State of Pacer1 2024

Well, we have met again.

For Pacer1, there has been little of note to discuss in 2024 beyond the material that we’ve released. I will be honest in confessing that little was done to improve the reach of the project more than what was made last year. If anything, less effort was made in 2024 than what was made in 2023.

Last year, the earliest seasons of Rise: Remastered, RISE and REVOLT, and Dire were released under either “Pacer1 Archives” or “Pacer1 Audio” categories across YouTube- some being made publicly-available and others not. In addition to this, some of these episodes were re-released on TikTok. This was in hopes of improving the reach of the project by offering those that didn’t wish to read the material and opportunity to listen to it instead. I still have interest in this idea, but I am not focusing on it nearly as much as I had intended. 

This is the fourth year in which Pacer1 is releasing material under the name. Many series have premiered, some have either come to an end, been cancelled, or are nearing their end. Many series have remained running throughout. Stories have been told, characters have evolved, and talking points have been offered for anyone who happens to read. However, the internet is a vast place. I’ve heard it referred to as the largest market in the world. If it is to be looked at as a market and Pacer1 is to be looked at as a product, then there is a mountain to climb in exposing Pacer1 to an audience that can garner momentum, keep it, and build upon it. I’ve done plenty to at least make it different from other blogs or story-telling projects, in fairness. I don’t doubt that there are others just as dedicated to releasing material as I am, but I have yet to find another writing project that releases multiple series across a variety of genres in the way in which I release it. The fact that I don’t release the material on websites like Wattpad is probably not to the project’s benefit, regardless of how equally-difficult it would be to build a footing through that. However, the lack of trying makes the venture one that can’t be considered truly-explored in good faith. I think there’s a part of my that enjoys writing these stories so much that there’s a little bit of solace taken in the event that- much as I had anticipated would be likely when I began this project- all of these stories are bound to simply be released onto a website that only accrues as much traction as it always has. This would essentially leave me releasing material into the ether in hopes that someone, somewhere happens to stumble upon it and enjoy what they read. Even if some of my stories have never been the most-pleasing or even the most well-written, they have at least always been filled with genuine passion and a care that I can only hope is shown through the words that I place onto pages.

Last year, I discussed possibly continuing to release these stories on a website known as Neovel. For what it’s worth, I was highly considering that and planning long-term to do that... Until the website shut down with little fanfare. At least, I think it shut down. I honestly have no idea. And also, no... We will not be returning to StoryFire. That website has its purpose and I don’t believe its purpose is to host stories like Pacer1’s. That’s no offence to StoryFire, it’s just an honest assessment of the website from my point of view, where it stands, and what Pacer1 is meant to do.

Now, that isn’t to say that I am unwilling to try any further in growing the audience of Pacer1. I am considering different options, but I don’t want to make any of these attempts on a whim. The fact that I continue to release material consistently, on schedule, and as advertised is an accomplishment itself. Also, that isn’t to suggest that there is any reason to doubt that I will cease releasing stories or material on this website. Unless something happens to me, I will still be here each week to update the website. If the website suddenly becomes stagnant, it’s safe to assume that it’s because I am unable to update the website, not because of intentional abandonment. I want to make it abundantly clear that this is something that I enjoy doing, even if I schedule myself a lot more than I should for something that, at this rate, could safely be considered a hobby at the very least.

Furthermore, as I lead into the schedule for the project’s 2025 slate of releases, I’d like to announce that as of the day that I write this, the third of December 2024, I have written every episode that I intend to release on Pacer1 through the end of 2027. 

What this means is that every episode that will be released on Pacer1 between now, the day of 3rd December 2024 and 19th December 2027 has already been written. Every season of every series that will be released between now and then has been completed. So, yes... The next three years worth of material that I will release on this website has been finished in full, and has been since the 12th November 2024. As of this moment, I am currently “on vacation” from writing Pacer1 material as I usually tend to be following the completion of each new “slate of releases” as I refer to a year’s worth of material as, and have been since that day. I will resume writing new episodes likely sometime by March 2025.

Also, for clarity, the 2026 slate of releases was written entirely between 4th October 2023 and 5th February 2024. The 2027 slate of releases was written entirely between 13th May 2024 and 12th November 2024.

As I told you... I genuinely enjoy this.

With that said, I pretty much never write updates on this website from a personal, author’s point of view/perspective throughout the year other than the annual address that you’re reading now. If the project ends up building steam and a larger audience than what’s had now, I’m sure that would be subject to change. However, it’s time to get back to writing about the project itself.

As I mentioned earlier, I am considering different websites to grow the Pacer1 audience through. I admit that I have a bit of doubt in the project’s success since most of the stories I consider to have the most-potential for reaching a larger audience because of the focus on the series’ narrative are likely off-putting in the earlier seasons because of my how novice my was writing compared to what it has grown into. I’d like to think that wouldn’t be too much of a hindrance, but I can’t say for sure. One of the websites that I’ve looked into is Tapas, and I’m not sure why. I have given a return to Wattpad (even though Pacer1 never really had much involvement on the platform) some thought, but alternatives are more appealing in my opinion. The issue is that it’s very difficult to find websites like what Neovel was, and I’m not sure there’s much room for them to exist. The financial implications of a website built as well as Neovel was or what the earliest iteration of StoryFire was makes it difficult to argue that the platform would be profitable enough to remain active, alive or sustainable.

Even websites like Tuesday Serial have seen (I think) one update on its homepage throughout all of 2024. The RISE and REVOLT (yes, it’s stylised in mostly-capital letters promotionally) episode from season three, “The Black Trenchcoats” is still prominently featured on the site. That episode was released roughly a year and a half ago. It’s been quite some time, in case you couldn’t tell.

Situations like those make it difficult to imagine many opportunities for growth. I just want people to be able to read my stories and discuss them with one another. Growing communities around the series and getting readers to frequently return to Pacer1 with the trust that they’ll likely find something that they like would be the dream-scenario here. I’ve made peace with how that may or may not come to be in a few ways. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room to continue trying. If I am to try, however, I’d like the effort to be worth putting in. I don’t use social media pretty much ever, so I can rule out any real desire to try and tweet or post Pacer1’s way to relevancy outright. If that’s a death blow to the project’s long-term viability, well... fuck, alright then. So much for those dreams.

With that said, I think I’ve exhausted my explanation as much as I could have. The annual event that any reader of mine looks forward to shall now commence. Let’s breakdown the releases to come to Pacer1 in 2025.

Warning: Spoilers for all seasons of all series up to December 2024 ahead.

Late Winter Saturdays in 2025: The Healing Process begins in Season 3 of Tonight at 9

Staying in their place on Saturdays at the start of the new calendar year, Tonight at 9 returns for a third season at Pacer1. Carrying on from the journey of self-reflection and the acceptance of his past, Grant Haste joins Taylor English in moving forward and attempting to heal the wounds that they’d discovered their individual ways of moving on from. Freed to carry forward at LMC, the couple join the cast of Sam Vickers, Robin Lloyd, Carly Carpenter, and Aiden Redwood in looking toward the future of their respective ‘Tonight at Nine’ and ‘On-Air with Carly Carpenter’ broadcasts.

Every Saturday from its premiere on January 4th to its finale on March 8th, the third season of Tonight at 9 carries our cast further into the heart of New York City in the mid-late 2000’s as we draw nearer to election season.

Late Winter Sundays in 2025: Enter the troublesome times of the Great Depression in the brand new Pacer1 series Seattle Noir

Taking over Sundays at the start of the new calendar year from the now-completed Dream Sequence series, the brand new Pacer1 original series Seattle Noir takes readers into the late 1920’s as the United States falls into a world of hurt brought on by the Great Depression. Follow the stories of two men that couldn’t be any different from one another if they tried- downtrodden labourer Jimmy Elliot just trying to keep himself and his wife, Cathy’s, lives afloat- and wealthy Los Angeles businessman Wilbur Ritter travelling alongside his business partner Norman Mountebank to the misery-laden town of Seattle, Washington in search of settling down and influencing the region from his position of power. On separate tracks, their stories run down entirely different avenues. However, in Seattle Noir, the bleak tracks that Jimmy Elliot’s life runs just happen to converge with the gold-plated tracks that Wilbur Ritter offers him travel upon in search of both men achieving what they’d always set out to.

Join us every Sunday from its premiere on January 5th to its finale on March 9th, as the first season of Seattle Noir brings readers on the start of journey to both men’s desire for individual infamy in the face of economic impossibility.

Spring Saturdays in 2025: The End of the Beginning gets underway as we find ourselves confronting the new display of what we’ve always known in Season 7 of Rise

Remaining where it was in 2024, Rise returns for a seventh season at Pacer1 in a new environment from the last four seasons that oddly returns back to where it began. Though the initial first two seasons didn’t premiere on Pacer1, the remastered versions of them hit our pages in 2023 and filled in the gaps left behind by the unavailability of the initial copies. In those, we witnessed a group endure the starting moments of the apocalypse that still remains with us through the mid-2020’s chronologically- though it was under very different circumstances.

Little by little, our group found their way to the New World Order in New York and the guidance of leader John Callis beneath the watchful eye of the post apocalyptic community-organiser Charlotte Walters. Now, many years into the apocalypse, our group finds their way to what remains of the New World Order, a community taking on the name of their location- Nova Scotia- under the guidance of Callis’ successor Emilio Vasquez... But back beneath the same watchful eye of Charlotte Walters, who- after four years of speculation and word-of-mouth- has revealed herself to be very much still alive and back in the position the group failed to ultimately oust her from.

As we enter the seventh season, the end appears near for our cast. The story has come back to where it began, though the world that surrounds them couldn’t be anymore different from what it was. Society has all but fallen to ruin around the small pockets of civility that have endured the test of time, and the world around those within Nova Scotia has quite obviously seen better days. However, the future that lies ahead for our group and their new homeland? It’s never been less clear. That future is one, however, that begins being written on Saturday, March 29th with the seventh season premiere of Rise.

Spring Sundays in 2025: Though the Angelino Republic is under new management, Jaime Morris will not go quietly into this good night in the fifth and final season of Dire

For four seasons, Los Angeles has found itself reborn into a new world post the Catalyst, but before now- it had all been under the leadership of the publicly-appointed figurehead of Jaime Morris, who rechristened it under the banner of the Angelino Republic under her role as chancellor. However, with great power comes great responsibility. Unfortunately for Jaime, however, one wrong decision in the aftermath of her lost love spelled the end of her time as Chancellor of the Republic. In her place, a callous, calculated, and downright malicious figurehead takes over for her, less-dedicated to the will of the people and the future of the republic than she is in saving her own skin... A vital commodity for those at the helm of the New Democratic Front.

This, however, is not something that one should anticipate Jaime Morris taking lightly. Willing to go the extra mile to protect what’s hers, the fate of her republic is not one that she will stomach leaving up to the selfish hands of the people responsible for the Catalyst to decide if given the choice. This spring, in a fifth and final season, Jaime Morris looks to make one, final stand against those who’d deposed her in the name of the Angelino Republic.

Whilst, yes, this will be the absolute final season of the acclaimed Dire series, readers shall not fear. The world of Dire is not one that can be fully explored within just five seasons. Whilst more detail will not be made available at this time, a spinoff series to continue doing the world that has been established proper justice is currently planned for 2026. However, in welcoming that future spinoff to Pacer1, a bittersweet goodbye must be paid to our beloved republic- a goodbye which we’ll say to Dire every Sunday beginning on April 6th.

Summer Saturdays in 2025: When horrid truths come to light, there are more victims left behind than just those who suffer the brunt of said horrid truths in Season 3 of Generation Alpha

Season one brought with it a horrifying circumstance that can be all-too real in the world you and I live within, though it was sent off with an even bleaker, more-astonishing shock that can be considered even more-horrowing than the tale that had been told prior to it. In season two, we witnessed the fallout of these events as they bled beneath the surface, spreading like a disease within the unseen before it surfaced to the worst that anyone could’ve expected. Building off a season one finale that took the victim we’d been introduced to at the start of the season and turned her into a villain we couldn’t help but be left aghast by, season two saw the following rise and plummeting fall of series protagonist Sophie Amari, which understandably makes it puzzling for some to imagine how the story can even carry on after that.

However, the victims of her crimes weren’t just those who lost their life to a young woman who’d succumbed to her worst thoughts with such little hesitation. Left behind, her family are forced to bear the weight of her actions as they attempt to move forward, something that Andrew Carrion had begun the process of looking to do in the final scene of season two. In season three, we witness what Sophie leaves behind and the damage that she paves- forced to ask ourselves whether or not we’re bound to experience the worst of our gut-twisting anxieties all over again.

Every Saturday beginning on July 19th, Generation Alpha returns with more installments of a family who hides more honesty than they’d care to admit- one that’s been forced into the public eye beneath the concession of one into the grasp of their own demons.

Summer Sundays in 2025: There’s more to driving than collecting a few pink slips in the all-new Pacer1 original series Driveline

With the return of one series and the debut of another, a second all-new Pacer1 original needed to be created to fill the void left behind by the finales of Dream Sequence and the impending sendoff of Dire. Inspired by the mid-2000’s series AcceleRacers, the aim is for Driveline to do just that.

From the streets of Baltimore, Maryland to a world so awe-encompassing vast and unreal, the groups of Kaiyo, the Crew, the DSRC, and the Esteemed find themselves discovering the privilege that they face of racing for something greater than pride. Every Sunday starting July 6th, Driveline will take readers on a colourful whirlwind of adrenaline across stratums of all sorts.

Fall Saturdays in 2025: The thrilling search for answers amidst a small town-wide mystery returns as Remedy Hills welcomes you back for a second go around

Left empty in 2024, Saturdays during the fall just didn’t have the same lustre to it as it had when Remedy Hills hit the pages of Pacer1 in 2023. After a one-year annual, Avon King and the residents of Remedy Hills return for season two at the height of the mystery presenting itself to the then-yet watchful eyes of the small town’s dearest.

Hot on the trail of exposing something deeper than just closed-off hostility of closed-off minds the last time we saw them, Beau Donovan and Jake Mansoor return to their duties of digging deeper into the puzzling and otherworldly oddities of Remedy Hills as Avon King puts the goings-on into paper. Join us every Saturday starting on October 18th as we return to Remedy Hills to uncover the mystery even more... or perhaps discover even more to it.

Fall Sundays in 2025: Back where it belongs, Lou’s efforts bring him back to where he began- surrounded by those he loves, those he loved, and those he’s come to love in an all-new Season 5 of RISE and REVOLT

The acclaimed spinoff of Rise returns to the slot it had taken in 2024, settling into its permanent home whilst the cast of the series find themselves doing anything but that. RISE and REVOLT remains in the Great White North. Upon his first footsteps taking upon Canadian soil, Lou Jack was on his lonesome, separated from the people he’d travelled from Los Angeles, California alongside. Utterly alone, it took only a few months for him to find himself in the presence of a new collection of people he’d (mostly) come to love. However, he wasn’t so keen on leaving behind those he’d been split off from just yet.

Over time, he’d reconnect with those he’d known deep down would be intent on doing the same, though one had always eluded him. That is until the finale of season four, when Ally Resmin made her return to the series alongside a band of survivors as foreign to the readers as the Canadian group Lou had grown acquainted with was to them initially. Ending the fourth season on a dramatic reunion, season five of RISE and REVOLT promises to explore more of the vast, Canadian post-apocalypse with our beloved cast at the helm every Sunday starting on October 5th.