I hope some of you enjoy this. I figured it was better than total silence as I plow through the new draft.

I wanted you all to know I am still here, I am about halfway through the new draft, and I caught a tarantula the other day. I had bought a cheap little prop ages ago, and so now I may finally have a stand-in cover for Gaia Awakens. (It's about damn time!) We are going to do a vote, for those of you still following to determine the cover photo. Finally, I needed a side project.

I can only bear so much editing without fresh creation, and I've had an idea simmering in my head for a few years but it's been boiling over the last few weeks. It has absolutely nothing in common with Gaia Awakens except that it's mostly fantasy and the core feature is that I have taken Earth and molded her into what I needed her to be. Beyond that, it's gamer fantasy with skills and stats and such, and the system I am building for it should be able to work with minor tweaks for my first story on here, Valheim, which broke down when I realized the mechanics were broken beyond repair and I didn't have it in me to start from scratch. But that project will wait till Gaia is alive and well, this is just a little side fun. I'll binge for a few weeks and get back to the coal mines. I'll likely pick it up again later.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25473/sleeping-through-the-apocalypse for anyone so inclined, but now back to the contest.

Angry tarantula abducted from my guinea pig pen, delicately prodded into position with a stick, and then released:

And we have a second entrant into this contest (although she cannot be trusted without her purple battle harness, and doesn't like the soft bare soil that would match better) is Sugar. She is not very easy to photograph, as she does not like to be on open ground and objects heavily to my phone getting anywhere near her, but if she wins I will get more photos.