I've been on the fence about this for a little while. Not so much what to post about this as I was considering "if" to post this. Why?

Back in 2004, we had been contacted by a concerned author/reader regarding a free forum we were using that was laced with ads and crap to gather and talk to a small handful of fairly well-known authors of the time. The "community" was considered back then, some form of author support. LOL! That concerned author/reader purchased a parent domain and the software to build an internally supported forum to move the conversation to and gifted it to us. You see the name August Christopher come up for us, this is why. That was the official birth of what we now know as the Fort Family. We all came from small beginnings, the oldest of us were developed in a relatively young internet and needed to change with the times. Our forum is gone now but because of the interconnectivity of the modern internet, the forum became obsolete. So now we focus on hosting the sites that keep online authors' work available to the world. Are we alone in this task, heck no.

On September 9, Dude (IRL - Vale Mike Wengert) founder of the online community "AwesomeDude" that is as old as we are, passed away from a massive heart attack at the age of 79 years old. Just shy of his 80th birthday :(

All of our communities face issues that unless managed could knock us off the internet. This is why there are so few of the "Old Guard" (as ACFan put it to me earlier) left out there. The death of the founding member is bad, when that founding member was also the person managing all the bills and accounts, it is more than a speed bump, it's a mountain to overcome. When August Christopher passed, we were in danger of losing all that had been built so, we have seen that mountain, and feel for the AwesomeDude community.

If you have time, please reach out to them and offer them some positive energy and support. Not only are they facing a difficult battle but they are mourning the loss of a close friend. That mourning has to take a back seat when dealing with trying to save their creation and I can say from experience, that part sucks! Our community was only a year old when we dealt with this loss and fought to get our hands on the wheel of what felt like an out-of-control bus. Their community was established almost 20 years ago, around the same time our community became something we could also call a community. So it is more the size of a freight train compared to the bus we needed to learn how to drive.

Even though over the years all these "competing" communities had fences between themselves and others of its kind, I've always considered us in competition with no one. Just another group or gathering supporting independent authors and offering a hand to get them exposure. That's all any of these sites ever offered. Dude was one of those people who felt the same way, and his absence will be felt by us all.

RIP Dude and best wishes to the community you created and those within.

https://awesomedude.com/

Just as you thought the insanity couldn't get any crazier, the Morale Rimmers hit the Hyperspace button! Due to Clan Wagner AND the PRD Command Team holding various weapons to the heads of myself and The Eggman, Chapter 13 of Brotherhood of Love has been completed in record time! (Valium sold seperately, batteries not included.)

This chapter continues the visit of Clan Wagner to the Pacific Rim Division, and quite honestly, it surprised even the two of us writing it! You'll see quite a few CSU core characters wandering around, and some interesting surprises are in store.

We hope you enjoy the chapter; it is highly recommended that you have something nearby to wipe snacks and/or drinks off of your screen if you risk them while reading.

Huggzzz!

AC

Despite the best attempts of real life, (twelve hour days five to six days a week suck!), the boys of Clan Wagner managed to get my overloaded brain to actuall put words to the screen. That's right, Brotherhood of Love has just had the long-awaited Chapter Twelve posted!

I'd like to thank TheEggman for his assistance as co-author on this chapter; nobody can write the Rimmers like he can!

The boys finally make it to Hawai'i, and the expected PRD madness ensues fairly quickly. In the process, we get a good look at how the various activities that the leaders have been up to have affected their relationships with each other. It's a roller coaster ride that you'll probably stand in line for again and again!

Thank you for your patience and support; I'll do my best to get another chapter out in a reasonable time!

Hugzzz;

AC 

I plan to travel to the USA during August, 2023. My first time, might I add, and will be visiting the states of Washington, Oregon and California. There has been some talk about possibly hosting a meet and greet, and well, I’m sending out this message to see if any folks are actually interested in this venture. I’d love to meet and talk about my books and life in general with my readers. If this is something you’d be interested in doing, let me know. So, I could try make arrangement for possible things to do, or if you have any ideas please let me know. I’ll include a bit of a survey below to best pool everyone’s thoughts, making it easier for me to decide on what to do. I’m dropping this email early so people have some foresight to plan if this occasion goes forward.

Best,

D.K. Daniels

Hi Everyone!

Yup, you read that title right, we are attaching a brand new/old site to our Community Network and I personally think it's a bit of a big deal. As many of you may be aware, the online author 'Ted Louis' from tedlouis.com is hanging up his quill. He has given us decades of some of the most amazing stories ever read by so many of us. In retiring, his plan was to give warning so people could grab copies and then let the website simply retire itself. Now, not wanting to see that happen, we put a ton of work into creating a family site that was capable of maintaining a home for his works and those of his hosted authors and I'm happy to say, it's ready for the big unveiling.

Now for the catch, I need to adjust friendship links between any other sites already co-hosting Ted's work as it is coming from the temporary domain; and where we have already obtained the correct domain name, it needs to be adjusted and then wait until DNS servers recognize that change. It could happen instantly or it could take a couple of days. There's no way of telling. So, if you are here to read a story by Ted Louis or the story from an author that is hosted on his original site, you may want to go to tedlouis.com as there will always be a version of all this work on the source site or outgoing classic site while co-hossted copies may fail until the internet catches up with the change.

I'd say please welcome Ted to the family but, hosted by us or not, he's always been family to us and it is our honor to be able to make his retirement that much more pleasant.

*HUGZ* - Jeff

Hi everyone!

I wanted to reach out to regular readers here at True's Fandom as well as those who circulate throughout the Fort Family of hosting sites. One exceptionally difficult job is finding someone willing to take over the work started by a community/family member who we all miss. We all know that TrueFan (Lenny) put a lot of himself into his own work as an author as well as in growing his site. In the few years that True's Fandom has existed, he has amassed an impressive library that signifies the personality of those hosted on the site as well as give many newer authors a jumping-off point or even a home base. When we lose a site owner, we can maintain the hosting so the work isn't lost and active authors can still contribute but, we need to find someone who is willing to carry the torch lit by its creator. Today I am very happy to announce someone who not only is willing to take the wheel but, if given the opportunity, someone I believe Lenny would have chosen himself as his successor.

For those of you who are readers both at True's Fandom as well as many of our other hosting sites, author "Garret D. M." who has been a very close friend of many of us, including Lenny, has accepted our request for him to take over his online "Dad's" site and I know for a fact, this would make TrueFan himself both very happy as well as very proud. Garret brings with him new ideas & new direction as well as the ability to pay tribute to a man who quite literally was his online Dad, which is awesome!

So please join us all in welcoming Garret D.M. as one of our newest site owners and let's all support him as he learns to drive the vehicle Lenny and his hosted authors have built! 

- Jeff