Hello! This is just a quick update to let everyone know what has been going on in the last month or so and why I haven't been active lately. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up with this, but I figured it would be better to explain things here instead of responding to everyone individually.

First things first, I'm not dead! I've just been really busy this last month and haven't had time to work on things like I would have liked. Unfortunately my living situation hasn't gotten much better. While I have friends and family to stay with until I figure something out, I haven't found a long term place to stay yet. If anyone has ever stayed with friends and relatives after having your own place you probably know how hard it is to really relax in the house of someone else. When I had my own place I could sit around in my pajamas all day and do nothing but write if I felt like it, but that doing that in a house that isn't mine just makes me feel lazy and a burden. So it been a little hard to get into the mood to start writing as much as I would like this last month.

The biggest change that will be happening in the next few months is that I am going into the Air Force. This has always been a dream of mine and I'm at the point in my life where I feel I'm ready to take that next step. Before you panic, I won't actually be heading out until sometime in August. Maybe near the end of July depending on how things go. This still gives me about three months to finish things, which I plan to do. Even if I don't manage to get the remaining stories up in that time it's not like I'm going to vanish from the internet forever. Once I get out of Basic Training and get stationed on a base, I'll have internet access and free time between my assignments. Basic Training is 8 ½ weeks, however, so there will be a long stretch where I won't have access to the internet at all. I just ask as that you bear with me during that time in the unfortunate scenario that I don't finish everything as planned.

Now, on to the stories and future plans! Next on the list is "Memories of Snow", which is the sequel to "At Our Core" and the second story in a planned trilogy. Taking place two months after AoC, Judy and Nick are faced with several new challenges. A new drug is being distributed in the shadows of the city and it's up to the ZPD to figure out who is responsible. Similar to the Night Howlers, this new drug heightens aggression in both predator and prey alike. Unlike the Night Howlers, however, those who use it are able to keep their sanity and control their more primal urges. The ZPD discovers that animals are willingly using this new drug to release their pent up aggression and urges in illegal fight clubs that have been popping up throughout the city. Things become personal when a ghost from Bogo's past is connected to the drugs, and the Chief of the ZPD must make a difficult decision; Will he be forced to break the laws he swore to uphold in order to make sure justice is actually served? Things take an unexpected turn as well when Zootopia's biggest pop star is seemingly targeted by a vicious killer. With all this going on, Judy and Nick must also juggle the difficulties that come with trying to get an apartment together, which isn't as easy as the two thought it would be.

Work on this story is about 40% done. I have the notes and everything planned out. I'm just working on getting the sequence of events into an order I'm satisfied with and finding time to sit down and type up the final draft. I'm aiming to release the first chapter within the next week or two and will try to have the entire thing finished by early June. The final version will most likely end up being twice as long as AoC, but this is to allow me to work on the pacing better and fit in more character development. The tone and subject matter of the story as once again quite serious, but I'm going to try and not make things too dreary. Bogo will play a chief role in the story, but Judy and Nick will have a lot of focus as well. Looking back at AoC and reading comments, one of the biggest things I noticed is that Judy and Nick didn't seem to have much of a presence in that story, which I want to avoid in further stories.

Following that will be the final story of the trilogy. It was previously titled "Hard Knock Days" but I may change the title for the final draft as I feel it doesn't really capture the events that take place. I can't really talk much about it here as it would contain massive spoilers, but it does deal with Nick's past and what he was doing prior to meeting Judy. Everything that happens here will be an accumulation of stuff that was built up in the first two stories, and the scale of the story is meant to be much larger than the first two, with the ultimate goal of exploring a bit of the world outside of the locations shown in the film. Ironically I probably have this one more ready to go than MoS, but that's because the first two stories have been to build up this one as the climax, so I know exactly what needs to be done to get here. I hope to have it finished before I leave for the Air Force in August, but I can make no promises.

And lastly, I've been working on a story unrelated to the trilogy but something I've wanted to do. It's an AU with a supernatural twist that I've been tossing around the idea for for a while. Judy Hopps is a detective who has just moved to the town of Fangston. After experiencing success in the big city, she decided to move to the sleepy town following rumors of strange events around town as well as the mysterious disappearances of several animals, one of which being a well-known author from the city who moved to Fangston to do research for his next book. Shortly after moving into town, Judy discovers that things aren't what they seem and something strange and dangerous is indeed going on in town once night falls. While working to solve the strange happenings of Fangston, Judy comes across an enigmatic and charismatic fox known as Nick Wilde. Like everything else in town, Judy quickly comes to find that Nick isn't exactly what he appears to be at first. Yet if she wishes to survive, she finds herself with no choice but to rely on the mysterious fox, who introduces himself as a creature that feeds on "lies"...

This story is just an idea I had and isn't a huge priority at the moment. It takes inspiration from Sherlock Holmes and Sleepy Hollow to kind of give you more of an idea of it. It's something I would like to work on , but I don't expect to seriously devote time to it until after I finish the other stories.

Again I just wanted to give you guys a heads-up about what's going on with me and why there haven't been any updates yet. I hope to start writing again soon once I get done taking care of some business. But for now I can only ask you to hang on tight for a bit more and wish me the best! Take care!

~Granteed