An End to 2021, A Start to 2022

From Alisa

Hi everyone! My name is Alisa, I do the voice over for Ash and Blue.

I just want to say that this year and the one before have been difficult for a lot of people, but it has been incredible starting my career/hobby in voice work with such an amazing group of people. It has truly been life-changing to join this community and to become friends with the creators. All of the support for this project has become a beacon in my life and I want to thank everyone who has been a part of it from the bottom of my heart. I hope we can continue building and enjoying this wonderful community!

From Shade

Time passes. Things change. Things don’t change. Time passes anyway.

It’s the end of 2021. The pandemic is still a pandemic, the world still refuses to treat people with respect, and Ash and Blue is still around to try to give people an escape from all that.

I moved in November. It happened really quick and dirty, and I’m still not really adjusted to it. But I now live in a much nicer house and transferred to a much nicer location for work, and overall, I’m pleased with the much-needed change.

We’re nearing the end of book two, and moving on to book three. We’ve still got a lot planned, both to catch up with the previous run of the series, and well beyond that. It’s been a lot of fun to plot out the major and minor changes needed to make everything work.

I don’t remember most of this year. It’s all a blur of Shit Happening and depression and paranoia.

But I lived, bitch.

I’ve started working on something that won’t be seen for quite some time. But it exists now, and both of us are happy with this prototype so far. So, while the story has been almost completely Stormy so far, you’ll start to see a lot more of my influence on the storytelling. I hope it’s well-received.

As we enter 2022, I look back and think “it can’t get much worse,” but you know the trope, any time anyone says that, it does get worse. Fuck it. I know it can get worse. I’m ready for it and I’m gonna make 2022 my bitch.

From Stormy

Shade must be a trend-setter, as I’m going to be moving soon myself. It’s not a move we exactly planned on, but one that’s going to set us up for a better position moving forward. (Plus, we’ll be in the middle of the city, I won’t say no to that kind of convenience).

As it was unplanned, I was worried about a possible disruption in content, but…what I’ve already got done/ready to edit takes us to the end of January, and I plan on taking a couple of days & sushi lunches to hopefully get the last two chapters finished, that way I can put most of my my energy into moving (…and have a little left over for FFXIV).

As I said in my last big post, I’m keeping my goals for this year simple: finish Mirrorheart, start Book #3, hopefully release a novella (The Auction) and now I’ve added “get some major work done on the wiki”.

I’ve said this a few times throughout the writing of MF and MH, but on a day like today, it bears repeating. I know it’s been a decade of writing and rewriting, of showing half a dozen versions of the same idea…but I do really, finally feel like I’ve gotten it right. Things feel like I’m telling the proper version of the story, that characters are showing the best, most fully-realised versions of themselves, and that I’ve made a comfortable place for people to exist.

The Goat burned, and I have hope for this year.

ALSO I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS ABOUT THE NEW MATRIX MOVIE I SHOULD PROBABLY WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT THAT