “Timeline” file, from before the start of Book 4, further postulated that Theresa was Mindy’s mother, while making it clear that Mindy was behind Julie’s reconstruction efforts. The “TimelineUsed” file (mentioned above) finally melded Theresa and Mindy - they were the same person.

As to foreshadowing? The cafe fire to start Book 3 was a happy accident (I forget why I’d decided not to have Theresa there), the couple lines of dialogue to Clarke post-Banishment were done in recent edits, and there’s one other much older Theresa item you may have forgotten about, which will help steer the narrative later. This is also why I know these random sketches I’ve been including in recent Commentary were done after 2005, given the presence of Theresa (above, with Tim).

Regarding the overall time travel plot elements, lots of the rest was originally there, but got shifted around. Carrie’s blowout with Glen was originally in Part 80 (day of the talent show). It was moved back to Part 78, which made space for the new Chartreuse romance (the classroom scene). Carrie’s letter to her father appears earlier now; it wasn’t revealed in the original until Luci read it aloud during the group discussion. Even then, they didn’t realize Carrie’s destination (her mom) until Laurie helped Frank connect the dots in the second discussion (the one after Glen and Mindy bickered).

The group also didn’t discuss Frank’s death until that second meeting. They couldn’t do it any earlier, because in that first draft, only Glen knew the truth. By picking up the dropped ball of the Carrie-Chartreuse romance in edits, I’d realized Chartreuse could be the vehicle to tell the group about Carrie’s Timelines, which made a lot more sense than Glen doing it. The tradeoff for Chartreuse’s torment was that she also got a surprise make out scene with Carrie.

I’m serious there - their kissing scene was new, yet felt necessary, and I thought that was everything. So I was just as surprised as Glen when Chartreuse blurted out Carrie’s love admission, then had her cry-fest extra-love confession with Laurie. Um, you go girl?

Back on the topic of changes, another shift was the talk of Future Carrie. Originally placed during Mindy’s technical talk, now bumped back to the day before (in that second talk, after the Glen/Mindy bickering). And all of the temporal theory talk (about burning dinner) was new. To be clear, the “one timeline” temporal thread in that talk was always the intention for this universe, but there was never any actual discussion of it in-story… and Frank’s question of Shady/Glen/Mindy affecting the timeline in different ways WAS valid. Wasn’t it? So we finally got an in-story explanation of time travel in Part 83. I hope it made sense.

Was anything else baked into original plans? Yup. The Venitis being in Miami, which is where Elaine disappeared. Planned since Book 2 or before. Hence why I twisted Corry’s ankle earlier - he’d taken Laurie’s place last time (saving Julie), but I wanted his sister on this trip. And Beth’s return from the 1950s was always planned in some way too. I mean, I gave her a hairband with a tracking device, for goodness sakes! Though I hadn’t known then that this was where I would use her.

So, at this point we HAVE been in Timeline Four since Book 1, Chapter 1 (as Chartreuse deduced). Even though the cause for it was in Book 3 (Mindylenopia). And if Carrie seemed a bit abrasive in Book 1, she has this whole dual protagonist/antagonist thing going for her. Antagonist of Timeline Three, Protagonist of Timeline Four. And yes, Future Carrie of Timeline Three IS a legit threat, as I had always intended for her to face off against herself somehow. Oh yes, we’re going there.

But first, we’ll see more Beth, who I had always intended to make more religious, due to Carrie’s “angels” assertion. Beth now has to deal with school - and someone else, who became religious while I did my edits. Know who I’m talking about? We are now halfway through Book 4, and heading back into a bit more character work. I hope you continue to enjoy.

Parts 80/81 were originally “Vanishing Act”, so that was Part 80a. Parts 82/83 were originally “History Lesson”, but uh-oh, I used that for the second part of “Flashback” way back at Part 28. So I went with “Remaking History” as Part 82a instead. (Weird that both parts use ‘8’ and ‘2’.) Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis to help spread the word. It helps.

Coming This Tuesday: Laurie’s out, Beth’s in.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 76-77

[caption id=“attachment_1509” align=“alignright” width=“163”] Old sketch of Clarke & Julie[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 1, 2005
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Luci/Tim scene near start was revamped -Some added explanations in Julie/Tim scene -“Mr Francis” became “Mr Piquaud”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 78-79

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 4, 2006
2. What I Was Doing: Part-Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -EVERYTHING. Well, Corry’s blackmail plan survived. -Some later information also retroactively inserted here.

BACKGROUND FILES

“Timeline”, a file from Oct 23, 2004, was the file where I stored key events that had occurred - or would occur - in the story. This file was an update from the “TimelineA” file (referenced in Commentary 21). That new file adds in when Luci moved to town, elements of Mindylenopia in the present, and a bunch of future stuff is clarified - the file no longer ends with Glen going back in “Mid 2013”, that event is now “Mid 2027” (despite main events still occurring in 2001). There’s more, like 2025 being the construction of the first time machines, but that starts to tread on spoiler territory; we’ll revisit this at the next file update.

“TimeCha5”, my character file (also referenced in Commentary 21) is a version from Aug 25, 2006. Bizarrely enough, the only update I can see from TimeCha4 (in 2003) involves the insertion of Luci’s middle name (Isabella) - it doesn’t even mention Megan. That’s the last update I would make to this set of files until 2014, effectively present-day. Sidebar though, last time I mentioned my inability to give characters last names… Megan’s name was originally “Megan Fallows”. (Megan Follows, anyone?) That was shortened to “Falls” in edits for the blog.

[caption id=“attachment_1510” align=“alignright” width=“150”] Jan 22, 2005[/caption]

A few other files of note: An HTML file from October 30, 2006, linking to all the episodes thus far. It also included the titles for the next three episodes, implying I knew where I was going, mostly. Coupled with that was the image of a crystal swan I got off the internet (dated Jan 22, 2005). These were linked to off my personal Sympatico website at the time, so maybe old versions of “Time Trippers” still exist in web archives (the site was www3.sympatico.ca/gbtaylor1…). And then there’s the last of my Comments Files, which are dated Sep 24, 2006 and Oct 10, 2006 respectively.

Scott Delahunt and I have a history that dates back to before this story. Back in the late 1990s, we would comment back and forth on our fan fictions and other works - eventually including “TT”. Starting in 2000, I kept many of those emails, for his thoughts on Episodes 2-5, 9-13, 15, 16, and 18. (Recall each “episode” is two parts, so those cover through to the middle of Book 2.) I obviously wasn’t careful about archiving, hence, gaps. In that same directory are these two 2006 files, which are not emails, but IRC (Internet Relay Chat) logs, about Episode 37 (Parts 78-79) and Pre-38 thoughts.

CHANGING EPISODE 37

[caption id=“attachment_1511” align=“alignright” width=“204”] Old sketch of Corry & Laurie[/caption]

I started Part 78 thinking it would be an insert, doing a bit more with the Chartreuse-Carrie dynamic. Then I realized to properly address that, Carrie needed a scene with Glen too. So chunks of their talk from Episode 38 (coming up next) were transplanted, with the specific timeline references being new. The Chartreuse/Megan talent show vision issue, merely informed in the old 37, was then shown “on screen” instead. After which Chartreuse completely took over.

Episode 37 USED to be a Corry-Megan episode. In brief, Corry got Kim to knock Megan out, then they brought her out to the woods. They reset her watch (adding a fake time travel element, so she thinks it’s after the talent show), and then Corry leads Megan on a false chase after Laurie, culminating in the blackmail plot, at the train station. Two problems. First, the fake temporal element creates unnecessary complications (Megan doesn’t buy it), and second, Corry is portrayed as being the “good guy” - in a story where he scares the wits out of a girl, for blackmail purposes. Uhm, yeah, hard sell there.

So, Chartreuse became our new “good guy”, as she endeavoured to understand Megan, rather than deceive her. I went along with it, because: (1) It allowed me to explore Corry’s initial reasons for controlling the school. The whole story with Laurie and Josh smoking was new. (2) It forced ME to understand Megan. Every single religious element was new, and fortunately these rewrites were in time for me to retroactively insert Megan’s cross necklace into Book 3, at her first appearance.

Was ANYTHING kept? Well, Kim still made an appearance. Linquist’s cabin in the woods is in both versions. Ditto Frank’s sonic grenade, Corry dressing up like his sister, and his twisted ankle. Also Chartreuse doing the recording… except in this version, she turns it off, then chases Corry away. As a result, Megan is mollified instead of justifiably LIVID. Oh, Frank also appeared in both, though this time it was for the new scene with Julie, which helps to explain why they’re back on speaking terms in the next entry. Originally, he showed up mainly to collect his grenade, having helped Corry as a favour to Kim.

With all of that in mind, some thoughts from that IRC file on Ep 37: At the time, I’d mused on it being a “filler/setup ep, but it felt needed”. Scott agreed that Megan was a loose end. At that time, I wasn’t certain about revisiting Megan afterwards, barring Season 3 (FYI, she will return). And Scott also correctly pegged why I’d put Corry out of action with his ankle - do you see why? Talk later shifted to Scott’s story of the time, and whether Corry and Rita would get along, so instead of getting into that, let’s now look at how everything threads together.

SPOILER SECTION

The school plot is mostly wrapped up now. The school politics (between Carrie, Julie and Corry) were largely what carried us through Book 1, back when time travel was experimental. It led to Julie’s school story interweaving with the time travel in Book 2, ultimately taking her out of the picture. But I couldn’t leave Corry in charge for senior year - he would get too much of a swelled head.

In Book 3, as the time travel came more to the forefront, Megan was devised as a rival to both of them. Now, in Book 4, Megan is in charge - but letting the student body do their own thing (more or less). We even got a look at Corry’s school domination origins, to balance Julie’s earlier story. So while there is a bit more Megan to come, hopefully you feel like the overall high school aspect of the story has reached a satisfactory conclusion. Let me know if aspects remain unsatisfying.

Elsewhere, the time travel plot is close to firing on all cylinders. Are we in “timeline five”? What does that even mean? A lot of the earlier parts were instrumental in setting up where we’re headed, though I suspect (hope?) it wasn’t too obvious at the time. And as much as I might want to mention specifics here, it’s better (and more entertaining?) for you to see those things as they come up. It will be gradual.

Turning from plot to characters, originally, Megan was something of a cipher. She merely served her purpose by turning the tables on Corry (and Julie) for once. As I mentioned above, I didn’t delve deeper until these edits, when Chartreuse confronted her. As a result, Megan has now gained more of a personality, and there’s method to her madness. Religion was not an angle I’d expected.

I suppose you could say I’m Christian, in that I had a religious grandmother who gave me a Bible, I once did Sunday school, and I went to church… on special occasions. Yet my parents themselves didn’t insist on anything religious, so for over twenty years now, “Christianity” has idled in my subconscious. As such, lot of web searches were necessary for Part 79, to pull Megan into focus. Is she plausible?

To be clear, adding religion didn’t feel totally out of place, given how the concept of free will is tied to time travel. Consider: Megan baits people, to see what they’ll do. Well, when Carrie told herself to “talk to Chartreuse” to start Book 3 - was there really a choice there? Or was it predestined? However, religion IS edging out of my comfort zone, so don’t be afraid to call me out on inaccuracies, or to offer up some new religious insights.

As far as other characters go, we’ve been seeing more of Tim. Like Megan, aspects of him are also a cipher to me. I know he needs to take over-the-counter medication, and has an occasional stuttering problem, but I’ve never been sure whether those elements connected to something physical or mental. Only that it meant he kept mostly to himself. There’s no revelation coming there; let me know if you have thoughts.

Regardless, Tim is now part of the group, thanks to his connection with Clarke and Julie - Chartreuse’s old “two degrees of separation” (2DEGS) group has again been fully integrated. And a linguist will be helpful - did anyone see the movie “Arrival”, late last year? It’s not really like that, but there’s your precedent for language being used in time travel fiction. As Mez pointed out in a comment for “Bad Signs”, the language in Linquist’s logbook will now be referenced in dialogue using % markers.

Lee has also come more to the forefront, in helping to create the stalemate between Julie and Corry. He’s always been my satellite member of the group. They help him out, he helps them out, but he stays on the fringes… I’m hoping he comes across as the most “average” out of any of them. The “grounding rod”, if you will, a normal guy dealing with otherwise extraordinary situations. Things happen around him, more than they happen to him. Yes/No? What do you think?

I don’t believe there’s much to say about the other characters at this point. Laurie got some extra backstory in Corry’s story… Julie is coming back into the fold… Carrie is dealing with how she is destined to leave town. It will all play out shortly. In fact, after a bit more character work between Chartreuse and Carrie, plot effectively takes over. Also, temporal explanations. Stick around, won’t you?

Parts 76/77 were originally “Double Blind” which became the title of 77a, since 76 set up the issue of who to trust. Parts 78/79 were originally “Truth and Consequences”, which was the title of 79a, for very similar reasoning. Remember, you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis.

Coming This Tuesday: Carrie leaves. (The story doesn’t need a protagonist any more, right?)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 71-72

[caption id=“attachment_1441” align=“alignright” width=“191”] Old sketch of Carrie & Glen[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: NOVEMBER 5, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Added Chartreuse talking to Carrie on Phil’s behalf -More done with the Frank/Luci scene

“Time & Tied” PARTS 73-74

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 11, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Cassette tape changed to a USB -Altered ending for more Chartreuse, leading to 75

“Time & Tied” PART 75

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 13, 2016
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -ALL NEW

HAPPY NEW YEAR

*: An earlier version of this post gave the number as 32. Five more coins were found on a corner of my desk early in 2017 (four quarters and a dime) and the photo was updated.

[caption id=“attachment_1504” align=“alignright” width=“225”] 2016 Coins[/caption]

Serial Highlights of 2016: A guest post at “Legion of Nothing” in June, taking place right near the start of my T&T Book 3: “Power Play”. A guest post at “The Archive of Unusual Events” last week, playing with time travel in his universe: “13th Floor Concerns”. Two WFG reviews for T&T, by Inky Llama (Maddirose) in March, out of the blue, and ChrysKelly in August, after making the most comments of anyone (and that just across the first 27 parts). CrysKelly also gave me a shoutout within “Sanctioned” with MJ’s “Cats, School & Planned Parenting”, and k-fish mentioned this serial in the RRL forums.

Which brings us to December 2016, and what I would call a statistical anomaly. Since July peaked in views, at 942 with 230 visitors (due to the LoN guest post), and every subsequent month declined in both categories. Yet December had over 870 views with 126 visitors, with both Tartra (from WFG) and Mez (from TWF) starting to read and comment. Lightdefender and Scott Delahunt also chimed in with comments that month. I know it helps that more posts exist now TO read, but whoa. Thanks for all that.

For prior year comparisons, 2015 had 776 visitors; 2016 nearly doubled that to 1,450. 2015 had 2,208 views across 101 posts. 2016 had 5,495 views across 190 posts. Top referrers in 2015: 1) Twitter. 2) WebFictionGuide. 3) Facebook. 4) TheChaosBeast (Unruly) & InMyDaydreams (LoN) tied at 51. Top referrers in 2016: 1) Twitter. 2) InMyDaydreams. 3) Facebook. 4) WebFictionGuide. 5) TopWebFiction. (ChaosBeast still holding fast next at 52.) That’s not counting links in from my forum posts.

The most popular post for 2015 was actually the first entry in “Epsilon Project” (181) not the first for “Time & Tied” (149); now the first “Time & Tied” entry is on top (596) followed by the indexes and About Me page before anything else. Incidentally, as of today, my site’s been protected from over 1,000 spam comments. Anyway, that’s far too much on stats. WordPress does a yearly round-up anyway. (Compare yourself to 2015 if you like, links to come.) On to Book 4.

ABOUT THE WRITING

My reasoning for all the unique titles was that I wasn’t sure about inserting new episodes. My initial Book 4 writing back in the 2000s was jagged, and spanned years… so I thought I might need to include “half parts” between old episodes, to deal with narrative gaps. As it turned out, that never really happened, but I decided to keep the separate titles anyway. This is also why I shifted to two-parters for the second part of Book 3, as I knew I’d be doing it when we got to this point.

[caption id=“attachment_1442” align=“alignright” width=“191”] Old sketch of Frank & Luci[/caption]

Part 75 was the first completely new part - and to some extent, became the ONLY new part in the whole Book. Other “new” parts (upcoming) are better described as additions within existing parts, or even complete rewrites of the old material. Whereas dealing with the Chartreuse-Carrie romance came in outside the old framework. I felt there was a LOT to cover, not the least of which was how Carrie felt about everything. All of which I opted to write from Chartreuse’s perspective.

I didn’t want two entries (75a/75b) of only Chartreuse though, so there was the Frank-Luci scene to get some better closure on their relationship (while foreshadowing something that originally had no foreshadowing) as well as the Clarke-Tim scene which let me call back to Julie’s November birthday (while showing what Julie had decided after seeing Mary, instead of merely telling later on).

This worked out fine from an in-story perspective too. After writing the part with Mary Clarke (late 2004) I actually didn’t resume the writing for almost a year (late 2005), and hence I dropped in a short time skip. Part 75 now fills that void of a week or two, while trying to recover the dropped ball of Chartreuse’s feelings. Something that we will see more of later too.

Unrelated to the narrative, we have new pictures in this post for Book 4 Commentary! They’re not commissions, but old sketches I drew - of uncertain origin. Because I don’t remember when I drew them; I stumbled on them some weeks back in an old binder. They must have been after 2005, for reasons I will explain in a later Commentary, yet obviously it’s before the pictures I drew when I started this site, to accompany Book 1. Are they worse than those images? Better? I don’t know?

One last thing. I’m very bad at creating last names. Frank’s last name (Dijora) I created by mashing my hands on the keyboard and rearranging vowels. Tim’s last name (Whitby) is a region just outside Toronto. Glen Oaks was literally the name of some memorial gardens I used to drive past. And Carrie? Carrie Waterson? (Water’s-on?) Her last name was a riff on Carrie Fisher. (Fish/Water.) With the actress’s passing last week, this feels like a time to mention that.

SPOILER SECTION

The main dangling plot from the prior book was Julie, and why she was pulling away. That’s resolved fairly quickly - she’s rebuilding the time machine, in secret, supposedly due to a message from the future. Of course, she might not have told Mary if she’d known about Carrie’s deal with Clarke, involving Glen, but that’s what happens when people don’t talk to each other.

Also trailing in from Book 3 was the Frank-Luci situation. They do split up. I’m curious as to how you feel about that; I can say there’s a couple of reasons why I did it. Granted, I’m hesitant to mention the one that connects to time travel (you’ll see it narratively later), but I also wasn’t sure where else to take that pairing - and the large gaps in my writing at the time didn’t help for continuity. Plus, with Julie and Clarke as my on/off couple, I didn’t want to make Frank-Luci equally wishy-washy.

Relationship-wise, Chartreuse’s feelings for Carrie also trail in from Book 3. We saw that Carrie, while conflicted about it, brings Chartreuse back into her confidence. That’s actually new from the edits. I realized with the new Timelines 1-4, covered in Book 3, that I needed a sounding board for Carrie who was not Glen. Particularly with Mary not staying in the picture. Chartreuse was the natural choice. Carrie has now told two people about Frank’s death.

Plot-wise, outside of time travel, we see a bit of Corry and Megan and the school situation. It’s not going to be a major component like it was in the first couple books, but it is still there, as a thread that needs to be addressed. Plot-wise, more temporally relevant, I dropped that hint about Mindylenopia. She is coming back, and she won’t be the only incidental character who returns from prior Books. (After all, we saw Azure and Mary too.)

Laurie, Tim, Glen and Lee start Book 4 primarily in the background. Even Carrie is kind of in the background, curiously enough. They will get their chance later. I hope you stick around for it. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. There were 54 votes in 2016; we waffle between 3 and 4 votes weekly, depending on whether I remember to vote for myself.

A final bonus, here’s what was in the original 2004 “outline” file before I started writing what became the start of Book 4. The “BREAK” denotes the commercial break, where parts split: -TEASER: Clarke tells Mary about the time machine. -Frank explains to Clarke how there is no time machine to show as proof any more. -Clarke speaks with Laurie about convincing Julie to talk to Mary. -Luci speaks with Mary about her surfacing memories of Linford and childhood abuse. -Corry speaks with Julie about talking to Mary. -After BREAK: Carrie speaks with Mary about the death of Frank. -Julie speaks with Mary about how she’s putting the time machine back together. -Glen uses his mind powers to alter Mary’s perception of events, but not before getting her to tell him everything the others spoke to her about.

Parts 71/72 were originally “Shrink Rap”, which became the title of 71a. Parts 73/74 were originally “Four Part Harmony”, the title of 73a. Part 75 was brand new.

Coming This Tuesday: Tim ends up with a larger role.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 67-68

1. Original Date Of Completion: NOVEMBER 24, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Removed an allusion to nudity that felt wrong (given the in-narrative author)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 69-70

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 30, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, after an EOT, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Altered an element of Luci’s backstory (see below) -Different “split” (commercial break) location for balance with: -Added Carrie’s mental conversations with herself (“Elizabeth”) -Added references to various timelines at the end

[caption id=“attachment_1334” align=“aligncenter” width=“211”] FRANK DIJORA
Commission from krakenface[/caption]

BAD NEWS FIRST

Right before starting T&T, I wrote an “April Fools Swap” entry for Jim Z’s “Legion of Nothing” site. April 2015 saw a surge of views from about 100 per month (for Epsilon) up to 300 per month (for T&T). Except by the end of Book 1 (in Sept 2015) I was at my WORST month EVER - only 91 views. (That’s page views, not viewers.)

Right after starting T&T Book 3, I wrote a “Guest Post” entry for Jim Z’s “Legion of Nothing” site. July 2016 saw a surge of views from about 300 per month (for Epsilon) up to 900 in a month. And now, at the end of Book 3 (in Nov 2016) we are at UNDER 200* page views for the month.

Yet it’s even worse. Not only has the site again plummeted to being less hyped during the climax of an arc than the beginning, Book 3 started running twice-weekly postings in September. (Including a “Previously” to help occasional readers.) So I have LESS hits on DOUBLE the posts! In fact, when Book 1 ended there were only 85 posts garnering those 91 views in a month. Now there are 176 posts garnering 190* views this month (projected). [*Final total: 220 views.]

Here’s how stats have looked on a weekly basis; the week before Sept 12 was when I shifted to TWO posts per week (can you tell??):

Isn’t that worse? I feel like that’s worse. Hell, “Shattered Part 2” (from four weeks ago) has ONLY FOUR VIEWS. Only three days out of the last thirty have over 10 page views (across 170+ posts) and only one of those days is over 15. All this despite getting a 3rd T&T WFG review from ChrysKelly in August (and a shoutout in his serial last month!), which was actually quite good. (Bright spot! Also the blog now has 10 followers. Woo!)

Conclusion: Is the “Time & Tied” story THAT boring? Or that inaccessible? Will no one else tell their friends? I know, I know, I waffle back and forth on making peace with my stats (I’m great but I can’t market) and throwing up posts like this (I fail as a writer). I’m not sure where I am now, but hopefully YOU feel better about yourself. Moving on to story analysis.

JUMBLED ORDER

[caption id=“attachment_1335” align=“alignright” width=“300”] Old animals sketch circa 2003[/caption]

I didn’t remove it entirely, because I thought we needed the mental break before the literal Luci/Frank mental “break”. It also foreshadows Glen’s actions (admittedly right before them, with no Clarke in between). Plus, hey, I wrote it, so why not. “Woodlands” itself was an attempt to recapture the “lightning in a bottle” that was Chartreuse’s story earlier in this Book about Tope Diamond. To that end, I think it fails? But does it still work as a comedy piece? … I hope so? (Does anything work on this site?)

There’s another jumbled order coming up - the start of Book 4 will be better served by swapping the order of the next two episodes, one acting as a better recap of this book’s events. Those will mark the last set of entires completed in 2004. Yes, four years of on-and-off writing, and the T&T storyline was getting away from me. I’d started it in University, then completed a year of private school teaching, a year of getting a formal Education degree at Queens, and a year of looking for high school work in Ottawa (and scoring a semester Feb-June 2004).

Speaking of teaching… yeeeah… as originally written? Luci was abused by a teacher, not a next door neighbour. (The “backstory element” I mention above.) Yikes. When I went back and looked at that on later edits, I had a serious WTF moment. I was not only disparaging my own profession, I was possibly making people wonder about me. (Hopefully NOT, I’m also not a misogynist like Julie’s father, but still, I imagine some cannot separate a writer from their works.) Changed at the first opportunity, and that’s the last I’ll say about it.

Something NOT changed was a sneaky hard date in the Woodlands story: Security Breach 08/22/88. That was the date of Carrie’s mother’s disappearance. And thus the date of the second time travel trip (Frank’s first). I didn’t see any other way to make reference to that in Hank’s story, so I simply left the cryptic numbers there… only if you’re reading this now, will you know it’s a reminder that no, I have not forgotten about Elaine Waterson. Hey, if that’s not incentive for Book 4, I don’t know what else is.

Book 3 is now DONE, as is Timeline 3, in a sense. The picture you see above is a sketch I made during the “Woodlands” writing. Laugh at my inability to draw. Let’s now get more into the rest, with spoilers for Books 1-3 only (not the one that’s incoming).

SPOILER SECTION

Did we have character arcs this time? Carrie was, of course, coming to terms with her temporal abilities - first through interactions with Chartreuse, then everyone, then Glen, and finally on her own. Hence how I labelled the arcs. I’m not sure how much she grew as a character; in some sense, she’s regressed, closing everyone out again. I hope her motivations make sense. Did you see any growth?

Frank’s arc went from being unsure how to behave in a relationship with Luci to literally giving up his life for her. Luci’s ran in parallel, as she tried to figure out her own emotional well being, while coming to terms with how demons from her past were a hidden influence on her present. Julie’s arc was largely building her back up to the force she’d been in Book 1, following her psychological crash in Book 2. Clarke didn’t really have an arc; one could argue he needs to find himself, he’s so tied to Julie - and now she’s cut him off.

Secondary characters? Well, Chartreuse’s arc was tied to her increased romantic feelings about Carrie. It was cut off by Carrie (but will keep arcing forwards). Corry’s arc involved his hubris and overconfidence, and now that Megan’s in charge, he may need to admit he can’t handle everything he thinks he can. Laurie and Tim didn’t have much of an arc (they’ll get more later). We saw more of Lee’s family, but again not much to him. Glen hasn’t really grown as a character either, he’s largely tied to plot.

Hey, plot! Hello! Hopefully timelines make sense.

We got our first explanation of Timelines 1-4, and that WILL be helpful knowledge in Book 4 (don’t worry, no memorizing, it will be in context). They’re actually something that came out of the re-edits more than the original writing. We also got expansion on the “Future War” that Shady discussed back in Book 2. Glen (Glinephanis) and Mindy (Mindylenopia) are Temporals, in a conflict with the Mundanes. Carrie remains at the heart of it - she is tied to time.

Related, Temporals have the power to (temporarily) control people’s minds, the way Shady did. (Except Lee’s immune!) The time machine has now been destroyed, but Carrie has demonstrated an ability to time travel without it. Again related, Glen indicated that Carrie has the power to bring others along on the time trips she takes. (Alas, not Chartreuse?) There is a “temporal gun” that Linquist apparently invented for shutting down someone like Carrie.

Plot loose ends? I don’t think there are many, in that a reader potentially has enough information to extrapolate the situation however they like. Does Carrie succeed? Do the relationships come together? Does Linquist return? Well, hey, what do you want to happen? I feel like Julie and that note is the only element really dangling out there as “the author’s up to something”. (Am I wrong?)

With that said, there IS a lot we’ll be revisiting in Book 4: Julie’s note. Mindylenopia’s location. Carrie-Chartreuse as a relationship. Megan running the high school. Linquist’s language. Even Carrie’s mother, from way back in Book 1. ALL of which can be read about without prior knowledge, so PLEASE encourage some other readers to join in, maybe??

Do you think I missed anything in my analysis? Was there something you particularly enjoyed, or hated, about Book 3? Are you EXCITED for what’s to come? (Are you out there?)

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I consistently seem to be hovering at 2 or 3 votes, so thanks for that.

Parts 67/68 were originally “Woodlands Detour” so, uh, “Woodlands Omen”, sure. It was a stand-alone effort, I felt like I needed a similar title. Parts 69/70 were originally “Do You Mind?” so the new title was the topical “Timeline Four”.

Coming This Tuesday: BOOK 4 Begins. Note to self, post the index tomorrow.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 63-64

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 16, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Tried to fix constantly changing Point-Of-View perspective

“Time & Tied” PARTS 65-66

1. Original Date Of Completion: APRIL 9, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: EOT position, teaching computers at SWL
3. Changes of note: -Venitis were originally leaving for March Break, adjusted to family outing -Fixed conclusion, Carrie had reverted back to being really bitchy

[caption id=“attachment_1280” align=“aligncenter” width=“204”] PHIL CLARKE
Commission, from Storm Cup Creations[/caption]

TEXT FILE TRACKING

As I’ve mentioned, the original T&T writing used hard dates, so the file begins with 1955 (the visit to Beth) and runs through to “Mid 2013” (when Glen was sent back), the majority of the story taking place in 2001. So, yeah, we’ve passed that year. Silly hard dates.

Also, 2013 raises questions of Glen’s age… let’s just say early drafts had more to do with “aliens” and less with the final product you get here. I’m not saying aliens WON’T factor in, but if and when they do, it won’t be as initially envisioned. (One rough plan was to have a time trip land on a space ship.)

The other text file updated at around this same time was “TimeCha”, my Character file. I last referenced this file set way back in Commentary #8, when TimeCha3 first included character birthdays. This file, TimeCha4, last accessed Dec 4, 2003, incorporated a lot of plot elements to this point from “Season 1” (S1) aka Books 1 and 2. For instance, the date of Julie’s first encounter with Phil, reference to Luci’s missing day, the age of the Venitis were when they left Miami, that sort of thing. Carrie’s powers are also itemized in this file for the first time. And Chartreuse? She got promoted.

CHARACTER UPDATES

Then there’s the fact that Glen Oaks also got an entry at the bottom, including his cover story, and there was a section added for “Minor Reoccurring Characters”. That last section included Linquist, Beth Parker, Theresa the waitress, and the teachers to date (Fisk, Willis, etc). Amusingly one remark in Glen’s section is that he “may or may not remember his mission (trigger word?)”. In these rewrites, he remembers.

Not much else to discuss before spoilers; for now, I’ve made peace with my stats. October looks much like September did, with a notable difference - there were actually two different people commenting on a T&T post in the days following publication. (The discussion of banishment with Part 62.) That was a first, and it DID lead to changes, with Glen giving more information to resolve those questions in the subsequent part. Plus me realizing I may need some timeline clarifications.

That sort of pushback is how I’d always envisioned this. Yay! Two years in, and things are sporadically working as anticipated. Even if the month as a whole is down by almost 100 views (441 in Sept to somewhere around 360 this month, if I’m lucky), while daily tallies very rarely manage to claw their way above 15 hits. On a site with 165 published posts. [EDIT: October saw 345, I was massively optimistic with 360.]

Okay, I’m not looking at stats again for a while. Oh, and I don’t know why Phil has glasses in the commission; artist’s prerogative? Either way, nice background there.

SPOILER SECTION

Here’s the thing. Even though a lot of the stuff in the old “Timeline” file doesn’t factor into what happens any more - I still don’t think I can talk much about it. Because TELLING you that ‘such-and-such’ won’t be a thing might squash some reader theories who think it COULD be. (Not that many of you are theorizing out loud, but still.) I mean, maybe aliens were really high up in your theories, and after what I said above, they’re lower?

I will say that the Timeline Entry for “Mid 2002”, which read “Glen gets Carrie’s friends to start the war against the aliens”… would turn out to not be a thing. There was enough causality floating around already, and ultimately I wanted most of the paradoxes to be centred on Carrie. Also, the original writing got even more sporadic going forwards, and that would have been even more to keep track of.

Somewhat related, any thoughts on the future war? Glen was pretty blasé about it in his talking to Clarke. And we only have his word on things, now that Mindy’s gone. Ah, and we saw Mindylenopia make her grand entrance and exit! Was she right, in the note she left for Carrie? You actually won’t have to wait too long for resolution there… we’re really close to finishing Book 3 now. As far as the Temporal/Mundane front goes, please stick around for Book 4. (Which I basically finished edits for today, yaaaay!)

Sidebar, the only people who actually got a decent look at Mindy in the present were: Carrie, Julie, Corry, Laurie, and Hank (yes, she was the “plainclothes officer”, that’s when she left the note). In faded light, add Lee, Frank, and perhaps Luci and Clarke. Not Glen himself. Isn’t that interesting? Well, maybe not.

Now, let’s tackle character. After the temporal action came together, I used Clarke as the vehicle there - much like I did in Book 1. (Does it work?) He’s a bit of an “every man”, in how he gets drawn into events. Where he’s savvy enough to say the right things, but not predict all the consequences in advance. And after he’s seen everyone, I dealt the death blow – Julie’s on her own again. Was the “farewell kiss” too mean? Frank and Luci are also on the rocks. Everything’s fragmenting (“shattered”) due to Mindy!

Guess what? It can (and will!) get worse, as I aim to conclude the book “Destruction” by having it live up to it’s name. But first, in the coming weeks, something more lighthearted… an episode that was actually written BEFORE the Clarke piece. I switched the order, so that the arcs work better, and because the tonal shift is a bit jarring in retrospect. You’ll see.

Final sidebars: Did you like the return of Clarke’s sister? She did feature in his flashbacks, way back in Book 1 (parts 11 & 12). I mentioned that in my remarks at the bottom of posts, but I don’t know if people care about those. Do you have any theories about what Julie was talking about last part? Apparently something to do with Glen, and a letter, but is it temporal? And do you see Linquist and his gun figuring back into things at all?

Parts 63/64 were originally “The Conspiracy Unfolds Part 2”. In my 2014 edits, I called the chapter “Banishment”, hence the lead-up “Blame Game” was new. Parts 65/66 were originally “Making the Rounds” so “Shattered” was the new title. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I do get some referrals in from the “fantasy” subpage, where 3 votes is enough to put us on the board.

Coming This Tuesday: The bizarre chronicles of Hank Waterson.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 59-60

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 5, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Hunt thinking to himself became talking to Melanie Willis -Computer teacher is now Mr. Burke, another shout-out -Added mention of Catholic religion

“Time & Tied” PARTS 61-62

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 24, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Carrie/Glen timeline discussion altered to increase coherency

[caption id=“attachment_1210” align=“aligncenter” width=“193”] JULIE LAMILLE
Commission from Gen Ishihara[/caption]

CLASS SCHEDULES

First, to point out how Book 3 keeps the “Semester Two” schedule, importing it into “September” - I mean, why draw up a new senior year schedule? Second, because this is possibly the last time their courses are relevant to the story. Originally, it helped not merely to know where they were, but for the sort of electives they took. Fringe benefit, I then knew the classes when Mindy rammed the van into the library.

Most were in Physics. Carrie (and Laurie and Glen, identical to Carrie) were in drama. And Corry, well, you’ll see was listed in physics too, but it felt more sensible to have him meet Julie in the hall. (Maybe he was skipping class!) There’s no more focus on the school for the rest of Book 3, and when the school is revisited in Book 4, course schedules are unlikely to be a major issue. So enjoy!

JUNIOR YEAR aka SEMESTER ONE (Books 1 & 2):

STATS AND COINS

As you can see, we’ve been on a downturn since the spike to end June (when I guest posted). Everyone who joined via “Legion of Nothing” seems caught up, and… hm, I was going to say “no one new is really checking the place out” but early this past week there was a LoN hit from someone who made it to Part 17 before stopping.

I have had also some hits in from a post in the RRL forums, where kaleidofish gave me a reference (Thanks!), but those viewers don’t seem to get past Part 1. By the way, mid-September I rewrote the first paragraph of Part 1. Doesn’t seem to have helped. I think I’ll keep the new twice-weekly format though, barring complaints?

On a slightly brighter note, I took a trip to BC in September, and I got five new 2016 coins (four quarters and a dime), proving that you don’t have to live in Ontario to get coins minted in the current year. That brings the total to 21 coins (one of those from Hamilton, and five locally in the last week), now including one of every denomination (the toonie was the last).

[caption id=“attachment_1159” align=“alignright” width=“300”] This really was my school.[/caption]

Speaking of coins - OMG, my childhood. When I was home for the summer, I found the case for an old geometry set. It didn’t hold mathematical implements. It held the coin tallies from coins I’d picked up in the halls while in high school. Yeah, that used to be a thing I did, picking up coins and looking at dates. I’ve tried to refrain, now that I’m still in school as a teacher, to leave them for the next generation.

The record papers mostly occur at the end of the year, so I’m going to assume it started some time near the start of 1991. Here’s the tallies:

I graduated 6 months after that, in June 1995. When found, the geometry case held 14 pennies (one is American), unchronicled. I must have decided to stop after December, but couldn’t quite do it. My childhood, gentle readers! Since that time, Canada began the two dollar coin in 1996, American currency became par with the loonie in 2007 (didn’t last), and our bills became polymer starting in 2011.

One last note before we hit spoilers, the original Computer Science teacher was given a name by me mashing my palms on the keyboard and adjusting vowels. It generated “Mr. Orbison”. Instead, you got “Mr. Burke” because he writes the math comic (x, why?) and is a pretty cool guy on Twitter. (Not saying that just because he let me use his name.)

SPOILER SECTION

Major Plot is finally happening, thanks to Mindylenopia. The original writing didn’t have the emphasis on “Timelines”, with Glen’s idea of preserving “Timeline 3”; Future Carrie had sent Glen back more generically, due to clouded elements in her past. In retrospect, this seems a better way to explain it. My hope is the whole ‘Future Carrie in conflict with Past Carrie’ has been an element since the start of this book - and it will occur again.

The other major change in the narrative was actually Melanie Willis joining Dell Hunt in his musings about the school. As originally written, he was having a dialogue with himself, which, yeah, probably as boring as it sounds. This rewrite gives Mrs. Willis a bit more characterization, introduces Megan later in the scene (not at the start) and ideally made that part more dynamic. Musical pun somewhat unintended.

One other minor insert was due to my August work on Book 4. (I’m 20 parts ahead.) Namely religion, an element I tend to avoid (along with race, which I discussed in Commentary #4) primarily because I don’t know much about it. Yet a character convinced me to at least consider Catholicism, so okay, it’s been foreshadowed. If you were paying attention, you who know I mean. Stay tuned for Book 4.

That’s looking forwards. Looking back, other elements have been falling like dominoes - Julie is back on equal footing with Corry, we know who Glen is, what the deal is with Linquist’s logbook, Lee’s favour was called in, the time machine’s being put to use and everyone’s back in the know… hopefully the buildup was worth it. There’s been less in terms of characterization these past weeks on account of all that, but I still try, like with Carrie’s reactions to Glen. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. And comment, also an option (thanks John “Doc” Golden!).

Parts 59/60 were originally “Power Struggle”, so the new second title was “Under Attack”. Parts 61/62 were originally “The Conspiracy Unfolds Part 1” so “Fragmented Plans” was the addition. This means the next part would have been “The Conspiracy Unfolds Part 2” (essentially making for a four-parter), so lots of new titles next commentary. Oh, and that cliffhanger with Frank? Yeah, you’ll be waiting on that for a while. Sorry, not sorry.

Consolation prize, the original part grabbed “NEXT TIME” quotes to use after a “TO BE CONTINUED”. I present those heading out, with a side note that apparently Willowdale Park used to be called Placid Park; I had no idea I renamed it.

Coming In The Following Weeks: [at the LaMille mansion] “What do you mean,” Luci began, “when you say that Frank is now somewhere in the FUTURE?” [in Linquist’s old lab] “In my haste to act, I made a right mess of things,” Julie fired back at Clarke. [in a warehouse] “You’re right,” Glen admitted. “You’re the one person we can’t risk altering directly, Carrie.” [in Willowdale Park] Carrie spun to face Glen, placing her hands on her hips. “You REALLY think I’m ready to face Mindy?!”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 55-56

1. Original Date Of Completion: DECEMBER 28, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teachers’ College in Kingston
3. Changes of note: -Valentine’s day dance became generic formal dance -Chartreuse falling for Carrie scene has seen adjustments

“Time & Tied” PARTS 57-58

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 24, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: Teachers’ College (Kingston) then Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Azure and Faye now in high school too, not middle school, causing name adjustments -Actually having cell phones, plus a reason not to use them -Lost in the snow became lost in the mud

[caption id=“attachment_1147” align=“aligncenter” width=“189”] LUCILLE PRIMROSE
Commission from Linda Ng[/caption]

BIGGER CHANGES

Also, in theory, it’ll double the view count. Because the negativity is setting back in. Three days after Part 57 went up, it had 5 “ReTweets”, 1 FaceBook share… and 3 actual views. (It now has 7.) More, the only comment on either of my fiction sites in the past 3+ weeks has been “Get off the internet”. How eloquent. Sun August 20th is the last time the site achieved over 30 views & 10+ visitors in one day.

One tries to focus on the positives. Late July’s “Silent Statistics” garnered the most comments ever, ChrysKelly wrote a 4-Star Review at WebFictionGuide on August 12 (yay), Scott Delahunt gave me a shoutout in this post last week, and I got a new subscriber last week too. But having dedicated the majority of August to new T&T writing and edits, I need motivational feedback somehow. Is this change a good idea? Bad idea? Let me know; I’ve got the next 6-week arc cued up this way. That said, there were “Bigger Changes” needed to old 2002 rewrites in the prior published parts too.

Last commentary (#18), I said shifting the storyline from February/March to September/October had necessitated only “minor tweaks”. There was more to adjust now! Some things likely work better, like Corry’s band performance occurring after more than a couple months, and some things perhaps less so, like how Corry’s been able to prevent an act like Sue’s for over half a year. (I did offer a reason.) The dance also couldn’t have a post-Valentine theme, that would be silly, so I took advantage to play around with the theme choice in the writing.

Slightly bigger scale was Azure and Faye now being in Grade 9, instead of Grade 8. While I could have simply widened the age gap between them and their siblings (Chartreuse and Lee) from 3 years to 4, I disliked modifying those character designs without good reason. The fix of Faye leaving school at the bell didn’t feel too out of line, and there was an even younger sister (Soh) to use for confusion purposes.

MOBILE HOLIDAYS

In the original writing, a few parts back, I’d ALSO mashed together Carrie feeling better on Saturday (end arc 3.1) with meeting Julie on Sunday (start arc 3.2). Which wasn’t feasible now that Carrie had an extra time trip to take (to Part 48) in there. Consider September: It’s initial week, then one leading up to Carrie and Glen going out, NOW one leading up to meeting with Julie and the lab, then the last (4th) full week leading up to the dance. The Sept/Oct weekend immediately after would be too soon for the King Affair (Part 57), but could I fit in another weekend before the extended one of Thanksgiving?

In 2016, the Friday dance would be Sep 30th, and no, no I couldn’t. Ditto 2017 (Sep 29th), and looking back at 2015 it’s worse, the “late September dance” would be Oct 2nd. It works for earlier years, 2014 (Sep 26th) and 2013 (Sep 27th) giving a full weekend in September before one more in October prior to the holiday, but that’s because Labour Day was early and Thanksgiving was late.

I decided the best plan was to have the group travelling back to Lee on the Saturday of Thanksgiving, which fit the model of 2016 (this year), and could be written off other years as an extra time skip of a week. Making the alignment different from the 2002 original (when this would have happened the weekend BEFORE March Break, not during).

I guess what I’m saying is, mobile holidays like Thanksgiving and Easter are a pain. But if I did my job right in the story itself, you wouldn’t have had to think about any of that.

OLD TEXT FILE

I do not know exactly what I meant by that last one. My suspicion is that originally, stuff wasn’t going to happen at the middle school itself. I probably shifted things there because otherwise the episode would have run long. Also, the original title in the file for Episode 27 was “Lost and Found”. I prefer the updated “Help Wanted” (from that July), and then of course my late addition “See Kings” (this year). See below for more about the King family name.

What’s particularly curious is I don’t know why I exported things out of WordPerfect 5.1 to that text file at all. It’s the only time I have anything like this. It would have been right around when I was getting my Bachelor of Education degree from Queen’s University (May 29th 2003). Maybe I was moving? I’d done that before, so why nothing before or since? Had I wanted to show it to someone?

I do remember showing part of T&T (then “Time Trippers”) to someone, but I feel it had been a month or so earlier. I had participated in a voluntary creative writing group “Writing From Our Hearts” at the Faculty of Education. (I have a certificate signed by Rebecca Luce-Kapler and Sheila Pinchin, everything warranted certificates back then.) I even remember we had special paper we used to write on. At the end of the group, I showed the instructor a printout of some of my “Time Pilot” (the bit with Luci that now begins Book 2). After looking over a page, she recommended I describe less, and show/demonstrate more.

Had that been my text file motivation? Yet I showed the Pilot only? It’s weird, the things we remember, and the things we forget. Remember to leave a comment if you agree (or don’t?).

SPOILER SECTION

Let’s again start by hitting character. The last month has been devoted more to the people outside of the core time travel group - Lee and Glen, with Tim and Laurie to a lesser extent. They’re all linked to Corry’s band! How convenient!

We should touch on Chartreuse first though - her budding romantic interest in Carrie WAS in the original 2002 version, but it came a bit more out of nowhere, then vanished and returned sporadically, whereas I’ve tried to have a bit more throughput here in terms of her reactions to Carrie post-dance. Hopefully it’s working. I’ve also retroactively added some “Spoiler Warnings” into Epsilon Project’s “Wish Fulfilment” index, which does touch on the destination after Book 4. Even if you HAVE read that, this journey may not be what you expect. (When I first started the “Wish” story, I hadn’t intended to put T&T online at all - oops on foresight.)

Exploring Lee’s family again was fun. Faye’s attitude towards their single mother was referenced back in Part 39, and now we meet Lee’s sister in person. I am curious as to whether you picked up on her line to Azure about their parents “sharing a bizarre sense of humour when it comes to naming their children”. Chartreuse Vermilion and Azure Vermilion are rather obvious. So did you notice…? At the risk of explaining the joke, here’s the only time you’ll see me link Lee’s family name onto their given names: Lee King. Faye King. Sing King. Soh King.

Tim and Laurie were seen more in passing, as reminders they exist, they’ll have larger roles later on. If you’re wondering about the additional focus on Joe and Tommy, part of it was red herrings against Corry, but we will see them again too. As to Glen Oaks, you won’t have to wait very much longer to find out what his deal is. Feel free to keep theorizing in the comments. It’s (unsurprisingly) tied in with plot. Ah, plot.

Slow plot is slow! They have started time travelling again. Carrie’s powers continue to trouble her. She’s progressing on having some mental shields, and being able to project herself along the timeline, astrally or otherwise, but not for great distances, and she tends to need anchors to grab onto. So what’s the deal with her random precognition, and what time did she end up slipping to with that vision at the dance?

We’ve also got Linquist’s cipher, his hidden lab, unrest within Corry’s ranks at school, Lee owing the group a favour, and various stages of romantic relations between main characters. The pieces are coming into alignment. Before the end of this month, the pin WILL be pulled, and all hell will break loose.

To conclude, some random anime references: “Fly Me To The Moon”, played by Corry’s band to start Part 55, was a reference (via Laurie) to the original “Evangelion” ending theme. (Chartreuse had made a similar “Laurie likes anime” reference earlier this book, with her “Card Captor Sakura” mixup.) The joke that followed it, with the “theme song”, would have been funnier with a cut to an actual Season Two theme song (very possibly from the anime visual novel “Shuffle”, if you saw commentary #18). And the art teacher’s name in Part 57, “Readman” comes from “Yomiko Readman”, the substitute teacher in the anime OAV “Read Or Die” from 2001.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I actually had 7 votes back at the start of August, and made it onto the main page (#42 of 45). These days, we’re lucky to get about 3. Maybe we can relive those days.

Parts 55/56 were originally “Tune Up”, thus “Tone Down” continued the musical play on words. Parts 57/58 were originally “Help Wanted”, so “See Kings” is a play on words for “seekings” given the charm search, as well as the King family name. I suppose you could also interpret it as “Sea Kings”, the old helicopters of the Royal Canadian Navy, but I’m not sure how you’d link the 30-year-long attempt to replace those into this narrative.

Coming This TUESDAY: Julie resumes asserting herself at school.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 51-52

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 14, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -Jean Chretien changed to being a communications filter instead of BEING PM. Originally Azure commented on past politics, Chartreuse the future, and Amber the present. -Carrie’s thoughts at the end, including taking the trip back into Part 48.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 53-54

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 24, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -Placeholder psychologist name Sara Bellum (Darkwing Duck ref) changed; see below -Producing more coins was a bigger issue, because February instead of September. -Checking for Julie’s tracks in the snow became checking security footage.

[caption id=“attachment_1093” align=“aligncenter” width=“222”] CHARTREUSE VERMILION
SD Commission from Neil Buday[/caption]

MINOR TWEAKS

Part of the reason for having a commentary now is because this is the last of “Season Two” that I was able to complete in the summer of 2002 - as of September, I was in Teachers College, and had to cut back on my writing time for this story yet again. But another thing I completed that summer was a new “Opening Sequence” for “Season Two”… in fact I finished it on July 3, 2002, before the first episode itself had been finalized.

That’s below - first some quick notes about Chartreuse and Julie. I think whenever one creates characters, there’s a piece of them in the writer themselves. For Chartreuse, I feel the link to me is the weird and random thought processes. Which is not that hard to write. For Julie, it’s more the self questioning, and her becoming withdrawn.

While I don’t have first hand knowledge of Julie’s situation in terms of her family (mine is very supportive), I did go through a stage in university when I cut myself and sought psychological counselling. I’m also very hesitant about making friends. That’s what I’m drawing on for her scenes; I hope it’s realistic enough without hitting any triggers or massive implausibilities.

The name of Julie’s psychiatrist, “Doc Golden” is a shoutout to John Golden, once the only person to have commented on the 50+ individual T&T story posts thus far. (To my delight, there have been two others in the last 8 days.) I okayed it with him; he’s also been supportive with my personified math, we did a comic co-venture recently. Originally, I had a placeholder name (Sara Bellum) but I wanted to honour John here in the same way principal “Dell Hunt” comes from Scott Delahunt, my main beta reader.

I suppose the other link we could make between the characters and me is how both Chartreuse and Julie have a desire to please others, going about it in different ways. As does most of the cast, for that matter. Or so I think - feel free to correct my perceptions in the comments.

OPENING SEQUENCE NO. 2

Guess what? There was a spinoff sequel, “Tick! Tack!” in 2005. Guess what? THAT audio and video works surprisingly well with this “Season Two” opening. (“The sequel, but diverged from the destiny.") It’s like someone’s pranking me, given how I wrote these first. Here’s a link, if you want to watch it with/before reading below. Which is again a direct cut-and-paste from 2002, apologies in advance for any typos or terminology. (Realism!)

<OP2: Fade in on a close up of Carrie Waterson’s face. Pull back to reveal she is sitting in the frozen homeroom picture from OP1, with the caption “Homeroom 3; Class of 2001”. As we pull back, we hear Carrie’s voiceover, over music:

“What if you had the power within you to control time? To see all of history laid out before your eyes… to know what’s happening anywhere in the world at this very moment… to foretell future events with alarming accuracy. Well, I have this power. But it has come with a price."

The caption suddenly ticks over to read “Class of 2002”. The image comes to life, with Carrie jumping up and running forward. Screen pauses on a waist-up shot as the caption CARRIE WATERSON flashes across the screen. Screen unpauses, and she moves offscreen to the right, revealing a guy with short brown hair, wearing glasses, who is trailing after her while looking down at a handful of notes. He looks up as the screen pauses, caption: FRANK DIJORA.

Frank continues offscreen to the right as two more people move in behind him, heading left. They are a girl with medium length brown hair and a tall blonde male who appears fairly athletic. He is smiling down at her, her expression is somewhat distant. A pocketwatch drops down between them to split the screen as the scene pauses, caption: JULIE LAMILLE. PHIL CLARKE.

Pocketwatch rises back up and Phil guides Juile off to the left as a boy with shoulder-length red hair runs in after them from the right, shouting at them. He is followed by his fraternal sister who has identically styled hair. Pocketwatch split screen with caption: CORRY VENITI. LAURIE VENITI.

They continue out as a girl with pink hair containing colourful bows enters, also following the others. A male with short red hair comes in too, going in the opposite direction (the same direction as Carrie and Frank did). He attracts the attention of the girl as they pass. She turns to look at him just before the pocketwatch splits the screen with caption: CHARTREUSE VERMILION. GLEN OAKS.

Chartreuse frowns slightly as both of them proceed out of the picture. Camera shot now moves in slightly to show two people still standing where the original homeroom shot was taken, one is a shorter, depressed looking boy, the other a guy who his combing his somewhat unruly hair. Pocketwatch split screen with caption: TIM WHITBY. LEE KING.

Pocketwatch withdraws and camera turns to reveal that someone has actually been holding the pocketwatch. It’s a fairly short oriental girl with dark hair brought back into two small ponytails. She half smiles as she tucks the pocketwatch away in her jeans. Screen pauses with the caption: LUCI PRIMROSE.

Luci turns and walks away as a small square appears in the middle of the screen, flashing a montage of images. The square continuously grows in size as the pictures continue, the sequence including: -A black box with a lever on its side, sitting in a ravine. -Carrie propped back up against the trunk of a tree, looking up at another girl with long, blonde hair. -A 21 year old oriental girl writing in a diary. -Frank peering out of the bushes at Glen, who is walking down the street. -Corry standing at a microphone during a school dance. -An older man with a concerned look watching Carrie, who is lying on a hospital bed. -A waitress in a cafe handing some papers over to Lee. -Julie sitting on a couch with Phil, her head on his shoulder. -Laurie and Carrie next to each other in cheerleading outfits, shaking pompoms. -Luci holding a candle and reaching for a file folder. -Tim and Chartreuse waiting in the sitting room of someone’s house. -Frank in a basement lab, peering down into the black box with the lever.

The last picture fills the screen, it’s Carrie staring out at you with golden eyes, her hair flowing out in waves behind her. She does not look pleased. Final chord for music. >

A number of those pictures were illustrations I drew for previous parts. There was a “commercial bumper” for this series too - you may recall the first (in season one) was Carrie and Frank on a clock. This time: “Carrie and Frank attempt to raft down a swiftly flowing river.” I never tried to draw it.

SPOILER SECTION

Let’s start with character. I don’t think I’ve ever matched the comedy stylings of Chartreuse’s story in my later writing. (I do try later in this very book; you can decide then if I in any way succeed.) In a sense, Chartreuse has presented the most bizarre backstory for a valley girl accent ever.

One of the things I had to be careful of was to not have any “like” or “you know” remarks in Chartreuse’s past dialogue. Did you notice the foreshadowing? The slight paradox is, if she’s telling the story, wouldn’t they be there? Well, it’s kind of through Carrie’s eyes, so if you squint, it works. And we now have an explanation for why Chartreuse speaks that way when her sister doesn’t, not to mention having that inflection in a small Canadian town. Assuming you believe the tale!

In the midst of that, Chartreuse surprised me with her bisexual nature. Theoretically, Tope could have been a guy, and while I admit I seem to have a thing for girl-girl love, that added complication between Chartreuse and Carrie felt somehow realistic. (Perhaps the interest is a fault of anime; in my personified math, ParaB and QT - the parabola and quartic - are in the same romance boat.) I don’t know if it puts a different spin on Chartreuse coming to Carrie’s aid back in Book 1. I do know it will influence things coming up.

On the Julie side of things, the main reason I made her rich way back in character design was so that there wouldn’t be a shortage of coins, what with the “date checking idea” presented in the recent part. Of course, with Julie being the antagonist (somewhat) in the first two books, I also knew that wouldn’t come into play until this point. Side bonus, it was handy having a teenager who could fund research or the like, if that was a route I wanted.

The other main character piece of late was the discussion between Frank and Luci, which I’d been somewhat foreshadowing in prior parts. No relationship is perfect, and there are some personality differences there. Recall also that neither of them are great about talking, between Luci dropping the romance bombshell only after she got aged up, and Frank’s need to wait before responding.

I’m hoping their conversation, sparked by the movie “Carrie”, worked well. (No idea if said movie was the original or the remake.) The dialogue gives me some feels, at the least, and tends to be tweaked less whenever I go back over it now. It also implies conversations between characters (like Luci and Chartreuse) outside of the main narrative, because you might have noticed, I’m doing weekly time skips. Which brings us to plot.

Yes, the time group is back together, but no, they’re not time travelling right away, and the characters will be into October before you know it. As I said in the last commentary, I go for the slow burn. The pieces are still being set up for a larger altercation - pieces including Linquist’s old lab - and all I can say is, I hope you agree that the eventual payoff will be worth it.

Coming up next, we’ll get to see a bit more of Glen, who got shunted to the side this past month, along with the trio who played much larger roles in the prior books: Lee, Tim and Laurie. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” - and much like the former TV show starring Frank Parker, the votes expire after seven days. (Here, have a link to my 7 Days AMV.)

Parts 51/52 were originally “The Visionaries”, thus the addition of “Tope Springs Eternal”, a play on how Tope’s accent is now “eternally” with Chartreuse. Parts 53/54 were originally “The Mansion”, so “Mental Strain” was the new title to harken at both Julie and Carrie’s mental issues.

Coming This Friday: Things go awry at another School Dance.

The last month has been a little crazy. On Sunday, June 26th, I wrote a “Time & Tied” guest post at Jim’s serial site, “Legion of Nothing”. Then on Saturday, July 9th, my third Epsilon story appeared at the top of “Web Fiction Guide”’s main page (it’s still there, towards the bottom). I’ve also had a few votes giving me pings from the “Top Web Fiction” fantasy page (feel free to vote in the above menu).

Having been curious in advance about any possible effect, I’ve been grabbing daily stats screen captures, in the name of research. At this point, we seem to be back to “normal”: less than 15 views per day here, since Monday. So here’s the month (June 25-July 24) in a nutshell.

[caption id=“attachment_761” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] There, there. It could always be worse.[/caption]

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Zero comments. Nothing, nada, zero, zip. Arc 3.1 done, and nothing on the blog in the last 30 days. Unless you count the spam remark that got through, which I deleted. Maybe people need to sign up for a WordPress account, and don’t want to? Though no emails either. No idea why people are staying, or aren’t staying. All I have is my statistics captures.

Okay, there has been some external feedback, which I will get to, but if people aren’t saying anything here, what HAVE they been doing on this site? Let’s get into it.

INTERPRETING THE HITS

This brings up the question of where people are cutting OUT, and not reading any more. Someone cut out around Part 27, implying they read Book 1, peeked into Book 2, and decided this wasn’t for them. (The June 26/28 case above.) Someone who started on June 30th got as far as Part 34 a few days later, and dropped it. I can’t figure that one out, it’s not a natural stopping point, maybe the Julie family thing was a trigger?

Two people dropped the story at Part 10. One person at Part 8, another at Part 7, four people at Part 4, and everybody else gave up after 1 or 2 parts. “Everybody else” being the 77 other hits that Part 1 received since June 26th.

It’s a bit tricky to tell if anyone simply picked up at “Book 3” (Part 48) with no backstory, but “The Visionaries”, Part 51 from over a week ago, has only 9 views. So between the 4 new readers (above), the 4-5 I think I already had, and past experience, I’m going with “no”.

As far as my “Epsilon” interactive fiction is concerned, forget about it. Out of 55 views this month, only ONE person read past Part 1, and they only went to Part 4. Granted, they’re the ones coming from “WebFictionGuide”, who haven’t seen a prior sample of my writing like Jim’s group did. Before I get deep into referrals, here’s an amusing screen capture from late in the afternoon on Sat. July 9th, where you can see exactly who came from where.

INTERPRETING THE REFERRALS

Note I’m talking views there, not visitors. My June visitors was 149, thirty better than my previous record (119 in April). July is at roughly the same number right now. The surge from Jim’s site in late June was likely duplicated by the WFG entry earlier this month. The highest visitor counts were: 21 on Mon June 27, then 20 on Tue June 28, then 18 on July 10th (after I went up on WFG). All other daily visitor counts are below 15.

Jim’s site, “Legion of Nothing”, gave me 47 referrals in just the first week. The second week had 9 referrals, and by July 13th I was starting to see consecutive days with no arrivals from his site. At present, we’re looking at a total of 68 people (possibly double counting any who clicked in twice). At least two of the new readers must be from his site.

“Web Fiction Guide” listings gave me a total of 57 referrals over the month, four of them “Time & Tied”, the rest “Full Scale Invasion” links (that, as said, no one continued with beyond Part 4). So nothing stuck there, nor with the 10 referrals from various “WFG” forum posts.

I also got 9 referrals from “Top Web Fiction: Fantasy” which is kind of exciting. At one point “Time & Tied” had 4 votes there (well, 3 + 1 was mine) which allowed it to be visible (near the bottom). It’s theoretically possible that the complete archive readers July 3rd and July 15th came from TWP and not Jim’s site, but I have no way of knowing.

In the “Miscellaneous” category, I got 3 referrals from Graves’ serial; I hadn’t realized L.E. Erickson had linked me, so go check that serial out. Also 1 referral from RedWood Crossing, and 1 from one of my other blogs. Then 12 from Twitter, 9 from Facebook (T&T has a page with 9 likes), 6 referrals from random Google Searches (most unknown, one was “principal tt2”), 4 from WordPress dashboards/readers, 1 from “mail” (the link is in my .sig) and 1 from “feedreader”.

Here’s a screen capture of views over the last month:

[caption id=“attachment_1074” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] “All Time” comprises almost 23 months (693 days)[/caption]

INTERPRETING THE FEEDBACK

Of interest, I also discovered at that math camp that Hedge had been reading my interactive fiction, and doing her own personal vote considerations, which blew me away. Also Justin Aion said that my T&T story was interesting, another a pleasant surprise. And I had a conversation with John Golden, who has been with me for a while. He’s fond of Chartreuse, like me, also likes Frank (though noted he wasn’t around as much later), and as to Carrie he’s warming up to her though didn’t like her initially. Which John feels was part of the point, and yes. I’m big on redemption arcs.

Outside of those 3 “in person” talks, ChrysKelly made a comment over on Jim’s site at my guest post. Seemingly another Chartreuse-style fan, she noted the entry was confusing until you really get that it’s a time travel story. Valid. Elsewhere, on the WFG forums in the thread “Clever/Funny Lines?” I posted an excerpt from “The Visionaries” (the Queue & Eh session), to which Walter said “That’s hilarious”. So that’s good. And Scott Delahunt (my beta) has continued to campaign for me, sharing my FB posts and RTing my updates.

That’s it. To date, of 52 entries, the only T&T posts with actual comments (not counting Commentaries like this one) are Part 21, Part 36 and Part 37, all by John Golden last year. Which makes this serial a massive failure as compared to “Full Scale Invasion” where TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE actually commented on ONE post (I know, right?!) within the first month. On the other hand, no one who started “FSI” this month actually continued with it, whereas four who started “T&T” caught up.

A good question that Sonal raised with me on my personal blog is why “feedback” on something already published in a post is of any use. Just to give a sense of that, there’s two relatively major changes I’ve made thanks to two reviews I got at WFG. The first review was by Billy Higgins Peery VERY early on, mentioning the main character was a horrible, selfish person. So, despite me already losing him, going forwards I muted some of Carrie’s edges and bumped her ‘redemption’ arc back from Part 23 (end of Book 1) into Part 21. The other review was by MaddiRose, which indirectly convinced me to put better ‘breaks’ into earlier chapters, so it’s more clear when I’m changing Point Of View.

I… don’t know what else to do. I mean, the majority of this thing is written, so it’s mostly editorial tweaks like that which are at stake, but even Mark Dittmer’s tweet from reading Part 42 stand-alone and wondering about there being a “Carrie” and a “Corry” was illuminating. Are the names too similar? ARE THEY? Or if you’ve read from the start, is it okay? Does any of it matter??

Maybe I just need to stop going to other serial sites where there are occasional comments, it’s depressing.

[caption id=“attachment_389” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] It’s all YOUR fault, alternate Carrie![/caption]

WRAPUP

I guess, all I can think is, if you have been enjoying this thing, maybe tell someone?? I suspect comments beget more comments, but that’s supposition. It’s also possible I’m being too self conscious, or have self esteem issues. I’m still KINDA planning to write a T&T Book 5 with a bunch of new characters, but maybe I should write something else instead? Time travel doesn’t seem to fly. That said, we’re stuck with it for at least the rest of this year, I’m no quitter. Plus I need to keep 9 people entertained.

Thanks for reading! Oh, I now have two 2016 dimes to go with my loonie and quarter, and hey, the fact that such an event still makes me grin means something.

“Time & Tied” PART 48

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 24, 2015
2. What I Was Doing: Trying to make this serial a thing
3. Changes of note: -Some rephrasing of Elizabeth’s explanation -Added last sentence about time machine use, to lead into 49

“Time & Tied: Power Play” (PART 48.5)

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUNE 20, 2016
2. What I Was Doing: Guest post at “Legion of Nothing”
3. Changes of note: -No time for any; probably should have set the scene better

“Time & Tied” PARTS 49 & 50

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 7, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -HUGE change to timeframe: See below -More backstory at the start, for first time readers -Changed end, which originally went briefly to Glen’s POV

[caption id=“attachment_1051” align=“aligncenter” width=“199”] CARRIE WATERSON
Commissioned from sabrnyan[/caption]

THE EARLIER REWRITES

When I first wrote this part of the story (“Season Two”), it followed right on the heels of Books 1 and 2 (“Season One”). Both in terms of when it was written (July 2002), and in terms of the plot - it began with Semester Two, in February of 2002. Except not 2002? Any year? Basically, my future story now being a few months the past, I stopped putting the date in the header for all Season Two episodes.

A much bigger change, however, is that for the above parts, we’ve jumped to Carrie’s senior year (Grade 12). In September. There are a LOT of reasons for my making that extra seven months time change, among them: -Finding coins for powering the device in February strained credulity -Julie’s situation wrapping up within a couple months strained credulity -Carrie’s birthday in March turned out to be somewhat inconvenient -Building towards an ending involving high school graduation made more sense

That major temporal revision was edited into place in 2014 (after the majority of 2012 and 2013 was spent reviving Season One of this story). Now, doing so didn’t directly impact on Episode 23 (now Parts 49-50), largely because classes would be resuming either way. A byproduct though, is how it opened up a number of prior months where other events could have taken place.

THE NEW EPISODES

In the original 2002 version, Carrie had revealed the truth to Chartreuse “over the Christmas break”. In the rewrite, she had talked to Chartreuse “over the summer”. Now, I had a chance to show that decision, rather than tell. Yet I also needed to showcase the time machine. The final piece to click in place for Part 48 was something I continually kick myself over about Part 1… it’s all Carrie, no other main characters. Worse, her actions aren’t enough of a draw.

Hence, we now have a better written part which is all Carrie (and Elizabeth, and Buffy), to set up the situation both with her own powers, and with Chartreuse. I even managed to write it with roughly the same number of words as a regular half episode. I am kind of impressed with myself when I do stuff like that. I hoped that part would finally be something of a draw, which is why I labelled it “3.01” rather than “Part 48”. Based on non-response, I fear it’s not?

“Power Play” (Part 48.5), the guest post at “Legion of Nothing” came about last month. Jim Z was headed camping with his family at the end of June 2016, and he offered to showcase some stories from other authors on his site. Once it occurred to me that I could build on the Chartreuse connection, I plotted, wrote, and sent that episode off to him within a span of 24 hours. I hope it holds up. I think it does?

Jim’s audience broke through the ceiling of 100 views in a single day (from 20 visitors), which had seemed impossible prior to June 27th. Things quickly calmed back down starting off July, then started to seesaw a bit; I may do a stats post later.

One final non-spoilery remark! Parts 49-50 I wrote in MS Word, rather than WordPerfect 5.1 - but I hated Word for flow. There was also the fact that every time I said “cafe”, it would correct the “e” to have an accent - which back in text format became caf?. So I stopped using Word. See this prior commentary for more on my use of WP 5.1

SPOILER SECTION

I feel like everything was tied up well to end Book 2 (Part 47) and at least one reader agreed. Of course, that whole “future war” WAS a dangling thread, hence it’s the focus going forwards - as indicated in the new Part 48. The multiple arrows on the chapter image (see the index page) have been reversed to come from the future, rather than from the past.

We have as a returning cast everyone who knows about the time machine. Laurie, Lee and Tim will eventually feature back in, but for the sake of any first time viewers, I didn’t want to throw too much out there at once. Azure got thrown into the mix too, partly as a lead in to Chartreuse talking about her family soon.

Along with them, we have a new character, Glen Oaks. Obviously, he has to be tied into the time travel somehow, but you’re going to have to wait a bit to see that. Back in 2002, I probably should have done more with that thread sooner, but it is what it is. I’ve removed a few excess (pointless at this stage) hints, like at the end of the initial Part 50, and welcome any speculations you might offer.

In terms of Carrie’s temporal powers, the new “Power Play” part (48.5) has her slip through time, possibly speed up her own time, and then in Part 50 we also had her ability to “see” future events in a different way from Chartreuse. She’s surprised me a bit in her scope, but her worry over letting herself go is keeping things from escalating. Which is good since I tend to go for more of a slow burn. Once the pieces are in place, plot will escalate.

Some final remarks: This week, I got my first 2016 coins, the quarter on Friday and the loonie yesterday. It claims to be a “lucky loonie”? I guess we’ll see - does it net me any new readers? Also, the English teacher name of “Mrs. Haye” is unchanged from 2002, and came from Sharron Lahaye. She hired me for my first teaching assignment back in 2001. Like principal “Dell Hunt” though, it’s meant in name only, don’t read into the character.

Parts 49/50 were originally called “New Arrival”, so added “Carrie On” as the follow up entry title. It was meant to play with her powers being “on”, as well as whether she can carry on.

Coming This Friday: More Chartreuse, in some of the most comedic writing I’ve ever done.

My first two “behind the scenes” posts were for my first serial on this site, in 2014. I’ve decided to do another now, since:

a) I want to talk about my frustration last week, for possible solidarity with other writers, if nothing else.

b) There will be stats, for people who like that sort of thing.

CONTEXT

Note: There is a good chance I am not quite right in the head. In April 2015, I transitioned this serial site from “Epsilon Project” to “Time & Tied”, in large part because the latter is me editing a work from 15 years ago, versus writing 2,000 words weekly. I’m not saying editing is easier (particularly when deciding to add illustrations), but with edits, a backlog/buffer is at least possible. That’s handy in April. Since April is one of the worst months of the year, in terms of writing.

See, I’m a math teacher. And April is a report card month. So along with November (not too bad, but NaNoWriMo’s out), June (exams on top of the reports) and January (the worst, exams plus organizing second semester in 24 hours or less), April ranks up there as “a month where only schoolwork is occurring”. Add to it my tendency to help with the school play, meaning I don’t necessarily take weekends off that month, and in 2015 I figured I’d lose my mind maintaining “Epsilon”.

So what did I do in 2016? I shifted back to “Epsilon” at the end of February. At the same time as I was writing, illustrating and publishing a weekly math webcomic too. I did this KNOWING April was coming. As I said, not quite right in the head.

Yet you might have noticed that I didn’t miss an update.

WEEK 9

Let me set the scene for Story 3: Week 9. Sunday, April 17th, and I had just published “Half the Battle”, where the cast breaks out of the DEO. That was my 20th straight day at work (since Easter). In fact, it was tech weekend. I ran rehearsal of the play to start the morning (9am) because the director was also organizing a student trip to Spain. (She’s even more ambitious than me.)

I don’t remember exactly when I left the school on Sunday. Definitely after 4pm. Then I still had to finalize report cards and generate comments. I didn’t get to bed until after 2am. On the bright side, my math webcomic was self-updating on Monday, because I’d queued up four comics at the end of March.

Monday, April 18th was my 21st straight day at work, on less than five hours sleep. That night was dress rehearsal, so I left school after 9pm. Tuesday I did NOT work 12 hours. It was a unique day. Wednesday was opening night, Thursday was Cappies night (I’m the school’s advisor, I left work after 11pm), and Friday was a matinee show in the afternoon followed by closing night.

It was before the matinee on Friday afternoon, my 25th straight day at work, after working for over 60 hours since my prior serial update (at least 30 of them paid), that I closed the poll. It had 5 votes. I’d need another update in less than 48 hours.

I started writing “PROM, Committee” about 4pm Friday. The new characters were names from the play, with personalities as amalgamated with an anime about magic that I remembered from years ago. About 25% of the dialogue was repurposed (humorously) from the play. I made it through less than 500 words at the time. The rest of Part 9 was written on Saturday.

Oh, not Saturday morning. I went to a mathematics professional development session (voluntarily) that morning! Good speaker. No, I wrote the rest Saturday afternoon, then published on Sunday as per usual. I’m betting you didn’t know that, because I don’t think anyone who did know actually reads my fiction.

WEEK 11

Now, writing-wise, what did I have to show for Week 9? Well, “PROM, Committee” actually had 30 views by my birthday three days later (oh, I turned 40, woot), largely because I posted it to the FB group for the play, and the director said she loved it. It also got a comment from kaleidofish. Meaning the self torture felt kind of worth it. Contrast Week 11.

The first week of May, I was going to a math conference (Thursday to Saturday), a 5 hour drive away. Tuesday I was still pulling together lessons for the substitute teacher, packing, etc, so I kept the “Epsilon” poll open. Wednesday was the day Cappies nominations were announced… er, long story short, I made it to the conference at 11pm. Found wifi, and closed the poll.

Similar to Week 9, I didn’t get a chance to start writing until late on Friday - actually not so unusual - except now I knew I had limited time on Saturday. Could I do it? Well, a 70 hour work week on the tail end of 25 days' work didn’t break my streak. I was damned if this would do it.

I wrote Friday night. I wrote for an hour Saturday afternoon, after the conference. I wrote in a diner and edited at a rest stop during my 5 hour drive home. And I published on time the next Sunday morning. Not quite the effort of Week 9, but more so than Week 10.

What did I have to show for it this time? In 48 hours, I got five views. Two votes, the lowest yet. And it was a damned tie. And all I could think is Why am I killing myself here? Would anyone have noticed a missed update? I tweeted out twice that I had a tie, looking for people - and I got a response from Curtis, saying he was already one of the two existing votes. That’s it.

Except that message is very possibly what kept me sane. Because I hadn’t actually known Curtis was reading, let alone voting.

Before going to bed, I posted an addendum to the poll saying I’d keep it open until the damn tie was broken, and when I woke up, it had been, so poll closed. Except the silence had done what 25 straight days of work could not - I no longer felt like writing to the deadline.

And YET - it hadn’t been silence. Curtis had called it a “great story”. And one of my FB friends tossed a “Like” onto the WP post after me mumbling there, which was the first time that’s happened all year. And Scott was still sharing my entries too, and he’d commented previously. So… fine.

The serial got my half-hearted attempt last Sunday, on Week 12, less than the usual 2,000 words (though not by a lot). This week? I’m feeling more grounded. So onwards we go.

Now, why does ANY of that matter?

Because sometimes it’s nice to have one’s efforts appreciated - but readers aren’t psychic. They don’t know when you need it. And there’s probably other writers out there who have felt depressed in the way I did, at times. Who knows? (Comment below?) There’s so much we struggle with that other people don’t even know about, and yet despite those problems, those blocks, as a writer we make the effort and put it out there - and get nothing?

But not nothing. A lot of that is mindset. Things are rarely as bad as you think. Which brings us to…

STATISTICS

I seriously wonder if I post up my statistics merely so that other writers can look at them and go, “Well, at least I’m not THAT guy”. (It certainly feels like it’s my primary function at “Web Fiction Guide”.) As long as this data is serving a purpose, I guess? My plan here though isn’t to be “THAT guy” but more to compare against myself, to see that things aren’t so bad. Let’s rewind over a year and a half.

Those are my statistics from “Behind the Scenes 1”, showing the first five weeks of serial episodes on this site. The anomaly on October 5th was due to a couple extra Facebook shares. Now, compare that to my statistics below, as grabbed in Week 11, when I had that two-votes-tied thing happening on Monday night.

That’s a difference of 18 months. And… the only reason my maximum view count jumped from 30 to 40 is because of Week 9’s recent Facebook share (on the 24th). But let’s look deeper. That means Week 9’s effort was worth it. Moreover, Week 11 didn’t start too bad, compared to Week 10. And hey, I’ve gone from 10 zero view days to only 1 zero view day. These are little things that have meaning.

Now here’s a breakdown of how the individual parts themselves have fared. The “within 3 days” mean Sun, Mon, Tues – how long the polls are open.

EPSILON THE FIRST Ep 1: 21 views within 3 days; 5 votes. (Views to date: 233) Ep 12: 5 views within 3 days. Poll kept open, 4 votes of 13 views to date.

EPSILON THE SECOND Ep 1: 9 views within 3 days; 3 votes. (Views to date: 80) Ep 12: 7 views within 3 days; 4 votes (Views to date: 31)

EPSILON THE THIRD (CURRENT STORY) Ep 1: 12 views within 3 days; 4 votes. (Views to date: 30) Ep 12: 14 views within 3 days. Poll still open, 6 votes of 17 views.

So… that’s a progression? Certainly Story 3’s episode 12 has more votes this week than any prior #12. And, as much as it pains me to admit it, I’m MILES ahead of my time travel story…

T&T THE FIRST Ep 1: 26 views all April 2014 (Views to date: 282) Ep 12: 4 views all June 2014 (Views to date: 10)

Yeeeeah. You may see why I felt I had to switch my serial up, despite April being one of the worst months. T&T was depressing me. I simply cannot find an audience for the majority of my writing. In part because I have little time to market. Which, honestly, makes it all the MORE impressive that some people have latched onto the current story. So - look for more this Sunday.

If you’re one of my current readers - thanks! If you’re not - maybe give it a try? I also webcomic personified math, which is heading into an election. Or here’s some other places you might look into: *Curtis makes a bunch of videos over at Basement Electronics. *Scott blogs about his writing at The Chaos Beast. *And kaleidofish has an interactive serial at Redwood Crossing.

I appreciate you reading to the end. Here’s hoping that June, with more report cards, is better for my writing than April. (Prediction: Hell no, it won’t be.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 43 & 44

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUNE 30, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -Kept “phone book” removed “phone booth”. Maybe they’re in a store or something. -Shady again, originally he continued droning on about killing Carrie and forgetting about Julie. Also Lee had summarized the plot in there. -More drama inserted before Corry stopped Julie from shooting at her parents. -Luci’s letter returns, with Julie noticing that Carrie didn’t sign.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 45-47

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 2, 2002?
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -All Laurie’s dialogue to Carrie from “it’s hard” was new. -Lee’s arrival moved to later. Bomb revelation moved into Part 46. -The dialogue tying up the Frank/Luci romance subplot was added. -Clarke and Tim had left to find Luci; shifted scene to mansion, because cell phones. -The Frank/Carrie dialogue in the hospital has had so many revisions over the years. See below. -Also tweaks to the Frank/Carrie dialogue in the park, including mention of Luci.

ABOUT THE WRITING

Fun fact: My original completion date above for Episode 22 (Parts 45-47), aka “the end of the beginning"… is an estimate. Logically, it had to come after finishing 21, and before the next part - Episode 23 - that being completed on July 7th, 2002. Yes, almost immediately following. (Season 2 aka Book 3 is currently in edits. Again, look for it after another foray on this blog into “Epsilon Project”.)

At the time, it made sense to keep on writing, since July 2002 was when I’d finished my first year of teaching, and I had the whole summer ahead of me prior to attending Queen’s University. (The private school had accepted me based on co-op terms for first year University Computer classes, but I was debating public school teaching, and that would require a Teaching Degree. Hence, more University.) But precisely when was Episode 22 finished?

Here’s what I DO know: An incomplete TIME22 file was dated June 28th, containing everything up to when Frank enters the hospital. (I know that’s before my “Completion” date for Ep 21, but I would tend to let files sit for 3-4 days, then give them a final pass for edits, having already started the next part.) The final TIME22 file is dated Dec 4, 2003, which is nonsensical (probably another rewrite of the Frank/Carrie dialogue). And as I said above, the final TIME23 file is dated July 7.

Yet I also have re-edited versions of Eps 1-6, dated July 2. Since it makes sense that I would have gone back to re-edit from the start (again!) after finishing, that’s the date I used above… though the final pass may have been later. There is one other hint, my “Outtakes of Time” file (dated July 21), basically a parody bonus of scenes from the last episode, so for sure it was done before then. I’ll post that bonus for you this Friday!

That said, after 47 weeks of less than lukewarm reaction, I need a bit of a T&T break, so I’m shifting back to “Epsilon Project”. To that end, here’s a link to the newest poll where you can vote to affect that plot! Open until this Tuesday!

There’s not much more to say on T&T that wouldn’t be a spoiler.

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers for Book 1

The Frank-Carrie dialogue in the hospital has been changed more times than I can remember. The key plot points were always there (channeling Shady’s bomb, Carrie’s mother, Carrie choosing life) but it never felt like it clicked. The December 2003 file contains Frank saying “Let’s live, let’s all live!” which is cheesy and sad, and yet it survived right through the initial 2014 edits. I am SO much happier with the latest version, where Frank calls out Carrie on her curiosity, then smacks her in the face.

Note that I’m not advocating hitting girls. But it’s a nice reversal of Episode 1, plus Carrie herself told Frank he could do it at the end of Book 1 (lampshaded in “Respite”). Feel free to disagree… or to say anything, really. (Hello?) But I like it. My only concern is that it’s a bit derivative of Clarke forcing Julie to ‘choose’ only two parts previous. Both deal with the very existence of the character in question. Are they different enough? (Julie was facing flashbacks, while Carrie was more resigned to her fate.) Ultimately - you’re the judge of that!

Character-wise: I think I wrapped up everyone’s arcs. Carrie’s less overbearing, her powers are active, and while her mother is a loose end, it’s tucked under the rug. Frank can stand up to people and admit his feelings. Frank and Luci are going out. Luci’s learned to handle failure, and interpersonal relations. Julie’s no longer the “big bad”, and has therapy to look forward to. Corry is less of a jerk, maybe - he’s at least done his feud with Julie. Laurie is more self-assured.

Clarke, Chartreuse, Tim and Lee didn’t have much for character arcs. They tended to be catalysts, speeding up the reactions of those around them. Ditto for Hank Waterson and “Shady”, the only others to have story tags on parts where they appear. Again, that’s my impression, feel free to teach me something I’m missing?

Plot-wise: Carrie’s temporal powers are active, if vaguely defined. And there is a war in the future, spilling into the present. Yeah, those two sentences is ALL the past 47 episodes in a nutshell. I guess I’m long winded. I hope you’ll come back this summer, to see how the “Temporal Destiny” starts impacting this group of teenagers going forwards. Because Carrie is right with her closing remarks.

Parts 43/44 were originally called “Turning Point”, so added “Desperate Times” as the lead-in (where Lee employs “Desperate Measures”). The last episode was “Out of Time”, which became flanked by “Full Circle” (to circle back to the start of Book 2) and the shorter “Respite” (everyone’s safe - for now).

Coming This Friday: BONUS T&T “Outtakes” reel Coming Next Sunday: The Epsilon Project returns

“Time & Tied” PARTS 37 & 38

1. Original Date Of Completion: DEC 30, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -Minor retooling of dialogue, including adding precise mathematical terms.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 39 & 40

1. Original Date Of Completion: APR 4, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -The Luci-Clarke conversation in the hospital was a bit different. -Lee’s scene originally ended Part 39; I rebalanced for length on each part, meaning the group conversation was added there too. -Changed seventeen year trip to sixteen. I’m so bad with ages. -See below for a tidbit about “Star Trek”.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 41 & 42

1. Original Date Of Completion: MAY 11, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -Luci’s letter. Never clued in that I was sending the guys. Once I realized in later edits, I couldn’t go back on the geometry rules. -Tim used to be skipping class to tell the girls about the police; their lunch periods were staggered, like when I was in high school. So going to the library was new. -All of Shady’s bits. His original dialogue wandered more, despite him also being more forthcoming.

ABOUT THE WRITING

Speaking of things going slow, interest in this whole website is abysmal - I did a stats roundup of all my blogs on January 1st. This website (where I posted more than once weekly) is doing WORSE than my personal home pages where I didn’t update at ALL in 2015. Ouch. Incidentally, T&T Part 42 was actually post #100 here. Yay?

The hardest part about serial writing seems to be that, no matter how much your writing improves over time, everyone starts at the beginning, when you sucked, and stops there, because it sucks. Back in September 2015, I thought my only chance for more views was to launch Book 2 right away. But no one wanted to read from “the middle”. What little data I have shows they STILL started at the beginning… and stopped. I’d redo Part One, except this thing has been edited to hell and back - I simply can’t rewrite the start AGAIN.

So I try not to be bitter. It’s hard. If I had to do this story over again (say, for publication), I’d pace it all very differently. How? No clue! (Do you see a way?) However, only NOW do you know how the time machine locates on Earth, only NOW are Lee and the Venitis in a key role, only NOW has Shady finally revealed the majority of the plot (assuming you believe him!)… after over 40 parts. And almost no one gets past Part 3!

Thank goodness I restarted personified math (as a webcomic) in August. I’ve always been slightly more passionate about it, and it keeps me going. Granted, I’ve had a couple comments here from John Golden, and that was nice. Finally, one person seems to be tracking slowly through the archives (real easy to spot with low stats), so okay. Sorry for the ramble, let’s actually look at what’s behind the story now.

WHAT’S IN A NAME II

As to the origin of some other character names - the school principal, Dell Hunt, comes from Scott Delahunt, who read this story back in 2001 and has offered me commentary on it. (And he still reblogs the whole thing for me on Facebook!) “Jeeves” is generic for butlers, and I don’t recall why my chem teacher is “Fisk”, but the music teacher “Mrs. Willis” is a rewrite of Mrs. Wallace, who was my music teacher all through high school. (This is name only, infer no personalities.)

Then there’s Lee’s family, who we finally saw… and their last name is “King”. You think the name Chartreuse Vermilion is bad? Check out Lee’s family again. You won’t see me use first and last names back-to-back, because it spoils the joke - but those poor kids. Hopefully their father leaving isn’t connected to their names. Maybe he was pushing for a normal one.

Regarding episode titles, the one for Part 38, “Coming Together” was meant to be the theme for all of Season One - that is, all episodes from Part 1 going forward to Part 46. Using it as an episode title was deliberate. The planned theme for all of Season Two (the next set) would then be “Powering Up”. Yes, Season Two: Everything you’ve seen so far is, in a small way, a setup of the larger universe. See the spoiler section below for my remarks on Shady’s “war”.

[caption id=“attachment_750” align=“alignright” width=“225”] That sheet is where I roughed out character course schedules.[/caption]

And speaking of their universe, I actually did photocopy an atlas and draw all the lines and everything that Frank and Luci do in part 37 - that scan there was the original. (It’s how I decided where Julie was born, rather than the reverse.) Also, Frank’s chalkboard sketch of the town? I have those town landmarks mapped out. One occasional reader compared my story to “hard” sci-fi, in terms of realism. I’m not sure I’d go that far, my research isn’t so in depth, but I do try to make their world believable.

In line with that, I spent the year 2015 keeping all the current year coins that crossed my path. I posted my last update about that back in November, when I had 20 coins. Here is the final tally for 2015: 2 nickels, 6 dimes, 19 quarters (including a specialty one), 6 loonies, and 9 toonies (including 3 special ‘veteran’ ones and 2 special ‘John A Macdonald’ ones). That’s 42! The ultimate answer. More possible time trips than I thought; granted, many of those coins came to me in December. (So far in 2016 I’ve only had a single 2015 dime.)

One last fun tidbit: Remember in Part 40, when Laurie speaks of Chartreuse predicting “the revival of the Star Trek franchise despite the lacklustre interest in ‘Enterprise’”? The ORIGINAL line when I wrote this back in 2002 referred to the decision to launch ‘Enterprise’ (which ran from 2001-2005) despite the lacklustre interest in ‘Voyager’! Now, of course, since they’re forecasting a new Trek series in 2017, only a minor tweak was necessary. And hey, I’ll take any chance to sneak in a Scott Bakula reference.

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers for Book 1

Character-wise: We see Lee’s family, as I mentioned above, and get a clearer picture of his role in all this. He had the machine, he’s immune to Shady’s charms, and there’s one other trait we’ll see when he reaches his breaking point. We also saw more of Laurie and Corry Veniti, hopefully in a way that was natural enough. Of note, Laurie is an artist, and she’s gradually becoming more self-assured, even as Corry insists on protecting her.

Tim’s father now has a law firm, because I realized there had to be a time message from somewhen for this to work, and Tim’s family was the least developed. Luci’s “saw it on TV” letter reference at the time is a call back to “Quantum Leap”, season four (and more Scott Bakula). Speaking of Luci, she also got a bit more screen time here, in terms of revealing some insecurities. In her own way, she’s as accustomed to being in control as Corry or Julie, and right now control eludes her.

Amusingly, it’s the two people with the LEAST screen time right now - Carrie and Julie - who are at the centre of everything! Of course, it means they’ll be that much more prominent in the final arc of this book. And then there’s the new/returning character, “Shady”. He seems to be driving the plot…

Plot-wise: So, how much DO you believe Shady? For the moment, let’s grant him his “future war”, which is apparently not against robots. That old adage of “History is written by the victors” takes on an additional possible meaning here, in that the victors could literally be those who rewrite history. Then is it possible that “the victors” is whichever group has Carrie on their side? Or did you prefer Luci’s “guinea pig” version of events?

The two time travel theories from Part 10 are also at war here - parallel time tracks (Shady can change the past?) versus self consistency (Julie was always fated to die?). As you can see, I twisted Julie’s prophecy. SOMEONE was always fated to die… not necessarily Julie. She was never mentioned by name. But if I’ve adopted “twisted” self consistency, what of Shady awakening Carrie’s power early? While it all makes sense in my head, please point out logical flaws or plot holes if you see any. As “Cesium Comics” points out, time travel is confusing.

This last arc of upcoming episodes will be shorter. My original season was 22 episodes, meaning 44 parts, but I split the Books at Episode 12 (Part 24), as that made more narrative sense. Meaning only 10 episodes for Book 2 - but putting “The Pilot” back in gives us 11. So there are only 4 Parts left… possibly five, as Episode 22 (The Finale) is a bit longer than the others, and I’m tempted to split off an “Epilogue” as Part 47. Do you think that’s a good idea?

Parts 37/38 were originally called “Coming Together”, so “Geography and Geometry” was added. Parts 39/40 were originally called “Reparations” (both on the machine and on relationships), so I added “Recovery Mode” (also a play on recovering the machine, and recovering from recent events). And Parts 41/42 were called “Rescue Efforts”, so I added “Tied in Naughts” (what with the “Tied” to destiny thing).

Coming This Friday: FINAL ARC, 2.4 and “Desperate Times”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 31 & 32

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUL 12, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
3. Changes of note: -Fixed inconsistent timeline about 3 or 4 days -A bit more emphasis on Carrie’s role in paradox

“Time & Tied” PARTS 33 & 34

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUL 18, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
3. Changes of note: -Retooling of Julie’s conversation with Clarke -Adjusted the shooting to be from Carrie’s perspective

“Time & Tied” PARTS 35 & 36

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUG 7, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
3. Changes of note: -Actual explanation of where Frank’s parents were for Mr Waterson -Longer stretch of time between the shooting and later events -Complete rewrite of Frank/Shady dialogue; the original meandered, and they both looked incompetent. Switched to three questions only format. -Shady’s Algonquin Park reference placed in this part, rather than later

ABOUT THE WRITING

Content-wise, this past trilogy of episodes (in six parts) represents the last of the writing I did between graduating from University, and getting my first full time teaching job. While I did start Episode 18 (and possibly even made it through the upcoming Part 37) in August of 2001, ultimately I shifted gears and wrote “The Pilot” instead. That’s what appeared here previously as Parts 25 and 26 to lead off Book 2. (See Commentary 13 for more information there.) What this means is, you’re now caught up chronologically… Parts 1-36 were all written from October 2000, through to the end of 2001.

As I mentioned in this prior post, I posted the update for Julie’s birthday literally on that date this year, November 12th. Which is the same date in 1955 from “Back to the Future”! Kudos if you picked up on that - it wasn’t a total fluke. Here’s why. The five main characters were all given birthdays when I updated their character file in March 2001. I did this by first slotting them into astrological symbols (which I actually did for more than the main five), then I “randomly” chose a date from 1984 - and I use quote marks, because I had them all born on a Monday.

I’m not sure exactly why I did that. I do remember using my calendar program (no apps back then) to investigate 1984 (except 1986 for Luci), seeing it actually aligned well with 2001 (when the story took place)… for instance, November 12th, 1984 was a Monday and then it turned out that November 12th, 2001 was also a Monday. Since Julie was a Scorpio, she got it for a birthday, and then it only made sense narratively for Corry to use her birthday in a dramatic way.

Able to follow that chain? Incidentally, Monday is also when I always had evening band practice back in high school, which is why Luci and Chartreuse went to band practice here. Of course, having stripped out the hard YEAR dates, this could now be taking place on a Thursday, for all we know. But we know Nov 12th IS a school day! This eliminates such years as 2005, 2006, 2011, and in fact the next two years, 2016 and 2017 (when Nov 12th is on a weekend). Good thing I’m posting this in 2015, or I might get letters, huh? … … Yeah, no. I never get letters.

BACKGROUND CHECK

Still on the topic of supplementals to the story, you can see another example of my older drawings off to the right. It’s the “closing still” for the show that I envisioned, over which credits would be rolling. The heads are too big for the torsos, and I’m not sure what’s happening with people’s knees, but getting multiple people in one shot was impressive for me at the time. Heights, relative to others, were a pain (and still are).

The drawing was actually planned out rather painstakingly. I still have the pages showing the different pieces, and I’m pretty sure the final picture was made by overlapping sheets and doing some tracing. I first scanned the image in immediately before “Part 32” was completed, on July 11, 2001. Hence why I’m including it here now, even though the image is worse than my usual fare.

The other relevant behind-the-scenes element featured in this latest arc was middle names. I’d always had the idea of using middle names to distinguish time displaced characters. That’s why Carrie’s middle name is “Elizabeth”, and has been since almost Day 1: It’s a hugely versatile name, should I ever need 6 Carries in a room at once. (Which Chartreuse felt like lampshading in her dialogue, apparently.)

Frank got my middle name, “Bernard”, which was indeed the name of my grandfather. “Isabella” simply sounded nice for Luci - which already came up when Linquist abducted her, so she need not have worried about Carrie. I didn’t plan those out in advance. In fact, that’s as far as I got back then - Chartreuse couldn’t go on a time trip yet, not until she provided me with a middle name! Though with her, odds are good that it’s a colour.

For those who are curious about the other birthdays: Carrie, March 26th (Aries). Frank, Sept 3rd (Virgo). Luci, Feb 3rd (Aquarius). Clarke, July 16th (Cancer). And Julie, Nov 12th (Scorpio). Further, the Veniti twins were born May 21 (Gemini, naturally), which I noted back when Julie was goading Corry in Arc 2.1. Chartreuse is a Pisces. Lee might be a Sagittarius. At this point, they’d all be born around the turn of the century, when I was actually writing this - or later, depending on when you discover the story. Gaaah, where did my youth go.

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers for Book 1

Character-wise: Let me be clear up front that my parents are wonderful, I call them nearly every Sunday, I have two younger sisters, and girls rock. Julie’s character is in no way reflecting my beliefs about anything, nor those of anyone I know. But we’ve seen now that this story includes perhaps the worst parents, and the most twisted little suicide plot you could ever come up with.

One reason for Julie’s father becoming such a misogynist jerk might have been a need to double down on the parent plot. After all, you probably had a sense that Julie’s parents were the driving force behind her problems - she shut down Carrie when they were brought up in Part 28, etc. So that revelation wouldn’t be a surprise. This level of vitriol? May have been a bit more unexpected. Particularly when coupled with the “fake” attitude her parents display to her peers, on their (rare) visits to town, and the fact that they can demonstrate caring for EACH OTHER. But not to Julie.

Most damning of all, is that Julie’s parents kind of have a POINT. Not about her worth, but I’m dubious that Julie’s actions actually demonstrate that she can run a school, or a company. Julie has no sense of the human element involved. Heck, do teenagers ever really know what such “real life” things are like? Granted, this HAD to be the worst way for her parents to convey that lesson to her. This story has finally found it’s villains, in the elder LaMilles! Or… in Shady? Ah yes, what’s his deal?

Shady finally gets some character time. He was first seen WAY back in Book 1, Part 6 - and not really since then. Yet he seems to be trying to influence things, and if we assume he’s the same guy from the library, he didn’t seem to affect Lee. Hmmm. Was he the same guy? (By the way, did you foresee Lee’s mental immunity when he spoke of blocking alien mind control rays back in Part 23? No? Still surprising you with little details? Good.) We will be seeing more of Lee because of this.

Incidentally, Lars also returned, this time with a van. You might not recall him from a brief cameo at the airport back in Part 3, since if you picked up on THAT, you have a very good memory! Don’t worry, such really obscure things don’t impact the plot. Unless I change my mind about them later!

Plot-wise: The plot is also becoming tied into Shady. He knows about Julie’s actions, so at best he’s a voyeur, and at worst he’s the one who made that call to her (the one Frank doesn’t know about). Oh, and speaking of Julie’s actions, Carrie got shot. Since I know remarkably little about guns, I was trying to stay away from the medical as much as I could while still hopefully being believable. (Having since watched “Sherlock”, and for that matter the 2015 premiere of “NCIS”, I don’t think I’m that far off. At least in terms of fictional storytelling.)

The shooting, by the way, was no surprise to me. That’s why Chartreuse could have a vision of it AGES ago. The fallout that results, this where things got a little more blurry, hence my decision to “spoof” the situation with Hank’s writing at the start of Part 35. I am the sort of person who will write myself into a corner, and then spend days meditating on how to fix the problems I created. If I don’t know, you don’t know, right? Surely this counts for something - come on, I was shooting main characters before shows like “Sherlock” and “NCIS” made it cool!

I will leave you now with a final puzzle: How exactly does the time machine work? Sure, we’ve seen how it locates in time based on the coin used, but what about in space? Luci pointed out a lot of those problems back in Book 1, and offered work-arounds, but the original programming question has never been resolved. You now have all the pieces. The truth will come in the next part. Hint: Even if you never read Book 1, you saw what happened spatially when they traveled to the future! Extra hint, I’m a math teacher.

Parts 31/32 were originally called “Past Meets Future”, the “Frequent Flyers” addition was a reference to the Julie flyer and resuming time trips. Parts 33/34 were originally called “Julie’s Secret”, I included “Shots Fired” for obvious reasons. Parts 35/36 were called “The Wounded”, now followed by “Question Everything”.

Coming This Friday: ARC 2.3 and “Geography & Geometry”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 25 & 26

1. Original Date Of Completion: DEC 19, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -This was a “pilot episode”, thus got hacked to pieces. See “More Issues” below.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 27 & 28 1. Original Date Of Completion: JUL 1, 2001 2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work 3. Changes of note: -Story used to be framed between a Clarke/Laurie conversation, rather than having it only at the end.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 29 & 30

ABOUT THE WRITING

SPOILER PARAGRAPH: It didn’t make sense (to me) to start a new book with a time machine that prematurely ages Luci, largely because that’s not how the time travel really works going forwards. My initial thought was to shuffle chronologically, to start with Grade 9 (27/28) then Grade 10 (25/26) then the present (29/30). The problem with THAT is the lack of time travel to start the book, plus it meant two Luci-centred episodes back-to-back. So, you got the order as presented. The “Pilot Episode” was meant to be an introduction to the whole story anyway. I hope it works.

The “Pilot Episode” itself (Parts 25/26) came about for two main reasons. The first was a desire to find an entry point for new readers. I had created a whole universe of characters, and temporal rules, but it took 24 parts (a half season) to get there! I needed something that would display all these characters and plot points at once. Something which would make people want to go back and read from the beginning - without massively spoiling anything that had come before.

The second reason for the pilot was a job I got in September 2001, as a teacher for ESL students in Math and Science, at a private school. This cut into my writing time, which meant the story caught up with me. Recall that, from 2000, I was writing about “the future of October 2001” - yet that future became NOW. Then the PAST. But as that happened, the pilot was already in the past, as it took place in 2000. While this might be insight in retrospect, I think there was some added comfort in not writing a future story that was happening in the present.

MORE ISSUES

In addition to that, the narrative had a fair bit of Luci (both past and future versions) thinking about things. As the leader of a writing workshop at Queen’s University remarked (when I showed the first page of the “pilot” to them in 2002), there should be more show, less tell. Don’t have Luci worrying about fitting in, show that she’s not actually doing it. So I decided I had to hack the whole thing down to a more reasonable length. There’s only two cut sections I feel bad about.

SPOILER PARAGRAPH: The first cut was a very short piece with Tim, after Luci talked to Clarke. It helped to set up the meeting at the cafe later, and give Tim some lines (the poor guy’s really neglected), but I deemed it superfluous. The second was dialogue between Luci and Chartreuse before the scene in the cafeteria. Chartreuse agrees to take Laurie to lunch, on account of “Luci’s aura being somehow displaced”. I hated to lose that, because Chartreuse. But it didn’t make sense to start Part 26 that way, when the emphasis there needed to be on getting to the mansion.

If you’re REALLY curious, the original “Time Trippers Pilot Episode” is at this link right here, so you can compare. There you have it; there really isn’t much else to say on the writing side, beyond the “changes of note” at the top. I suppose I can point out that I’m trying something new with the drawing, using a “featured image” and repeating a picture across both updates. How’s that working out on the reader side?

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers

Character-wise: We are focussing more on Julie and Corry in this Book, for reasons that will shortly become apparent. We saw their first meeting (Part 27), their first major confrontation (Part 28), and how they operate (Parts 25/26). If you are picking up on the fact that Julie’s parents seem to be a factor, pat yourself on the back - but don’t be so sure you know the depth of things. Remember, according to Luci’s time trip, somehow the servants play a role too.

Julie also cut her arm. Things got dark. To say they will get worse is an understatement. After all, if you’ve read Book 1, you may recall Chartreuse had a vision of a gun. Now, for the record, I cut myself too, back in University - but guns, those are outside my comfort zone. So there is NO mass shooting in this story. In case that makes you feel better about reading on.

The other main character who got time this arc is Luci. She has her own nest of psychological issues now, from fitting in socially, to being abducted by a crazy person, to understanding romance, to (eventually) having to time travel back to knock out her past self. It’s perhaps worth mentioning that there is scientific basis for mental and emotional growth to occur asynchronously, though I wasn’t consciously including it. In fact I should probably feel worse about the things I’m doing to the youngest cast member. At any rate, you might sense that Luci’s interactions with Frank and Carrie are different going forwards.

Plot-wise: In terms of continuity, everything ties into the Julie/Corry arcs. The ‘conversation’ with Clarke that Julie references in Part 27 took place from his perspective back in Part 11 (Phil Doubt), and the broken swan Carrie talks about shortly thereafter is the same one from Part 1. We also saw Sue here (with Corry), but it was said in Part 7 that she was reporting to Julie. Oh, and the time machine’s back! (It broke in Part 20.) Just in time for the Corry/Julie friction to reach it’s apex. On Julie’s birthday.

Going forward, we will finally see the “Shady” character again (remember him?), and learn more of Carrie’s part in all of this. Bear with me, I play the long game. Random extra trivia: The book Frank reads (by Paul J. Nahin) in Part 25 is one I own, and when I was in the high school band, we tried to raise money by selling christmas ornaments one year. So that’s based in reality.

Parts 25/26 were simply called “The Pilot”, but when I stripped the dates out into a ‘book’ form, I used the chapter header “Time Zones”. I don’t recall why - pun on zoning out maybe? Thus “Missing Piece” was the addition. Parts 27/28 were originally called “Flashbacks”, so I added “History Lesson”. And Parts 29/30 were called “Growing Pains”, so I added “Search and Rescue”.

Coming This Friday: ARC 2.2 and “Past Meets Future”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 23 & 24

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUNE 7, 2001
   
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
   
3. Hard Date Change: Was Thurs. Oct 11, 2001
   
4. Other changes of note:
   -Some changes to Carrie’s inner thoughts on friendship.
   -Carrie originally cried twice, which now seems silly, hence why she couldn’t cry the first time.
   -Inserted Corry’s mention of self harm & the Shady guy list scene. To foreshadow darkness.
   

ABOUT BOOK ONE: AWARENESS

“Awareness” has been a slow building of the universe, and it’s rules. If you’re thinking that it’s been 24 parts, and not a lot has happened, maybe you’re correct. EXCEPT THE FOLLOWING:
-All 10 major players are now on the board. I wanted to introduce them gradually.
-Carrie herself has undergone a fairly large character arc, with full backstory.
-The rival temporal theories have been presented (unchangeable past vs. multi-worlds) and associated paradoxes have been explored and “lampshaded".
-While their world is similar to ours, Chartreuse offered a window into mystical forces within their universe too.
-I snuck a fun BTTF/QL tribute episode in there.

I hope you find this journey has been worth it so far. If you watched the early Season One episodes for “Agents of SHIELD” - well, it’s a bit like that. There may have been some episodes in “AWARENESS” you could skip, but it’s all part of the broader canvas. Something massive IS incoming… and we’re about to get darker, psychologically. Take where Carrie was at mentally in Part 23, dial it up another notch, and you’re getting closer.

Given all that - this website is going to immediately push through into Book 2: ESCALATION. (My other option was to insert another “Epsilon Project”.) There’s two good reasons for this decision. The first is that I’m also working on a Personified Math Webcomic in my now non-abundant spare time. That involves drawing, and with this pre-written (and now mostly pre-edited after Summer 2015), that’s also the case here. Related: I’ll be cutting back these Commentaries to only remark on a full arc of six parts. In part because I’m not sure I have as much to say about the history at this point, but also because they take time and don’t seem to be helping much for traffic.

The second reason to push on is the fact that Books 1 & 2 were originally envisioned as a single season anyway. Which brings up it’s own obvious question of, why even jump to a new book? Why not continue “Book 1”? Well… because there’s about to be a time jump of a couple weeks, along with a shift away from Carrie’s character. It’s also (I believe) a natural break, being halfway through the intended narrative. And most of all, some won’t read a serial unless a “set” is completed, and I’m hoping that I can snare some other people at the start of Book 2.

Wattpad fizzled out (it didn’t help that their editor began to remove all carriage returns). I may try Tumblr this time. Book 2 is, I emphasize, a perfectly good time to start reading. Granted, knowing “Book 1” means you’ll get more out “Book 2” context-wise (for instance, when there’s mention of Julie’s history with Phil, you’ll have actually seen it). But it can also mark a fresh start for the broader audience… or am I deluding myself there? Time will tell. Speaking of which…