#Sleight of Hand (Asks)

[actiaslunaris]

You're not going to do anything with those notes, right?

[getvalentined]

@skadren tumblr isn't letting me answer your ask no matter what I do so I'm just gonna put it here!

✄ DVD BONUS: pick a fic and I’ll describe or write a deleted scene!

So I actually have a probably-forever-unfinished interquel for Smoke and Mirrors that covers "the 'Vincent Valentine assassinating the board' thing" as it was referred to in the epilogue; the pacing on it is fifty shades of inconsistent, which just one of the reasons it will probably never be finished, but I think it applies in this context since it takes place between the final two installments of the fic!

This excerpt is quite long, so I'm gonna put it behind a cut!

[ for the fic ask game part 2 ]

———

Hojo went down fast.

It was honestly a surprise how quickly it happened, given the time and effort it had taken to arrange for the hit in the first place. He raised his head, blinked, something like recognition flickering across his deeply lined features—and then in a now-familiar quartet of gunshots, he was dead. Strange, that someone who was responsible for so much harm would go down so quickly. It almost seemed…merciful, if Cloud thought about it. Particularly considering what he’d done to the man from whom those gunshots originated.

Cloud holstered his own weapon—a newer model Quicksilver, descendant of the one responsible for today’s carnage—and straightened up from where he’d been lying in wait.

“Smooth,” he said plainly, making his way over and stopping just to one side of the body, putting his hands on his hips. “Almost think it was too fast, though.”

“Perhaps,” came the deep rumble of the aggressor, still standing less than a meter away, having morphed in from the dark in a swirl of scarlet to enact his revenge mere seconds before. “Unfortunately, the more time these things take, the more opportunity there is for mistakes.” He stepped over in one long stride to stand closer to Cloud, the professor’s corpse in a heap between them, and surveyed the body for a long moment. Slightly mismatched and brightly glowing eyes narrowed, tilting his head slightly to one side as he looked for something, Vincent eventually seemed to come away satisfied. He raised his head to look at Cloud, eyebrows arching slightly, expression more open and deep voice a note lighter when he spoke. “You should contact Lazard.”

Cloud made a low noise not unlike frustration. “Ugh, yeah. On it.”

He pulled the phone from the interior pocket of his jacket, flipping it open and typing the number in manually. The device was leagues behind his usual mobile with regard to functionality, but it didn’t need to be anything but a phone, and couldn’t be allowed to transmit any data that could facilitate identification or tracking of its owner.

Two rings before the other line picked up, and Cloud mentally counted down from three before speaking clearly to the empty air on the other side. “Hey, real quick, do you know what time the bar closes?”

Counting silently, Cloud measured exactly two seconds of silence. “If you’re good with a pick, it’s open all night,” came a smooth, familiar voice in response, deep in a way that didn’t even come close to Vincent’s lower register, upplate accent crisp enough to straddle the line of artificial as he flawlessly delivered the counter to Cloud’s own passphrase. With confirmation that both sides of the conversation were secure, Cloud let out a soft sigh of relief in spite of himself. Lazard chuckled in reply. “Relax. How did it go?”

“Smooth,” Cloud said, echoing his earlier assessment. “Quick.”

“Too bad,” Lazard lamented. “You’re professionals, so I shouldn’t have expected anything different, but it’s still a shame.”

Cloud gave a noncommittal hum, internally agreeing but externally leaving Lazard to his own opinions. The compliment to his presumed professionalism was nice, particularly given Cloud’s minimal experience in comparison to his partner. “He’s down, that’s what matters.”

“Of course.” The disappointment in his tone was palpable even from thousands of miles away. Cloud couldn’t blame him, knowing just how much Hojo had to answer for, but it wasn’t Lazard’s decision how much Hojo suffered any more than it was Cloud’s—if there was anyone on the planet who deserved to make that call, it was Vincent, and Vincent had chosen punctuality over pain. “You’ll be all right getting back?”

“Yep,” Cloud reassured, intentionally light on the details. Lazard was in charge of the operation, but it was far more secure for him to leave logistics and movements to Cloud and Vincent; just as Cloud wasn’t aware of exactly where Lazard was, Lazard didn’t know exactly how Cloud and Vincent had gotten into the Drum undetected. The success of this first decisive move in Lazard’s long game to demolish and rebuild Shinra from the inside proved the efficacy of their respective informational limitations and allowed them a level of succinctness that would have been impossible otherwise. “Vincent will debrief next time he sees you.”

“Tell him I’ll be at number eleven.”

“Eleven,” Cloud confirmed, raising his eyes at last in search of Vincent, checking to see if he’d overheard.

What he found was the older man kneeling over Hojo with his armored left hand hovering just over the bloom of crimson in the back of his lab coat; as Cloud watched, a glimmer of green flickered into being around the injury’s exit wound, little sparkles that turned lazy circles as a weak thread of light coiled up between them. The reflection danced up and down the metal of Vincent’s gauntlet as more delicate lines joined the first, coiling up over Vincent’s hand, between his long fingers, up the metal shell covering his forearm.

“Have a good night,” Lazard continued. “Both of you.” With a click, the line disconnected.

The lights playing their way up Vincent’s arm went still for a half-second, shivered in place, then flashed bright red and disappeared all at once.

Cloud flipped his phone shut, still staring at Vincent, who straightened back up as if he hadn’t done anything at all.

What was that?

———

Other issues with getting this written are that a lot of it is...boring? I mean I don't think it's boring, but I think pretty much everyone else would. I have the entire new board worked out, details on how everyone was recruited and brought on and how departments are split up and restructured—which is a big part of breaking Shinra's powerbase, and that's really the point of the story. However I am aware that most people in this fandom aren't really into that kind of stuff in a longform fic, so I figure it's best kept to myself. I'd be happy to answer more questions about if it anyone has them, even outside the context of an ask game, but I'm also pretty happy just chewing on it on my own.

If I did ever actually write it, it probably wouldn't be until after I've finished RTGT, so it'd be a long way out anyway.

[habitual-creatures]

*Tea attempts to tickle Roger to get him to let up on the book*

*There's a dark smoke cloud hovering over the house and most of Hollow Grove. It doesn't seem to be moving.*

~🕕/✒️📖

*Roger chuckles for a little bit, but he just turns back to Tea and sits down, petting her like a cat. He seemed acutely aware of the smoke... but he tried not to look back at it too much. Although the paranoid look in his eyes said he wanted to.*

Hey, Rodge.

Hm?

You doing alright?

Well, as I can be. This place is just... so interesting, yknow?

Yeah, I get that... would you want a hug?

*Roger hesitates, then nods. She moves in to hug him, and while they hug, Harpy slides the book loose, gently flicking her wrist back to give it to Tea.*

[sergeantsporks]

See this super important key

It’s gone now

Evelyn: I have this super important key

Phillip: I think you mean I have a super important key.

[gumy-shark]

i know nothing about mcyt or hermitcraft or the traffic light series thingy. but it gives off the vibes of some kind of period medieval drama only y'all can see. idk like the music and art and metas you reblog are fascinating and then i go to the source and stand there confused bc where...where- how????? lore only you can see with your elf eyes and i am a mere hobbit who has only known the shire and didn't know there were people possible of seeing beyond the horizon

for over an hour now i have been thinking about this ask and trying to figure out how to answer it. bc that’s. thats pretty much exactly it isn’t it. all of the mcyt fandoms are doing this cool art and music and metas and fic and then if you step back and look at it you realize it’s all just Cubes

[birdhousemp3]

hii brynn xx not sure if you've done this already but if not!! music ask game here ... would lovee to know your top 5 songs + then if u want u can send it on to 10ish other people xx

hiiii ok ok no particular order:

pulaski at night / andrew bird

fast as you can / fiona apple

cornflake girl / tori amos

driving with the brakes on / del amitri

birdhouse in your soul / tmbg

[fruk-choosing-a-username]

making halsin pickpocket a merchant for a shield and armor i can't afford is very funny

[waraxarcana]

@ferromagnetiic asked: ❝ Do ye need yer cards to tell ye if there's a chance of ye takin' a shite, too? ❞ Unprompted

"Hardly. Though I imagine Killer must frequently leash you and take you outside when it's time for yours. You hardly appear housetrained," Hawkins retorted blandly, not even looking up from his cards. He'd heard "jokes" like these plenty, and Kid's opinion of his powers hardly concerned him.

After all, the alliance was Kid and Killer's idea, not his. If they were smart, they'd heed his readings. But they weren't, and Hawkins would not waste his breath humoring stupidity.

[flieslikeamoron]

Hey hey hey, made sure to send this before I succumb to sleep (was so tempted to ask so many of these): 3, 20, 56, 64, 76 (for the obvious one that has me in a chokehold and forever leaving incoherent comments 💕). Have a lovely Saturday

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

Um. I went buckwild on this one. I'm going to do the others in a separate post because this is so detailed and probably not what anyone is interested in. But I save a lot of stuff in cut folders while I'm writing, so here's an example of the process of writing the scene where Eddie takes Steve to his room for the first time.

Normally the first thing is a very basic outline of what scenes I'm trying to put in the chapter. Dabblewriter has a notecard function so it's like this.

And what you'll notice about this is it doesn't have a lot of stuff from that chapter. It doesn't have the almost fight with Billy. It doesn't have Eddie comforting Steve in his van. It says Eddie invites Steve over at the picnic tables, but that happens after the almost fight in the final version. The picnic tables in the final version are Eddie being scared Steve's breaking up with him, and offering to drive him. And the "Steve at Eddie's" part in this outline doesn't include them fighting about "you could be my thing" at all. So this is the starting point, and it's not actually what the story ends up being. Which is usually the case.

Sometimes I can go directly to writing a scene, but most often the next step is making stream of consciousness notes like this until I find the scenario I think will work. Which is honestly just more outlining, but more specific.

Okay, so if you remember the final version of that scene you remember some of this is in there like Steve's playing with the yoyo and touching all Eddie's stuff. Eddie's coming onto him. But he doesn't actually blow him or ride him in the scene. So what happened in between this and the final? Well, another super messy full of notes version but getting closer to the real thing.

So at this point the "tour" and the guitar being "his girl" are in there, but notice I put save the dad stuff for later. And this is because at that point I was still thinking they were going to have sex in this scene. And the dad stuff is kind of a boner killer so it wasn't working to have it in there. You can tell from the first set of notes I thought the scene was about Eddie's discomfort with Steve being in his space and taking control of it with sex. But I had been waffling between Eddie blowing or riding him or both, and here I thought maybe 69ing (which is dumb that wouldn't work in this scene). Usually if I can't settle on something that way it's because it's not working. So it just took me a while to let go of that original idea, and realize the scene is actually about not just Eddie being vulnerable and uncomfortable with it and trying to take control of it. But also about Steve wanting Eddie to be this thing Eddie knows he can't be. (This thing that realistically no one can be.) And the two of them not really hearing each other. And Steve learning from this that Eddie doesn't want him to say how he feels because in his mind Eddie doesn't feel the same way. But even while they're not getting each other, finding that "I'm so into you" moment and taking baby steps toward each other etc.

I had already written "the dad thing" and the "you could be my thing" parts and the "i'm so into you" bit. Or anyway mostly just the dialogue of them. If random bits come to me I just write them, and try to figure out where they go. Sometimes they don't go anywhere, but most of them get used eventually. And those types of things always change once I'm actually putting them in a specific place rather than having them be unconnected snippets. But once I'm actually understanding the basic shape of the scene we're looking at:

Now we're getting there. But keen eyed readers will notice that originally the bit about Eddie's mom and about Steve having taken a few lessons and only getting hard for electric was originally here before I moved it to its own scene. And that the whole upping the ante thing where Steve's still trying to talk about the guitar while Eddie's touching him to turn him on isn't there yet. This almost game where Steve is coaxing more info out of him and Eddie is coaxing him to get hard. So the original idea of this scene of Steve wanting to know Eddie and Eddie wanting to distract him and using sex to regain control is still in that moment rather than in a whole sex scene. But I hadn't figured that out yet in this version.

Anyway there's more of this version and it does have the shape of the final. Like it's got the whole I'm into you argument, but not some of the specific things like Steve sitting up and Eddie holding him down to keep him from leaving. I won't copy the whole thing because it's very long, but here's a snippet toward the end. You can see there are still notes throughout that I have to go back and fill in with the actual words. Please excuse the notes by the way, I don't correct any typos or formatting in them ever because usually no one sees them but me.

So these are just the versions I have saved, not all the ones I went through. And once there's a draft with no more notes, it still needs more editing. But you can see the progression and kind of get the idea. It's truly the most inefficient process. OTOH if I had written the version of the chapter that was in the outline, it would have been worse. And I simply wouldn't have thought of adding the almost fight with Billy when I was outlining. That just comes from the character work. Because I wanted that moment of Eddie saying "he has a ride" in front of everyone. And once you have that happen in front of Billy of course Billy's going to say something. And at that point it's just... Well, this is what these people would do. And sometimes you write all that stuff out, you follow the characters where they're going, and then it's like... Well, yes this is what they would do, but it doesn't add anything to the actual story or I already hit this beat, so you take it back out. But in other cases, it is the story.

So the process for the most part is I just have to try things and write around it until I figure out which parts are working and why and what it's supposed to be. I don't really recommend this process to anyone, but the way my brain works I have to find the story in the writing. And like... It works. It gets results. But man, I would love it if I could just write a thing without writing it 20 times the wrong way first.

[goldenguillotines]

Sleight of hand? <:3c

I think if I told Stelle I shipped him with Julius he'd hit me with a book UWJDOG

[antvnger]

"I've heard word you've become a rather powerful magician these days, Mr. Lang. Where exactly did you received your training?"

"Well, I would tell you, Doc, but you know what people in my trade say. A magician never reveals his secrets, and training is one of those secrets."

"But! If you ever wanna learn one of my sleight of hand tricks, I can definitely teach you sometime."

Oh wow I'm a powerful magician now how awesome is that?!

[daz4i]

"i go to a juggling con every year. we camp in [infamous camping location in our country] for 3 or 4 days. one of the best in the whole world. you know, i went to one in new york, and it couldn't hold a candle to this one. the amount of people who could juggle with 7 balls was maybe, like, 5. and over here you practically enter a gym full of people who can do it" -my brother lamenting over how the war's effect on tourism hurt him personally

[mcskedrogue]

Tag Dump

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

Some context: after narrowly avoiding being arrested, we've been told that we are on thin fucking ice and we are having an eye kept on us by the city guard. Implication is that if we're caught with even one toe out of line, we're going to be dragged to the "Reformation Center," which appears to be as bad as it sounds. The very next day, the rogue (who was the cause of our initial arrest and the cause of the town nearly being burnt down because he got greedy about stealing stuff, and who didn't get dragged in front of the town leader to explain himself and we had to cover for him) shows up again and immediately tries to steal the golden holy symbol we found while Wyn was trying to dig up information on the removal of curses. Note: this is not a useful holy symbol. It is not a +1, it's not magical, and it's not for Wyn's god. It just happens to be gold.

Wyn tells him to knock it off and that we're trying to keep our heads down after things went to shit because of what he did. My man decides to STEAL IT ANYWAY, and uses sleight of hand to do it. BUT, OF COURSE, HE ALREADY SAID HE WANTED TO STEAL IT. SO OF COURSE WYN KNOWS WHERE IT IS. So she walks over, grabs his arm, reads him the riot act about how his greed has almost killed us TWICE at this point, and tells him that he needs to put the holy symbol back. She tells him that she's not kidding this time. She tells him that this is his last warning. He tells her that he's not gonna put it back.

So she pumps a 3rd level Inflict Wounds on him and dropped his HP to 4.

Now he has disappeared from the sight of the party, and the last that we the players heard, he was hovering outside of the tavern window, trying to get dirt on the party so that he could turn Wyn into the city guard.

So, you know. Good times.

WELP. UH. WYN ATTACKED THE ROGUE TODAY BECAUSE HE KEPT TRYING TO STEAL SHIT. SO. DUNNO HOW THAT'S GONNA SHAKE OUT. 😬

[waraxarcana]

@akagamiko asked: ✏️ Send in ✏️ and I’ll use this (improved) incorrect quote generator featuring both our muses! (Still Accepting!)

Shanks: Hawkins, what do you call people you go out with but don’t try to sleep with? Hawkins: ...People?

Hawkins: Shanks, remember when you said you weren’t going to interfere with my love life? Shanks: No, that doesn’t sound like me at all.

Shanks: What’s your body count? Hawkins: Do you mean sex or murder?

[flieslikeamoron]

For the WIP game: Sleight of Hand is among my very favorite fics. I know it's nearing the end; what about writing it has surprised you, or was the most challenging, or have you loved most?

First of all thank you so much! It's definitely been a long-ass journey (I've been writing it just over a year!) so I really appreciate the folks that have kept reading, and I'm so happy you've been enjoying it.

I think the main thing that surprised me is it's so long. I've written 60-70K stuff before, but this is basically twice as long as anything I've written. It's longer than most published novels! When it took me like 30K to get the first kiss I had the classic "Oh. Oh." moment. But of realizing it was going to be a monster. 

There are a lot of challenging things! The last couple parts (16 and 17) were very scary because there's so much time and emotion invested that has to be paid off. So if those big moments where Eddie breaks or those moments of emotional catharsis don't feel authentic or fall flat then the whole entire fic I just spent a year writing doesn't work and it was all for nothing. (A little extreme, but bad endings do ruin stories! Ask Game of Thrones!) So a lot of the challenge is the mental side of psyching myself out. But it is also a writing challenge because I was trying to do a lot of things! And one challenge I didn't expect was I was so focused on getting through those two parts, when I finished them my brain was like, "Well, we did it. We're done!" And I'm going, "No, but look at all these scenes left in this outline." And my brain was like, "I don't know her." So I had to go away from it for a while and I read some books and stuff. (The Imperial Radch series. I love!) It's been clicking back in again, but that's definitely a challenge when your brain just doesn't have the juice.

But writing challenge-wise, which is probably what you actually meant. Let's see... Some of the things where I had to go through a bunch of versions. The whole thing where Eddie is getting himself to a headspace to try to be all in on this and to be brave. (After running out on Steve while he's sleeping.) So much of it's just him in his head. And then making that turn natural without over explaining tooo much. And actually just Eddie in general. Like having those moments of self-sabotage and fucking up and not turn people off the character. 

And then definitely the phone sex scene, the handcuffs, and the two love confessions. Those all felt high difficulty and took a lot to get them where I wanted them. All the sex in this fic is hitting character beats or relationship beats, but those two scenes in particular the beats are complicated. And the love confessions, you just want it to not feel cheap or unearned and to feel true to these guys. I usually don't do actual love confessions in my fics where people say "I love you." Like they say it in the way they act or they say it like "I know" in Star Wars or whatever. They needed the actual words here, and I think they've earned this moment of saying what they mean by not saying it for so long and being at the brink of the whole relationship being destroyed. But yeah, that was a challenging one. I was writing that scene almost the whole time I was writing the fic. I wrote a very, very early version of the "you're out of my league/no, you're out of mine" thing forever ago, just a few chapters in. And it was way too flippant for what the fic ended up being, but I kept adding to it and writing bits of it as I went. So there was a draft of that scene when I started that chapter, and it still took forever to refine it because the tone's off or this part doesn't work and originally the tattoo reveal part was in the same scene, but then I realized I needed to make it two separate things etc.

What have I loved the most. Well, one thing is talking to people in comments and on here about the boys and the fic and all that! That's really fun. Also two of my favorite parts that I love the most are the phone sex scene and the handcuffs. I'm sure it's at least partly because they were hard to write. What's a better feeling than being challenged and fighting with it and winning! I'm really happy with both of those scenes, and I think they do what I wanted them to do. I like to joke that porn is my art, but I think those two scenes are both examples of why it's not actually a joke. I feel like Jonas fandom elevated my porn writing, but this fic is my masterpiece. LOL this is me writing this fic.

Anyway I also love this version of the characters. And I love it when things come into the fic that weren't in the outline and weren't planned, but are the thing that was missing or that make it work better. There are a bunch of things like that but one of them is Steve drawing on Eddie at the lake (which changed what the tattoo was going to be). It was originally going to be a thing where they go back in the water, and secret underwater touches and stuff of that nature. Which would have been okay, but also would have been worse than what it is. There are people who are really good at super detailed planning and outlining down to every scene beat. And I do need basic outlines for structure and direction myself. But the magic part of writing to me is the part where you find those bits that are better than what you planned. It's frustrating because it usually takes a bunch of tries for me to find them, but I do love those moments of IT'S THIS. Oh, maybe this should have been my answer for stuff that surprised me. Oops. WELL, I HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE I GUESS. 

I don't know if any of that's the stuff you wanted to know. But thank you for asking! Thank you for reading the fic!