This week, we have a piece to share with you from E. E. Nalley. "The Banshee's Tale" 

I won't exagerate and claim that this story changes EVERYTHING... but hold onto your hat, it's gonna hit you with some surprises. :)

Don't forget to leave comments and post feedback in the forums. That's all E. E. eats... if you don't leave him comments, he'll starve.

I don't know how many of you have been affected by the same weather patterns I have but... it has been very hot out for mid-June this past weekend and will continue to be for the next couple days. It's been miserable, to say the least. At least the nights have been reasonably (relatively) cool, but about all we can do is find AC or keep hydrated and sweat like crazy. It's so hot in my apartment that my gummy vitamins that I take daily are kinda mushy. Craziness!

Something else that's crazy hot is these Whateley Authors. E. E. Nalley gives us another look at Tansy's road to redemption today with "Tea and Daggers". And JG's "Siblings and Savages" finishes up today as we share with you Part 3 of that story. 

Enjoy! Comment! Come to the Forums and give Feedback!

And if you're affected by the heat, be sure to drink plenty of water and stay safe. Find somewhere cool to be if you can, even if that means wandering the aisles of Walmart for a few hours during the hottest part of the day.

Today we get a bit of old school Team Kimba through the looking glass of Hank as our newest author gives you a bit more from him in "Hank 5: To the New Year!" Be sure to thank Phoenix-Spiritus with a comment or feedback in the forums! 

We have two continuations for you this week, one from JG... and one from Morpheus. We have Part 2 from JG's "Siblings and Savages" and, from Morpheus, Part 2 of "A Little R&R 2: Alyss in Wondercute Land."

For those of you who haven't been paying attention this week, there have been a few changes on the site. You'll find that the story pages themselves have a bit different header section, with some new information... including the ability to subscribe to a story/mark it as a favorite. This allows you to quickly reference the story from a "My Favorites" sidebar menu option in the STORIES menu zone. 

You'll also find that the stories (and the lower left sidebar tag cloud) now open a more effective list of stories by tag. For the moment, these new tags are limited... the ability to work with them has been installed and the tags exist... but we haven't yet gone through all 500+ story files and put the data in yet.

We've also added a couple new data fields to our story files... in addition to being able to tell which characters are in the story by their tags, we've added a specific PoV character field. This will, once all of that has been entered on the data side... will allow you to search for all stories with a given character as PoV. Likewise, we've added an "in universe" start date field.

There are also some nice changes in the search and filtering features. The results aren't great at the moment... but once all the tag data and everything is updated, these should be very powerful and able to get people to the stories they are looking for fast.

Anyhow, that's the update for the week. Enjoy the stories, don't forget to comment and give feedback! There's also a rating/vote option at the top of all the stories now, don't be afraid to use it!

Today is Memorial Day. A day set aside to recognize the sacrifice made by those who served and gave their lives in the performance of their duties. I'm not a huge fan of Veteran's Day... mostly because its an awkward day for a lot of people who on that one day discover a whole lot of us who they thought were just like them actually put our lives on the line and served... and then try to make up for the fact that they didn't know (or usually don't care) by thanking us for our service. I get it. I really get it. After all, I was an engineer on a carrier. My risk was pretty minimal outside of full out WW3 and I know people who were under fire, or took a bullet, in the same combat theater where I sailed in circles and kept equipment running and clean. I feel unworthy of the comments in comparison.

But I don't feel that way about Memorial Days. There's no question or ambivalence about the commitment and service of those we recognize on this day. I wish, that for this one day, Americans could set aside the the idea of celebrating holidays through the consumption of meat and beer and recognize this holiday with the solemnity that it deserves. Consider in comparison the way we reflect each Spring on the death of one man who lived 2000 years ago... and his rebirth afterwards. On Memorial Day, we recognize, mourn, and thank thousands of American men and women... who not only served and died, but did so knowing that they weren't just going to suffer through it to rise again and ascend. They did so because they believed in the principles of our nation... and on behalf of everyone who remained at home and was yet unborn. Save your picnic and celebrations for next weekend... take a little time to contemplate generosity and determination of spirit while watching the flags wave in the breeze over your local cemetery grounds and say a few thank yous.

Made some good finds this week on extensions to the software we use. These should repair some of the flaws introduced into the core system and give us some additional functionality that we've been hoping to add for some time now. As with anything more flexible and with greater potential, there's also an added learning curve and complexity in working out just how their elements were designed to be used by the developer and how we can make that work for us... so for the next couple weeks, my 'free' time will be in slowly getting a hold on how this stuff works and improving functionality. At first, that's probably only going to affect you if you are spending some time reading things in the Library right now... as the Library is going to be my first stage test bed. Once I have things snazzy and organized just right, I'll expand to the rest of the content.

For now... authors will find (even the WhatIF authors) that we were able to re-implement the multi-stage pipeline for in progress work and the WhatIF authors in particular will find that they have greater control over their own content if lesser over that of other authors. Some individuals have been granted extra priveleges in their 'area' of content for their efforts to support others and provide editorial support... but all WhatIF authors should have the ability to move their stories from the starter category (WhatIF - Working) into their Needing Feedback category and from there into the 'published WhatIF' category for public release without any need for staff assistance. Of course, if you DO want/need assistance, feel free to ask. Most of the canon staff should have the ability to help edit or publish your work. We'll also get a revised/updated version of the walk through up as soon as things settle enough to make it worth the time to do it.

And finally... this week's content. From Elrod, with assistance and harassment from E. E. Nalley, we have our three ladies of toil and turmoil from Gen 1 in a new stand alone called "Intervention". And from Morpheus, we wrap up the current Imp piece with Part 3 of "Imp 5: Head Over Tail." And any week that starts off with the Imp is going to be a good one.

Enjoy! And don't forget to Comment... or drop by the forums and leave some Feedback!