Hello! It certainly has been a while since we last spoke and for that, I apologize, before I begin I want to say that sincerely do hope all of you have been staying safe with everything going on in the world.

So, you've all had a lot of questions about the Azur Lane set of stories and I want to answer those since I realize not saying anything has only invited more questions. Obviously neither Blurring the Lines nor A Rising Storm have been updated in a while and that has begged the question of why not? Since I am clearly active in writing another story it's not like I've been gone or anything else that would prevent me from writing chapters for them. Well, the answer to that is two-fold with one major and one minor reason.

The minor reason being that I just have been working on a different story that has caught my attention and so every other story has been neglected for a bit. This tends to happen whenever I write something new and it usually passes as I burn myself out from one idea then take a break to work on something else for a bit. Essentially me just indulging in my own creative process I guess.

The major reason, however, is one that is far more problematic in regards to coming back to these fics specifically and that is that Azur Lane's story or rather lack of coherent story has sort of killed much of my motivation to try and tell it. I still enjoy the game and its characters but the storytelling has pretty much stalled me out. Event after event of no questions getting answered and cliffhanger after cliffhanger with no resolution in sight makes trying to tell anything regarding this game's story a pain in the ass. Now, some will reasonably say "You are a writer, make something up!" and I might have agreed if I had even the slightest hint of tangible motivation for these characters. People who have played the game will understand what I mean when I say most of the time we don't even have a clue what's going on beyond "beat up the mean siren" and that's just frustrating when you then try and sit down and say "Okay time to write a story around these events except I have no clue when this event takes place, what's really going on in the background, or what timeline this is even in since nothing is done in order".

For A Rising Storm, this is a bit more problematic since it is more story-heavy from the outset compared to BTL. BTL I'm half debating on rewriting to just be a slice of life "here have a shota-Naruto to spoil and be cute with and ignore the threats of the outside world since lord knows that's all a mess". ARS, on the other hand, I still have a few ideas for but it's more of delaying the inevitable.

I know these aren't super satisfying answers and a lot of people aren't going to like I'm just expressing my thoughts on it. Does that mean these stories are abandoned or discontinued, not at all but they also aren't a high priority right now either. I'm still thinking about and working on it.

Anyway, I just wanted to give some kind of update on these fics because I do continue to get questions on them and I didn't want to just never answer those. I also ask that if you have questions or complaints that you don't go leaving those in the reviews of my other stories but just ask me here or through a private message, I will try to answer where I can so make sure to check your inbox if you ask something as I may have responded.

As always do try and stay safe in these crazy times!