Ever had the feeling that you're at the end of something good, and it's time to move on to greener pastures?

Sonic the Hedgehog: Blood and Metal: Alpha/Omega Revision (Hereby knows now as just Blood and Metal or BAM as fans call it) represents exactly this point in my life. It was the first major story, fanfiction or otherwise, that I have done on the Internet.

The premise is a unique kind of White Backlash against the utter trashing White Males have been getting by the popular media. All throughout these recent decades, these people have been told all about the evils that their forefathers have done to the expense of what good they did as well. If their ancestors are evil, what does that make them? Are the White Males of today just as hopelessly bad as the ones when, say, America was in it's infancy?

Sonic the Hedgehog, the video game from Sega that BAM is based on, provides a perfect stage for this question. Take the resident bad guy, Doctor Robotnik, who is very much like the evil person talked about in the above paragraph. Give him a son who joined Sonic's side without Robotnik's knowledge and have the two meet in classic George Lucas fashion. Of course, to keep things form becoming another Star Wars, I added a robotic version of Mortal Kombat-style violence, and a good helping of strong language to show that the child in question is no Jedi Knight in any stretch.

Before I could say "Where the flying frack is Luke Skywalker when I really need his stinking tail?" I have created one of the smash Sonic- related epics on the Internet, and I have acquired something I didn't get before outside of the aforementioned computer network: All my life, I found that my actions had consequences, penalties, repercussions, and the like. My actions did not had rewards until that point. You might say that it was the first time in my whole 26 years of existence that I did something right.

That was something I tried to get again with sequels and spinoffs to BAM. Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as successful. You know what they say about sequels paling in light of their original. It no doubt went south from the first sequel up to the point where I had to end it because it just plain stunk, while during the process, I have lost what my early success have gained me. Some of the losses are irretrievable.

In retrospect, I find three factors in my downfall, the first has already listed, the second is the loss of love and passion people had in Sonic the Hedgehog, mainly caused by the lack or new games from Sonic and the quality of stories Archie had in a Sonic-Based comic book. Many people voiced it, including myself who was more vocal in mydispleasure. It quickly became the third factor when my pleasure turned to anger and caused not only my writing and artwork, but also my deposition has suffered. Some even said that I acted like a jerk in this period. Or worse. I can make a short list of former friends who now hate my guts over this and offer no forgiveness over what I have done for me. I know by now that I'm not going to bother apologizing and beg for something that does not exist for me. Some of them would even hound any future attempts for me to progress out of this low point in my life. Part of this attempt is partly responsible for a revision of BAM. I go back to the first story of BAM, the Alpha, and give it a new ending so that the crap that became of all of the sequels and spinoffs can be easily removed, the Omega. The resulting story will be preserved in my web site for my prosperity, or what is left of it.

Sometimes I wonder if I would ever by anything good like this ever again, and win back what I lost, and by some of the opinion of others, I shouldn't even try because it would never happen. There are even places on the Internet where I am persona non grata directly because of what has happened during the closing parts of the BAM spin-offs; a feeling I experienced in Real Live from Kindergarten on to Adulthood.

Some may think that after this, I would cancel my Internet connection, sell my computer, forget about getting a job with the skills I developed over the time I wrote BAM, much less a real life, and move to a shack in Montana with fifty cats and a printout of the Anarchists Cookbook and let the world pass on without me. (Until I make the headlines as the next mad bomber, that is)

The above paragraph, regardless of how absurd it sounds, would very well be my fate if I wasn't kept busy by the greener pastures I wandered into. I decided to let my storytelling give an helping hand to my artwork, and create Fan Comics made for other things I enjoy, and as of now, I'm branching off to original works that might be published if I'm lucky. I still hope to this day that I can do what I'm doing on the Internet for a Career.

Until then, I offer you the genesis of my storytelling life, and my first classic epic from a time that Sonic was young and fun. I give you Sonic the Hedgehog: Blood and Metal.

The Omega