First off, before I get to the items of the actual website, I’d like to address my last post. Now that I’ve moved on I feel more comfortable discussing things. Long story short, as a few of you guessed in emails to me, a member of my extended family committed suicide. It was a real tragedy for my family as they had been doing really well and getting their life together. However, this person was taking medication for both depression and seizures. The seizure medication can sometimes have some mood-swingy side effects so it had to be balanced very carefully with his depression meds. Well… unbeknownst to our family or his doctors, my cousin had been altering his own doses. This lead to one day where he crashed and made a decision we all know that, had he been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have made. While truly a senseless tragedy, there is always a silver lining in every cloud. The whole ordeal brought our family closer together than ever before. Family members that had basically stopped talking to one another over this drama or that drama, could see what was important and moved past old grudges. Bittersweet that it took something like this for that to happen, but that doesn’t remove the sweet.
In helping get things in order for his funeral and such I was able to take some inventory of my own life. It was a nice chance at reflection and helped me to rededicate myself to some goals I’ve had for a while. All and all, I actually have to say I’m feeling great. Some of it’s due to family support but a large chunk of it is also due to you, the wonderful reader. I received and outpouring of support and love from you all and it truly helped. Thank you so much for being so supportive and understanding. I couldn’t ask for better readers. You opened me up to your own worlds, tragedies, and feelings and it let me know that, though we have never actually met, we are truly a community.
Now, onto the actual website, Chapter 44 is posted! Sorry to leave you all on such a cliffhanger last time! Now, I know the chapter is shorter than usual but I felt it was appropriate for a more action-oriented segment. It shouldn’t be long between chapters. I’m expecting two weeks right now. Got to make up for lost time if I’m going to be posting 20 chapters this year! Oh! And great news, I finally figured out how to get comments on pages again so you all can comment directly on chapters again! Yay! Also, accompanying the chapter is a picture from Grimay. This is actually the February image for those of you scoring at home but it goes with this chapter. I also posted it at the bottom of the chapter itself. I’d like to go back and do similar things for images that correspond to other chapters but I’d need some help doing that. If you’re interested, let me know. But, regardless, this is one of Grimay’s more awesome pieces. I love how he opted to show both a close-up of Cell-celia and Serenity but also zoom out so we get a feel for the battlefield. Please check out the hi-rez version to get a full appreciation for how beautiful it is!
One last item before I head out, I’ve noticed our MGP TVTropes page has been rather active as of late. I don’t know who has been updating it but I just wanted to give a shout out! It’s looking great everyone! Woo! Got TVTropes! As I’ve said before, I know I’ve made it because someone took the time to make a TVTropes page for the story XD. I know it’s silly but that’s how I view things.
See you when I post the next Villain-in-Distress issue!
Taralynn
Lately, I have re-read someone of the older chapters, and some still have broken links. Until they can be fixed, I plan to leave a comment on them with a link to the next chapter. Also, with your permission, I intend to create an índex on the first chapter to ease a re-read.
I hope you won’t mind.
An awesome pic from Grimay again! But “Uh-oh!” There’s a red spot on Serenity’s side that is NOT her hair!!!! Yikes!
Taralyn, I am sorry to hear about the loss of your family member. I understand completely what you and your family are going through as we did the same a little over 2 years ago. My nephew shot himself twice (!) to commit suicide. The medications he was on for ADHD had a side effect none of us knew, which was suicidal thoughts. At age 15, this lovely boy, who had everything in the world going for him, took his life. My Sister, his mother, still blames herself and will probably never completely crawl out of the bottle again. I can only wish you and yours luck in dealing with this. It is not pretty, it is not kind, and it is not something you get over quickly or ever
Glad to see you’re coming around and sorry to hear the loss in your family. Suicide is a helluva thing 🙁
BUT , stepping away from the sad times, I was happy to see and read a new chapter , always enjoy the way you throw out dialog between characters, even if in this case – it’s between a monster and a superhero !
Really enjoyed the fleshed out differences here compared to what my memory says was an ice cream parlor villain in the alpha version. I’m also enjoying Grimay’s artwork, the style really suits what I’ve pictured in my head as the canonical appearance of these characters. I need to get around to doing my own take on what these monsters look like , still only drew that first beastie.