CATEGORY 1:
The Simple Short Story Category

Requirements: Write a short story
Minimum word count required: 200

Sounds very self-explanatory, does it? This is a category where everyone is free to write whatever kind of short story as they please, but of course, do mind the word count requirements.

CATEGORY 2:
The Most Committed Writer Category

Requirements: Write a long-form story
Minimum word count required: 1,500

Yes, I know the above word count requirement sounds really scary to some, but with all fairness, this is a category for those who are really looking to challenge themselves. The main idea behind this one is to write a decently fleshed-out story. You can make it as short enough for the minimum as you'd like, or make it as long as you'd like.

CATEGORY 3:
And Now, Poetry - by Gary...

Requirements: Write a poem
Minimum word count required: 30

This is definitely the most relaxed and easy of the four categories, and all you have to for this one is write poetry. Whether it's traditional poetry, haikus, a story-driven poem, or a simple collection of them, this is where everyone is encouraged to show their poetic side.

CATEGORY 4:
The Steel's Biggest Fan Category

Requirements: Write a story based on one of my own spin-off/fanfic creations
Minimum word count required: 400

The concept for this last one may sound like obnoxious ego stroking, I know, but I think some folks might have some fun with this in particular, and brings out the whole 'Steel Sponge' theme of this contest. For this category, participants will write a story based on one of my own stories, may it be the setting, the characters, or both. For a reference guide or ref material on what you'll have to work with, there is a list below with a respective link to my writing.

The list:

With that taken care of, let's go over the basics and the rules of the submission process:
-The deadline for this contest as a whole will be on March 15th. I figured I'd give everyone a long enough window to participate that would be considered fair. Up until that date, submissions will be closed.
-Everyone can submit for all four categories, but only once for each. Of course, and as I should very much address, you don't have to submit for all four categories, and if you wish to submit only for one, that is completely fine.
-If one particular category has only one submission, the participant will win it by default.
-No joke nor troll entries, and no entries that would be deemed inappropriate by the site's standards.
-All submissions will and must be curated in a separate thread that will be posted shortly afterwards.
-I will be the sole judge for each submitted piece.

But of course, I can't sell this for anyone without the prizes/rewards for each winning entry. I may not have staff powers, but here's a few things you may receive:

WINNERS WILL RECEIVE...:
-A specially made pic/icon for the winning author + story
-A free commissioned art piece of your own choice, as drawn by me
-Previews and perhaps also plot reveals for upcoming releases for my own work
-An elephant (actually, scratch that. This is supposed to be a gag prize, so I don't actually have an elephant)

Anyways, there's nothing else left for me to all those who wish participate than with this: take your time, and of course, go out and have fun with your own writing, 

-Pokemon Scarlet and Violet (Other than that, I had also intended to start a Nuzlocke for a separate game that I haven't gotten around to yet. I may not be able to start that until December.)
-Me actually trying to get started working on my art portfolio for an animation school/job training program that I'm trying to get admitted to for next year, which I can't disclosure any further beyond that.

So, with all that in mind, I will at the very least list a few things that I plan on getting written up before the end of 2022:

-The long-delayed Lost in Translation finale.
-The VERY long-delayed official first episode of Trinity Leaf Pegasus
-The last three episodes of TikI Land along with its and Rebirth of a Storm's epilogue
-At least one episode of Total Drama Treasure Tour
-Something else, which I can't disclose.

This already wraps up the last of my quarterly spin-off announcements, even though it didn't go out with a bang as much as I'd preferred. This doesn't mean that this will be the last of my spin-off announcements, as I will have one planned for next year. That time, however, I will post my next major announcements when the time is right, with my current guarantee being somewhere between January and March 2023.

Red Flag Savior: Rebirth of a Storm & Tiki Land: While I'm still taking my time in completing these two, I can now assuredly say that I will be ending these sooner than later. If I can manage it, they will both be completed before the end of August. I just have one more episode and an epilogue for the Z-Storm revival, while three episodes and an epilogue remain for Tiki Land. (I did intend to finish it earlier in June during the last SOF but of course, I hit a wall whilst I had always planned to finish RoaS first). I will repost the recent two episodes at some later point on the Reruns thread as a bit of a compromise.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Lost in Translation: While I intend to end the two spin-offs above by this month, I plan to have the long-awaited finale to this Google Translate-based series out in September, as a way of celebrating my own 15th tv.com anniversary (Yeah, it's been that long, huh?). It will be nearly a 11 months long wait since the last ep by then, but I'm hoping that the surprise I've planned for this finale will be worth that wait.

Chemist Bob's Catastrophic Creations Cinema: This just came back earlier this month with a new batch of riffs and will continue with a couple more episodes before the end of the month to coincide with the anniversary of Guru Gakuto. The riffs for Season 2 should start by the very next month, but it could fall into October.

Total Drama Treasure Tour: Still on hiatus, but I intend to get back on this one right after RoA and Tiki Land are finished. I did also say that I intended to release a new episode during the 15th anniversary celebration for this series, but since I ended up skipping out on that, that's still being delayed a bit. 

Trinity Leaf Pegasus: And once again, I have news for what is still my very own Duke Nukem Forever. I still intend to release a preview of the first episode before I officially announce the release (Of course, given the rate that this project is still in, don't be surprised if I end up officially releasing this fashionably late. I will elaborate more on that soon). This would be the point where I also let everyone know that I'm still trying to make my own spin-off store active again, but this time, I can't make that promise....

Steel's Spin-Off store: After not really being able to commit to this, I've ultimately decided to pull the plug on this...kinda. It won't be closed forever, as I still have at least a few things to put up for this, but for now, most spin-off episodes I will post, whenever I intend to do so, will be viewable for everyone, including the long-delayed preview for Trinity Leaf Pegasus, as I'm sure it's only fair and much less of a hassle this way.

AO3: In a rather surprisingly bit of news, for those who haven't seen me post this on Discord, I now have an AO3 account, and like I've addressed before, none of my core spin-offs will be cross-posted there. If there's anything that I will cross-post on the site though, it will be some of the one-shots I had written the past year (and of course, the nine one-shots project is still currently on a halt, but I do have one story planned to be written up later this year). Not only that, there are a few story ideas I've had a hankering for writing up that I will sneak right in there (yeah I know, how typical of me to consider more new story ideas when I'm trying to retire from writing fanfics as soon as possible, but don't worry, I will make some sense out of this once I acknowledge it another time).

I should still apologize that these aren't so much updates. It won't be long before I have reduced the number of projects to finish up now though before I can officially focus on 'the big one.' My last quarterly update for the year will come later this October, which I should add may also be my last quarterly spin-off update thread as a whole, but like I would tend to say, that depends on how much I move things forward.

Spin-Off Festival 2022: First things first, I'm not involved with anything for this imminent event (or at least not yet), but I am going to be doing something special for the occasion, and you'll understand why later when I say that I'm going to try and make this one count this year 'round.

Steel's Music Reviews: For those who haven't seen me hint at this a few times on the Discord server, I'll be making my retirement as a music reviewer pretty soon. I'm giving myself an assortment to send it off with, and here is a look at what the last batch of reviews will look like:
-Top 10 Best Alternative Hit Songs of 2019 (Don't think I've forgotten about this one)
-Top 10 Best Hit Songs of 1995
-A dual top 10 list to bring some life to Claps' Entertainment 2021 thread, which I won't disclosure until they are published
-Another special list that I will keep as a special surprise until after I publish the latter, which is something that I've been meaning to do since the past year.

Jjs' Riffing Theater: This is back once again with Family Guy as the current target. While I will very much be participating for it, I've settled on a minimum of three episodes to cover. My first riffing appearance for FG will be for "Screams of Silence."

The Writing Sessions: Once again, they are not canceled and I am once again reviving them for my current attempts to self-discipline me into pushing the production of my spin-offs. I don't have a date set for my next one, but I have plans to start another a new session later next month.

With all that out of the way, let's go over some of the updates for some of my other spin-offs....

Chemist Bob's Catastrophic Creations Cinema: I announced this a while back that I intend to bring this back from hiatus. A new episode will be posted late this month while next month will be seeing a bit of overhaul. Once the still-current riffing project for Guru Gakuto is up to the 13th episode, this series will take another break until August to finish up the rest of the series.

Total Drama Treasure Tour: Like I said before, this is currently on hiatus until my focused spin-offs are completed. Best case scenario, I can be able to resume it during the month of June before I can commit to my long overdue new episode overhaul in early July, which is when the 15th anniversary of the original Total Drama series will take place. 

Oh Yeah! Collections: While I could've addressed this earlier, I am also, of course, taking a break from my series of one-offs until further notice. At this point though, I have four more of these to write up.

Tomorrow/Tomorrow for sure/Eventually.../Uhhhh...: In the meantime, be sure to look out for the Lost in Translation finale, the Rebirth of a Storm finale, and the VERY long overdue premiere of Trinity Leaf Pegasus before the next quarter. I am still focused on these and I will try to get each of these done sooner than later.

That wraps up the roundup of updates for my spin-offs/lits this year. If my progress speeds up within the next couple months, I should be able to deliver more interesting news in July.

Introducing... SteelNFTs!:

SteelNFTs is a new personal feature that I will be implementing in the near future. What is it and how does it work, you all ask? Well, if you know what NFTs are, then you'd already be familiar with the concept of my own brand of these units of data. Starting next months, NFTs of my spin-offs, lits, seahorse radish, and the newly established Crypto Chemist NFT image collection (with over 900000 guaranteed totally unique images to collect) will be readily available for purchase.

These NFTs are the only NFTs that can be purchased with my signature form of cryptocurrency: Steelcoins. With permission from Plankton himself, a new feature has been programmed where one newly earned doubloon in your bank can be converted into SC500 through my work-in-progress Doubloons to Steelcoin Converter!

And that's not all! The original Steel Sponge Wordpress blog will be retired immediately, as my new personal website will be replaced with a crypto information site by yours truly, with new research and sales information on Steelcoins to be posted every month. www.steelcoineconomyclass.gov will be launched the same month.

It's been a honor for me make this announcement to make up for the lack of news that I've had to share. I hope you're all pleased with this announcement, although something feels off all of a sudden. Oh yeah, I just remembered that I hate NFTs and crypto, so it turns out that I won't be committed to this project at all.

Oh well...I hope my announcements for the next quarter on April 22nd will salvage it, but that depends on if the mighty ruler himself would allow it.

So, the previous quarter was also rather a flop. That doesn't mean I'm upset about it though, since I was still able to get some things done. I'm feeling good about how this quarter will turn out for my writing productivity. Without further ado, let's go over some of the updates...

Q2 2021 (October-December) Announcements:

-Red Flag Savior: Rebirth of a Storm: I will start with this spin-off, as the penultimate episode is now in the process of being completed and will be released later this month. Afterwards, I will only have to write one more episode, and an epilogue to tie into Oracle of the Cosmos, which will be addressed further into these announcements. Furthermore, I plan on ending this spin-off before the end of November.

-Total Drama Treasure Tour: Once again, I'm going to stick to my original plan from the previous two quarters with the eight episodes cap before the end of the year. Had I committed to this Literature more, I would've planned to go up to thirteen episodes before the end of 2021, but of course, I have a lot of catching up to do before then.

-Tiki Land: While RoS is nearing its end, I will have the opportunity to resume Tiki Land after it is done and I plan to write up the last half of the spin-off before the end of the year, after its near 9-year run. Like I've said before, the releases of the last five eps will be in the form of a premiere week.

-SpongeBob SquarePants: Lost in Translation: Of course, this nutty side-project will also be coming to an end soon, with two segments and the grand finale remaining. While I can't say when the final episode will be released, the next two episodes will be released later this month.

-Oh Yeah! Collections: Over the course of the last quarter, I have, once again, completed only one original story, with Mirrior. For the rest of this month, I intend to put my focus on catching up to my goal of finishing nine one-shot stories before the end of the year. One of those is a story to be submitted for the annual Octerrorfest story contest, with Trial and Error. One of them is the pirate-themed story Anchor that I've been teasing for a while. The third and last one I plan to have written out sooner than later is for early November, titled Permanece, on schedule with the Dia de Los Muertos observance (granted, it is a DDLM-themed one-shot). Besides those, here are the rest of the one-shots to expect at this point:

The Travelling Lamp
Untitled story for Snowcember

Other than the hypothetical Snowcember story, I am also scrambling with forming one more idea for a one-shot, so add one more currently untitled project to that list.

-Chemist Bob's Catastrophic Creations Cinema: For those who haven't seen my updated Wiki page, I have decided to silently put this series on hiatus. BUT don't expect that to last for long. For the time being, I will provide a preview for the next installment that will be up for grabs in my spin-off store later next month to make up for the radio silence.

-The writing sessions & my spin-off store: Since I've failed to live up to my original promise of updating my spin-off store by August, I will move up that plan up to November. Now, as for the writing sessions, I will continue them, but for the next couple months, things will be different. While my weekly writing session wasn't an absolute success, it has given me an idea for what I can do with my writing activity. So...I'm going to expand on it. While it will be an experiment for the last two months of 2021 at the time, I will start doing a monthly report on my writing activity starting in the very first day of November. For a while, I've been meaning to get into the habit of writing up to about 3,000-4,000k words on a regular basis, but I've come to terms with that I should consider getting in the habit of writing almost everyday before getting into the habit of writing a copious amount of words for my projects on any day, regardless if the time I spend on writing is ample or minimal. My commitment in moving along with this idea will depend on the amount of 0-written word days that I end up with. Of course, there will be a couple distractions that I'm committing to as well (Pokemon BDSP and the ACNH updates), and I will try not to let that affect my writing productivity. Otherwise, we'll just have to wait and see.

Alright I've saved these next two updates for last, since they are pretty major. So let's start off with...

-Trinity Leaf Pegasus: I should point out first thing that the two mysterious new spin-off/lits that I intend to release for 2021 are indeed the two projects that I've been teasing for a long time. Anyways, Trinity Leaf Pegasus, or the Duke Nukem Forever of the spin-off/lit community as Jjs has understandably referred to it, will be officially be released on the 10th anniversary of its announcement on the 21st this month...with a preview spanning around 2,500k-4,000k words. Of course, I need more time to flesh out the story, the characters, the world, and so forth, so I have the planned release date for its premiere to land on November 11th this year. While I have already written up the first episode back in 2015 and published it, it will be moved to Oh Yeah! Collections as the prototypical first chapter afterwards.

-Oracle of the Cosmos: The closer that I get to finish my core projects, the closer that I'll get to being able to finally start production of what will be my swan song in terms of my writing career on SBC, so I regret to inform that Oracle of the Cosmos will not be releasing this year, but that won't rule out the possibility of me starting writing production before the end of this year. At the very least, I hope to at least have a preview out for it before the end of 2021 while it's now slated for a 2022 release.

That wraps up my announcements for the fourth quarter, and therefore my spin-off/lit announcements for 2021. It's clear what's to be said in behalf of my writing plans going in to this year. I wasn't able to finish it up to this point, but some progress is better than none, and at least some of my works are near completion, etc. So yeah...I'll see you folks in 2022 with another quarterly update. Hopefully these forums are still alive at that point.

Why am I going to be doing this? This isn't just to see how much I can write in a whole day in this timely occasion, but also to see if I can actually do this. I should have hardly anything planned for the particular day, and having such an ideal day to do this session should motivate me into following through with it. To prove that I am attempting this and that I will be proactive for this long writing period, I will post a once-an-hour progress update on how many words I've written on this very topic.

Since it's part of my current strategy to focus on just one spin-off at a time, and because almost each ep of Rebirth of a Storm is usually quite long, expect me to be writing mostly for that spin-off during this session. If the time turns out to be perfect, this whole thing will last from 7AM, November 9th, to 7AM, November 10th.

It's been almost ten years since I started this career in writing these spin-offs and literatures and I know that I have to celebrate this milestone with something. I will plan something to celebrate this occasion...but I won't be able to do it the day of the anniversary, which is this month on the 19th. There are a few things that are delaying this celebration. Right now, [my family and I] are in the process of moving stuff from our storage units and into our new house. That, and we haven't set up a wifi connection for the new home just yet, so I'll likely end up without internet for a few days or more. Once I have the time to celebrate my own milestone, I promise that I will have something interesting to do for it.

I'll try to bring out some new spin-off material this month, but my plans will very likely fall into October for the same reasons above. For now, that is my current guarantee. In the meantime, I have some updates regarding this club and my spin-offs to announce:

-First of all, I re-titled my club, simple as that. It gives more of an emphasis on my spin-offs more than my lits, but don't think it means that they won't play an important part to my club.
-My WordPress blog will be implemented more as an exclusive feature for this club in the near future. I have an entry on there that will tell you what you should expect to see from it.
-I will continue making drawings of my spin-off OCs, but I won't have the time to do it this month.
-I have added wiki pages for my spin-off works originally without one: Sub-Tropical Academy, Tiki Land, Rebirth of a Storm, and Lost in Translation.  This is something that I've already done around last month.

That is it for this announcement and I will be seeing you guys later.

I'm going to get the ball start rolling with...Titan (Pisces Moon) :

It was easy to come up with a design for him, as there are a lot of ways to draw extraterrestrials. I've had the gall to draw him four times because his details extend to the first image you'll notice, which is his head shot (or rather his body but without his legs). The first drawing is basically what he normally looks like and the rest of his details give you a pretty good idea of what the Pisconarchs generally look like. Below, the fourth drawing of him, includes the deoxyDNA all over his left eye, giving you guys a good idea of how he looked for most of Pisces Moon.

With all fairness, he looks very Pokemon-esque than when I was trying to see if I could make him come out more SpongeBob-esque, but regardless, I did like how Titan's design turned out based on my current drawing skills. I'm not going to bother drawing him in his warrior armor because that would take a lot of time, understanding, and skill to draw armor remarkably.

Also, take note that I'm ditching my so-called darker pencil for adding the finishing touches by using an ordinary black pen, so the drawings look better on my phone camera. Because I'm going to be preoccupying myself with other projects and such for the rest of this month, I might not do another drawing until early October.

In this club, I will also give fellow members exclusive sneak peaks for new, upcoming content for my spin-offs/lits before they are officially released. More details will be revealed soon, but keep in mind that this is my first foray in forming, managing, and being a part of a spin-off club.