The second era set out to expand the label, so along with the stories being continued, I migrated the blog to Blogger and set out to expand my Youtube channel of iDarkRula. This channel had previously seen little use, being where a special audio episode of Doctor Who: The Star Wars Chronicles had been uploaded, along with some academic work from college. The first videos to start it were, naturally, Star Wars Battlefront related.
I’d already been testing a recorder I had bought late in 2013, with that video (also Battlefront related) also having been uploaded. But I wanted to start big, so used a mammoth recording session of Star Wars Battlefront 2 multiplayer from April, split into four parts and cut down into highlight reels, to make an entrance into Youtube. Which was continuously interrupted by Mario Kart TV highlight reels from the recently released Mario Kart 8 on Wii U.
The Blogger site at first didn’t see much use, seeing three monthly updates in a row before some proper posts were made. Those were, naturally, also related to Star Wars. I had a bit of a look at the current climate of the franchise after the takeover by Disney, along with the situation regarding Star Wars Battlefront 3. Also with that first batch of content was a post looking at the two animated projects I had worked on during the first year at Staffordshire University.
During the first era, I had revealed a concept for a Sonic the Hedgehog game that aimed to be the best within the Adventure series. As part of that, I had created a side story featuring a family of chameleons, with the first part of the first chapter having been released in 2013. In 2014, I finally continued that story, and pushed it through to completion. Around the same time, I had also swapped the idea of converting TV and Film Residential Camp into an ebook for release on the Kindle Store to release something that no-one had seen yet.
The preview for Space Race Championship was released on the blog in September-2014, but that would also not see a release until the third era. Indeed, focus on stories as a whole had dropped considerably since the blog had transferred over to Blogger. Reviews were a large focus during the ending of 2014 and beginning of 2015 with all of the content on the blog between October and technically February being reviews.
I say technically, since I had looked at the Battlefield Hardline beta, which isn’t the full game. But this was also my first time doing something else. Linking the subject of a blog post with a video. Since I had also got footage from my time playing, I had uploaded that to Youtube at the same time as I posted my thoughts about the game. As usual, the video footage was in highlight reel form, but it did provide a look at the various things within it.
That then paved the way for more things like it. Star Wars Month. It was no secret that I absolutely loved the franchise at this point, and what better way to celebrate that than to make a month-long event dedicated to it? This was also the first time that the Star Wars Celebration event would be livestreamed, so it made perfect sense to tie Star Wars Month to the Celebration. While the only posts on the blog were about Celebration, the videos showcased a few of the various games I had – including my first experience within Republic Commando.
2016 saw the end of The Chameleon Chronicles, and another expansion as it became the first story to be posted over to Wattpad. Just as migrating to Blogger was with the hope of bringing in a greater viewership through a larger interlinked platform, the same thing was intended with Wattpad. The aim was to port across most of the content I had on the Weebly site. The only other story that made the jump was Doctor Who: The Star Wars Chronicles, which was still going strong even if new additions had slowed down from the previous era.
A completely new addition for Wattpad was Crossover Corruption, a place where short stories would go that aimed to mix two franchises together in interesting ways. The idea had spawned from a simple crossover idea I had that involved Darth Maul and Professor Umbridge. That idea became Witch, Wizard, and Zabrak. Two other stories were then added, bringing in Doctor Eggman helping the Trotter brothers from Only Fools and Horses, as well a Pokémon finding its way into an Animal Crossing town.
The Youtube content had been going well, with plenty of Battlefront videos being uploaded, as well as a few other animated academic projects, but also of note was the start of the GTA Online custom race videos. In 2015, I had bought GTA V on Steam, having been encouraged to do so by my sister. I’d already seen the game and had been interested, but just needed a final push. The Online side of things and near-limitless races thanks to the creator was just what I needed.
I set to work in creating races, and featured them on my channel hoping that others would see them in action and want to try them out. Throughout 2016, quite a few races were showcased, and I’d also started playing around with the Editor. That started a tradition based on the snowfall introduced into the game for the holidays that still continues.