Hey Everyone! Happy New Year! I hope that the end of 2022 is much quieter and peaceful than the rest of it has felt. I started this blog earlier, way back in Spring, and I wasn't sure if I was going to keep up with it. I even managed to post a piece one a week for like 3-4 months, which was nuts. I was proud of that, but hoo boy, I do not want to do that again.  Some light housekeeping up front, I did change the title of that Mass Effect essay to remove the "Part 1" of it, as it has become abundantly clear that I think I said everything I wanted to say with regards to that. I have been working on another Game Talk article, but I have no idea when that will be out, but stay tuned. My immediate plans are to hopefully wrap up the Investigation story for Tales From Port Astor, and then move onto my next project for that setting. But, who knows. I have plans, then life gets in the way. Thank you for everyone who has taken the time to read these through the year, and thank you

      Leon awoke in a fog, pierced only by the bleating alarms from the escape pod. The last he could recall was the escape pod [PAINTED] alert going off, and then the bursts began. In a daze, he managed to ignite the door charge, blowing the sealed hatch off, in addition to his eardrums. He slowly began to drag and lift himself out of the crashed pod when an intense pain shocked through him-- a piece of metal from the console was lodged in his abdomen, and had hit the frame of the blown hatch while he exited.     He tumbled out of the pod, and into the small crater of his entry; at first belly-down, to which he mustered what little strength he had left to flip himself. The pain was nothing he had felt in years. Not since he crashed his first suit when he began his test pilot career, but how long ago was that even? He thought about these things as he stared at the snow falling down on him from the very heavens he just fell from.     He began to fade in and out of awareness, half-dreami