#i picked that one project i was languishing about back up

[artbyblastweave]

Brotherhood of Steel

Oh, wow, this one's been languishing for like six months, sorry about that. Anyway the show is inspiring me to revisit this question- Anyway, one thing about the Brotherhood of steel- I think that to an extent, the Brotherhood in general suffers from the same kind of problem as Iron Man, where their out-of-universe popularity, star power, and resultant shoehorning into installments where they absolutely don't belong, all serve to elide that the actual text of even the Bethesda-produced Fallouts aren't particularly gung-ho about the Brotherhood as an organization.

I think the buzz around them, the misaimed-fandom they accrue and the resultant back-and-forth in all the discursive spaces, sort of primes you to expect a humanity-fuck-yeah sort of attitude in the source text. But in the games themselves, it's really only that Fallout 3 that positions the Brotherhood as straightforward quote-unquote "good guys," and paying even a little attention to the subtext demonstrates that that's an extremely tenuous and conditional status. Half of their guys started their own Brotherhood with blackjack and hookers because Lyons was too nice! Lyons got sent east in the first place because he was too nice! The guy they left behind in Pittsburg rebuilt the entire local economy as a slave society! Many of Lyons nominal "supporters" are at least quietly grumbling about his priorities when you talk to them, they're clearly itching to collapse back into a comfortable authoritarianism- which, of course, they do, come Fallout 4. Their turn in that direction was completely telegraphed by 3. And 4, which admittedly had a lot of mixed-messaging on this point, telegraphed.... whatever the fuck they've become in the TV show. Which is interesting, right, because if you're even remotely media-literate, it's impossible to view the TV version of the Brotherhood as anything remotely good. We're introduced with a hazing ritual, a panning shot of child-soldiers sharing a cigarette, meatheads playing a game of brickball, an Elder who screams "cult leader," a brotherhood knight who's framed as this monstrous, inhuman presence during Maximus's interrogation. The branding scene, the abuse of squires. And then they go from oppressive to pathetic- Titus dying like a chump, Thaddeus being the world's chew toy, a half-dozen Brotherhood knights existing as suitably impressive target practice for the Ghoul in a big showdown.

By volume, this is going to be most people's first introduction to the Brotherhood as an organization. This is what the Brotherhood is now, for all intents and purposes. I think they've basically poisoned the well on using the Brotherhood as a straightforwardly heroic faction ever again, and moreover it's adjusted my perception of whether even Bethesda ever understood them as such in the first place. It's still a complete worldbuilding kludge that they're on the East Coast at all, but I find myself wondering if hammering the Brotherhood into a suitably powerful antagonistic faction wasn't the long-term project here the whole time; if so, the obvious criticism from there is that the Brotherhood was a still a weird pick to evolve into that role, given their initial status in the first two games as a handful of overinflated bunker-dwelling pricks kept in a position of comparative superiority only by the failure of everyone else to play catch-up. Whatever, it can be made to work.

[annakie]

We've been waiting literally ten years for a new Dragon Age game and now that it's going to be here tomorrow I am very much not ready.

My life needs to be a little less chaotic right now (it won't be until the middle of November.) The earliest I'm going to really be able to sit down and play more than a few hours is the week of Thanksgiving. But hey, I am staying home alone for Thanksgiving weekend so then I'm going to really get to devote time to just playing the hell out of the game.

I'm gonna be so behind.

It was a hard choice but I think I'm going to break the mold of me always playing a rogue first in Dragon Age games and having literally NEVER played a fighter type character in any DA game (or most any RPG ever.)

I haven't paid a ton of attention to the options yet but after a quick skim several weeks ago I think I'm going with a Grey Warden Fighter romancing Emmrich first.

Basing her off the character I just got done playing for a few years in 13th Age who is a 40-ish year old woman who, when she was only 20 years old had to make a hard call that ended up going very badly for her and it was kind of her downfall, so she spent most of the rest of the last 20 years trying to make up for it.

Second playthrough will be a rogue or mage who romances Davrin.

---

I've honestly BARELY gamed the last several months, what with all the renovation stuff happening and other stuff going on in life.

This weekend I swore to change that and, after spending all day Saturday working on house projects, decided to pick back up my ME3 playthrough that I had gotten to Thessia on and never finished.

But then I had to reinstall the game since the SSD I had been playing it on died. Then I had to reinstall all the mods, and picked up a few new ones. That took a few hours to make sure I got it all right.

I did end up playing, and actually got through Thessia... and then I was tired of being at my computer all day and went outside and read a book on the patio for awhile. Then I realized something was wrong with my new airondeck chair and spent an hour fixing it (my bad, I screwed two screws in the wrong place it turns out.

By the time all that was done it was time to prep for my Sunday night D&D game.

Not gonna finish before tomorrow since I'm running D&D tonight, too and still have to do Omega in there. (Plus the Citadel Epilogue Mod AFTER the game.) Ah well.

Never did finish my 2nd BG3 playthrough.

Never did finish writing my BG3 fic. It's just languishing.

Never did play Starfield more than a few hours despite buying the deluxe edition.

Started playing My Time at Portia and still haven't played more than like 8 hours of it, despite enjoying it (with lots of mods.)

Hoping now that the house is getting close to being done where I want it to be that maybe next year I can spend some time focusing on hobbies more.

Not that I regret a single thing about how I've spent my time this entire year. :)

Working on my last two house renovation posts, too. Definitely want to finish that since my two favorite rooms (after the master bath) I saved for last.

[try-set-me-on-fire]

Fic Writing Review 2023

Words and Fics

107,074 words published to ao3

1 fandom (9-1-1)

Most recent: I’m still standing in the same place where you left me standing

Longest fic: not counting the short fic collection it’s where all of the people dancing and clapping would great me with such warmth (15k)

Top 3 by Kudos

pick me, choose me, love me (trapped Buck and Chris)

all my life, there you go (collection of soft prompts)

maybe fall in love (first fic posted for the fandom! It’s a hot night in LA…)

Personal Favorite

I’m actually very fond of a lot of them but I’ll shout out All the work that needs to be done aka Bobby dies fic sorry Bobby I just think I did good work here…

Upcoming Projects for 2024

Oooobh I have so many wips…. I feel like I need to finish season 7 fight fic before the new season comes out and blows it out of the water (possibly literally with that promo…), but nurse Eddie my beloved… quilt shop au… proposal fic my languishing child…. Literally any of the other ones I’ve ever talked about….

That said I was thinking about how it’s weird I’ve never made either a Buddie adopt another kid or Buck obtains a child fic, I love making up children for characters…. Maybe that’ll get added to the slate…

And of course we’ll see what inspiration the new season brings…

Rules and Tags

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

Tagged by @daffi-990 and others but it’s so far back in my notifications and hard to find my deepest apologies

Tagging (if you already did this or tagged me I’m sorry) @burins @shortsighted-owl @shitouttabuck @rewritetheending @chronicowboy @homerforsure @eddiebabygirldiaz @malewifediaz @rogerzsteven @butchdiaz @thewolvesof1998 @wildlife4life @buckactuallys @lover-of-mine @jeeyuns @ anyone who’s tagged me in anything all year I have terrible memory for urls but know I’ve appreciated it every time!! You’ve all been so nice when I suddenly dropped from the sky and started yelling about these dumb firefighters alongside you, and I’m grateful for you all!

[iced-blood]

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Ice.

I’ve been quiet this year.

This isn’t to say I haven’t been doing anything, as folks may have noticed. I’ve put up a whole mess of links to the work I’ve been doing in 2023—a grand total of 105 chapters—and that’s what I want to touch base on, at this tail-end of the year.

I found out early on in January that a dear friend of mine, my creative partner and the reason for my Paved with Good Intentions series, passed away in 2021. I’m not sure what it was, but that news hit me in a particular way. I realized that two of the projects in that aforementioned series, Blue Eyes, Violet Eyes and Lightbringer, were unfinished.

That didn’t sit right with me.

I set out to fix that.

There are many projects I’ve started that I never finished, and have been left languishing for . . . ten years? Yeah. Ten years.

That’s just ridiculous.

I decided that 2023 was going to cooperate with me whether it wanted to or not.

So, I bought a day-planner and set to work. Let’s go over the list, shall we?

Coronam Crepusculum

This was first on my list because it was a work that I owed a good friend of mine, who is no longer a regular user of Tumblr. It’s a take on the Soulsborne universe, built around a series of personal interviews with relevant characters conducted by an OC I created specifically for this purpose, Wandulfin of Vinheim.

(the latin title translates, hopefully, to “crown of twilight”)

                                51,377 words.

Paved with Good Intentions: Blue Eyes, Violet Eyes

The first of the two stories I knew I needed to finish in memory of my departed friend, I resolved to write the 19 chapters required to reach a clean finish line for this one-shot collection of 100 installments. It felt like the right way to go about things, and I think I worked out a lot of important elements of the Kaiba brothers through those 19 chapters.

                                165,386 words.

Paved with Good Intentions: Lightbringer

The second of the two stories written in my friend’s memory, this is still being published every Saturday. I wrote what amounted to the second half of this story, 55 chapters to be exact, for a grand total of 110 (of which 98 are published as of this post). I think it’s some of my best work to date, and I can only hope my partner would have appreciated what became of it. Have you ever wondered how Seto and Mokuba would react to meeting their parents again? If so, this is the story for you.

                                Published + Rough Draft: 159,930 words.

The City That Wouldn’t Die

The first full storyline of my personal take on World of Warcraft and my main character’s place in it, this story has undergone a lot of changes since I last touched it. This year, I resolved to end it at a part that made at least some amount of sense, but I won’t pretend that it’s entirely satisfactory. All I can say at this point is that I do intend to come back to Azeroth eventually. And this time, I hope to give my characters the story they deserve.

                                41,890 words.

Cult of the Dragon King

I’m pretty sure this is the one that’s been left alone the longest; if it isn’t, it’s close. The basic thrust of this story is that Atem failed in his quest to gather the Millennium Items and put them to rest properly, and so it falls to Seto Kaiba to try this time. I could go into detail why I picked Seto to be Atem’s successor, but I think y’all know what to expect here. I picked Seto because he’s my favorite. Anyway, this one isn’t ready to resume publishing, but it has been drafted. Anyone who’s been waiting for this one to continue will want to pay attention to this blog in 2024.

                                Published + Rough Draft: 175,246 words.

The Lost Dragon's Lullaby

Another AU centered around the Kaiba family (what can I say? I'm a creature of habit), this story wonders what it would have been like if Noa had lived. What if Seto and Mokuba had another brother when they were adopted? What if they had a mother? What would the Kaiba family look like if it were whole?

Approx. 62,609 words.

Watching the Lights Go Down

One of two stories I revived this year, and will resume publication in the new year. Do you Blueship? Do you wonder how Seto and Kisara might interact in the modern world, regardless of romantic intentions? This is the story for you. I took a set of 100 words to use as prompts to build this story, and through these 100 snapshots I think you’ll get a pretty clear picture of how I imagine Seto’s relationship with his favorite dragon would unfold if said dragon was a woman. And his bodyguard.

                                Approx. 52,789 words.

Letting the Cables Sleep

This is a sister story to the one I just outlined. Taking place concurrently with Lights, this story explores the relationship between Noa Kaiba and Ryo Bakura. Why these two? Why not? I don’t really have an answer, except to say that I found their dynamic interesting. Unlike its other half, Cables is explicitly romantic. So if you’re interested in Domino City’s resident white-haired cryptid hooking up with an android, well, here’s where you wanna go. I used the same list of 100 words, but in reverse order, to build this story.

                                Approx. 52,708 words.

Butterflies and Hurricanes

The other contender for “story Ice left to languish for the longest time,” I’m not sure I have to explain to anyone reading this why I might have stopped working on a Harry Potter story. Put basically, this story is an exploration into what would happen if a fae prince took an interest in taking down Lord Voldemort, and then settled on Sirius Black as his instrument. It’s a time travel story at its core, with all the nonsense you might expect from such a thing.

Regardless of anything this series’ author might have to say on the matter, my writing this story does not in any way endorse or condone transphobia or any of her other myriad bigotries. I have not given this woman money in 20 years. I do not support her in any way, shape, or form. This story’s completion is for my own satisfaction, and for the interest of anyone who might want to read it. That is all.

                Published + Rough Draft: 80,506 words.

The Whitest Lace of Light

A continuation of my pet take on the Bleach setting, focused again on Toshiro Hitsugaya and Rangiku Matsumoto and their Tenth Division. Throughout the 50 chapters of this story, they face off with a new threat to Soul Society as they try their hardest to rebuild after the Thousand-Year Blood War. Throughout this . . . suspense? Thriller? Thing. They come across new faces and old, and might just learn some things along the way. Or something. Look, I just wanted to write one of my favorite ships again.

                                Rough Draft: 30,033 words.

At Sixes and Sevens: A Prince for His Kingdom

The shortest work I completed this year, but certainly not the least important. This is a continuation of my pet take on the “Kaiba Bros Age Swap AU” as first shown to me by my dear friend @kintatsujo. How might Seto have handled an invitation to Duelist Kingdom if he’d been 9 years old when it took place? What about Mokuba, if he was 15? Shenanigans abound. I hope you like where I took this one, Kinta.

                                5,000 words.

Last but not least, I resolved to break my record for my longest NaNoWriMo project this year, because I’m ridiculous and don’t know when to quit.

Much like I approached World of Warcraft,I take every MMORPG I play as an excuse to build a story. Nowhere is this more obvious than Final Fantasy XIV. My take on Eorzea and its various magical idiosyncrasies—which I call The Song That God Forgot—set me on a road to 125,000 words this past November.

These projects, alongside various redrafts of my older stories in preparation for what I hope to be 2024’s migration from Fanfiction.Net to AO3, netted me a grand total of 902,580 words written in 2023.

I don’t say this to brag or to pat myself on the back (okay, maybe a bit), but to say . . . just hold on. Keep going. You’ll hit your stride eventually, even if it doesn’t seem like it. I’ve struggled to write regularly and with consistency for a decade now, and here I’ve got nearly a million words in a single year.

I believed in me this year, and I believe in you too.

Keep on truckin’. You’ll get there.

Happy New Year, y’all. I love you.

[outeremissary]

Balthazar and Tristian - Resting

Releasing this from draft purgatory, where it languished so long it has a note apologizing for a power outage induced delay...

Left to their own devices, both Balthazar and Tristian have terrible habits of staying up absurdly late engrossed in a project or trying to get just one last thing done. For Tristian it's motivated by a guilty sense they aren't doing as much as they need to as often as it's more simply being lost in something or going a little farther than needed trying to be helpful. It's so easy to think that there's just one more thing that can be closed up, or something that can be made a little more ready so no one else has to worry about it. On Balthazar's side it's often driven by the obsessive need to feel like he's in control of whatever he's taken on- he'll keep chipping away at something searching for a breakthrough to satisfy himself. He needs to be sure he's picked a topic clean before moving on. Although he's also just a night person to begin with. Different reasons, but they produce the same effects.

Together they balance each other out (at least a bit)- it's that mutual "it's fine for me to do that, but you have to take care of yourself!" At which point you get the classic back and forth: it's almost done, why are you still up anyway, you should be going to bed, that can wait until tomorrow, I'm almost done with this, on and on. The process of one trying to tear the other away from a project usually requires the compromise of also calling it a day. It's the only way to make sure the other one stays put. Honestly, this probably does wonders for both of them actually getting enough sleep.

And a bonus one because I also kind of think I posted that other one before at some point even though I can't for the life of me find it on my archive blog. Perhaps it's off theme, but I am certain that Tristian is almost always up before Balthazar. It became clear quickly enough that Balthazar tended to fret about waking up alone if Tristian didn't return after getting up. So Tristian started to leave something behind when leaving- some small token, a little thing from the room relocated to the pillow visible and in easy reach. A book from the nightstand. The scarf that had been forgotten on the chair the night before. A trinket from the bookshelf. A somewhat awkward gesture to indicate they haven't just vanished without a thought. As silly as it is, it does reassure Balthazar (though it doesn't deter him from clinging to Tristian in ways that make it a daily challenge to get disentangled getting up).

[prompt]

[laikaflash]

im so curious, ive been dying to ask you this:

which soulcalibur ships interest you the most? for the canon ones (lol the few that we have), what about them speak to you? for the noncanon ones, where is the potential for them in your eyes?

Okay, this is probably going to be a bit of a mess, but I'll try to keep it concise. Not jinxing it at all. Going off the top of my head... (drum roll)

Canon

Kilik/Xianghua: It's not for nothing that I summed this one up as "complicated, but dammit if I'm not there for the emotional roller-coaster" in this ask from a while back. I don't want to harp on why the way it ended in the old timeline makes sense to me, but again, I'm a sucker for star-crossed lovers. 'Tis better to have loved than to have lost than to never love at all, and all that... Also, I get the feeling that some overlook the fact that Kilik was raised in a Buddhist monastery as something that plays into his decisions.

Li Long/Chie: The accidental tragicomedy of "My girlfriend's a ninja?!", as I like to call it. Li Long started off as a hotheaded assassin who bit off more than he could chew while deep in enemy territory, and would've bled to death if Chie hadn't found him by chance. I like to imagine them gradually bonding as she nurses him back to health... all while hiding the fact that she and her father are fugitive ninjas, of course. (I've thought about these two a lot because I've had a fic languishing in my drive since 2020. Also, Chie's muteness gives me an excuse to practice describing a range of nonverbal cues for just about anything.) Long story short (pun not not intended), he went through hell and back for her... And it all worked out. Since he ends up in the ranks of the Fu-Ma clan during the pre-SC5 timeskip, I like to think he was a good adoptive dad to Natsu. He probably left the demon stuff to Chie and Taki, though.

Not canon (but I can always dream)

Siegfried/Salia: The Schwarzwind side-missions in Libra of Soul were my fuel, especially with Salia keeping the group together long after Siegfried ran off. ("Because without us, he would have no one to return to...") I think her feelings toward Siegfried were only mentioned in supplementary material before, so I was particularly happy about this part of the "Feelings Shared" side-mission:

Sounds like an open secret to me! (Pardon the uneven cropping.)

To me, Siegfried and Salia have the sort of dynamic that writes itself. Close friends, erstwhile partners-in-crime, leader and tactician... What was that line in Siegfried's SC4 prologue? Something about not letting anyone touch his heart?

(T_T)

To be fair, having a child born with latent Soul Edge energy would be a reasonable worry for him. That might be part of it.

Bonus: according to this relationship chart from New Legends of Projects Soul (page 118), Siegfried's mother sees Salia as "a nice girl, too good for her own son"!

(I'm probably showing more of that section than I need to.)

And now we enter my self-indulgence zone.

I've been playing around with a (very id-driven) Mitsurugi/Taki scenario and went into crackpot mode to flesh it out. It's an AU partly because I think it would take a lot for Mitsurugi to see Taki as something more than She-who-dares-get-in-my-way... Like, oh I don't know, him jumping at the chance to do some mercenary work, even if it means getting caught up in the Fu-Ma clan's business (and Taki watching him like a hawk the entire time). A fair trade for that shard of Soul Edge he picked up long ago? This is all supposed to diverge from some point after Mitsurugi returns to Japan too late for the Battle of Sekigahara (during the pre-SC5 timeskip). For now it's a bunch of notes and scenes clogging my phone's memo app.

There's just... something about a pair of rivals growing to trust each other enough to show their vulnerable sides, I'll say that much for now. Man, that was a lot of words for what started as my brain going NOW KISS.

Sorry this took two weeks. Thanks for asking!

[two-reflections]

Writing Audit ✨

It's been a while since I've done one of these. Let's see what's on the docket.

[Freelance copy editing project.] - #1 Priority. Good for money, but it slows down all my other writing.

Of Steel and Flesh - August ended up too busy, but I finally have time to focus on this one again. I'd like to finish it before the Imperium Maledictum campaign I've just joined gets in full swing. Maybe I can do it over October for @finishwhatyoustarted-event? It would be a bit of an optimistic attempt since there's still a lot to go, but the story is fully outlined through to the end.

Salamander Slice of Life/Romance - This has stalled in the same place for half a year due to other commitments, but once I finish Of Steel and Flesh, I hope to pick it up again. I may need a long hiatus when this one is done.

Techmarine university story - I haven’t worked on this in ages. I may reconfigure it into a oneshot and post it, or it may languish in the WIP folder. Not sure which yet.

MMM September fic - The ship may have sailed on Marine Meat Monday fic for this month. I'm just not feeling particularly inspired right now.

Alpha Legion disguised as Iron Hands - This is a cracky omophagea story I came up with back in May or June, but I've been thinking about it again recently. I may do it as a oneshot in November, or three short chapters if I want to get into the gambit pileup.

That one Kingdom Hearts fic - I left it with one chapter to go in 2019. The chapter is almost done, it just needs like 500 more words. I only want to finish it as a matter of principle, but I keep putting it off. My writing has changed so much since then...

Despite the meme, my docket is a LOT shorter than it was back in August. Lots of projects that are already underway, and no competitions or exchanges to focus on yet. Also, some of my pregnancy fatigue has lightened up. However, I have actual work now, so goodness knows how much I'll be able to get done.

[a-cacophony-of-silent-words]

Rating: Teen and Up Summary: Tim goes back in time to avert the end of the universe, but things quickly go awry and he’s left with an important decision to make: Carry through with the plan as he originally intended; Or make a risky play to change things for the better. Argothia’s Notes: Technically, still Wednesday!

.

At home, months and months removed from the last time he’d been forced to dress in his best suit and practice his most plastic smile, Jason had jumped at the chance to go to this glorified shindig. It was a chance, he’d thought, foolishly, to gather information for his active cases. Tragically, Jason had forgotten how much he truly, deeply, viscerally hates galas. As he looks around the vast brightly lit room at all the rich people milling about. Conversing. Schmoozing. He remembers extremely quickly.

Trying to look for someone resembling Alvin is the worst kind of balancing act. He does his best, but he’s trying not to get caught staring too intensely at anyone in particular and not a lot of these people are really willing to stop to talk to him. Those that do actually take the time to give him the time of day are almost always too busy trying to suck up to Bruce by being nice to the ‘street trash’ that it’s near to impossible to talk any information about the charities the hackers might’ve hit out of them. It’s frustrating.

Maybe the only saving grace of the whole damn thing is that Bruce hasn’t been able to hover like a protective, mother hen. He doesn’t have the time. Galas are all about making potential connections and positive publicity after all. It’s all very important for maintaining good relations and helping communities. Jason knows that.

Doesn’t make them any less awful though.

Jason has largely given up trying to get any actual work done and decides to pick over his plate of food. None of which is anywhere near as good as Alfred could make. Still it’s food so he’s only kinda complaining. Out of the corner of his eye he’s been watching Bruce, waiting for him to get out of conversation with the Van Smiths. The conversation is winding down now, Mrs Van Smith has been distracted by Mrs Rutherford and Mr Van Smith is running out of things to discuss with Bruce. For his part Bruce is doing a masterful job of maneuvering so that he’s almost got Mr Van Smith chatting away with Mr Spencer. Soon enough Van Smith and Spencer wander off and Bruce looks relieved. Jason downs the last of his food and makes his way over.

Bruce can almost definitely tell what’s coming already, the amusement is clear in the way he raises an eyebrow as Jason steps up beside him. Jason doesn’t falter, he just takes a deep breath and lets out the most dramatic sigh he can manage while staying restrained enough for public spaces.

“Don’t tell me you’re bored already, tiger?” Bruce asks, with a quiet chuckle.

Jason gives him his best scowl. “Already? We’ve been here for hours!”

“It’s only been about forty minutes, Jay.” Bruce corrects, fondly. “You didn’t have to come, you know? You’re the one who insisted.”

Oh sure. “Only for the chance to get out of the house, since it’s not like you’re gonna let me out any other way for the rest of my natural life.”

Bruce frowns. “We’re not discussing that right now.”

“You’re not stopping Babs, I noticed.”

“Barbara is a grown woman. She can do as she pleases.” He answers with a firmness that says this argument is over. Great.

Crossing his arms and turning a glare on the floor, Jason grumbles, “Awesome. Perfect. So all I gotta do is wait until I’m eighteen to finally do fuck all. Until then, I guess, I’ll just languish in my room like Rapunzel in her stupid tower.”

There’s a short silence, then Bruce sighs and there’s something about it that makes Jason look up just in time to catch the briefest flicker of guilt pass across his face. Bruce meets his gaze and with some hesitance, he says, “You know… the gala might be more tolerable for you if you found someone your own age to talk to.”

“…If they were fun, yeah?” What’s he up to?

“Well, I can’t promise anything, but I think the Drakes brought their son. He’s a few years younger than you, but you might get along. Never know until you try, right?”

The Drakes? Wait… isn’t that--. Jason steps just a bit closer to Bruce and lowers his voice. “Isn’t there something going on at Drake Industries that a certain someone is very interested in?”

“Might be.”

Jason narrows his eyes slightly. “Am I getting permission to do a little solo investigating out of pity?”

“Possibly.” Bruce glances away briefly.

“I’ll take it.” He barely contains the urge to bounce on his heels. “What’d you need me to ask?”

Bruce smiles at a passerby before answering, “I doubt Timothy will know too much, he’s only thirteen, but if you can get him to tell you anything about Drake Industries’ CEO I’m sure a ‘certain someone’ would appreciate it.”

“On it, Boss.” Jason spins around to start his quest.

“Mind your manners!” Bruce calls after him.

He gives an awkward salute and just barely manages to avoid a collision with a server carrying a full tray of glasses, employing a little of that grace Dick’s been trying to teach him. Perfect success. No collisions happened today. Dick would be proud.

Alright, chances are a kid’s gonna be wherever his parents are. All the pictures of the Drakes on the Bat Computer are pretty old – they tend to stay out of the spotlight for the most part and Jason suspects Bruce doesn’t like Jack and Janet very much – so Jason’s not really sure what Tim’s gonna look like.

Jack is pretty easy to recognize, he’s gathered a bit of a crowd with whom he’s enthusiastically discussing the Gotham Knights’ recent win. Neither Janet nor Tim seem to be anywhere nearby. Jason goes back to looking.

It’s a little more difficult to locate Janet, she’s nowhere near as conspicuous, but eventually Jason does find her. A full hundred feet from her husband she’s happily chatting with Mr and Mrs Bennings about an art piece. No kids around here either. As he’s leaving he notices that Janet is watching him out of the corner of her eye. It gives him an odd feeling of déjà vu and he’s not quite sure why. Before he can figure it out, she seems to realize he’s caught her and immediately returns her full attention to her conversation. Weird.

Anyway back to the drawing board. Jason heads towards the middle of the room. He’s starting to hate moving through the crowded ballroom. He’s not as small as he once was and the finesse of his Robin training can only keep him from bumping in to so many people. Ducking around yet another pair of people who’re stood in the middle of a choke point jawing away, Jason finally makes it out to where he remembers seeing a gaggle of teens earlier in the night. They’re still there as expected, but most of them are Jason’s age or older and none of them look anything like Jack or Janet. For fuck’s sake.

Back to the search, Jason checks every place he can think of to find a rich kid, twice! Still no Tim Drake. Annoyed with the crowd and getting tired of walking Jason makes his way out to the very outskirts and scans the room over one last time. The kid’s not with either of his parents, he’s not with the other teens, he’s not even hiding under a table somewhere or something. Jason’s about ready to give up. Maybe Bruce was wron--.

Mother… FUCKER!

On the other side of the room, slotted neatly in one of the darkest corners between a large potted plant and the wall, well out of the way, and nearly invisible to anyone that isn’t Robin, is a kid. He’s got enough of Jack and Janet’s features that it’s almost definitely Tim. Weird ass place for the Drake’s kid to be considering it’s their stupid ass party, but, hell, who’s Jason to judge?

Is what he would think if, as he gets close enough to get a good look at the kid, he didn’t start feeling like something’s off. He seems a little patchwork honestly. His hair’s all neat and combed back meticulously, but the cut suggests it isn’t usually quite so put together. His suit jacket and pants are too big but the dress shirt is just ever so slightly too small. The wristwatch he’s absently playing with in one hand is custom made and extremely expensive, but way too big for his wrist, Jason’s willing to bet it was actually made for Jack. The cellphone in the kid’s other hand is worth more than some entire buildings in the East End, but the heavy duty case on it suggests he’s both responsible enough to not want it broken and clumsy enough that that’s an issue. All the sticker of an obscure Warlocks and Warriors symbol on the phone case tells Jason is the kid’s a closet nerd. Not the biggest detail but still pretty significant.

There’s something weirdly familiar about him too, just like with Janet, but Jason doesn’t really have time to examine that more deeply right now. He approaches the kid completely unnoticed of course, he’s feeling proud of his stealth skill right up until he’s leaning against the wall around four feet away watching the kid tap away at something on his phone. Kid’s got tunnel vision, gonna log that away for future reference.

Jason clears his throat. “So--”

The kid jumps – like physically leaves the ground by a couple inches – and his phone goes flying out of his hand. Luckily for him, Jason’s got good reflexes and catches it before it can go soaring off into the crowd. Unluckily for him, Jason can’t stop himself from laughing at that reaction. “Dang, kid, you’re jumpier than a cat!”

“What!? I-I mean, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you, um–” And then the kid actually looks at Jason and goes completely still. Staring like he just realized who he’s talking to and like that means something to him.

Jason just kinda lets him for a bit. The look reminds him a bit of Janet earlier, in that he’s can’t really get a firm read on what the kid thinks of him from it. However where Janet was stoic, Tim looks a bit caught between some kind of awe and a completely other kind of terror. Kinda makes Jason feel powerful. Enough of that though. He holds out the kid’s phone and kinda gestures with it. “You want this back or what?”

Tim snaps out of whatever trance he was stuck in and takes the phone like a small woodland animal tentatively accepting an offer of food. “Y-yes, um, sorry. I just wasn’t expecting anyone to talk to me.”

“Why’s that?” Jason shoves his hands in his pockets and leans his shoulder against the wall. Trying to look relaxed and not like he’s trapping the kid.

Tim shrugs. “People just… don’t usually notice me.”

“Oh yeah?” Understatement. “I believe it. I mean I only noticed you because I was wandering about. What’s got you hiding out here anyway?”

With a small, kinda nervous smile Tim puts his phone away and pulls the watch onto his wrist where it hangs far too loosely. “People keep running into me when I try to stay in the middle of crowds, so I thought I’d just stay out of the way altogether.”

“Ah, makes sense.” All at once Jason remember those manners Bruce told him not to forget and offers his hand for Tim to shake. “I’m Jason Todd, by the way. Nice to meet ya.”

“The pleasures mine!” They shake hands like two good rich brats. Kid’s got a surprisingly strong handshake for such a little guy and it probably says something that he didn’t even hesitate to shake Jason’s hand. Eases a few fears Jason had anyway. “I’m Tim Drake.”

Jason fakes his best surprised look. “You know, I thought you looked familiar! You’re Jack Drake’s kid, right?”

“Yeah…” Tim shifts his weight ever so slightly, in a way that Jason thinks seems a little uncomfortable.

“That’s cool,” Jason says, disguising a step back as just readjusting his position. Trying to make sure it’s not him that’s making the kid so nervous. “Your dad organized this whole thing for his, uh, archaeology society’s fund, was it?”

“Yeah…”

Jason affects a thoughtful frown and asks, “But… wasn’t there another one like last month or something? I thought for sure you’d wanna put space between these things?”

“Uh, yes, well,” Tim grimaces, slightly. “Dad’s really hoping to fund a dig in Egypt after he and mom get back from their vacation in the Caribbean. And the fund’s a little low… especially since the whole Moneyspider thing.”

Jason almost misses that last part, it’s muttered so low, like Tim doesn’t even realize he said it. “The Money-what?”

“What? Oh, uh…” Tim cringes like he’s just said something he definitely shouldn’t have. Oh boy. He freezes right up and seems extremely convicted for a moment. Then, just as Jason’s about to prompt him again, he suddenly brightens. “You know, that hacker that’s been stealing from charities lately? Haven’t you heard about that?”

Oh. Oh fuck! Goddamn, Jason goes in looking for information for Bruce’s case and immediately gets a hook for his own instead. Quickly putting on a confused expression, Jason gives a slow shake of his head like he’s thinking it over real carefully. “I don’t think… wait, maybe? Bruce said something about somebody trying to get into the Martha Wayne Foundation thing… he said they didn’t get anything though.”

“Lucky thing the Wayne foundations have such good security. That hacker completely wiped out the Van Smith’s Care for the Elderly charity in the course of a night! And like I said Dad’s archaeology society’s funds got hit pretty hard too.” Tim lowers his voice a bit and continues with a more conspiratorial tone, “Dad hired a professional to check out the system afterwards and he managed to find out that the money got transferred to an account in Switzerland but after that he couldn’t find out where it went. He said it was probably transferred all over the world and we might never know where it ended up.”

“No kidding?” Jason gives a low impressed whistle.

Tim nods. “He also found a message the hacker left behind, all it said was ‘The Moneyspider wins again!’. That’s all we know right now, but the ‘Moneyspider’ hasn’t tried for the archaeology fund since.”

“That sounds fascinating!” Jason begins, carefully. He’s convinced now, this kid is way more than he seems and he doesn’t want to scare him off if he has more information on the ‘Moneyspider’ case. “You really know a lot about it, huh?”

Sheepishly, Tim smiles and kinda shrinks back a little. “Uh, well, you see… my dad was ranting about it a lot and I picked up a few things I guess.”

Yeah, Jason’ll believe that when the Brooklyn Bridge has a price tag. He needs a plan to work more information out of this kid. If this brat is one of the hackers from the other night then--

“Timmy! Timmy, there you are!” A very, very drunk woman stumbles out of the crowd, almost losing one of her kitten heels as she staggers over towards them.

“Wha—” Tim looks completely baffled as the woman practically falls on top of him. “A-Aunt Edna!”

The woman is blonde, her long hair falling loose about her face and shoulders, her makeup’s so thick it’s almost hard to make out the actual shape of her face. She’s wearing an ungodly amount of jewelry which hardly seems to go with her very tasteful, black velvet dress. Her voice is just a pitch or two this side of whiny as she says, “Timmy, your mom says it’s time to start heading home.”

“I can see why,” Tim mutters, exasperated but clearly still fond.

Edna ruffles Tim’s hair, then finally seems to notice Jason. “Oh hiiii! Are you… Timmy, is this a friend? Timmy has friends?!”

“I-I have plenty of friends!” Tim squawks in protest, he’s blushing furiously now.

In an attempt to spare Tim more embarrassed flailing, Jason offers, “I’m Jason Todd, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ma’am.”

“Charmed, ‘m sure.” She gives him what probably wants to be a firm handshake, then immediately turns her attention back to Tim. “I don’t wanna interrupt your conversation but… I think Janet’s waiting on us?”

“Oh… probably… I guess her and dad do have an early flight tomorrow… and I do have school.” Tim casts an apologetic look at Jason. “I, uh…”

Damn, Jason really wanted to see what else he could learn, but there’s nothing for it. He just shrugs and says, “That’s alright, it is getting pretty late, I should probably go find Bruce. Have a good night and get home safe!”

“You too!” Tim moves to support Edna a bit better and then with some tentative hope in his voice, he says, “Maybe we’ll get to talk again sometimes soon?”

Definitely. “I’ll look forward to it!”

Tim smiles, brightly, and with a quick good-bye, he and Edna disappear into the crowd.

Mulling over the conversation as he sets out to find Bruce, Jason’s disappointed he learned so little from it. The information on the Moneyspider character could be useful and Bruce might like to know that the Drakes are going out of town in the morning. Still Jason feels like that kid at least has connections to one of the hackers. There’s something else too, nagging at the back of Jason’s mind that he hasn’t had time to really ruminate on yet.

Something about the kid’s voice, his… accent…

Jason stops dead in his tracks. God, he feels like kicking himself straight off one of the landings in the Bat Cave. Why the hell hadn’t he noticed it sooner!? He was so focused on looking for Drake traits he’d entirely missed it! The look Janet gave him, the features he’d noticed in Tim, the accent.

It’s Alvin! It’s all Alvin! Alvin’s related to the fucking Drakes!

Fuck!

[ask-thedawnseekers]

Bound

bound: Has your OC ever been imprisoned or captured? What happened? How did they get out? Did the experience leave any scars?

Solana's eyes became distant as the little message brought back a tidal wave of memories with it.

She was not an easy person to bind or hold against her will. Physically, she was unmatched and was proud of the fact.

But physicality had nothing over the strength of her hearts, of her love, that was her truest strength. And as it would happen, her most glaring Achilles heel.

Solana remembered the room feeling cold. Her armor had been taken away at some point, but she hadn't the memories to recall when. She came around only to realize she was in a cage. A golden cage, the bars glowing faintly with a light that was too familiar for her liking.

She'd struggled against those bars for hours. Getting nowhere.

It was only after she'd stopped that a voice came to her from the other side.

"You won't find your way out of there. I made this just to hold you. It was the only way we could."

She held the bars and peered out past the glowing metal. "Perturabo!" She shook the bars.

"Please let me out, quick. Terrible things are happening. We have to stop them." Her eyes were wide with panic, but her friend was here now. He would free her, surely he would. Solana loved him so much, just as she was certain that her friend loved her in return.

"Didn't you hear me?" His voice came back, cold as iron. "Perturabo, we don't have time for this. Please." She begged again, but the Iron warrior remained unmoved.

"I will not."

Solana knew why, and he knew that she knew. But her voice came once again, begging.

"Pertuarbo. Please. Let me out, I need to- I need.. my children. My legion. Please....don't do this."

The Iron Warrior turned his back to her. He closed all channels to the network of voxes available to him. He steadied himself by picking up a stack of perfectly planned schematics for any number of things. Mostly, they were projects left over from what little free time hed had. Most which had not been started or revisted at all.

"Perturabo." Solana called, and his shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly.

Why had Horus tasked him with keeping her. Why couldn't it have been Fulgrim, or Mortarion, or Angron or even Lorgar? Why couldn't it have been anyone else?

Again, he knew why, but he cursed his brother for doing this to him. Solana loved him. She had from the moment they'd been reunited. She'd given him all of herself that she was able. Openly and without asking for anything in return. And more so, she was an enigma to him. He was as unable to read her as Konrad was unable to see her future. She had been a mystery he'd had to discover piece by piece and loving gesture by loving gesture.

Solana looked out at her friend, sliding to the floor. Watching, waiting, and trying to keep her breathing in check. So he'd cast his lot with Horus. Not with her, not with his father. But with chaos.

Solana wanted to cry, and it might have worked, too. But no, she had to convince him.

And she tried, for three weeks. She spoke to him, recounting stories. Usually, he only gave grunts in return. Sometimes, even a single word if she was lucky. But she never offered insult or degraded him. Even then, she still loved her friend.

The 21st languished in the cage hearts aching so bad she thought she'd die.

Perturabo knew that any other form of torture wouldn't suffice. But he hated himself for this. He'd never thought he'd feel so low as he did then. And it made him resent her when he thought too hard about it. But it always came back around, and his hearts would clench.

On the first day of the fourth week, he came into the chamber, and Solana sat in one corner. She did not greet him. But a soft sound carried out from the cage. A song, quiet but sweet in her melancholic voice. The agony in her tone was sublime, and Perturabo wanted to shake the cage, he wanted to scream at her and throw things. To make her stop the feelings of utter betrayal and pain he felt.

Even after weeks of being bound, locked in a cage with no bath, even then, she was a sight to see.

Beauty enough to make an eldar weep. And he loved her all the same as he ever had. He rounded the cage, Perturabo needed to see her face, needed to take her in.

The food that had been placed for her had been left untouched since the first day. Not a bite was taken from any meal presented.

"My heart hurts too much to eat." She'd said, her eyes far away, her wings cloaking her. And she hadn't eaten, at all.

Perturabo wanted to put his fist through Horus's skull for all this.

"You're the only one with the resolve to hold her." Horus's voice rang in his skull.

No, he wasn't. This was its own form of torture for him. He was no jailer.

He stopped eyes clouding with grief as he saw her tear streaked face. Her song carried on, and he stayed listening for a time.

He wanted to go to her. To lay in her arms and hear her laughter and feel her warmth. But all he had was her tears.

He retrieved the tray. The food was still good, but he knew she wouldn't touch it. As the tiny door for the tray slid shut behind him he realized her singing had stopped.

"Solana?" He looked up and saw her curled in a ball wings pulled in tight around her.

"They hurt Bo. My hearts hurt."

The use of the affectionate nickname she'd called him by when they were alone together hit him like a hammer blow, and he recoiled at the sudden wave of despair and self-loathing that assailed him.

"I'm sorry." Was all he could manage, looking away from her, physically dragging his eyes off her condensed form.

He did not stay to watch her, passing the tray off forcefully to the first hapless serf who was unfortunate enough to cross his path.

He came back the next morning. Silence greeted him. He went to his desk. Ready for a day of work. But the silence prevails. He picked up a page, content to work... but the abnormal silence dragged on.

"Good morning, Solana." He greeted. The grim empty silence met his greeting. Perturabo stopped, pulling his helm from his head to listen. His hearts began to race, making it hard to hear.

He whipped around. She was still there. Still in the cage.

An old conversation came to his mind, one they'd shared when she'd first shown him the gardens on the Starfire.

"I could never keep a bird in a cage." She told him as a small yellow songbird landed on her finger perched happily.

"Why not? It makes them easier to keep track of. Instead of having to look for tags on each bird." He'd been thinking about the efficiency of the task. But Solana didn't think that way.

"It's not good for them. They can damage their feathers and their wings. And it kills their spirits. They need to be free, to fly, to sing, and to find love."

Perturabo had scoffed at such notions, but Solana smiled and pressed her cheek to the top of his head. "It's the same way with people. They must be free to live and discover and find one another and to love in all the ways they are able."

"And have you done that? Lived and discovered and loved?" He asked, less gruffly then before.

He could still feel the way her arms and wings enfolded him. "I sure have." She chuckled, and the sound drew a quiet smile onto his lips. "I love you, Bo."

He hugged her back. "I love you too...Lana."

He'd put her in a cage. Not a cell, not a jail, but a cage.

He strained to listen, willing his hearts to be silent. After a pair of minutes, they were.

He heard nothing. No beating, no soft whispering in take of breath, no sighing of exhalation.

Perturabo went to the cage. Kneeling by the bars closest to her.

She looked...gray, bland and unmoved. And utterly silent.

"Solana." He said in a demanding tone. His fists closed around the bar and shook it.

"Solana!" He shouted.

Seconds ticked by like hours, and time seemed to slow as he stumbled to his feet. Reaching for the bars he'd been staring at for weeks, his hearts begging him to open. To free his friend.

Finally, he did. And he went to the little bird in the corner, curled up and unmoving.

Her skin was cold, and his vision blurred. He grabbed her. Pulling her up, shaking her. Furiously demanding, she woke. He lifted her into his arms, holding her form as if she was made of delicate glass.

He'd put her in a cage. He thought over and over as he ran to the medical wing of the Iron Blood.

He'd killed her spirit...he'd killed her. He'd killed her. He'd killed her.

The sentence came again and again unbidden. And he'd wailed wordlessly as he ran, holding the body of his beloved friend so tight he felt her bones creak.

The apothecary looked over the patient on his table in bewilderment. "Fix her!" His primarch demanded.

The apothecary sprang to obey. But he wasn't sure what he would do with a dead body. He wasn't Fabius Bile. But he made himself busy anyways, working on anatomy that was as alien to him as if his primarch had slapped down a xenos on his table.

Perturabo stood back. It couldn't be. She must still live. He paced in the hall. Him helm back on his head.

The apothecary came back out and looked rather ill. He told him about the grim diagnostics he'd uncovered and led his primarch back into the room but the table was empty.

The room was empty.

"What is this!" Pertuarbo demanded, but his son looked just ad shocked as he felt.

Solana slipped down the halls, under the cover of a veil she'd pulled up around herself. By now, she was sure the decoy she'd spent so much energy making must have faded and that her time was limited.

The alarms began to sound just as the vessel she'd crept aboard launched.

Her hearts still ached. But they were out in open space now. It hadn't been easy, the cloak, but her time with Corvus had been time well spent.

She came out of the memory and sighed. "I miss that knucklehead." She breathed out a laugh and took a sip of her coffee.

[ragnarlothcat]

5 (What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!) for as holy and enchanted, 7 (Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?), and/or 49 (What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!) for the ask game??

Hello Trees!!! Thank you 🥰🌲 (ask game)

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about as holy and enchanted? Answer it now!

When I first posted that fic last year (last year? why does it feel like 50 years ago?) people did ask me a lot of questions that mostly dealt with how Obi-Wan would adjust to human society, which is vaild. But what about how Anakin adjusts to god society since I suggest pretty loudly that Obi-Wan made him a god too? It's a thing in d&d (I think) where regular people become gods through various deeds and whatnot but here's Anakin getting deified because he's very mouthy and has a fantastic ass.

The bleak sequel to this fic is Anakin realizing all his loved ones are going to die and he can't stop it (maybe this is where evil god Palpatine comes in as per usual). The comedy sequel is it takes Anakin quite a while to notice that he isn't aging. Either way I love imagining the chaos these guys would find themselves in!

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

I was thinking about my demon fic again (spoilers for the next question you sent me!) and I really like that I made Hondo the real estate agent. I think he's extremely funny and amoral and I stand by that decision 100%. I love this horrible man!

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

It's...my demon fic!!! I've been toying with doing the same thing I did with my baseball fic where I forbid myself from working on any other projects until this one is done because updating once a year during October is a goofy way of handling this story and it makes it difficult to pick it back up. I left myself a note in the middle of the chapter that says "dictionary conversation" and I have no idea what to do about that. Cut it, I guess, and leave the note to languish until I get a flash of 3 am inspiration?

Here's a tiny bit from the Halloween party chapter!

“Hello there,” Obi-Wan says, Anakin’s hand clasped firmly in his own. “Trick or treat?” Quinlan’s face falls and his eyes flick between Anakin’s horns and Obi-Wan’s collar. “Goddammit Obi-Wan.” Obi-Wan grins back beatifically. “That’s rather the idea.” “Good evening, Quinlan,” Anakin says very seriously, like the world’s most alarming door-to-door salesman. “We’re here to both delight and terrify you.” Quinlan looks neither delighted nor terrified, he looks like he’s about to shove Obi-Wan back down the stairs and leave his body to the raccoons. “These costumes are both creatively and morally bankrupt,” he announces, waving a hand at the cross around Obi-Wan’s neck. “And they’re much less funny than you think they are.” Anakin blinks back at him, the picture of doe-eyed innocence. “They aren’t supposed to be funny. They’re supposed to be romantic.”

[deuterosapiens]

So I started reading Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club on something of a whim. Yes it was a book before a movie. Yes, I stopped Under the Whispering Door to read it (which I will pick back up now that Fight Club is over; it will not languish on the shelf of unfinished books like so, so many other things).

Like many a person, I've seen the film a fair number of times. It's one of those highly quotable films that makes up about thirteen percent of all film references that aren't Mean Girls (quick aside: how well do these two films specifically compare? There's probably some interesting parallels for another time, though that's not important). Unlike many a person, my first experience with Chuck Palahniuk's writing was the short-story "Guts," which is fairly unpleasant for the squeamish, rather than this. It felt like the logical place to start with his novelist work. I've got Choke ordered as a potential follow-up (Sam Rockwell makes all movies better).

All the discourse and discussion of what it's really about has all been had and I'm afraid I can't really add anything interesting to the discussion. Is it social satire? Is it a critique of toxic masculinity, anarchy, the destruction of the hetero-male image? What's it stand for, what's it believe in? What ideas does it promote?

The reading I found the most interesting here, which is the one I found the most relatable or relevant to me, given my own personal drama, however, was that it's a perfectly good critique of toxic escapism. I'm fairly certainly this was not exactly what Palahniuk had in mind when it was written.

Consider this: a person becomes bored with their life and runs off with a fantastic stranger to a new world. No one on earth would bat an eye to that description applying to basically every piece of escapist fiction ever written. And yet, if you boil it down to the essential elements, removing the fat, this is an adequate description of the events of Fight Club's first act.

The fantasy becomes worse and it takes a destructive toll. What was initially a medicine has become an addiction, and, like all addictions, eventually the fantasy isn't enough. Fight club is no longer enough and so Tyler kickstarts Project Mayhem. I consider this an important point as the novel makes it extraordinarily clear that Tyler Durden isn't starting Project Mayhem for social reform, but because his friend, the unnamed Narrator (I think the sequel calls him Sebastian, but I obviously haven't read Fight Club 2 yet; yes there's a sequel; it's a graphic novel as opposed to the original which is a novel that's quite graphic, but not a graphic novel; where was I again?), is no longer having his escapist needs met through the fights.

Project Mayhem grows out of control and the Narrator realizes, too late, none of this is okay. It's then that he realizes the tomato in the mirror, that Tyler is a dissociative self created to cope with just being actually bored as hell of living. Okay, technically he created Tyler because he was interested in Marla Singer (sort of, the part of him that was interested in her became Tyler, it's a bit murky, the details, but that's not strictly important).

So, in-universe, everything that happens is the literal exact result of an actual fantasy going too far.

What I find best about this reading though is how it plays with the ending. A brief note: the film ending, with the explosions set to the Pixies' "Where is my Mind?," doesn't happen; instead the explosives fail, and the Narrator is left recovering in a hospital after having shot his face-out (where Project Mayhem members await eagerly his recovery and the recovery of the Tyler Durden persona).

You have someone who has ran away to some other world as a means of escaping their own problems, who learns that this fantasy is causing them more harm than good, who then takes action to recover themselves and return to the real world. Still, there will always be that possible thread, the lingering will, desire, to leave reality behind again and succumb to the fantasy.

I think a lot of us, who used books or games or movies or what have you to ignore our day-to-day routine problems, can relate to that. To finally wanting to confront the problem you've avoided head-on, and feeling that tug, a little pull in your mind, something drawing you back to the distraction. The easy-way, always available if you want it.

Perhaps I did have something to say about Fight Club the novel after all. I know I broke the rules (the first rule of fight club: you do not talk about fight club; the second rule of fight club: you do not talk about fight club), but perhaps that's the point. The delusion by itself is no fun; madness spread to others (folie à deux) is a riot.

Perhaps that's why we need a Marla, a tether to ground us (even if painfully), when the fantasy can no longer be differentiated from reality.

[madly-empirical]

Has Hollywood Gone Batty? 

L.A. TIMES ARCHIVES

AUG. 29, 1993 12 AM PT 

Bravo to author Anne Rice (“Interview With the Vampire’s Picky Creator,” Film Clips, Aug. 22) for having the courage and honesty to publicly voice what thousands of her readers have been crying about for weeks: Tom Cruise is totally miscast as the Vampire Lestat.

Producer David Geffen is dead wrong about casting being solely a director’s choice. As members of the moviegoing public are the ones whose money will dictate how successful the film is or is not, any of the film’s financiers would be smart to listen to them (a great example of this would be the public’s choice of Clark Gable for “Gone With the Wind”).

If the screenplay remains true to its source in its dealings with the homoerotic relationship between the two lead vampires (as well as some subsidiary fangsters they meet along the way), I doubt that anyone could truly conjure the hopelessly hetero Cruise as a character actor strong enough to overcome his more-than-well-established screen persona of boy next door. His support from Geffen, himself only recently out of the closet, is curious, to say the least.

I find it ironic that the long-awaited transition of “Interview With the Vampire” from novel to screen is falling victim to another kind of bloodsucker--the Hollywood kind.

DAVE HUTCHINSON

Mission Viejo

P.S. Besides Jeremy Irons and Daniel Day-Lewis, how about three other fellow Brits for consideration, all with neck-biting experience? Gary Oldman has played gay men and king vampires with a lot of success. Or how about Julian Sands, from the low-budget wonder “Tale of a Vampire,” just released on video? And of course there’s always Ben Cross, who recently hung up his cape as Barnabas Collins in the “Dark Shadows” revival.

*

Fans of “Interview With the Vampire,” be they Cruise fans or not, must surely be aghast at his casting as Lestat. The milk-and-cookies star has neither the physical presence nor the range as an actor to effectively play the role.

Think of Dana Carvey as Dirty Harry, and you can see how implausible is the casting of Cruise as Lestat. Cruise flashing those fangs for the first time will likely engender unwarranted laughter from the audience, just as Carvey as Dirty Harry would saying “Make my day.”

With the attachment of director Neil Jordan to the project, this book seemed destined to become a fully realized artistic success after languishing for 15 years waiting to be made. Jordan should be capable of properly tackling the homoerotic elements of Rice’s sensual story, as he so ably proved with his tale of sexual ambiguity in “The Crying Game.”

Cruise’s experiment in stretching his acting range may be as painful for his audience to watch as Sylvester Stallone’s pathetic forays into comedy have been. And with the potential for a $200-million box office due to the wide public regard for Rice’s novel and the bunch-o-hunks cast producer Geffen has assembled, it is not likely that any changes will be forthcoming (as in Cruise realizing he is very wrong for the part and backing out).

Cruise as the Interviewer, yes. Cruise as Lestat (I’m still trying to stop laughing), no.

JEFF SOFTLEY

Los Angeles

*

Are they out of their cotton-picking minds? Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Back in 1978, when Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” was first considered for a film adaptation, there was a short-lived plan to star John Travolta as the tormented vampire Louis. Now that scheme is look back on as preposterous.

But here it is 1993, and fans of Rice’s novel are forced to endure the same thing all over again, this time in the far more serious threat of Tom Cruise. Once again, the powers that be have decided to cast a young, “hot” actor they think will best pull in the big bucks, the character be damned (no pun intended).

But what was a bad idea in ’78 is a bad idea in ‘93, and oh, what a character to sacrifice! Here is a character so strong and affecting that he renders poet, novelist and National Public Radio commentator Andrei Codrescu, your Aug. 8 cover subject, momentarily speechless, and causes this same, nominally sane man to state, with apparent conviction, that an imaginary being “lives” in the Lafayette Cemetery.

Where Hollywood has erred, I think, is in the casting of such a familiar actor in the role. Vampires in general, and Lestat in particular, get their kick from their alien-ness, from their difference from the mundane. Tom Cruise is too well-known, too famous and too, well, Tom Cruise to achieve the kind of chilling strangeness the role demands.

If seems so sad to me that the studios give so much weight to the opinions of test audiences once their films are made and the money has been spent. Just this once, it would be nice if they’d listen to their audience before the damage is done.

LAURA S. KING

Anaheim

*

And I thought I was the only one offended by the selection of Cruise to play Lestat. Finally someone with sense speaks out. Thank you, Anne Rice!

Cruise, while perfectly able to play the All-American type, is not cut out to play this most ambivalent (in every sense of the word) character. If producer Geffen and director Jordan would get over the grosses of “The Firm” for just one moment, they would see the inherent problems with this gross miscasting.

Lestat is tall and sinewy, French and aristocratic, the owner of a long, blond mane. In other films, these characteristics might be altered, but not in this case. Many of Lestat’s physical characteristics are direct results of his having become a vampire.

The main problem with the casting of Cruise--indeed the casting of any of the “Vampire Chronicles” characters--is that reader identification and affection are unusually high; readers of the “Chronicles” feel that the characters are their friends. Rice is one of the best writers today at visualization. Reading one of her books is like creating a little movie in the mind. And it is highly unlikely that anyone was imagining Cruise as the vampire everyone loves to lust.

Mr. Geffen, Mr. Jordan, the box-office receipts will swell if you follow the book and the characterizations it outlines as faithfully as possible. Trust me.

ADELE BAYLESS

Los Angeles

*

There hasn’t been such bad casting since “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” and I suggest that producer Geffen look at the box office for that one, despite its being based on a best-selling novel, when he says casting is the job of the director, not a public opinion poll.

Perhaps, with Cruise as Lestat, all of Anne Rice’s fans will just stay home and reread “Interview With the Vampire.”

E. M. BECKMAN

North Hollywood

*

I concur, as would anyone with any taste and insight, that the Vampire Lestat must be played by someone with maturity, character, pathos and vulnerability, not a pasty-faced weakling.

What a shame. A marvelous story and movie are being ruined.

MICHAEL H. SUKOFF

Santa Ana

*

Cruise as the Vampire Lestat is inspired. To compliment this brilliance, Jordan and Geffen should consider cameos by Beavis and Butt-head. Heh-heh-heh.

MICHAEL ROBERTS

Twentynine Palms

*

Cruise as Lestat? Why not Bugs Bunny or Sylvester the Cat, and make it a real cartoon?

Tom Cruise--never!

GARY MANNING

Hollywood

[battaliaart]

B yells about in-progress MAP parts, the first one!!!

Aight, let's give this a shot, yeah? Got no idea what I'm doing but I'd like to try.

Well over a year ago now, I yoinked the last open part in this Na Na Na Wings of Fire x Fandom Crossover MAP:

Due to the DMC brainrot at the time that's the fandom I ended up choosing, and I picked the most iconic scene to portray: the Temen-Ni-Gru fight from DMC3. Swordfight translated into an aerial battle? heck yeah that seems cool

Back when the Discord server for the project was still active, I made my designs for Dante and Vergil. These'll still largely hold up for the part now, though the style will be different - it'll be more closely aligned with my Ten Plagues parts since that's the style I use for Wings of Fart now.

I designed them this way for one practical reason and many subtle meta reasons:

They're twins, so I needed a neutral color palette that'd work for both of them and wouldn't clash with their outfits

Went with Ice/Night for grayscale, but also because IceWings and NightWings are typically acknowledged as rivals

Also because IceWings and NightWings are incredibly opinionated on which tribe is 'right' and which is deplorable - very similar to how these two approach the human/demon dichotomy

I also have an unwritten rule to make most dragon designs go from a darker color to a lighter one in a vertical gradient, which I intentionally turned on its head here both to match more with how the siblings go in a similar light/dark gradient.

Back in the day I used to design a lot of hybrids with mixed scale types (shoutout to when Eclipse had half SandWing scales and half NightWing scales, or two rows of sharp scales and one row of round ones) before I realised that's not really consistent with how I assume their biology would work, but this is Wings of Fart and I don't really care for the accuracy of Wings of Fart anymore so we have blended scale styles - if anything, for one last hurrah before I never design anything like this ever again.

aight that's enough about the designs how bouts we get into actual work on the part yeah?

This was the only thing I got done before letting this part languish in my To Do list for over a year. It's the very last shot of the part, designed to showcase just one more aspect of these characters in this crossover: Dante uses fire breathing and Vergil uses frostbreath. I intend to have a more elaborate transition into the close up speen, I just didn't draw it out yet. I sat down for one session and scrawled this out, probably because the idea presented itself vividly in my head and I had to get it down asap. TVPaint, 24fps.

Fast forward a literal year of radio silence and now the MAP server is starting to see sparks of life again, and lil' ol' me is finally undergoing my MCR phase many, many years too late, so that means it's time to pick up this part again.

Had a brainwave the other night and came up with the remaining shots in the part, but it'd only be doable if I could somehow get a 3D reference of the Temen-Ni-Gru because there ain't no way I'm trying a complex rotating 2.5D thing again without a reference.

Thankfully DMC5 has tons of mods. With REFramework and this Bloody Palace mod, I can now freely fly around the silly demon tower and snatch all the reference footage I need. Took a few tries, and it's not the best, but we now got this:

My brain breaks down this rotating tower shot into two parts; the first part consists of four still assets, for parallaxing, and the second part has roughly 3-5 new unique assets, mas o menos depending on, once again, parallaxing. The dragons will be standing equidistant from each other in this shot and the camera will settle on a close-medium shot of one of them, so they'll require extra assets for the second part once I've solidified how I want the shot to continue. With the experience I have from my failed Jojo Reanimated part I acknowledge it would probably be hell to animate those background assets in VEGAS, so I'll be crafting them with Moho's superior camera functions in mind.

So far I've doodled out one additional concept so far - see the skeleton statue in the above video's freeze frame? Can't have that being a human in a dragon-centric universe, so here's an idea for a dragon skeleton demon sculpture thing:

That's just about where I am at time of writing - I wouldn't expect future posts to be nearly as wordy, this one's just different because I had a year's worth of time to recount like two to three days of work to rant about.

These posts will all be tagged with the relevant part/number and 'BTS (behind the scenes) Animations with B' unless I come up with a catchier series title. C'ya in the next one.

[kitkatt0430]

🌤️🌩️☔

🌤️Share your favorite piece of dialogue from your WIP.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin rasped. “I-I can’t see.

“Carbon sickness,” Obi-Wan told him, voice gentle. “It’ll take time for your senses to settle.”

“What happened? I don’t… I don’t remember…” Anakin wanted to reach out to Obi-Wan, but his limbs and even the Force just… weren’t cooperating. He had all the strength of a boiled noodle.

“It’ll come back to you in time. For now, Anakin… just rest.”

If Obi-Wan was there, then Anakin was safe. So he did as asked.

Anakin slipped into sleep.

From my Jedi in the Carbonite fic. Anakin has no idea what he's woken up to yet, just that if Obi-Wan's there then he's okay.

Unfortunately what he doesn't realize is that Obi-Wan's not at his most stable at the moment...

🌩️ Share something funny/cracky from your WIP.

So for Tales of Vesperia, one of the fics I'm working on - mostly in the planning stages but there's a bit written - is about Prince Ioder having been kidnapped. This is part of a larger AU where Alexei's insurrection goes quite differently from canon (amongst other things), so Zagi has been put in charge of Ioder's kidnapping.

Zagi is an assassin, kidnapping is beneath him, is he really getting paid enough for this? Ioder might actually be able to work with this. Ioder's been the one kidnapped... but Zagi is the one stuck with him.

Meanwhile Flynn's been sent on a wild goose chase involving a missing trade caravan to keep him away from the capital during the insurrection since he would not throw his loyalty in with the Commandant. And of course, in trying to keep Flynn away from the action until its all over... he winds up right in the path of Zagi and Ioder anyway.

Zagi's a bit of a weirdo, so playing him off Ioder gives me a chance to show a side of Ioder that we don't really see directly in the game. The ability to size someone up and manipulate them. In this case he's having to figure out what Zagi wants and how to either get free or turn the assassin to his side... and all while being more than a little distracted by the fact that his nose itches and he cannot do anything about it because his hands are tied behind his back.

It's all meant to be a bit sillier than the fics that precede it, which have been largely about Yuri and Estelle fleeing the capital together and Raven rallying troops still loyal to Prince Ioder and Princess Estellise. I wanted to take it as a chance to finally flesh out Ioder's personality beyond what the game gives us. And, honestly, it'd be pretty hilarious if, by the time Flynn comes to rescue Ioder... Ioder and Zagi were friends.

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

So i do have a Red Dwarf idea that, for now, is languishing over in my Plot Bunny Adoption Agency, where I've put the bits and pieces of some of the fics that I've started but concluded I'll probably never actually finish.

It starts with the aftermath of Rimmerworld and exploring Rimmer's trauma there and the fact that he barely remembers the rest of the crew. Having to settle back in and deal with the fact that things he used to care about - promotions at a job that hasn't existed in millenia - don't really matter to him any more. He's never going to impress his parents... he barely remembers them and they're deader than he is since at least he's a hologram.

There'd be some new adventures in between the end of Rimmerworld and the start of the episode Out of Time. The introduction of Hogey the extremely bored simulant, Arnold demanding the Cat help him pick out new clothes, and Emohawk encounter that reveals just how depressed Rimmer's been (and hiding it) since the events on Rimmerworld... and a change in the friendship between Arnold and Dave that might just lead to something else. (Do I ship Rimmer/Lister? Well... yes.)

After a somewhat AU take on Out of Time, Rimmer and Lister would, tentatively have gotten together... and that's when alt!Kristine shows up and gets stuck in their universe. And while they do get a visit from Ace Rimmer, it's the newly minted Ace from the show timeline, who offers to help take Kristine home... only to get yoinked away to another reality before he can. Whoops.

Lister and Rimmer wind up having to work out jealousy issues both over Kristine and the return of Rimmer's one-off love interest from the holo-ship.

I actually had a lot of ideas for this, but I think I was struggling a bit much to get their voices right. I would still love to write this fic or pick it apart and reuse it to write other stories. So you never know, maybe it'll be rescued from the plot bunny heap one day.

[storm-cellar]

writing things where the target audience is you and one other dude who will probably never know of its existence is so fun sometimes

[threewaysdivided]

💖👻🧠 (is this too many??)

Not at all!

Fanfic Ask Game

👻 What is one WIP you think you may never pick back up?

Funnily enough, I don't have any of these! The closest thing is my bird painting, which has been languishing as a result of my moving house twice and just not having the time or table space.

I know myself well enough to be aware of my tendency towards completionist over-commitment to stuff. I tend to hang back on actually starting projects that need more than a couple of weeks unless I'm ready to actually see them through. WIP-projects mostly stay in my head or as...

🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet?

There's actually couple of these in a fairly developed state that have stayed bunked in my brain either because I didn't feel like spending the time to turn them into prose with all the connective tissue, or because they work in that liminal dream-sequence brain-space where I can blend from one scene to the next and hop in and out of flashbacks for context but I would have no idea how to structure them as an actual story that makes coherent sense to someone else.

A run-down:

YJxDP Brother's AU story concept #1, building on this starting point. Dick finds out from Jack Haley that he has an older brother, only to discover that Fentonworks is gone and the trail is completely cold. Meanwhile Wally finds himself getting drawn into the life of a new classmate at Keystone High, who seems to be estranged from his family, is perpetually tired and a bit standoffish... and who looks an awful lot like an older Dick Grayson at first glance (but that has to be a coincidence, right? Because Dick doesn't have any living family.) First impressions can be misleading and the more Wally looks the less certain he is that they're related but the more he notices other things. Most importantly: that this is a person who needs help and maybe a friend.

YJxDP Brother's AU story concept #2, would completely not work in writing as it would fully rewrite both canons but basically exploring the concept of "what if they DID grow up in the circus together and somehow got separated, lost contact and then reunited as heroes", going into the loss, hurt, anger, distance and misunderstandings that would come from being suddenly split apart from your only remaining family with no warning. In which Dick is sitting on the kind of vicious anger that only a deeply hurt child can, Danny has been drowning in the guilt of a broken promise for five years and a certain someone has been interfering with the mail because the timeline needed both Robin and Phantom. A lot of shouting and crying ensues. The other reason I probably won't write this one is that it turns Danny into a distinctly different character to his canon counterpart.

Danny Phantom AU where the Fentons are not malicious but are also not very good as parents due to hyperfocus on their work. Jazz leaves to try and make a safer place where she can eventually petition to get custody of Danny. Meanwhile Danny - in attempt to be "part of the family" - volunteers to participate in some tests with ectoplasm that make him increasingly unwell and eventually into a halfa whose ghost form is shaped by his parents anti-ghost rhetoric and is mostly used by them as an anti-ghost countermeasure. Even though Danny is the same person in both forms he and "Hunter" aren't treated that way, and he ends up feeling as though "Hunter" needs to conform their ideas about about ghosts (not feeling emotion, not feeling physical sensation etc) - which is not a good thing for him and inadvertently makes him a lot of enemies among the ghosts that come to Amity Park. After struggling with that on his own for a while, he eventually leaves to be with Jazz and has to slowly learn how manage being a halfa, and to unlearn most of the things he's internalised about both ghosts and himself with the help of Jazz and some ghostly allies he stumbles into finding.

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

Tricking me into complimenting myself, how very dare you! (Affectionate.)

I think it's probably best said in this quote from C.S. Lewis:

I wrote the books I should have liked to read. That’s always been my reason for writing. People won’t write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.

That's a pretty good summary actually. I started writing Deathly Weapons because I noticed these consistent gaps in the DP x DC (mostly DPYJ or DPTT) fanfic collections at the time, where certain ideas or opportunities weren't getting used and I really wanted to see them.

Specifically some stuff that I like and/or am looking forward to doing:

Causality - I try to make it so that things have a solid in-universe reason to happen. It's totally not necessary for fanfic (its perfectly fine if a story is just an excuse to put your blorbos into interesting positions) but I like to make things feel a little bit more grounded. Especially when it comes to missions in fanfic, often times I kind of found myself wondering why the Team's covert squad was being deployed on certain missions rather than other heroes - it's just one of those things that I like to have an answer for in my own stuff.

Fair-play mysteries - I'm writing for myself but I'm also writing the story that I wish Baby 3WD could have found, and part of that is I think readers like to feel clever, not stupid. I love leaving little hints that point to stuff that's going to come up later (for example, in Chapter 18 I tried to foreshadow Nano being tied up in the cupboard behind the boss before the Team even knew a hostage was missing from the main room) - I feel terribly witty while doing it and I super love hearing when people notice. Two people left comments speculating about some character stuff that's going to go down in Equilibrium and someone else already DMed me with a correct guess at part of the final twist and I love all of you. It's fun to give people the chance to realise what's coming before the characters do.

Character specificity - this is probably more of an upcoming thing than a current-chapters thing, but I really enjoy digging into the specifics of characterisation, character motivations and character relationships. And especially when it comes to grief arcs. I don't know how successfully I'm going to pull off Flashpoints, Combustion and Equilibrium but if I can get even some of the character stuff to work, I'll be happy.

Descriptions - settings are fun and I like describing them, especially when they also set scenes and build mood. I feel like its a part of writing that doesn't see as much love in fic (again, totally fair, we're here for the blorbos) but I love doing it. The oil rig setpiece was fun, I liked giving Wayne Manor a sense of its own personality, and I'm really looking forward to stuff like the jungle setting in In the Mists, the mountains in Rituals, the night sky scenes in Enemy Lines and a lot of gentle flavour descriptions wrapping through Equilibrium.

This was fun! Thanks for playing!