Update June 2009: My computer broke. The motherboard is fried, and I lost a lot of notes. My current projects are still up there in my head somewhere, but updates will be slower until I can come up with a good way to type them up. I suppose I could write things by hand like I did back in the good old days (i.e. high school), but I'd have to write everything twice that way. In the meantime, though, I'll post a short comedic story to keep everyone satisfied until I can get on with my Chrono Trigger story. I don't have immediate plans for more of Kingdom Hearts Alternate Scenarios yet, but I might in the future. Think of the first episode of it like a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode and you'll get the tone I'm going for.

Update February 26, 2009: The new chapter took a while because I wrote it more than once. In fact, I rewrote a large portion of Samsara's story to make it more interesting and to make the plot as a whole more coherent. I hope you enjoy it.

Update October 3, 2008: After several months without internet, I am back, and I bring with me a new chapter for A Love Beyond Time. This one was really hard to do; some of the things that happen are quite important to the overall plot, and I had to resolve a few issues before the story could go on. You'll see what I mean if you read the chapter. I'll try to have more regular updates from here on, but I have qualifying exams coming up in January, and those are pretty important, so I might not think about much else at the end of this year. As for all the editing I am supposed to be doing on other stories, well, you can blame massive computer failure and the fact that I dropped off the face of the Earth over the summer.
Please enjoy the new chapter. Criticism is always welcome.

Update March 17, 2008: Two new chapters are up. Things are starting to get complicated in Samsara's time, and Chrono's half of the story remains as full of mystery as ever. If you can guess where I'm going with all of this, you win a cookie.

January 26, 2008: New update posted.
This whole chapter is a big, long boss fight, so enjoy it, please. Those are not easy to write.

Be patient with some of the newer characters added. I think I've done a good job of making Coppelia likeable so far, but Paem and Egmont need to do a little growing before I consider them true "first string" cast members. It'll happen, but I'm not there yet.

You'll have to wait until next time for a continuation of the Sam/Jinling arc, but I hope that won't take long. I don't have that one planned out as well as I have most of the details of the Chrono story worked out, but the major framework is there, and at some point the two storylines are going to collide. Expect fireworks then.

Summary of what has happened so far in A Love Beyond Time (up to chapter 17):

Chrono: About to be married to Nadia, but then ripped away through a portal to a place beyond the End of Time. He is now searching for a way back home while aiding those he meets along the way. That's so like him.

Coppelia: Mysterious girl found wandering in Jinling Caverns, looking for someone called Orchid. Now traveling with Chrono in an attempt to find her. Just why has not been revealed. Suspicious that Orchid could be part of an invasion force.

Samsara Ashtear: Lucca's daughter (but who is the father?). Attempting to follow in her mother's footsteps by expanding the field of temporal mathematics.

Jinling Lan: Samsara's best friend and research partner. Has a bit more of an adventurous spirit than Samsara does. Suspicious of some of the emails she encountered while snooping on Samsara's computer.

Paem: Intelligence officer and guardian of the north district in the land beyond time, and operator of the Himmelkreuz supercomputer. With Chrono's help, fought off an invasion force. Currently investigating a new invasion in the western province.

Egmont: New character introduced at the end of chapter 17.

Crow: Evil guy who likes to gloat and cackle but who was not able to properly invade Paem's home, thanks to Paem, Chrono, and Coppelia.

Lord Kuei: Ruler of the north province of the land beyond time. Paem's boss.

Lady Qilin: Ruler of the western province. Haven't met her yet.

Passion and Pain: Two minor villains.

Lucca Ashtear: Began a research program with Balthasar in the distant future. Helped pioneer the field of temporal mathematics. Has one daughter named Samsara.

Update December 7, 2007: Uh, remember what I said about not dedicating 60-80 hours per week to science? That didn't work out for a while, but my new lab is quite a bit less cutthroat than the previous one, so I am finally able to polish off some of these chapters I've had brewing for a while. Chrono's arc of A Love Beyond Time, in particular, will see some major action soon (including in the update I posted last night), and something is finally about to happen in the Jinling/Samsara arc.
Sadly, I can't spoil exactly what goes on there and why, but all will eventually be revealed, and yes, the two stories will tie together in a way that you probably aren't expecting.

Update August 9: This has been a while, but I am about to make a triumphant return. For those interested, the delay was the result of my dedicating too much time to my old job and to my grad school applications. I am pleased to say that I'll be starting my graduate schooling in about a week, and that means I'll have more free time for writing. (I'm competing for a fellowship now, so I am taking only two courses in hopes of assuring I get top grades in both.)
What that means for my readers is that I will have a new chapter of A Love Beyond Time ready in the near future, probably by the end of the weekend. What it also means is that I'll be updating regularly again. No more dedicating 60-80 hours each week to science with most of the rest of the time spent sleeping. None of that.
I hope everyone can still enjoy the story. If not, I might post a guide to some of what has happened so far, though writing one has been difficult; I do not wish to include major spoilers, but nearly all of the characters involved in the story have something to hide at this point.
Isn't that a teaser? Enjoy.

Update December 16: A bad cold has derailed the new chapter. Sorry, but I just can't write until I get over it.

Update November 28: Yeah, it's been a while. I wrote the new chapter previously, but I had trouble uploading it. It's there now, though. It's got action and an old villain or two and a new character, so enjoy.

I know I'm behind on reading and reviewing, but I've been very busy lately. Fortunately, part of that is a good kind of busy--I just received word that I'm having another paper published, this time in a better journal than before. That makes me happy.

Update October 30: The new character will have to wait. For now, you get a chapter that almost feels like filler. You can blame the fact that I've been pushing hard to get my manuscript out at work. It's not completely bad, though, and it's a chance to catch your breath and keep up with what has happened so far, and at least one significant event happens. More importantly, I thought of an important plot twist this morning, and I should be able to work it in later.
Please enjoy.
And yes, I know I'm behind on replying to reviews. I'll get around to that soon.

Update October 6: New chapter up. Enjoy. Things should finally start to get more interesting in the Samsara and Jinling story thread, even though not much happens with Chrono and Co. this chapter. A little happens, of course. You get to find out how the end of the battle with Crow went. That's fun, isn't it?

Plus, this is the first time Jinling gets almost a whole chapter to herself. She's too cool to keep completely in the background.
We'll see how well I can run parallel plots. I know the general structure of both stories, but I might want to do a little more outlining to make sure I get them tying together at the right moment. I left a couple of hints about their resolution in some of the earlier text (some really blatantly obvious, some not), so you know I'm not just using the relative popularity of Chrono's adventure to trick people into reading about Samsara discussing math.
Another interesting thing I could point out is that I've finally injected all three of my main passions in life into the story. Music was already there, and of course there was math, but this chapter we get chess. I've been madly in love with all three subjects since elementary school, and I hope that love shows through in this story.
For those unfamiliar with chess notation (like Jinling, apparently), the number on the left of a row indicates the move number, and to the right of that you have White's move and then Black's move. Capital letters indicate the piece moved (K-King, Q-Queen,R-Rook,B-Bishop,N-Knight, nothing for a pawn), and lowercase letters are the horizontal axis of the board. The numbers are the vertical axis. Thus, 1. ... Nf6 means Black moves his Knight to square f6. This is usually unambiguous, but sometimes you have to write something like Ngf6, to say that Black moves the Knight in the g-file (the second to last column) to f6, as opposed to, say, the Knight on d6 if he has one.
So, yes, Samsara is about to play a game of chess against someone named Nimzovich (not his real name). Furthermore, it's a so-called correspondence game, which means she sends and received moves by mail (or email). She can either leave a copy of the game sitting out to look at, or she can reconstruct the game each time she wants to study the position. When she knows her move, she emails it back to her opponent and waits for his response. It's quite possibly the idea way to play chess.
Why is she doing this? I won't tell, at least not yet. Jinling needs to figure it out for herself.

Another September 18 Update: I just noticed that with all the editing I did to Chapter 13 (listed as 14 here because the Prologue was Chapter 0), I ended up with 2701 words, and 2701 is a sum of two squares. That's nifty, if meaningless to everyone not crazy about cryptography.

Update September 18: If you already read the new chapters, you might want to skim them again. I found about twice as many typos as I usually find in a finished version of something. I blame the fact that I finished my editing in the middle of the night last night, when I could barely type.

Update September 18: I had trouble getting the new chapter up, so that just means I had time to write another one. Two chapters today, then, and they're both of fair length. Plus, we get some actual villains now, along with some clues as to how some parts of the plot will resolve themselves. They are definitely there if you know what to look for, and you might even be able to see one or two of them if you don't. If you figure anything out, though, please don't post spoilers in your reviews. You can email me if you have questions or want to discuss something, or if I haven't made the story very clear.
Don't bother speculating about whom Crow claims to have killed before. You don't know him yet.
Part of the reason this update took a while is that I had a difficult plot point I had to work out. In the long run it won't mean much, but in the short run it will keep things from becoming even more incoherent and implausible than they already are.
I'm not very happy with the dialog from the fight scene. Crow's lines seem a little like stock. However, the more I think about that, the more I don't mind it, knowing what I know about Crow's past.

Update September 6: The new chapter is coming soon. It's harder to post things now, but work will slow down eventually, and then I can really push this onward. The story is growing quite a bit whether I'm writing new chapters or not, so don't worry about it going away for good. I have much of the near future plot mapped out, and I have several characters who will show up eventually. I'm also working on developing some of the story's themes. You've already seen one of the big ones in the form of the recent conversation between Jinling and Samsara (who are SO cool that I made them into characters in my Disgaea 2 army--and Samsara put the beatdown on the final boss just last night. I mention this so you know how much thought I am giving this story). Of course, there's the whole mythological connection, and there are some points motivated by literature, and I haven't even made much reference at all the the inspiration that got the story off the ground last August. It was August, wasn't it? I could look it up.

My point is that I'm not going to be quitting this story, even if I sometimes go too long between updates. I have invested a lot into it, far more than into anything else I've put on this site. It's a much better story than Cloud Nine and I, Bobot, my other long stories I've put up, and I eventually got both of those done. (Okay, Cloud Nine is expanding, but only because it's so easy to write.)

Update August 13: Okay, the new chapter is up. Finally. As a reward for your patience, I'm going to try to get another chapter up tonight, if I can.
Of note in the new chapter is that I brought Samsara and Jinling back. Here, they introduce one an idea that will be important later on in the story and which is already somewhat important to this point. They obscure it a bit in formal language, though. Basically, they're talking about a chaotic system. Chaotic systems are very loosely defined, but one way to look at them is as a system where starting close to a particular point does not mean you'll end up close to it. You can define this sort of thing on an abstract topological space, but for now, we'll just think of a metric space.
Popular perception of chaos is that it means things are indeterminate and random. This is not the case. Samsara calculated the image of her starting set very precisely. That is to say, she used a function (a mapping, here) from every point in the set U to its image in the space in which she is working, in this case phase-space (which is a set of axes defining the position and momentum of a particle, broken into components). She could determine where you end up if you start at a particular point. The problem is trying to pick a starting point. The real world is funny that way. You might have a precision of 1 nanometer, but that means your starting point could be anything within that precision range. In a chaotic system, this is significant. That small difference in starting points turns into a big difference over time. Because you are limited in how you can measure starting points, chaotic systems can be deterministic while appearing random.

Update August 13: Yeah, I've been sitting on half a chapter for a while now, but work has been extra busy. I'm this close to getting a second publication this year, which would be just peachy. First, though, I have to satisfy the reviewers, and some of them are a little rough. For instance (and I'll speak in really broad terms so I don't give too much away), they asked for a certain type of addition to my program that would require a bootstrap method, and that is completely out of the picture. Running the program just once takes about ten seconds. Rerunning it multiple times for a stat I can fairly well approximate using other methods is a complete waste, especially when the whole point of the program is to do things faster than existing software can.
I haven't been completely inactive when it come to writing, though. I've done some more planning for A Love Beyond Time, and I've got a bunch of sketches of future characters in my notebook. I also hope to get the rest of the new chapter up tonight.
I have sketches for several characters who have not appeared yet, including:
Ori
Hyangi
Nataraja
von Rothbart
Drosselmeyer
Carabosse
Some of these characters won't be appearing for a while, but a couple who will (and whose sketches are a little older) include a man named Mal and a woman named Sajo.
This may seem like a lot of characters, but some of them are bad guys, and you can never have too many bad guys.

Update July 24: Attack of the Mutant Killer Ant Queen Part 4: Mama, I Just Killed an Ant! No, that's not a new story I uploaded. That's what unfolded at my apartment over the weekend. In case you've never had a colony of fire ants set up shop outside your window on the one day of the week the exterminator refuses to come out (stupid Sunday rules), then just know that you probably wouldn't get much writing done, either, if you had to spend much of the day and much of your energy and attention keeping watch for stray ants slipping through your duct tape barrier and bombarding them with Raid. That's not even counting the time and effort it takes to build and reinforce your duct tape barrier. It's worth it to keep the ants at bay, though.

Anyway, that's why I don't have a chapter up today. Sorry. I've already started it, though, so it'll be up later this week.

Update July 19: The new chapter is almost done. It should have been done a couple of days ago, but an ant invasion distracted me. If you don't know how much trouble that is, just wait until you get your own apartment. In happier news, a part of A Love Beyond Time looked like an error earlier today, but I have confirmed that it was not. That's not to say I don't have mistakes in the story (mistake = I wrote something that contradicts my notes, where I have the meat of the story written down already), but at least this one part isn't so bad. I can't say where it is, though. That would be a spoiler.
Expect the new chapter within the next couple of days.

Update July 12: I meant to upload the new chapter yesterday, but I couldn't find the disk. It's up now, though. Enjoy.
I'm not completely sure about the pacing of the new chapter, but at least the story moves forward. Have I been introducing too many new characters too quickly? I worry about that sometimes. Alas, you get one more in this chapter, with the promise of a couple others within the next few. Then we get to settle in for some action. I won't say what now, but I have the next big arc worked out in my notebook. Plus, what ever happened to Samsara and Jinling?

Update July 10: This week's new chapter of A Love Beyond Time is finished, but it's on a disk back home. I'll have to upload it after I go to work tomorrow. I'm going to try to get at least a chapter done each week now, since I got a few of the behind-the-scenes bugs worked out. The rest of the major plot twists are pretty much set for the remainder of the story, but there are still a few details that need straightening.

Update July 5: Hey, that's a new chapter up today. On top of that, there's last week's beginning of a new story. I feel like doing some more Love Beyond Time this weekend, and I'm closer than you might think to writing some more for Chisato Madison: Ace Reporter. That one definitely needs a new title, though.

Update June 23: Finally, the weekend is here! It couldn't have gotten here quickly enough. Of course, I'm stuck in the computer lab because it's pouring down rain for about the sixth day in a row, but at least I have some hope of getting a nice dinner and a nap sometime soon. Plus, I don't have to work for the next two and a half days!
That means I'll have some time for writing. I hope to flesh out a few ideas for the meat of the story in A Love Beyond Time. Recent developments have made that a little easier; I no longer feel like I've written myself into a corner. Yeah, I think sending Chrono down into a dark and mostly featureless cave might have been a bad way to start things off, but now it can get more in line with the sort of trippy narrative I so enjoy.
I left my notes at home, though, so you'll have to wait at least until Monday to see what I come up with this weekend. I can't write anything now.

Update June 18: The new chapter is up. I'm not really happy with the way Jiao turned out, but she's not a very important character, so I'll let that slide. You'll notice a few new named popping up in this chapter, but you don't need to strain yourself to remember them. The only really important ones, for now, are Orchid and Kuei. Orchid will come up often enough that you won't be able to forget who she is, and Kuei is, well, you'll see.
Samsara and Jinling fans, don't despair. There'll be more on those two soon. They do play a major role, but I don't want them to dominate Chrono (the real star of the show), and I felt I had to take a few chapters to get our hero rolling along on his journey.
I have Tuesday off from work, so I should be able to get a bit more written soon. I might even do a bit tomorrow evening, and today's not even over yet.
On a final note, congratulations to the Korean soccer team for getting a draw with France. As of right now, they're still alone atop Group G. Going into the tournament, everyone kept making a huge deal about how they'd never won a World Cup game away from home, but I think it just goes to show how irrational soccer fans can be. They haven't even played a World Cup game away from home this century, or at least they hadn't until they beat Togo last week. This is a completely different team now. Different coach, different players, different opponents, different everything. Who cares how long it's been since a group of people wearing the same country name did such and such? It's all worthless.
Also, fans need to stop being so negative. I can hardly read recaps of the matches because of how unrelentingly negative they tend to be. About the only thing that makes a soccer pundit happy seems to be if the favored side wins 6-0 and only takes six shots in the game. What so many don't seem to have figured out is that scoring chances in soccer are a very low percentage success event. You take ten shots, and if you make one of them, you're happy. If you make two of them, you're very happy. What I keep reading is commentary like, "So and so failed on too many chances, and so the team must have played with no heart or determination." No! Taking a shot in soccer is quite like putting a baseball in play in baseball. You only have so much control over what happens, and good efforts only result in success a small percentage of the time (smaller in soccer). You can assume a constant level of skill in baseball play and, depending on what random sampling of your at-bats you look at, you can get results that make you look like either a scrub or an All-Star, even if you're just mediocre. The same goes for soccer. You play at a particular level, and sometimes you turn that into goals, and sometimes you don't. Judging by outcomes alone is silly, but particularly so in an event with a low success rate. This is why I, at work, can't look at a plot of time versus fluorescence events and conclude that the best fit curve is jagged line that hits every data point. No, I use statistical analysis and some funny calculus to come up with something better that may or may not touch any of the data points (though fair percentage of them tend to be inside a calculated confidence interval). I don't want to give too many details on what I do at work, but what I've said is just a generally known truth. You have to think when you look at samplings before you try to decide what those tell you. You have to do this in science, and you have to do this in sports.

Update June 18: The good news is that I am going to be posting the new chapter of A Love Beyond Time today. There is no bad news, except on my end. See, the plot has spiraled out of control, and I'm having trouble putting all the pieces together. Also, I lose my account on the network I've been using in two weeks, and I don't know how much my new office would want me doing non-lab business on their computers. (It's bad enough that I use their internet to monitor my fantasy baseball teams.) I'm in a new apartment now, and the cable company currently working with them doesn't offer cable internet, so I have to go without for a couple of months. Soon, we'll be able to switch over to a new cable company and get some internet service going, and then things should be back to normal.

Update April 30: You get a double dose of A Love Beyond Time this weekend. That's good, because you probably didn't want to end the weekend on a cliffhanger, did you? No, you didn't. Enjoy the new chapter, but don't draw too many conclusions about the character Coppelia yet. It'll be tempting, but you really shouldn't. I know exactly what's going on with her, so I know why she is able to act the way she does in the last couple of chapters. If you absolutely have to have justification for her being there, and you need it right now, you'll have to settle with, "A Chrono Trigger story needs a colorful cast of characters." Coppelia fits just fine, in the big scheme of things.

Update April 29: Well, you get your new dose of A Love Beyond Time tonight. Isn't that fun? The new chapter is chock full of action. I know I don't write action scenes particularly well (and some would argue I don't write any scenes particularly well), but this one had to be there. Enjoy.
Also, I'll have more time to write in the near future, since my job search looks like it's over. After a few weeks of calling up pretty much everybody I could think of who had any connection to biophysics in Houston, I landed myself a spot in a lab dealing with protein conformation changes. Better yet, protein conformation changes in ion channels. Very nice, and now I don't have to spend weekdays rummaging around for work. This is all assuming my references don't have anything particularly nasty to say about me, but I've been a good worker in the past, so I think I'll be fine.
I have an idea for a new series to post. Two, actually, but one is better than the other. I've been experimenting with poetry in A Love Beyond Time, and while I don't think I've accomplished anything particularly sublime with it, I have been having fun. Add to that my recent restarting of Final Fantasy X and you have a recipe for... Al Bhed poetry! Yeah, I know, it's a disaster waiting to happen, but you don't have to read it. My style isn't great; I'm too self-conscious to get the whole "innocent, simple, and fresh" vibe that more ancient poets managed.
Also, I know I have to catch up on a little reading on this site. I haven't read recent updates yet because the site has been down, and I prefer to review stories as I read them. Bear with me.
By the way, there is one line in the new chapter of A Love Beyond Time that might make you want to hurt me. Please don't. Please keep reading. I promise I'll cut back on inflicting that sort of pain on my readers in the future. You'll know what I'm talking about when you read it.

Update February 23: I got those two new chapters of Rena's Harem up, but I'm still working on A Love Beyond Time. I really want to get some more of that up soon, but I've been distracted by working out more of the details of the overall plot. I'm giving larger roles to Samsara and Jinling than I originally planned, but I have one big detail I need to work out before I can advance the plot much with regard to those two. I have a good idea of how everything I've mentioned so far fits together, but I'm still missing something. By the way, if anyone is reading this, please let me know if the original characters (Samsara and Jinling) are any good. I know I don't have much about them posted yet, but I'd like to know at some point if they work well or not.

Update January 28: I posted the new chapter of Rena's Harem. It's not as good as it should be, but it's better than the previous chapter. A Love Beyond Time is still giving me trouble, but I'm making at least a little progress on it. Expect something soon. Yeah, I said that last weekend, but this time I mean it. I mentioned that hte new chapter will have more Jinling in it, didn't I? I need to give readers a better picture of her and her friends before anyone gets the idea that the whole story is about Chrono. The problem is that I only have the beginning and end of the Jinling/Samsara plot thread mapped out, and I have very little of the middle of it in mind. I need to do more planning so I can set up the meat of the story. Plus, I have some minor bookkeeping to do for the Jinling Caverns episode of the Chrono thread.

Update January 25: I'm finally getting somewhere with A Love Beyond Time. I'm also nearly finished with another chapter of Rena's Harem.

Update January 23: Obviously, I didn't get the update finished. That's because I'm not happy with the outline I have for the new chapter, and I don't want to throw something subpar up there. Give me a little more time and I can get something meaningful, with some good payoff later. Expect a little bit of Chrono and a little bit of Jinling in the next chapter.

Update January 21: I'm working on a new chapter for A Love Beyond Time, but it's giving me trouble. I hope to have have something posted by the end of the weekend at the latest.

Update January 17: I finished watching Star Ocean: EX last night. It suffered from some of the usual problems plaguing Japanese cartoons, namely tons and tons of pointless recaps and flashbacks and bare bones animation during fight sequences. For some reason, Precis looked like she was about twelve years old in the show, and that made Ashton's crush on her appear a bit creepy, but at least we all know she's older than that. Her portrayal was even more unflatteringly babyish than Leon's, believe it or not. Precis probably lost the most in the translation to the new medium. Celine definitely gained the most. Not only was her magic actually useful to the party in the cartoon (unlike in the game), she got most of the best lines, with the rest going to Ashton. The single best element of the show had to be how Celine knew her spells took forever to chant, just like in the game, so she ordered the melee characters to protect her while she did her chanting. It made me feel a little guilty, though. When I play the game, I usually just leave her out to dry or banish her from the active fighting party.

Update January 16: A Love Beyond Time is moving forward, full throttle. I put up two new chapters today, both of which have more action and less technobabble than the previous chapter. For those interested, the stories getting the most attention right now are A Love Beyond Time, Chisato Madison, Ace Reporter, Horror Madness, and Rena's Harem. A Love Beyond Time is going to be fairly long, but it will end eventually. Rena's Harem isn't going to go nearly as long. Chisato Madison, Ace Reporter and Horror Madness could both go on indefinitely, but I think Horror Madness has a natural end to it at some point.

Update January 12: I've added the next chapter of A Love Beyond Time. It a little too much exposition in it, and I'm not sure if it's thought out as well as I'd like, but at least it's something. If for no other reason, read it to become acquainted with two new characters, both of whom will be important later: Samsara Ashtear and her friend Jinling Lan. Jinling is completely original, and Samsara is the daughter of famous Chrono Trigger adventurer Lucca Ashtear. Just as important as the new characters is how the next chapter establishes that I'm going to have multiple plot threads running, not always linearly and not always (if I can help it) in the same style. Chrono's thread is supposed to be more dreamlike, and Samsara's thread is more blunt and grounded. As of this point in the story, I've left plenty of plot points hanging, but that's intentional. I'm always open to suggestions on how to continue, though.

New Year Update: I just reread what I have so far for Chisato Madison: Ace Reporter, and I have to admit it's one of the worst things I've ever written. Should I start over? I'd best do some emergency editing, at the very least. I think I'll continue with it, at least for a little while. I now know what is going to happen in the first major story arc, so I should write something down before I forget. Update: I did a little editing, and I added a new chapter. The reports of its death are officially now declared exaggerated!

Also, for anyone who follows the news in my profile, I'll have a new chapter of A Love Beyond Time up within the next couple of days. I have some finishing touches to put on it, and then I have to type it up, but it'll be there. Count on it. I say this even though it's probably the most difficult story I'm currently working on.

Update: I, Bobot is finished! I'd been building up to the finale for some time, so I hope it's satisfying for everyone. It was pretty hard to write. I knew everything that happened, and I knew what had to go down at the end, but I didn't want to waste too much time on exposition or corny dialogue. I ended up with too much of the latter, I'm sure, but at least I hope it didn't turn out like something you'd find in the middle of Cloud Nine or Horror Madness.

Holiday update: I'm on vacation, and so I rarely get to use a computer. However, I'm still writing. It may be mostly on paper, but I'll get some things posted when I can find the time. I want to progress a bit more on A Love Beyond Time and a new story, which has a working title of Horror Madness and which is a sequel to Cloud Nine. The title definitely sounds like something out of a B-movie, but that's what I'm going for. Read it if you like my comedy. Chapter 1 is posted now, by the way.

I've rekindled my love of the music of Johnny Cash, so I hope I can use that as inspiration at some point. Unfortunately, I can't really use the tone from any of "At Folsom Prison" for any of the stories I'm working on at the moment. Now, if I get around to that Xenogears novel I'm thinking about starting in the next year or so...

New in this edition of my profile: Summaries of what I'm working on at the moment at the top, so they don't get lost. As usual, I'd appreciate any feedback I can get on anything, particularly if there's something you'd like to see in any of my stories or if there is something you particularly hate about any of them. Really, I guess, any feedback is welcome. Please. Oh, so lonely.

Please feel free to email me with suggestions for my stories, complaints about my style, praise for my imagined greatness, bits of prose for me to edit (and I love editing other people's work), or offers to make me king of a country with lots of sunny beaches and a good opera company or two.

Story titles are followed by the game or series or category of whatever. I apologize if there are typos in this profile. The text is small, so I can't read it very well, and I may overlook an error from time to time.

Cloud Nine (Final Fantasy VII) -- Finished the final chapter. Working on some bonus materials, including alternate endings. Summary: Cloud reads internet rumors that Aeris can be revived if he goes on a series of ridiculously contrived side quests. The early chapters are not very well written, and at least one of them is intentionally cheesy. I like the later chapters better.

Horror Madness (Final Fantasy VII) -- Sequel to Cloud Nine. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse.

I, Bobot (Star Ocean: The Second Story) -- Finished! A story of mystery, intrigue, and murder most foul. Is Bobot really behind it all?

Chisato Madison, Ace Reporter (Star Ocean: The Second Story) -- Chapter 2 in progress. Slow progress. Summary: After the events in the game, Chisato helped establish a system of mass media on Expel. Unfortunately, it developed a little too fast, and the Internet put Chisato's newspaper out of business. What else is a reporter girl to do but seek out a new planet, where someone might appreciate her newspaper experience. I came up with a couple new characters for the next few chapters, but that's about all I have for the moment.

Arirang (original) -- To be posted on when I get enough of it written. The story of one man's search for love in a semi-mystical Seoul.

The Wonderful Life of Ivan Petrovich (original) -- To be posted later on , though this one is not anywhere near ready. A story of pragmatism. Take from that what you will.

Capriccio Academico (original) -- Once nearly abandoned, this story might see life in the near future. The story of some grad students. Notable more for its introspective moments than its plot, and then only to people who can relate to my comparing walking down the road to campus to playing Oregon Trail on an old Apple II computer in grade school.

Twisted Topology (crossover, various) -- Stupid idea, stupid title. It probably doesn't make much sense at the moment, anyway. This one will be more later on, but only if I get that far.

Full Moon, Full Stomach (you'll see which series when you read)-- Very stupid title, but I like the story. Again, I really, really hate the title. Could anyone suggest something better?

Ultros the Great's School of Etiquette and Manners (Final Fantasy VI) -- This one hasn't gotten a lot of traffic lately, but it's one of my favorites. It might need some editing, but I like the concept. If it weren't fanfiction, I'd almost consider it absurdist. It doesn't have a person turning into a rhinoceros for no reason, but it does have a giant octopus teaching manners to unruly children. That's always fun.

Watch Out for the Bricks (Donkey Kong) -- This is, more or less, a novelization (if I may call something of its length that) of Donkey Kong. The title is taken from a line in the Disney Three Musketeers cartoon.

Rena's Harem (Star Ocean: The Second Story) -- My take on Rena's character, with some attempts to fill in a plot hole or two. Ever notice how Rena's romance with Claude is about the most awkward video game romance not involving Squall Leonheart? Wouldn't you feel awful if the girl you liked kept mentioning some other guy and then refusing to say anything else about him? Sometimes, you just get the feeling that Rena is playing Claude for a chump. Still in production.

A Love BeyondTIme (Chrono Trigger) -- Partially inspired by Mission316 's fantastic retelling of the Chrono Trigger story, though this one is about as far from a retelling or novelization or reinterpretation as you can get. I'm going to be really, really excited about it as soon as I can get it off the ground. I have the ending in mind, though I don't have most of the details between the opening and the ending. I also need more practice with the tone, which will be more along the lines of what I did with I, Bobot than anything else.

What, there's a profile to write? And I haven't? What in the name of the great Harold Zoid have I been thinking?

First, please note that if you are kind enough to read and comment on my stories, or even just put them on your update list, I will make an effort to read through everything you have written. Even if I don't have time to review it all, rest assured that I am taking the time to read it, unless you have a ridiculously large body of work out. I like receiving comments on how I could write things better, I like receiving simple reactions to my stories, and I like receiving suggestions for where stories should go in the future. Even if I don't use a suggestion, I'll still take it into account. Keep in mind that even if your suggestion is brilliant, I might have some other direction in which I've been planning future chapters, so don't take it personally if I don't use an idea.

Okay, essentials first. Or second. Or however far down I've pushed this paragraph. I should mention that if I seem overly critical in my reviews, it's because my reviewing philosphy is that if I praise everything, I'm really praising nothing. I like to point out things I like about stories as well as things I didn't like, even if I have to dig a little to find the things I don't like. Sometimes, I prefer to give a sort of line by line account of how I react while reading a story for the first time. I figure that is helpful for giving the other person the perspective of someone who didn't write the story. I can't do that sort of thing with my own work, at least not as well. Plus, when I react positively, you get to know that a particular element of your story managed to affect at least one reader a certain way.

Unfortunately, as you can probably tell from the paragraph above this one, I can be a little too wordy for my own good. I'm trying to learn to write better, but it's a long, slow process, and I've been corrupted by reading too much of writers like Douglas Adams and Neal Stephenson. I love their work, but I don't think I should attempt to imitate their styles. I'd appreciate any comments on which passages of mine are particularly bad, though I often catch the worst of them on my own. My longest story posted to date, Cloud Nine, has some particularly awful stretches, but the story as a whole is intended to be more an entertaining diversion than an exercise in good (or even halfway decent) literature.

Away from writing, I spend most of my time doing mathematics, playing violin, and studying chess, roughly in that order. Ihold a degree in mathematics from Rice University(2005), I've played and loved the violin since elementary school, and I used to participate in chess tournaments, where I'd be the obnoxious little runt giving the B and A players a hard time in Open tournaments. Good times.

As for my stories, so far I have:

Cloud Nine -- This story is finished. I got the idea while talking with someone about some of the more outlandish internet rumors surrounding Final Fantasy VII. There is some continuity between chapters, but for the most part the story is very episodic. I blame my love of Chinese literature for that. I managed to ignore the endless internet debates about whether Cloud should date Tifa, Yuffie, Aeris, or even Barrett by simply making him enough of a lecher to go for just about every girl he sees. The ending may or may not be surprising, depending on how low your standards are.

Full Moon, Full Stomach -- I don't want to spoil much of this one. I wrote the entire thing in one sitting, so I'm hoping it doesn't feel too choppy. The story is short, so please give it a chance. Please.

Ultros the Great's School of Etiquette and Manners -- I had a spot of inspiration: image of Ultros as a schoolteacher melded with all those picture books about evil teachers and other assorted monsters harming children in those books I read in elementary school, and I just had to write a story about Ultros taking on the role of an evil teacher. The lessons the class learns are actually pulled from some of George Washington's class notes. Yes, that George Washington, unless the internet has lied to me. I didn't exactly feel the need to make sure my source was credible. In any case, I found it fun to juxtapose the image of Ultros as a reluctant icon of civilization and manners with the image of Ultros getting angry at a room full of bratty children. It's grade school as it really happens, folks.

I actually have one short piece that's being published (as in, really published, not internet published) later this year, but unless you're really into bioengineering, you probably won't care about it. Just consult your favorite biotech journal if you're curious.

I have some other projects I'm working on, as well as some ideas I hope to turn into stories at some point in the future. Among them:

The Wonderful Life of Ivan Petrovich -- I like Russian novels, and while I don't have anything approaching the talent of even an Isaac Babel, much less a Fyodor Dostoevsky, I still want to try something a little more serious than, say, my stories about everyone's favorite ill-tempered octopus. I don't have much of a narrative structure of theme or anything like that, but I have some character ideas:
Ivan Petrovich -- The protagonist, whom I'll flesh out as the story progresses. He's best summed up as an extreme pragmatist in everything, with a special interest in the natural sciences. There aren't enough stories out there with realistic scientists and mathematicians as characters, so I owe it to myself to try to write one. He's going to be a little bit quirky just so he'll be interesting enough to write a story about, but he's not going to be a stock mad scientist or a stock antisocial math nerd.
Madeleine LaFontaine -- Amicable girlfriend of the protagonist. More cheerful than he is, but not overly so. Loyal even when she maybe shouldn't be.
Aida Rosetti -- She's going to be a surprise. You'll have to read the story to learn more about her. That, folks, is what we in the business call a teaser.
You'll have to check FictionPress.com for this one, though. It's not fanfiction.

I have started three new stories. The first, A Love Beyond the End of Time, is a really trippy piece set more or less in the world of Chrono Trigger. The second is a mystery story starring the cast of Star Ocean: The Second Story. The third will (I hope) turn into a long-running series about Chisato Madison, one of the more neglected characters in Star Ocean.

Some characters who will be in the Chrono Trigger story:
Disenchantment -- Chrono's fairy guide
Princess of the Dead -- Disenchantment wants Chrono to meet her, for some reason
Samsara -- Lucca's daughter
Jinling -- Samsara's best friend
Coppelia -- New member of Chrono's party.
Sardonxy, Jasper, Carnelian -- Three connected characters, though they're a bit of a secret at the moment
Adamantina -- Also a secret
Agastache, Eulalia, Ginger, Centaury, Eglantine, Amaranth, Anemone, Phellopteron -- more secrets
Shadow -- Not from Final Fantasy VI, and not his final name
Passion and Pain -- Obnoxious demons who appear in Jinling Caverns. Fun for the whole family.
Orchid -- Coppelia is searching for her for some reason.
Drosselmeyer -- To appear soon
Rothbart -- To appear soon
Carebosse -- To appear soon
Nataraja -- Will not appear anytime soon

I just finished the second of these stories. The title is I, Bobot . Unfortunately, it's a mystery, so I can't say too much about it for fear of giving anything away.

I've also posted the first two chapters of Chisato Madison, Ace Reporter . It's not much so far, but I have big plans for it in the future. It has the potential to be my next big project, and I know it will run longer than I, Bobot , which had to have an end at some point. (You'll see why if you read it.)

The other Star Ocean story I have in the works centers on Rena. I'm well aware that my plot projects a few of her personality issues almost to the point of turning her into a caricature, but it's not supposed to be a very serious story. The first two chapters are now posted, but I'm having trouble finding a tone I like for the story. I think I writing it at the same time as I, Bobot was a mistake, because I found myself using my Bobot tone at times when something a little sillier would work better.

I appreciate everyone who leaves a review for my stories, and I feel honored to have the opportunity to try to entertain. I hope I can pull my weight around here. Please keep reading, and I'll try to return the favor.