2015

31st December
Well I gave it a good go. What with the Christmas holls, work before it, and the general exhaustion of a great writing year, I was never going to be able to deliver the entirety of the final episode before the year was up. It's with a heavy heart that Season Five slips into another year, delaying the ending and reboots further. As of this update I managed to type down 400,000 words this year, at least (god knows how much I ended up chucking into my deleted scenes folder, or just plain simply deleting), so it was a good one despite that.

New Material

Season Five, Episode 29: Back To Normal (Part 9)

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

History: Sizes Ranking is up to date with the released parts of Back To Normal's size, as before.

I managed to deliver the Untitled part of the finale in time, which as you can tell from Back To Normal so far, is the true finale anyway. Back To Normal follows the old epilogue movie I planned over ten years ago. Not to say it isn't important and doesn't count as a final episode, as it is and does. What I mean is that the original plan was to have the plot in Untitled serve as a series finale, without any kind of a cliffhanger, have a resolution; basically be a finale on its own, until the movie showed up to tie up loose ends. Think of Back To Normal as the post Endgame episode that never was, and should've been. Endgame got them home, but didn't show you what happened to the crew afterwards. My "Endgame" did try to show something, so I was already doing better than the original show before Back To Normal began.

I'm only saying that above paragraph to make me feel better, not to give you excuses, I swear... ahem. I really wanted the episode ready in time. I wanted to go into the new year with only the reboots to do. I wanted to say that I finally finished something. So yeah, I'm disappointed to say the least. I was sooo damn close.

Never mind, it was still a good year. So much was accomplished and because of that the majority of 2016 will still be the reboots, so no worries.

Anyway, regardless of when or where you read this, I wish you a happy new year's eve and a hopefully not too hangover-y January 1st. Here's to 2015 and the beginning of 2016. Hopefully I won't wait until February to do another update like last time.

24th December
Another December update, this must be some kind of record. Progress is kinda slow as it's been a busy few weeks at work and home, to be honest it always is. I'm hoping that I'll get the rest of my work done before new year now that I'm free from work for a week.

I mentioned in the 4th December update that I was concerned that I didn't do as well as 2014 when it came to episode releases. Truthfully I was mostly worried that Back To Normal was not ready for the anniversary, as the series finale being released on the same day as the first episode seemed very fitting. Episodes like Emotion and Closure took longer than I expected, so I'm still pretty gutted about it. In the update I quickly checked the word count for the year, realising that I should cut myself a break as a lot was done, the episodes were just a lot meatier than 2014's.

As per usual instead of writing one morning I checked previous years to compare (I imagine the series would be over if I stopped doing stuff like that, maybe). It can't be fully accurate thanks to WIP episodes, but I've done my best. If you're curious:

2013: 235,682 / 10 episodes (23,568 average)
It'll be lower as Death of the Soul was started in 2012 and I stupidly included the whole episode's count.

2014: 313,902 / 13 episodes (24,146 average)
Word count is 316,120 if I include Caretaker Part 2 and a few of Extreme Night's scenes.

2015: 377,592 / 10 episodes (37,759 average)
Word count is 390,891 if I include Caretaker Part 3, Piece of Conspiracy, Extreme Night, Timeless, Timeline and most of Back To Normal.

No wonder I feel exhausted lately ^_^

New Material

Season Five, Episode 29: Back To Normal (Parts 7 & 8)

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

History: Sizes Ranking is up to date with the released parts of Back To Normal's size, as before.

That's it for now. Merry Christmas everyone! Have a good one.

16th December
Repeat after me, it may help if others chime in: Fifth Voyager will end before the year is up. I will finish the last episode in 2015. I will.

Okay? Good. I have come bearing some of it, to prove that I temporarily cut short my post 4th December slack off. The rest of it is due in 2016, or hopefully over Christmas.

Apart from that this update is primarily a progress one. Coming Soon itself will give you an idea of where I am. I've done it slightly differently to the 4th December update as I'm really not sure how long Back To Normal will be. Untitled I knew would beat everything else in size, so I had that to work from. BTN has a completely different style, with many parts, most of which are meant to be tiny. The episode Five is good proof of why an estimated finished % based on file sizes won't work. It's why Closing of the Eyes was near the top for so long, while now the poor thing is 10th on the word count. Which still isn't bad, 1-9 are all Season Five entries. It's still the longest noughties era episode.

I'm blabbing once again, the completion % in Coming Soon will be based on where I am in the overall plot. Much easier to manage. Word count is still too fiddly to work out, and I did that enough with Untitled last month (a count every damn day. Never again).

New Material

Season Five, Episode 29: Back To Normal (Parts 4 to 6)

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

History: Season Five Episode Trivia. Sizes Ranking is up to date with Back To Normal's growing size. I've only counted the released parts as I did the last time.

Episode Archive's entry for Back To Normal changed slightly; synopsis fixed (dunno how I missed that error), shortcuts to recent parts have been added in, as well as the date they were. Once the episode's finished it'll look a lot lesss cluttered, with only one extra line than other episodes have; the completion date.

4th December
It's that time of year once more; Fifth Voyager's anniversary/birthday. Fifteen years old, the same age I was when I uploaded the first episode. Scary. I'd normally say time flies but my pre-FV life seems soooo long ago, so it mustn't be.

This year didn't match the last, and I didn't really think it would anyway. Last year I was alternating between Season Five and the Reboot, which helped make it a productive year. 2015 however has primarily concentrated on Season Five, which have had some pretty hard hitting episodes of late. Considering that three of this year's episodes challenged the longest FV episodes ever and won, while almost all of them have been large for FV entries (Ruins is likely the only short episode this year*), the amount of episodes that were released this year was IMO impressive.

I'm proud of how far I've gotten, even if my plan to have the final episode completed for today was doomed for failure the moment Closure started to take absolutely ages to write. Episodes such as Dark Clouds, Closure and today's episode were pipe dreams for years, yet now they exist and not only that, they lived up to my vision of them.

So yeah long blab short, despite the so many issues I've had this year, I'm very happy with my progress and the material that appeared in 2015. As you can see, next year will be all about the reboot. I'm hoping that with Season Five and the series itself being so close to ending, I won't slack off once it is done. I doubt it, I'm really looking forward to taking it easy for once and writing shorter episodes. I've enjoyed writing S5 but it is exhausting a lot of the time.

Anyway to Year 16 and 2016, we'll make it in the end ^_^

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 28: Untitled

a preview of
Season Five, Episode 29: Back To Normal (This isn't finished, it's just that... a preview. I felt lazy about uploading only one episode despite what I said. Enjoy.)

Site Updates

The site design's been cleaned up a little, hardly noticeable to be honest. I'm too fond of this design to change it anytime soon.

However the splash page was brought back as I felt it was necessary for the new mobile version. On tablets/phones the menu would get cut off, and on my phone the home page was so tiny thanks to all the frames. The site was designed for a PC years ago.

Mobile version has less menu options (direct links to seasons in the archive and reboot's sublinks have been moved or are gone altogether), the text links have been made into bigger images for easier tapping, and the borders are gone giving the home frame more room. The episode archive has a separate menu when you click on it. If you're a mobile user and you still have issues navigating the site, please let me know via one of the Contact options. I've tested it on a tablet and phone and IMO it looks fine, albeit basic looking. It's just when you view the site with your device in portrait. It's still useable once zoomed in, which my phone and kindle did automatically after a couple seconds *shrugs*, I can't test that again, it won't revert back.

Contact page is back. I found that the people who created my previous forums, host them for free and do all the security updates for you. I figured that was easier than my old way of doing it myself. I couldn't update the forums any further by myself anyway, long technobabble'y story I'm afraid. Two other contact options are there, but please, forums are better.

Episode Log and Sizes in History has been updated with the new material.

Coming Soon's naturally up to date.

The FAQ's linked on the home page has been cleaned up a little and has a new shortcut menu to help navigation.

Season Five's trivia in History has some new info about previous episode Closure.

Meanwhile Season Five's episode listing that was available underneath "Coming Soon" on the main menu is gone. With only one episode to go and that being mentioned on the home page, it seemed a bit pointless keeping it.

*Expanding on the only a few episodes have been released this year because of their size comment, I was curious to see how much I did do this year. Let's have a look at their overall size ranking and word count:

1st: Untitled 72,282 words
2nd: Dark Clouds 64,231
4th: Closure 58,643
8th: Echoes 40,251
15th: Speaking In Riddles 30,025
16th: Out of Mind's Eye 29,612
17th: Home Sweet Holodeck 28,844
26th: Say It Again With Emotion 23,804
48th: Ruins 18,307
88th: Piece of Conspiracy (back up ep/not released) 11,603

Total: 377,602 words between 10 episodes... which is more than I thought. And that's not including Back To Normal and the other WIP episodes. Yeah, I'm definitely going to let myself off. I've done quite well this year.

25th November
It's been a long, painful and rather confusing month. I'm getting there though. Untitled's coming along slowly but surely. Currently it's a few thousand words shorter than Death of the Soul, so that's fifth in size. A lot's happened and I'm in the middle of the big finale of the finale, if that makes any sense. Probably not. Anyway this update's just a minor one. There'll definitely not be a big update for a week or so, ahem.

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated with Untitled progress. I've tried my best to keep up with this as I've gone on.

Added a new desktop to Multimedia. Nothing too flashy, just something whipped up in 15 minutes during a not needed break.

The Episode Archive's had a few minor formatting issue fixed.

1st November

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

As there was no point in keeping it online anymore, I've deleted the B4FV Season Two entry from the Reboot menu. It only had one thing on it, and that's already covered in Coming Soon. That season is more or less done.

Season Three has taken its place as I've decided what to do with it. The big change will be what I'm replacing the Monkey Island parodies that were transferred to Reboot One with.

21st October
Two to go.

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 27: Closure

Site Updates

The usual things that are updated on an episode release; Coming Soon, Season Five list, History's Episode Sizes and Release Log.

Season Five's Episode Trivia has been updated with information about the previous episode. It's way too soon to talk about Closure though.

13th October

Site Updates

I said I'd close the forums if the spambots found it again and invaded. No one will miss it. I may have to re-consider the Twitter/Facebook alternatives. I do have the accounts already, but I'm still not sure about linking them to the site, especially when I VERY rarely even touch Twitter. If you're interested anyway, I imagine both of them can be found by a quick search.

Coming Soon progress updated. In the home stretch, I assure you.

7th October
So after the lengthily news entry on the 30th, some thinking about it, and finally a discussion with another writer, a curious word count made all of that a waste of time. The story was closing in on Dark Clouds' length with so much more to write. Keeping it as one episode would have been a stupid idea. Really there was only one solution after all; split it up. Thankfully as mentioned in the previous update, Closure's original first part was developed in more recent years thanks to S5's continuation and planning, so was not really a part of my original vision for Closure 10+ years ago. It's a decently sized prologue to it with its own story to tell. I still have doubts about splitting Closure up, which are quickly squashed by seeing clean hard facts such as this:

Closure Part 1 of 3 was 29,612 words long, alone it would be the 14th biggest episode.

Before I continued work on the episode this afternoon, the word count for parts 2 & 3 was 32,499, which together would put it as 10th.

Combined it would be 2nd, 2000 words behind Dark Clouds. Remember the episode's far from finished. There's some big scenes still to do.

I've estimated the episode with Part 1 separated from it will be ranked 5th when it's done based on the remaining plot. That's basically Three's A Paradox length. IMO that's much easier to read than an almost novel sized episode split into three files.

Using the same method for estimating the completion size, the full episode would have been 74,000 words, exceeding DC by a whopping 10,000. Basically the size difference between DC and Death of the Soul. So consider an episode 20,000 words longer than Death, divided into the same amount of parts. Yeah, I made the right choice.

As it's technically been ready since the 20th September, there's no reason why I shouldn't. I wish I had decided on this back in September, but hey:

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 26: Out of Mind's Eye

Site Updates

Normally I'd say Coming Soon has been updated, but because of the changes and the need to change the method of figuring out the %, it's barely budged. In fact it's gone down by 1, haha. For comparison's sake the episode has just overtaken Aggression's file size, and Closing of the Eyes in words. This is after the split, so rest assured the episode's definitely grown quite a bit.

Season Five's list in Coming Soon is up to date. I've also decided to share the official synopsis for Closure and Untitled there. Closure's old one was just temporary to avoid spoilers. I think it's safe now, don't you? Though the new one could be considered vague too, ha.

As always with an episode release, Episode Sizes Ranking and Release Log have been updated in History.

30th September

Site Updates

Coming Soon: Yes Closure's completion % has barely gone up, that's not because I've barely written anything in a week. See that crap load of text below, there's the hint why. If you can't be bothered with that, look at Point 7 and maybe 1. Trust me it's bigger. A lot bigger.

Ok, here's the situation summed up first. The paragraphs later may explain it better, or not.

1) The next Season Five episode, Closure is currently the 5th biggest episode of the series.

2) If I were to guess, I've got something the size of Dark Clouds Part 3 to still write.

3) I wanted the episode released in September. That's not happening unless I find a time machine or develop super typing speed.

4) Closure's middle section has been blighted by the simple fact that it had no coherent plot getting it from the rather long beginning, to the massive finale. Just a simple image in my head, which isn't simple to put to "paper" without multiple issues.

5) Point 4 probably isn't relevant now as I'm on the final scene of the middle section, about to start the finale. Point 4 is what's slowed the episode down. The beginning is basically Part 1 unless/until I change that later, and I adore every word of it. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

6) I've considered yet another episode split. I was gutted that I did this to Say It Again With Emotion, the whole episode should have been it and Ruins. I gave in. If I give in again, it'll be that feeling x10. Bounds of Illusion and Within Reach worked, Ruins and Emotion shouldn't have been separated.

7) I've given up on guessing Closure's final size. Like I did with Echoes I've estimated its completion based on how many scenes I have left in my numbered plot. To complicate that I haven't typed the final scenes into that, so the 75% is still wrong. Gotta love it.

Okay tl;dr paragraphs time, but I have to explain myself. Points 1-3 I suppose: Yes I've blabbed on about the rest of the series being huge, despite my whining I have made my peace with that. There's still the problem with time. You may know what date's coming up and if you do, you probably have a good idea what I plan to do with it. I'm very obvious at this point, I'm sure. If you don't know, great, but unfortunately I know. It'll bug me if I fail. Simply; Closure still being unfinished in October threatens my plans for the rest of the year, I should be preparing to write Untitled by now.

Closure shouldn't be this long. This isn't another Parental Advisory or Emotion incident where I've underestimated how much I can waffle on (joke, maybe). Nope. The story building up to Closure has undergone a LOT of development over the years, and because of it Closure begins very differently to how it used to. Though to be fair it was difficult to choose an opening scene in the old version. I can't say why as obviously it'll spoil the story, however I will say this; if I didn't make all these changes I mentioned, I could have easily started the episode in what's now Part 2. Part 1 wouldn't exist with the exception of one scene which would have been a little later. To give you an idea how much of a big deal this is, Part 1's file is the same size as the episode It's Your Duty.

So to sum up so far. Closure's huge because of character/story development that wasn't in the original 2005-2007 plans for S5, is the size of a two parter from B4FV Season Three. Repeat, a two parter, from a highly developed season like S5. It's a good thing I enjoyed writing the damn thing, hmm?

Moving on, point 4 and 5: Closure wasn't as heavily plotted/planned out as Dark Clouds as I've hinted, I think, in the past. Don't get me wrong the finale I've spoken about is. However what was always building up to it, basically now the middle section, differed every time I tried to picture it in my head. Again I have to avoid spoilers here, so forgive the vagueness of this. The middle section was focused on two things going on, one of which isn't a quick fix or it isn't realistic (lol FV, realistic). However it can't be dragged out, as I fear readers would find it dull, repetitive if it went on as I pictured it. Now we're finally reaching the issue I've had for the last few days. How do I make it less cluttered (I knew I'd think of an appropriate word eventually!) but still coherent, so I can get to the damn finale I badly want to write.

Don't get me wrong, now that it's mostly done I'm very pleased with what's sitting in Part 2's file. I just wish I hadn't struggled with getting it down for so long.

Point 6 shouldn't need that much explanation. It's right there in the title. I could get away with Emotion as its meaning lay in the final scene, so taking some of the episode away and calling it Ruins was fine, even though it still makes me mad at myself for doing it. Closure though was always this ever since An Eternal Flame was chopped up and had the majority of its pieces scattered into earlier S5 episodes. (Brief Intermission: I'm so damn glad I did this. Closure shouldn't be novel sized, god).

The episode can't just start later. Its meaning is all throughout the episode. I can't do it. I still fear I will though, the size so far is ridiculous. That first part I mentioned could end up being the cut off point, as it's "new" to Closure. It wouldn't be the whole thing though. Even if it was, despite its size, it doesn't feel like an episode on its own. I had this issue with Ruins/Emotion, and Queuing Forever for that matter too. I guess there's no reason to decide until I finish, check its size and have the panic/heart attack (take your pick).

What's this mean to you? Well... Season Five will continue hopefully soon with one of the two scenario's:

The gigantic Closure with its 3 (yes 3) huge parts.

The first part I mentioned Queuing Forever'ed from Closure, so two episodes go up instead of one.

You get the same story, it's just the presentation that's up for debate right now. The first scenario is my preferred one unless its length tops Dark Clouds by quite a huge margin. I don't care if Untitled and especially Back To Normal do this, unless it takes too damn long to finish. Closure though, nope. It's a big deal to me, there is such a thing as too long. However I already know Closure's not an easy episode to shorten. Believe me. At this point it's not an option. Splitting it into two episodes may make it easier for you the reader to read them. I always saw myself as a fast reader and my recent read through of Dark Clouds and Echoes to prep for Closure took 2 of my work days (so no not the full 8 hours, close enough though). I had to skim the rare parts that didn't apply. Having smaller files, more "parts" certainly makes it easier to stop and find your place later. Late Season Five badly needs chapter bookmarks.

Speaking of which if I keep going on, this news entry may need to be split up too. I think I've done more than enough to catch you up. Hopefully Closure won't take too much of my time in October. It's getting a bit worrying.

23rd September
I warned that the next episode would be a biggie, didn't I? File size wise Closure is larger than Aggression, closing in on End of the Day and Chain Reaction. If I were to guess I'm about 2/3's of the way through it. We're in the final three episodes so it's expected, I suppose.

Site Updates

Coming Soon: Completion percentage for Closure has been updated.

2nd September
This is just a nice progress report update. Good news is the next episode is coming along nicely. I'm very happy with it so far. I will warn you far in advance, it will be a big one. I expected the final three to be huge, but still, now that it's in progress it couldn't be more obvious.

Site Updates

Coming Soon: Completion percentage for Closure has been updated. The estimated size for it was changed to a number more realistic so that original 20% ended up being a lot lower, until I started the writing for today. Rest assured, it's almost doubled in size since the last update.

28th August
"Break's" over, and I'm back on Season Five. I've been working on the next episode since Monday and so far it's coming along nicely. I did a few little updates last week when I was stuck on reboot episodes. Today though I've made some bigger ones that need to go up, so here we are.

Site Updates

Aggression and Closing of the Eyes have been edited slightly. Both episodes have an odd way of telling the reader when their scenes take place. Aggression tried to be different by starting after the Scorpion cliffhanger, while telling the story building up to it with flashbacks. I wanted to avoid the countless "2 days earlier/later" narrative, but I just made it confusing and a bit repetitive as Year of Hell uses the Day system too. That's all gone, replaced by actual dates. Closing of the Eyes used the time and Day One way of narrating when the scenes were. This wasn't much help as the episode was based in 2 time zones, and didn't tell you which. It just assumed that since a scene was in Indiana, you'd know to -5 from an English scene to get an idea when it happened. The reboot "fixed" it by telling you what zone it was, but that was it. I think it still looks better to use the time to narrate, instead of "ten minutes later" or nothing at all. It just feels colder, which suits the episode IMO.

Coming Soon's up to date.

Season One's trivia page has been updated in the History section.

An amusing error in (Reboot) Happy Ever After has been caught and fixed. Its original file already had this done, which makes it funnier to me. If you don't know what it was, then tough ^_^ The only clue I can give is it's one of my "I had two different ways of writing this sentence in mind, and it's muddled together while I've typed it". That's why you see the same word appearing in a sentence twice, FYI... I hope I've caught all of them haha.

A less amusing error has been fixed in Reboot Caretaker Part 1. Basically it was a silly plot error, minor and probably not that noticeable, caused by having a six year gap between parts. It happens. I'll share this one though. Janeway knows, or rather a member of her old crew knows that her dog is pregnant before Mark confirms it to her in Part 2.

19th August
This week I've been working on the Season One reboot since these episodes are usually a lot quicker to finish. It'd be nice to have another episode to release while Closure is being written. I plan to start that next week, so we'll see.

Site Updates

Both reboot episodes have new banners, I've only shared the one though as I'm still unsure on A Timeless Fight. Mainly the Fight part, as I'm not happy with the changes I planned to make to it. There is just a Timeless version of the banner, so that's okay. When I've decided what to do, one of the versions will be released on the home page.

Coming Soon updated.

11th August
One more down, three to go.

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 25: Echoes

Site Updates

The usual things when a new episode is released; Episode Sizes, Episode Log, Coming Soon.

9th August
There's no use trying to fight it, Echoes is two parter material. I knew it wouldn't be a one parter, there was too much going on for that to work out. You probably don't care about the 1/2 parter nonsense, so I'll say this... the episode's getting close to the end. Not long now.

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated, you know the routine by now.

4th August
Just another progress report. The next episode's going slowly but nicely. The issue with it is that unlike the previous one, it hasn't had 90% of its scenes memorised and ingrained in my brain for over a decade. Nope, not kidding, Dark Clouds would have taken months if it only had a "basic" plot developed for it. At least that's my theory, no way to know. Echoes is/was a flexible episode created to prepare for ones that are planned (almost) as much as DC. Hopefully if I'm right, Closure won't take as long as Echoes but maybe as long as Dark Clouds. Ahem.

Though to be honest, I'm getting close to the end and I want to make sure it's right. There won't be any more chances after this. Closure, Untitled and Back To Normal have no room for iddy bitty scenes I've forgotten in older episodes.

Or you can go with my old theory that I'm allergic to finishing things. Whatever you want ^_^

I have decided that if the episode isn't completed by the time DC is two months old, and I'm struggling around that date, then it's time to continue my already started reboot episodes. Those generally only take a few days, a week at most. Anyway, today it's just minor updates.

Site Updates

Coming Soon has been updated with progress

The Character part of the History section has been changed. One of the entries needed a rewrite.

27th July
I apologise, for a week and a half I've been quite ill and definitely not up to writing at all. I'm still recovering, I think, so I'm hoping to continue working on the next episode tonight. I also hope that this delay hasn't ruined my chances of getting this season completed for the end of the year.

Site Updates

Coming Soon has been updated with progress.

The previous episode Dark Clouds has had a few typing errors fixed. You know the usual; repeated words (that doesn't help the already huge word count heh), words spelled wrong but are still words so the spell check doesn't catch them (alludes instead of eludes for example). I type way too fast, this happens far too often.

The FAQ on the home page has been updated.

14th July
Yeah I've been quiet again, and there's reasons for that.

One is that with only four episodes (at least) to go in the series, four important episodes as well, I can't rush in and get straight to work. Lots of planning needs to be done. Plots need to be taken from the pits of my tiny mind, most of which are over a decade old, and put "to paper" so to speak. Loose ends need to be fully noted so that they're not forgotten. Yeah, it's stuff I should have done ages ago. Technically I have, for the most part. There's a difference between planning a full season arc over a decade ago in your head, and writing it down into 28+ stories over a span over those years. Things change, storylines develop and so do the characters that you don't foresee at the beginning.

I just wanna make sure I've got everything all together in one place, so I can go in to the final four without any extra worries.

Also reading through the entirety of Season Five takes time.

Anyway, site updates...

Site Updates

Episode Trivia in History has been updated; Dark Clouds has quite a big entry, already wrote on finishing the episode. I was just saving it for the dry spell between episodes. Some earlier Season Five episodes have been updated too. Season One Reboot has a few minor things added to it.

Coming Soon is up to date on "episode 25"'s progress.

The banner for Echoes has been released along with its official synopsis. You can see them on the home page.

In the reboot menu, the B4FV Season One list has been updated. I was inspired. Hopefully not too much, I have enough work as it is.

To prepare for the final episodes I've been reading through Season Five in full, for the first time since the come back. Once I got to Death of the Soul I had to consider skipping some things, as it was taking far too long as you can imagine (mostly skipping Three's A Paradox and Five, and the stuff I already read to prepare for Dark Clouds). Anyway the point is there's been a few slight edits, nothing major, just stupid typing mistakes primarily. You know, the usual!

Episode Sizes was mostly completed and I didn't mention it at all in the last update. From here on out only new entries need to be added to it.

18th June
Hello to anyone who's here. Yep I'm back from my holidays, but thankfully I didn't slack off entirely. Dark Clouds only had a short amount to do, well short for it anyway (you'll see), so I was able to hand write the ending while I was away. It was already a late flight back when it was delayed, blah blah excuses etc... it doesn't matter cos I still needed to type it up, do yet another read through (which takes a damn while), fix mistakes I managed to spot, and do the update.

Four to go...

Unless the plots of Echoes and (more than likely) Untitled force them to split up into multiple episodes, like Emotion and Bounds did. Ahem.

Five to go. Just in case ^_^

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 24: Dark Clouds

Site Updates

Episode Sizes is up to date with the latest gigantic entry. Oh dear is all I'll say.

Dark Clouds wasn't the only thing I wrote while I was away. I fancied delving into an old classic; Timeless, to see if I could do anything different with it that isn't absolutely terrible. So far so good. The ideas I had for it are working, thankfully. I can't wait to share them. Naturally it was also hand written so the % is a guess. You may wonder why the next S5 episode Echoes has no synopsis. The only reason I'm willing to share is that all of the synopsis I have contain spoilers. The other reason will be revealed when the episode has been out a while.

Speaking of a new episode being out a while, Dark Clouds' trivia in History has been written but it's not online yet. I really should go back to waiting for the episode to age slightly before blabbing secrets and other junk ^_^ Some has been carefully selected in to tide anyone over, but I doubt that's an issue. DC itself is long enough anyway.

5th June
Unless a miracle happens, the next episode is not going to be done before my holiday. I only have tonight and I'm knee deep in the final (long) stretch. I'll be away from tomorrow until the 17th, so I doubt there will be anything until then at least. You never know, I may update this entry later but I'm not optimistic.

For anybody curious:

The episode had its last word count the previous Friday, and it was high enough to be the fifth biggest then. It was roughly 37,000 at the time. I've been at the episode every day since then. At the time I still had several large scenes to tackle. File size wise it was between Bounds of Illusion and Death Corridor at ninth place.

On the 2nd the episode beat the average I use for the coming soon completion %'s, which is normal for S5 right now. That chucked it into 4th place on the file size list. Its been there for a while as the gap between 3rd and 4th is quite big; 121kb, which is bigger than some episodes haha. No word count yet. I didn't want to know.

By Thursday I was into the final part of the episode, noticed the size and nearly had a fit. I still haven't dared to put it into Word for a word count. Remember it was fifth on the word count long before it was fourth on the file size one.

The only episodes that contained more words than Dark Clouds one week ago were Five, Death of the Soul, Parental Advisory and Three's A Paradox. Since then it has overtaken the latter two by about 100kb. It's closing in on er... Closing of the Eyes (ah word repetition lol), but luckily the word count for that and file size don't really coincide that well. It's still given me good reason to worry about getting a count after a week.

Not including the one I'm still doing, there are two scenes left. One of which is already down on paper. You never know.

3rd June
Yep as expected Dark Clouds has exceeded the average size I need to figure out a completion %. I haven't bothered to do a word count on it, I know full damn well it'll be in the top three by now. Three more scenes, and one is lengthily, to go. So yeah, the coming soon completion percentage, it's likely not right. I'd say it's 90% at least. There's only a few days left until I go away on holiday. There's a good chance that I may not get it done in time. If the episode isn't up by Friday the 5th, then it'll be another couple of weeks. If I write it abroad, it still needs to be typed up from notebooks. Sigh. I'm not giving up yet. I want this episode completed.

31st May
Here we go again. I've still got quite a lot to write and yet Dark Clouds is currently the 4th longest episode (37,000 words, my god). Considering how much I've got to write, I don't think it's a stretch to say it will end up in the top three when it's finished. It will safely overtake Bounds and Three's A Paradox. At this point I'm worried it will beat Death of the Soul.

It's safe to say the rest of Season Five is going to be huge like this. Oh well. At least its not taking as long as the last few, and I've likely jinxed myself there. I'm really enjoying writing this episode so you never know ^_^

25th May
The next episode is going well so far, touch wood. I just thought it would be nice to keep anyone visiting up to date. Also I've figured out the best way to write one of the next reboot episodes, A Timeless Fight, so it's likely I'll be writing that afterwards. I still have no idea what to do with Extreme Night as most of my ideas are too similar to the original or are way too overblown for a reboot episode. They're still meant to be short and "sweet". I can see Timeless/Fight being separated again at this rate. We'll see. ^_^

Site Updates

Episode Sizes has been updated quite thoroughly. Before I started on Dark Clouds I spent two work days doing the word count for everything. The results are quite interesting to me, I hope they are to someone else after all that. The file size one should be easier in comparison, just fiddly.

For anyone curious Dark Clouds is currently ranked 27th at 22,594 words, just a few words longer than Shadow. It's a two parter in Season Five, so you can look at that page to get a general idea what I'm aiming for.

 

12th May
I had hoped to get today's episode done within a week after going back to it in April, however I thought/planned this when I hadn't read the original in something like ten years. I didn't know that 99% of it was mostly copied lines from the film it was meant to parody, I assumed it was 50 or something ^_^. A lot of it had to be rewritten, which takes a little bit more time than a week. In the end it did only take nine days in total, so I was mostly right. However that doesn't include the time it took to figure out what the hell I was trying to do with the original, if anything but thievery (lol), and how to make the new version make even the tiniest bit of sense while mostly staying true to the original. Time well spent, ahem.

Now it is time to devote myself to Season Five again. I'm going on a much overdue holiday in June, and I'd really prefer to get one more episode done before I hop on a plane. Usually my guesses about how long an episode will take are right, I've only been grossly wrong with Ruins/Emotion, so I might make it. Might. I'll try to keep the coming soon page updated. I'd look at the % there as a maximum estimate (for example if it says 50%, assume it's no more complete than that and probably about a third of the way through). Season Five episodes usually end up quite big, I reach 100% about half way through usually.

New Episodes

Reboot Season One, Episode 10: Home Sweet Holodeck

Site Updates

In the History section both of the Season One trivia pages have been updated. I'd make sure you've read the above episode before checking out the new content though.

Episode Sizes has been updated and put into the History section. To my surprise and horror Home Sweet Holodeck ended up being the second biggest episode of the rebooted season, beating Aggression by a thousand words. I don't know why it was a surprise. A certain scene in Part 2 is probably longer than the average original Season One episode.

11th May
Just a quick progress report. The reboot for Holo Q is finished. I just need to check through it and divide it into two parts. Hopefully it'll keep the site going until Dark Clouds is complete.

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

It's only taken me eleven months to do it, but I've finally had a second read through of the episode Five. There were quite a few minor errors that needed fixing, typos/missing words etc... nothing drastic. There were still enough for me to report it here though.

 

27th April
It's been a busy two+ weeks at work, I'm exhausted by it all (and truth be told the work has left my hands quite a mess, it's painful to type), so there's been little time to get any decent work done. I started cleaning up some of the site when it all kicked off. Never mind. Hopefully it's quietening down now so I may be able to write soon. I hope.

Nearly three weeks ago I had a look at the Reboot Season One episode list, as well as the originals, and my pedantic nature kicked in. I already knew Original Season One episodes were released out of order and had very inconsistent, almost random based in dates (the latter's another story). I was thinking that as I was stuck on the next reboot episode, that I should think of a way around it. That episode and the Timeless/Fight combo I've gone back and forth on, it's ridiculous really. Long story short I thought I'd put forward Holo Q since in the original season it was the ninth episode released anyway, the next reboot number is ten and I'm half way through it. Why not?

I wasn't happy with the order I had so I spent far, far too long changing everything around so it worked better. You can see the mess I made of it and that episode based in I mentioned earlier in the Updates below.

Site Updates

The reboot episodes Unforgettable, Four Out Of Five, Mirror Universes, Collective Instinct and Worse Case Scenario 2 have had minor edits, all date related. It's not really that important, but it's only fair to mention it.

Silent Scream's Previous/Next episode links have been fixed. It seemed to think it was Blood Oath, the links were from its page ^_^ Death Wish's links have been updated as I forgot the rebooted previous episode there.

Reboot Season One's episode list has been re-ordered.

As a result the two one off episodes Secret of the Revenge and Escape From The Curse have had their episode numbers changed.

The History section has a new page, the Episode Release Log. This was created before the hiatus so visitors could click on the date they'd last been, and it would show what had been released since that time. I thought it may be useful to have. The Updates page is a tad cluttered now, so.

10th April
You may be wondering why there are two new episodes today instead of one. I'll try to keep it short as I actually do hate my big walls of text in this page. I intend to explain this further in the appropriate episode trivia page in History. Without spoiling either episode, the point of the original Say It Again With Emotion was that it focused primarily on a character plot and at the same time would allow for the Season Five arc to continue in the background as a side story. Long story shorter, quite literally, the main plot was massive on its own. It took me a while to figure out what to do for the best, in the end I decided to separate them.

Basically it's a similar situation that inflicted Bounds of Illusion and Within Reach. The biggest difference though is that the "Within Reach" of this tale was written already when I decided to do this, which is why both episodes are ready.

I'm debating continuing Season Five right away mainly because the next episode, Dark Clouds, is gonna take a while and it's definitely going to be tough to do. I'm trying to think of the best episode to compare it with so you have an idea on why. I get a few for different reasons. Closing of the Eyes for controversy, as well as the darker story to be honest. Death of the Soul for being planned out in my head to exact detail. That's never a good sign. Heaven Sent for a change of pace/writing "style", is all I'm willing to share there. Anyway I thought it may be a good idea to get some Reboot Season One releases in between the two, just to keep the site going while I write this latest challenge. However Season One is a lot lighter as I've tried to keep it with a similar tone to the original and Dark Clouds is anything but.

I'll probably do what I usually do and write one thing for an hour, write another for a second hour, see how I feel. More often than not it works. It's why there's always a few things in Coming Soon's list, and now you know ^_^

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 22: Ruins

Season Five, Episode 23: Say It Again With Emotion

Site Updates

That Top 30 list I posted on the previous update has been fixed so it doesn't say Top 10 anymore. It's obvious I copied the table from this page to that, oops. I might find somewhere to put it on the menu.

Season Five's episode list has been adjusted accordingly.

I've shortened the block of text in the 31st March entry as the episode sizes issue has been resolved. There's still a link to the Top 30 biggest episode table there. I may chuck it into the main menu somewhere and maybe do a complete list. I'm probably the only one that finds stuff like that interesting, but never mind.

31st March
I've been mucking about with episode sizes lately as you may have noticed from the last update. However I figured it was a better idea to just leave things as they are now. I'll explain below.

On to more important things. The next episode Say It Again With Emotion is nearly finished. As per usual it's ended up bigger than I thought, that's why it's taking a while. I'll try to get it up for Easter weekend as I'll have extra time, I hope anyway.

Site Updates

The Reboot of Sweet Sensation has had two new lines added. I was checking through it the other day and saw a joke about the Kazon I don't think I've ever written down, and this episode was the last chance to do it. I saw a good opening for it. If you've read the reboot, the change is in the Chakotay and Janeway scene discussing the possibility of an alliance.

History's Season Five trivia has been updated with a bit more episode information, Outbreak's link to the next episode has also been fixed.

Coming Soon's progress updated.

I know I brought this up on the last update, which is why I'm talking about this below the actual updates and not above, but the episode sizes I use to help me figure out roughly how far along in an episode I am (for the Coming Soon page) is definitely flawed. I was noticing that Say It Again With Emotion was getting to be quite big despite the fact that I was 2-3 scenes away from finishing one plot out of three in it. True the one I'm doing first is the primary one, it's still not the point. I end up being reminded of Parental Advisory and every episode after it. I thought I can't be grossly underestimating the episodes every time.

Note: I've since deleted my blabberings about this as I have decided it's not a big deal. I wasn't going to cos I doubted anyone would be interested, but hey, I wasted 2 hours on it so why not. Here's a link to that Top 30 biggest episodes table. Please bare in mind what I eventually figured out; a scene could literally be about a character obsessing about their situation and it could potentially be ten times the size as a scene where he/she actually did it. It all comes down to how it is written. That's been the problem all along. The real long stories look smaller than these mammoth word count ones as there's things happening in them, without much time for the character to think or talk sometimes, and you know in FV that the characters love to talk. As do I *wink*.

23rd March
Good news, the next Season Five episode is going smoothly. I am already thinking about the next one and whether I should dive straight into it or not. It will be a difficult episode to write and I can't chicken out with the tough scenes like I used to. I worry that if I have another break with Reboot Season One I'll be in the wrong state of mind to go back to this particular episode, yet I don't want to leave another big gap between releases. Meh, you know I worry too much about silly things. I'll think about it closer to the time.

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated. Season Five's episode list has a new title for the TBA episode. I could still change my mind if I think of a better one. I doubt I will though.

History / Episode Trivia: I've decided to change everything around here. It's a bit of a mess and the formatting is inconsistent. I was looking through some of the earlier Episode Trivia and I found Misc trivia numbered/lettered, which I've forgotten to do somewhere along the way. It made me think that the Episode Trivia section does need to be easier to navigate and generally needs cleaning up. I haven't finished, not even close, but I've made a start on it. In the meantime Season Five's Episode Trivia has been updated with Speaking In Riddles and Death Corridor info, the latter as Season Five is the page I'm using to change the format.

The episode Death Corridor has a big plot hole fixed. I say it was big, it was a minor character being where he shouldn't be. It's big to me, very embarrassing. There's information about that in History's Episode Trivia section.

As Season Five's been having much longer episodes than usual I've changed two parters Wrong Direction and Responsibility to one's. The content remains the same. Meets the Eye may get the same treatment, it all depends on how big the next (preferably) single parter Say It Again is. Within Reach was going to have this done to it too, mainly because it was the smallest one of that four multiple parts episode spree (seriously: Five, Parental Advisory, Bounds of Illusion and Within), but like I explain in my infamously sized paragraphs below, it was still long enough to be a 2 parter despite being a similar file size to Responsibility.

Wrong Direction is basically smaller than a lot of recent single episodes, by quite a bit. To be honest the episode was only split into two as I struggled to write it and I wanted the episode released for a certain date. Little did I know there was no hurry ^_^

Responsibility, once merged into one file, was the exact same size as recently released single parter Speaking In Riddles. It was only fair.

On a final note, the way I determine episode sizes looks to be flawed. I use the file sizes themselves. However while doing this I found double Meets the Eye was 5000 words shorter than solo Speaking In Riddles, despite boasting a slightly bigger file size. The two html files barely adds anything to total size, so it's not that. I noticed this when comparing the word count for Closing of the Eyes, Death of the Soul and Five. Closing had a huge 20,000 words difference to Death of the Soul, yet the file size was close. Five was over 100kb larger than Death, yet was a mere five thousand longer. My theory is because these are older episodes, that the file size doesn't work off the amount of words there are in it, although I still dunno what it counts. Post writers block I've tried to write better; describe more things and explore characters point of view etc... which creates paragraphs like this one. Most of my older work is simply "blah blah," someone said. Don't get me wrong I still do this, but other times I'll write paragraphs of a character describing something happening or their surroundings.

3rd March
Finally after a rough start there's a new episode this year, hurray! I guess after the last three Season Five episodes I was feeling a little burnt out, if you've read them you'll understand why, no wonder I'm/I was an emotional wreck ^_^. A brief break with Reboot Season One was really all I needed. The episode itself had some scenes I was concerned I'd have difficulty writing, and I did, which is why it took as long as it did. No matter, it's here now. I still need to give it yet another read through to make sure it's okay. I still find spelling/type errors from ten+ year old episodes so, yeah ^_^

With only six (at least) episodes to go I am a little excited, and a bit worried to be honest, as I'm getting close to some interesting and definitely will be difficult episodes. If you've seen Coming Soon lately you may notice I've already started on one of them. Hopefully I'll be in the mood to start on the next episode right away. I'll try to keep the coming soon page updated often.

You may be wondering why the next S5 episode doesn't have a synopsis yet. Well, Riddles didn't have an official one either. The reason is spoilers, haha. These two episodes were planned in many years ago, and I didn't want to ruin the plot for them so far in advance (really far in advance, so I made a good call there) so I decided to leave typing up a synopsis until it was written. Riddles got a temporary one as it was easy to be vague, not that the official one is spoilerific either. Emotion however, I really did not have a clue. The one on the home page is as vague as I can manage.

New Episodes

Season Five, Episode 21: Speaking In Riddles

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

Season Five's list updated now that a new episode is online.

Multimedia has a "new" desktop. It's a one I thought I lost during the computer crash. To be honest I'd forgotten about it until I found it randomly on my facebook page. That tends to reduce quality/size for me when I upload, so I was quite happy when I found the folder it was hiding in. It's nothing special. I made two Season Five... no sorry, three Season Five desktops to advertise it. That doesn't mean the desktop was made in 2005 (yeah I know, Season Five's opening episode will be ten in June. Scary), S5 went through a few stop and starts. According to the file info, this one will have been made after Meets the Eye was released, a full year before I tried to revive the season with Queuing Forever/Death of the Soul. It wouldn't be the first time that I underestimated a release time.

 

1st March
Just a quick update to let you know that the majority of the Season Five episode "Speaking In Riddles" is done. I just need to write a few more scenes and read through it to see if it needs editing (they always do ^_^). I'm afraid I'm not finishing it tonight, I've spent most of my weekend on the computer and my head is killing me haha. Hopefully I'll be done very soon.

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated.

23rd February
It's been a slow start to the year, compared to last year at least, but I'm finally getting somewhere. There's now a backup episode sitting in the Complete folder, so my safety net is secure. Also the next Season Five episode is coming along nicely.

I do feel like I need to explain something, just in case. Back in July there was an update entry where I mentioned that I hurt my arm. This was caused by a metal gate that was stuck until I tried to pull it open for five minutes, slamming into what I assume was my funny bone, considering my ironic reaction to it. It left me with a weakened arm and pain all the way down to my fingers. Back to today I'm in the same boat, but with no reason why. I dunno if it's related to that, like my occasional back pain is to my accident in 2009, or just another case of my body hating me. Although there was an incident in November that may have triggered it too (best word for what happened here was assault). Your guess is as good as mine, cos when the doc's hear my symptoms they tend to react like I'm reading them some Season One classics, so, yep.

Anyway this has been going on, on and off for months, and it does tend to get in the way of writing. I'm not saying it's the sole reason, sometimes it is a simple "I'm stuck" haha. The pain can usually make clutching a fork or a cup of coffee difficult, so you can imagine the horror of typing. In fact while writing this I've had to switch to typing with just my left, and ho boy if you thought my typo's were bad before.

Fortunately/unfortunately depending on your view point, the pain tends to leave me feeling sorry for myself and writing nonsense sometimes helps make me feel better, even with the pain. So yeah, this is why I was working on the reboot a lot over the last month. Also, during a facebook chat I decided to Fifty Shades-ify my Caretaker Reboot, just to see if I can make money too off something that doesn't belong to me. No don't run, I don't mean turning it into porn, I just mean changing names and stuff so it doesn't look like a fanfiction anymore.

... and no, I'm not selling it*. Even with the name changes it is still Caretaker, it would need a full rewrite to get around that ^_^. I'm not that bonkers. I will share it though. See below for that "gem". Haha.

Site Updates

Coming Soon updated with further progress.

In the History section, Reboot Season One's trivia page has been updated.

You'll only find it on this page. Here is a sample of my future best selling novel, that will end up as some box office hit too, entitled The Adventures of Voyeur (the second book will probably be called Voyeur 2: The Search For More Coffee). Before you ask, the most thought I put into the name changes was Tuvok's, and that was a mere thirty seconds. I can't stress this enough, I'm not serious about this ^_^ It was just a joke to distract myself and it did work. I'm only sharing cos I finished it, it being the only parts I've done for the Caretaker reboot, hehe.

*Besides if I did, I'd probably just sell it for 5p and put a 5 in the title somewhere haha.

 

2nd February
Ah first post of the year (was hoping it would be last Saturday but I wasn't home, nm), I hope you're well.

It seems after every 4th December update I start to slack off a bit, which is fine I suppose, but it always takes a while to get back into the swing of things come January. For some reason I stalled right at the part of Speaking In Riddles where it picks up, don't ask me why. Then I started having second thoughts about where I was up to in the first season reboot. As usual I'm in a bit of a mess. It's okay though cos some work has been done, it's just spread out a little thin. I did say I wanted a backup finished before I released anything, this way it'll be more than done. You'll see what I mean if you look at the Coming Soon section. Speaking of which, enough blab, here's what's new.

Site Updates

Coming Soon has been updated with many, many things.

The History section has two new entries to the Episode Trivia section; B4FV Seasons One and Two. Hopefully as they were the last to create I'll stop wasting time on these and write more instead, haha. Season One's section is mostly empty... no, no bad me, no more. Truthfully despite Season Three's "drama" and some embarrassing B4FV1 entries, I've enjoyed writing about all the oldies before I tear them apart in the reboot. There was so much I had forgotten about, some good and bad (mostly bad). It isn't finished but at least I won't be tempted with writing about a whole season again, all of that is done.

Season Five and B4FV Three's have been updated, just with some minor stuff. Look out for the yellow text.

The Season One episode list in the Reboot menu has been updated. I've finally decided on a title for episode 10 and the untitled one that took Timeline's spot has been brought forward.