"When Spidey Met Oracle" is mostly finished. I would have rather waited until I was done to start posting, but they're blowing up the DC Universe. I'm doing everything possible to finish this before Batgirl #1 comes out.

UPDATE 9/6/11: I can't finish "When Spidey Met Oracle" before Batgirl #1 comes out. I just can't. I'm sorry. I'm SO sorry. Family emergency. BUT IT WILL BE COMPLETED.

UPDATE 9/12/2011: Sorry for the production delay. I'm currently away from a computer upon which I can comfortably write smut, but I remain hard at work. If my smartphone was but a bit smarter, I might pull off an update, but no. Chapter Six should be up by Wednesday. Thanks for all the ratings and reviews! They mean the world!

UPDATE 12/20/2011: I know I apologize a lot in these updates, but I'm really sorry for the long delay before Chapter 8. Partly because I hate that kind of thing as a reader and partly because I'm worried I didn't do nearly vigorous enough proofreading before posting in my last minute haste, but MOSTLY because, if there was going to be a months-long break between chapters, it should happen between 9 and 10, considering what I have planned. I'm not going to promise the next chapter will be up soon, because when you consider the fact that I once thought this whole story would be done by October, it's obvious that I overestimate my ability as a writer. I do feel safe saying it won't be nearly as long a wait as last time.

UPDATE 1/25/2012: Happy new year, everybody! I won't bore you with apologies about production delays or my use of a few tired cliches this time around. I just want to thank you again for the rates and reviews, but really just for reading.

UPDATE 2/19/2012: Chapters Nine and Ten were supposed to be one chapter. Actually, Chapters Eight and Nine were originally supposed to be one chapter, if you want to read about a writer's original intentions. Does anyone really care about all the stuff I planned to do and how that changed and all the behind the scenes stuff? I'm asking you honestly, BECAUSE I'M DYING TO TELL YOU. But no. The work's supposed to speak for itself, right?

UPDATE 6/1/2012: Sorry, no apologies this time (heh, irony, right?) because, man, this was a tough nut to crack. I always knew this chapter was going to involve almost starting a new story, but I didn't think it'd become such a mess. I had a lot of false starts over the last few months, and getting this done meant discarding a lot of fun ideas that just didn't really work for this story. (Example: There was supposed to be this "New 52 Batgirl vs. White Rabbit" bit that would have turned out to be an elaborate psycho-sexual fantasy constructed by Emma Frost for no other reason than she likes to mess with Barbara's dreams sometimes. Sexy fun? Maybe. Confusing? Completely. And I wasted a month trying to make it work.) Now that I'm more or less back on track, things should run smoother now. There's only two chapters left, and I hope to have them up by the end of June.

UPDATE 12/30/12: I really hate this idea that you think that I just ignore this story most of the time, but come back to it every couple of months or so and bang a chapter out in a week. (Actually, as I describe this, it sounds TOO CRAZY TO BELIEVE), so I'll confess that ever since that moment when Barbara blew up Peter's comm-link -- a moment I always planned -- I've lost my way. Originally, Spidey was supposed to end up on that rooftop alone and sad that he had no idea how to find Oracle, when the Black Cat would show up on his shoulder to tell him she knew where she was. The more I wrote this story, the less likely that prospect seemed: Barbara Gordon has spent her life covering her tracks, and a three-bit thief like Felicia Hardy has her number? Yeah, right. And by the time I actually posted that scene, Amazing Spider-Man had introduced Horizon Labs and the Lucky Seven and the DC Universe had more or less exploded, but there'd been all this fun stuff with Batman Incorporated and I thought that would be fun to play with. The stuff I wrote for this chapter but scrapped might astound you. There was this long bit in which the Watcher details the origin of this weird DC/Marvel earth, explaining that a chunk of a Makluan satellite gave Vandal Savage immortality, and how the Watcher's non-interference thing was impacted by the death of Krypton and that the Watchers write the book Destiny of the Endless reads. Peter spent some time with the Future Foundation to work up spider-tracer nanobots so he could figure out who was stealing his lunch out of Horizon's break room. Fun stuff, again, but in no way did it really serve the story of Pete and Babs. I will admit that these last two chapters probably shouldn't have happened. They have been thoroughly self-indulgent, and I understand now why people always say that the third act of any romantic comedy sucks. I'm really hoping to wow you with the end, though. I know I always say that it shouldn't take me too long, but this time, it should be true. Like I said, I'm always working on this thing. Back in that lull before Chapter 8, the problem was that I had all these ideas for the end I was working on instead of that next installment. Same with chapter's 9-12. The Final Chapter's more or less written, I just have to put it together and make sure it makes sense. I don't know about you, but I REALLY like the idea that I'm not still working on this in 2013... That's probably me dreaming big, but February... Let's hope you're not still waiting for this in February! As always thanks for the ratings and reviews.

UPDATE 01/09/13: I've gotten some questions through reviews -- and I REALLY WISH I could have answered those directly in the same format, but AFF has some pretty strict rules against that, or believe me, I would have. For example: one reviewer asked me to include Tim Drake and Cassandra Cain at exactly the point I was trying to cycle down the involvement of too many new characters. Honestly, I try to use characters I really, really like and know thoroughly enough to write well, though I'd be lying if I didn't admit that Tim Drake wasn't originally supposed to be the substitute Batman of Manhattan instead of The Question. That was back when I was going to try to trick you guys into thinking that the New 52 had somehow happened in this particular DC/Marvel world just to keep you guessing so I could try that whole Batgirl/White Rabbit/White Queen thing I COULD NOT MAKE WORK back in Chapter 11. And I'm sorry, but Cassie has never been my cup of tea, so to speak, though there's a ten-year-old Superboy issue with her I absolutely love.

I only bring this up because a reviewer asked today whether or not this story will involve some of the controversial status quo changes that have been going on with Spider-Man recently, and I figure lots of people might wonder, especially the longer it takes me to finish.

Here's all I will say until I actually post the final chapter: This last year or so, I've tried to roll with the crazy. For so long, "When Spidey Met Oracle" was in this nice little bubble where it existed before so many of the sweeping changes comic book readers have seen in these characters (which I now realize will totally date this story) but since we've entered this third act which has struggled to be in the "present", well, SHIT, quite frankly. It worked out for me in some ways: Now that the DC Universe I started with is pretty much dead, I figured I could do what I wanted with Oracle -- like, say, straddle her with a job she hated. And when I first started posting this story, Peter was dating somebody, and that didn't really work for the upcoming finale --though there was a while there where I was writing it so that it almost could that I wasn't so jazzed about, and the remnants of that might be somewhat obvious in a conventional sense, if you get my meaning -- but as I was first writing for the conclusion months and months ago, he was suddenly single again, which might be why Spider-Island has gotten this sudden, all-present mention almost constantly these last two terrible chapters... And then somebody decided that Peter and Johnny were going to be roommates for a while, and my only real problem there was that it only lasted one issue, because before I read it and learned it wasn't going to be an ongoing thing, I really wanted to do a spin-off series about the Human Torch and Power Girl having hooked up during the Eros Engine Event and him still being hung up on her while they went on some cosmic adventure which slowly shrunk and morphed into the Supergirl stuff we ended up with, which honestly just got tossed in because (1) I'm sorry, but after all this time with this, I do not want to spend a year and a half working on that and (2) I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't include some kind of sex scene in an update...

What was my point again?

Oh. Right. The superiority of one of our protagonists.

Again, until I post the conclusion, I guess we'll just see. I certainly didn't find myself fighting what direction to go, leaving clues, while I wrote Chapter 12, that's for damn sure.

As for Chapter 13, I think things are shaping up nicely, but I always do until suddenly, they aren't. Remember that bright-eyed kid who thought he'd have this all done before Batgirl #1 came out? He's the same jerk who thought that the Deimos Engine turning on was practically the end of the story. Man. I want to hop in a TARDIS and punch that asshole in the face... He stole a year of my life between his Mary Jane/Jimmy Olsen stupidness and sudden Emma Frost obsession...

UPDATE 08/18/2013: And then we came to the end.

One last apology for the long, long wait for our stirring conclusion. About three weeks ago, after going through draft 47 or 48 I realized that I was hemming and hawing over stuff nobody could possible care about -- example: is "I need these clothes for work" better than "I need this outfit for work" in this paragraph? -- and decided I just needed to white-knuckle through it, because enough is enough.

Maybe deep down, I didn't want to post this last chapter because I didn't want to walk away from this strange, special, composite world I've been working in for the last couple years or so.

It's been a lot of hard work, but I've never thought it wasn't worth doing because you've all been so positive about it and I appreciate that from the bottom of my heart. I like to believe I would have gotten this done someday eventually without a single rating or review, but the fact that I knew there were people out there in the world who wanted to know what was going to happen next to Barbara and Peter and everyone else who's flitted through this odd saga certainly made a difference. I've learned a lot from you guys about what makes a story work and who I can be as a writer and I hope to take that out into the world for the rest of my days. Thank you. Thank you so much!

I'm tired. I'm so tired.