I don't even know how to preface this, but what I will say is that this, at least for me, is the end of an era in my writing history on this site. Back in 2012, when my fanfiction experience began with To Survive II, I never would have pictured myself ending up here. To Survive II was intended purely so that I could demonstrate my love for To Survive at the time by writing, what I believed at the time, to be a faithful and natural continuation of its story.

Go on, laugh it up. I was young, stupid and had no idea what quality writing was. I thought my shit didn't stink...and to be honest, I really can't comprehend why I ever thought what I wrote was good.

Point is, To Survive II had only one good thing result from it: For A Better Tomorrow. For the longest time, that series was my bread and butter on this site. A child I've been nursing since 2013, in fact. Cancelling it was extremely difficult, but because all the more necessary once I realized the scope of it had escaped my ability to make reality. If I could have finished it conclusively, I would have, but my exhaustion with doing a trilogy re-write is what sealed that story's doom. I was sick of rehashing the same old predictable plot. There's no surprise or subverted expectation in rewriting the trilogy, because we already know what's going to happen. It's just novelizing the games.

Which is why I wanted to write a post-war story.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...Flashpoint started not long after my brief renewal of Holocaust, a little bit after its first cancellation. I was hoping starting a new story where people gave me requests and I wrote them out would allow me to experiment with new styles of writing while also giving me a break from writing FABT. At least, that was the original intent...what actually ended up happening was that it showed me that FABT just wasn't what I wanted to write anymore, and it actually ended up inspiring me to write EQC, so we know what became of that.

Flashpoint was indeed an experiment, and a learning experience. Each new prompt challenged me with something new, and I thank you all for providing those challenges. The very first prompt I wrote, "That Damnable Shirt" by Emerald Commander, was a challenge because it forced me to focus on something I consider myself pretty terrible at: dialogue. I'm pretty happy, if not proud, with how I write fight scenes, so prompts like "Do Unto Others..." and bits of "A Bitter Memoriam" were easier for me to do. But dialogue? Argh! Bane of my existence!

However, as Flashpoint has gone along, I think I've personally noticed a gradual increase in the quality of my dialogue, and that's because Snapshot 1 helped form the basis for that improvement. So were these prompts challenging? A lot of them were, yes. Is that a good thing? You bet your ass it is.

Another thing Flashpoint did was to get me back to actually focusing on the romance in the Tali/MShep pairing. Holocaust got so lost in all the world-building that the romance was ultimately turned into a side note, and I regret that to this day. Flashpoint: Talimance (come on, it's in the title) is obviously a major course correction for this, as I hope EQC will be. And, with the additional challenge of the prompts mentioned, how I choose to write the romance has also had a chance to grow and improve, and I think this is reflected most prominently in, well, how I write sex scenes. Gone is the gratuitous smut I used to write in FABT...Tali/MShep, at least to me, is meant to be a wholesome, heartfelt pairing, and I want any sex scenes to represent that. You've probably already noticed this in EQC already, actually.

Flashpoint is ironic, like I've said. It's a flashpoint in my writing, and a transition from FABT to the new stories I have planned. It was a necessary step for me to take, and I hope you can agree and acknowledge that the changes made to my writing style have ultimately helped me to improve. I'm even making an effort to try and cut down the length of my chapters, even if EQC is lagging in this area.

Whatever the case, I now want to take this time to thank you all for the time you've taken in providing me your ideas, reading my interpretation of them, and giving me your thoughts. You've been immensely helpful, and I can only hope that I've been equally helpful in putting your ideas to paper, proverbially speaking. It was a pleasure to write these prompts, even the wackier ones. Your own creativity has inspired me in many ways, and for that, I have you to thank once more.

Thank you for the reviews. Thank you for the prompts. Thank you for supporting Flashpoint from start to finish, and thank you for helping pave the way for many more stories to come.

May we continue to keep the Talimancing community on this site and beyond alive! There's enough of it to go around!

Looking forward to what the future awaits, and I hope you are too!

Keelah se'lai, troopers!