#originally planned to keep all the microscope stuff in one chapter

[aughtpunk]

oo for the high qna! how many funfacts have you learned while doing research for your fics/personal stories? also do you have any scrapped ideas/concepts that didnt end up making it into the final cut of some of your stories for whatever reason? love ur work btw!

Oh gosh there's been so many things

I actually went to a gun range and learned how to shoot a gun for the sake of my writing.

I learned how to cook Korean Army Stew for a zine that never got published and now that's become my ultimate "it's cold and I feel horrible" meal during the bad months

I ate so many baked apples for my one Zelda fic and now I'm eating cinnamon rolls for the Heket POV

I have a certificate in Horticulture and I got to brush up on those old skills for my Leshycat fic so I could figure out how to unfuck the farmland

And oh boy did I put in a ton of research for the Kallamar POV fic. I had to research what the first microscopes were like, how penicillin was actually produced, how the first vaccines were done, like I did so much research that didn't even get into the fic at the end.

There's probably more stuff I've done for the sake of writing but that's all I can think of with my wiggle brain.

Scrapped content is rare for me because I am a big believer in recycling. A lot of stuff that gets cut out will end up in another story eventually. But I got a couple of things I've removed from stores.

For the fic Notes in a Line I had planned an entire laser gun battle at the convention Hana and Sombra meet at. It was going to be a massive battle between the Overwatch agents at the convention and end with Sombra and Hana at a standstill, guns pointed right at each other, neither of them willing to take the shot. It got cut after my four year hiatus because fuck I'm not writing that for a series I'm not really into anymore

Swords into Plowshares originally had Leshy and Lemmy bonding in a different way. Lemmy was going to find out that Leshy could identify any plant by eating it and Lemmy would just keep bringing Leshy more and more flowers to eat and identify. Then the sex update came out and I decided I liked them bonding over teaching and drinks better

Okay you know that scene in PNN where The Lamb brings out the record player for Shaun? My original plans had Kallamar showing up and him and Shaun awkwardly dancing together. It would turn out that Kallamar can't dance well (too many tendrils) and Shaun never learned so it ends up a complete disaster. It got cut because it messed up the pacing of the chapter. Sorry, no lamb and squid dancing.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Come Hell or Helwater - Part Seventeen

Claire comes back to the past with Brianna and arrives at Helwater looking for Jamie—but must confront the Dunsanys first.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen, Part Sixteen

**************************************

It was a Sunday and Jamie was able to return to the cottage after feeding the horses and letting them into the pasture. Lord and Lady Dunsany had gone to visit their daughter for a few days and would be bringing Isobel back with them but in their absence, the staff of the estate were able to relax and take some time for themselves – to actually rest on the day of rest. 

Claire and Brianna had still been in bed when he left and he thought – hoped – it might still be the case when he returned. 

Brianna was still asleep. She rolled toward the door as he quietly opened it but her eyes remained firmly shut. He crouched beside her to straighten her blankets, smiling as he watched her sigh and settle into a deeper, less restless sleep again. 

On his way into the bedroom he shared with Claire, he grabbed some bread on the sideboard to tide him over until they decided to get up for a proper breakfast. 

But Claire was already awake. She was still in her shift but had retrieved the microscope from the main room and had set it up on her small side table next to the window. The sun was bright but it wouldn’t be long before it shifted and no longer streamed directly into the room (it was the only window where it came in so directly). 

“I hope you’re not eating any of my attempts at penicillin,” she told him, causing him to choke and examine the bread more closely. The noise made her laugh and turn toward him, a smile lighting her face. “As long as you fetched it from the sideboard and not the windowsill, it’ll be fine.”

“Even did I eat it, would the penicillin not be good for my health?” he asked quietly before offering the last piece to her. 

“The penicillin might but if you ate one of my growing cultures and set me back in my attempts to find it…” she threatened but with a teasing tone as she reached out and took a small piece from the larger bit of bread he’d offered. 

“Is it yer penicillin ye’re lookin’ for now?” he nodded at the microscope. 

“Uh… no. I’m examining a… different kind of sample.” Her cheeks flushed and she moved to remove the slide, reaching for a cloth to wipe it clean. 

“Can I no see what it is ye’re examining? More paramecium?” he guessed, tugging the cloth out of her reach. 

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’m worried that showing you more microscopic life will upset you,” she explained. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you hesitating every time you’ve lifted a cup the last few days.”

“Aye, it can be… unsettling,” he conceded. “But I think I understand better why it is ye’re always followin’ yer curiosity – even when ye maybe shouldna. And Bree’s the same way. Now though… knowing there’s somethin’ there, whether I look or no… Better to see it wi’ my own eyes and know how they look. Like when ye’re huntin’ on yer own and ye hear a noise. The hair rises on yer arms and the back of yer neck and he know somethin’s there. It isna till ye see whether it’s a boar or a bird that ye can breathe again.”

Claire chuckled and shook her head but moved so Jamie could take up her seat and peer through the eyepiece. 

“Well, it’s neither boars nor birds – though they might come up in a discussion of the birds and the bees…” 

He frowned at her a moment before turning his attention back to the microscope. 

“These have tails,” he laughed. “Look at ‘em, fighting and swimmin’ about. What are these ones called and where’d ye find ‘em?”

“They are some of the male gametes you gave me earlier this morning,” she told him with a sly smile. 

It took a moment for understanding to wash over Jamie. When it did, his smile vanished and a quiet horror replaced it. 

He cleared his throat and stepped away from the microscope. “Is it really appropriate for ye to be examining such things, Claire?” he scolded. “What if Brianna came in and asked to see? What would ye tell her then?”

Claire retrieved the slide and the cloth and returned to the cleaning up he’d interrupted. 

“I suppose I would use it as an opportunity to have ‘The Talk’ with her. She’s almost reached the age where it’s unavoidable and I’d rather she be prepared for puberty than blindsided by it. I had hoped…” But Claire stopped, her amusement and practicality fading in an instant. 

Whatever indignation Jamie’s shock had inclined him toward, it vanished at the sudden change in Claire. 

“Rather… I had thought that… maybe… I thought there might be something else that would naturally lead to a discussion of such things,” Claire fumbled on. 

“Are ye sure… that it’s not…” Jamie asked quietly. “Ye are late, Sassenach.”

“No,” Claire admitted. “Things have been… irregular… I don’t have any other symptoms that would suggest that it might be… that. And there’s my age to consider.”

“And ye’d rather not get our hopes up by thinking it might be that,” Jamie agreed. 

“There’s no way to know for sure one way or the other for a while yet. No use counting our chickens before they hatch or getting excited about something that’s not likely to happen,” Claire insisted. 

Jamie gave her a weak smile, crossed the small distance between them, and kissed Claire’s forehead, welcoming it as she melted into him seeking refuge and support. 

“For Bree’s sake – and mine – I hope ye dinna feel the need to show her my – what did ye call them?”

He felt Claire smile against his chest. “‘Male gametes’?”

“Aye, that was it,” he said, sounding horrified. “I dinna think I could look her in the face did I ken she’d seen that and kent where ye got them.”

Claire chuckled. “I can draw her some diagrams. You can keep your dignity on this one.”

“Bless ye, Sassenach,” he murmured, holding her tighter. 

There was a knock on the door – not their bedroom door, but the door to the cottage. It startled them and sent them scrambling. Claire snatched up her shawl and hurried to wake Brianna and get her somewhere safely out of sight till she was fully awake and dressed. Hell, she needed to get herself dressed. 

Jamie opened the door after mother and daughter were in a position to peer at their visitor without allowing too much of themselves to be seen. 

It was one of the younger grooms who had accompanied Lord and Lady Dunsany on their excursion to visit their oldest daughter while retrieving the younger. 

“I’ve been sent to fetch Mrs. Mackenzie,” he explained. “Lady Dunsany has learned Lady Geneva is carryin’ a babe and she insists her personal physician tend to her.”

Claire stepped out from her bedroom doorway, the groom careful to keep his eyes on Jamie. 

“And how long am I expected to stay and tend to Lady Geneva?” Claire asked, a harsh edge challenging the poor, uncertain groom. 

“She didn’t say, ma’am. I don’t think it’s to be through the birth as that’s months away yet, from what Lady Dunsany said. I’m just here to fetch you for her,” he reiterated. 

“Do you want me to come with ye?” Jamie asked, his eyes sliding past her to Brianna. 

“Not yet,” Claire said with a sigh, turning to dress and gather her things. “Though if all three of us turned up, it might ensure I’m not pressed to stay long.”

[foilfreak]

Beauty and Her Beast: Chapter 3

Warning: This fic is rated NSFW and contains graphic depictions of things some people may find disturbing or alarming, including, but not limited to: violence, gore, unhealthy family relationships, Oedipus complexes, gratuitous amount of pornographic literature, ableist language, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, etc. If you are someone who does not enjoy fiction with these elements in them, then I suggest you refrain from reading this, because this fic will have all that, and probably a lot more. So, this is your first and final warning to turn around and go somewhere else if stuff like this just isn't your vibe, because from this point forward, your emotional wellbeing is in your own hands, and I will not be accepting blame if you disregarded my warnings and ended up reading something you didn't like. Idk why I feel compelled to write one of these despite this being Resident Evil fanfic, but I figured I'd cover my ass just in case.

(Link to ao3 version in comments below)

“Going off the information I have listed here, it appears as though you’ll be receiving subject N-45, today. She’s a healthy 22 year old female. Her short, but muscular body weighs 95lbs with a childish height of 4’10” tall. She possesses primarily Romanian and Filipino ancestry, with some Dutch or Finnish or... whatever, thrown in there as well. And according to the various items we found on her person when she was first brought in, she’s apparently a graduate student at the University of Bucharest, or, at least she was, before she drove her car into a tree while driving up the mountain and was recovered by Heisenberg” Miranda explains robotically, reading aloud from a piece of paper held inside a thick manila envelope. “Of the 4 remaining test subjects, N-45 is easily the most violent and difficult one to work with, having to be either anesthetized or restrained every time I wanted to so much as take her vitals or stabilize her condition. When given smaller doses of sedatives she-”

For the first time in his entire life, Salvatore completely ignores whatever unimportant nonsense Mother Miranda is going on about, continuing to take in and analyze the strikingly unique appearance of the young woman before him.

Upon first inspection, N-45 appeared to resemble that of a normal woman in just about every way possible. Her hair was scruffy and very short, barely long enough to reach her eyes, and a deep black color that looked so soft and luxurious that Salvatore ached to run his fingers through it. Her face was slightly round, giving the young woman a very youthful appearance, with her sharp jawline and prominent cheekbones being some of the only things keeping Salvatore from mistaking her for a child. And lastly, her... figure, if Salvatore had to put such an embarrassing idea into words, was similar to that of Mother Miranda, only shorter, more compact even. It reminded the hooded man of those small packets of candy Duke occasionally gifted him that said “fun sized” on the label, in reference to them being much smaller than the standard sized candy bars and yet somehow being… better, despite technically giving you less candy.

She was already perfect as she was, but it was not just N-45’s beautiful human features that pulled Salvatore in and refused to let him escape the stupefaction he’d been placed under, but also her mutations.

A soft royal blue coated her from head to toe, giving way only to a large patch of solid white located on her chest and stomach. Her skin catches the light in a way that reveals areas of tiny overlapping scales, glimmering like stars in the midnight sky, or freshly polished armor, perhaps, along the bony ridges and tender curves of her figure.

Small white dots distributed like paint splatters across the colored sections of her flesh give a similar visual effect as freckles, starting from her hairline and extending all the way down to the very tips of her toes. These galaxies of white were invisible only on the white patch along the front of her torso, as well as on the lighter blue hue taken on by both the palms and webbings of her hands and feet.

Long Fin-like extensions grew along both her forearms and lower back. The former extended outward and inward like a windshield wiper, likely used to decrease water resistance. The latter, however, perhaps used to increase fine motor maneuverability while swimming at greater speeds or in tighter spaces, grew straight downwards from her lower back in an overlapping fan configuration that marginally covered her rear end, though not by very much. The fins looked like a soft, delicate material that was probably very flexible but very durable, if Salvatore had to guess just from looking.

And to top everything off, N-45 even appeared to even have gills, 2 different sets by the looks of it. The first set of 3 breathing slits was located horizontally along both sides of her neck, while the second set could be found on both sides of her torso, following the downward angle of her ribs but stopping just underneath her soft, plump-looking breasts.

Salvatore feels a sudden wave of heat cascade over his body and he turns his face away in shameful embarrassment as he suddenly realizes that N-45, much like every test subject undergoing cadou treatment, was still very, very nude at the present moment.

“I can’t make any promises regarding her disposition, but physically speaking, she’s ready to be released to you whenever you’d like. I’ll have some of the villagers transport and release her into the reservoir later this week” Mother Miranda says, pressing a button to close the pod now that Salvatore was no longer staring at her.

“W-wait just a m-moment” Salvatore calls out, prompting Mother Miranda to halt the closing of the pod.

“Yes? What is it?” The woman asks curtly, clearly not wanting to stand here and watch Salvatore any longer than she has to.

Wringing his hands together nervously, Salvatore meekly asks, “C-could… could y-you wake h-her up… s-so that I can s-speak with her… j-just for a m-moment?”

Mother Miranda remains silent for a moment, blank face staring directly at Salvatore as she contemplates what to do.

“No, Moreau,” she says finally. “I’ve had a very busy day today and I'm quite tired. N-45 is a menace that I struggle to deal with even on my best days. The last thing I need is something going wrong and her getting out and causing all sorts of chaos.”

Salvatore’s shoulders slump in disappointment, but he makes no further attempts to argue.

Mother Miranda rolls her eyes at the incredibly childish display, walking over to place a gentle hand on Salvatore’s head. “Would it make you feel better if I agreed to have N-45 be the first of the subjects to be dropped off? It’ll be more difficult than my original plan, but I suppose it was a bit unfair that you were the only one who didn’t get to “pick” their gift.”

“Yes, M-Mother Miranda… I-I’d like th-that very… very m-much” Salvatore says, leaning into the touch as Mother Miranda begins guiding him back toward the hallway leading to the exit door.

It wasn’t until after Miranda had exited the lab and begun walking down the long hallway toward the exit that Salvatore dared cast another glance back at the pod that contained N-45, wistfully thinking of how amazing her hand had felt in his, and how much he wanted to speak to her.

Just as the disfigured man was about to turn back and follow Miranda out of the laboratory, a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, prompting Salvatore to tense and snap toward the 4 pods, frantically trying to figure out what it was he saw. A few seconds of stillness pass before Salvatore sees movement again, not freely moving about the room like he originally expected, but from within one of the 4 pods, his pod to be exact.

His curiosity momentarily outweighing his nerves, Salvatore slowly approaches the metal capsule, trying to get a look through the small pane of glass that allows visual access into the holding pod.

Another flash of movement has Salvatore flinching, jumping back as though he’d been advanced upon. After several seconds of stillness, however, the hooded man regains his confidence and once again inches his way toward the capsule, moving his head up and down to try and get one more glimpse at N-45 before he has to leave. One last look before she lays eyes upon his vile and disgusting body for the first time, screaming and calling him a monster as she runs away, leaving him alone and without anyone to call his own. Just like always.

“ Hello ?”

Salvatore froze dead in his tracks, his heart pounding and his lungs refusing to take in air, as a soft, muffled, questioning voice reaches the deformed man’s ears, followed by two golden orbs with narrow black slits running vertically through the center, that slowly peek into view from the bottom of the glass window. Salvatore’s eyes widen in shock as he quickly realizes that the orbs of gold are not, in fact, just spheres of color, but rather a pair of eyes, staring intently at him from inside the pod.

“Uuuuuh… u-u-uuum… I-i… I w-was just…” the disfigured man stuttered as he struggled to move his body, seemingly paralyzed by the bewitching gaze currently locked onto him, looking at him with an intensity that makes Salvatore wonder if this is what it feels like to be a cell put under a microscope.

It isn’t until Salvatore notices the golden orbs moving and shifting from one corner of the window pane to the other that the hooded man realizes, to his immediate horror, that he might not be the only one trying to get a better look at the figure located on the other side of the pod door. Panic and fear immediately fill Salvatore from deep within, growing strong enough to allow him to finally overcome his temporary paralysis and skitter away from view. Pulling his hood even further over his petrifyingly grotesque face in shame of himself, Salvatore flees the laboratory as quickly as his hobbled limp would allow.

His heart pounds to the beat of the soft, but desperate pleas of protest coming from N-45’s pod in response to Salvatore’s rapidly retreating form, yet the hooded man cannot bring himself to believe what he hears as true. Perhaps believing that the siren-like voice he hears echoing off the metal laboratory walls to be nothing more than a trick of his sick and lonely mind, Salvatore does not stop, nor does he turn back around until he’s met up with Mother Miranda at the exit to the surface, lungs burning and legs aching from running for so far and long.

“Oh, there you are, Moreau,” Mother Miranda says suddenly, stopping just before they are about to exit the laboratory. “I’m glad you chose this time to finally catch up, because I just realized a second ago that I’d forgotten to give you N-45’s previous name. You can name her something else if you’d prefer, of course, but I offered the information to your siblings so I suppose I should offer it to you as well. Would you still like to know N-45’s name, or would you rather abandon her given name for one of your own choosing?”

After a few seconds of silent contemplation, Salvatore lifts his head, “I… I-i would like to k-know… her n-name… please...” the mutant man says softly.

Mother Miranda briefly raises a questioning eyebrow at Salvatore’s nervous body language, but ultimately rolls her eyes and shrugs her shoulders, all but tossing the Manila envelope containing N-45’s information at the hooded man before disappearing out the large metal door.

“If you’re going to read that now, feel free, but return to the meeting room once you're done. And be sure to lock the door to my laboratory behind you” Miranda commands, her voice having grown echoey due to how far away she now was.

“Yes, M-Mother” Salvatore calls after her as he scrambles to catch the thrown file and prevent any loose papers from falling out. Once he’s got a solid handle on the thick envelope, he opens it, casting a quick glance back in the direction of the pod room, where Nadine and the other 3 gifts were being held for the time being.

Returning to the file, Salvatore frantically flips through every page, trying to find the one that held N-45’s personal background information.

After several minutes of desperate flipping back and forth, Salvatore finally focuses on one particular piece of paper that looked to have been in the file for the longest. Pulling out the particular page he’d found, the disfigured man drops the rest of the folder onto the ground and begins rapidly skimming through the information printed on the page, his hungry eyes refusing to stop until they finally zeroed in on the information he’d been looking for.

Project: E.V.A. Resurrection

Subject: N-45

Parasite Administered: Cadou (Series- N; Strain- 45)

Family Name: Bogdan

Given Name: Nadine

“N… Nadine” Salvatore said slowly, feeling slightly lightheaded and out of breath as each individual letter of the young woman’s name rolled off his tongue like Camembert cheese; smooth, creamy, decedent, and likely to keep him up all night with an upset stomach and a racing heartbeat.

Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine. Nadine.

The name quickly became a broken loop played over and over and over again inside Salvatore’s head, his mind unable, or rather unwilling, to think of anything else as he read, reread, and then re-reread Nadine’s name at least 100 times, before finally setting the piece of paper down.

“Nadine...” Salvatore breathes the name once again, his voice carrying a wistful tone. “E-even your n-name is wonderful...”

An already beautiful woman, made even more perfect through the power of science and Mother Miranda’s grace, only for all that potential to end up wasted in the hands of a desperately lonely and horrifically mangled fish mutant, who was more likely to accidentally dissolve her in stomach acid than woo her like some kind of aquatic Prince Charming.

“Y-ya right... e-e-even with a-another mutant… I’m s-still so disgusting a-an… and horrifying in comparison… n-not even my o-own kind can b-bring thems-themselves to love me f-for who I a-am… not th-that there’s much of m-me that’s worth l-loving to begin w-with” Moreau laments to himself, wondering if it was even worth holding out hope that things with Nadine could go his way. As if one look at his monstrous form wouldn’t be enough to ruin everything Salvatore already has an agonizingly low chance of ever having with that magnificent specimen of a woman.

Even with Nadine’s own external mutations making it clear that she was no longer fully human, her form had still retained such a beautifully strong, yet womanly shape to it, and her face still looked so young and innocent despite everything that she’s been through. Someone as beautiful as her was far too good and pure to be tainted by his filthy hands.

‘Maybe I should just kill her when the villagers arrive with her at the gate? At least then... I could say I put her out of her misery before she had to experience it for herself…’ Salvatore sulks mentally.

However, despite the self degrading thoughts running through his mind, the memory of the curious look Nadine’s shockingly bright and mesmerizing golden eyes held when trying to look at Salvatore through the pod window made the hooded man shiver, having never been looked upon in such an innocently curious manner before. Most people who got that close to Salvatore didn’t even need to see his face in order to start screaming and running away in terror. However, if the deformed man allowed himself a brief moment to believe that it was indeed her who’d been calling him to come back and show himself, then from the tone and rushed quality of her voice, it would seem as though Nadine was unsatisfied with the fact that she hadn’t seen all of Salvatore’s face and body, not terrified.

How strange...

How very strange indeed…

[riceccakes]

Earth, Wind, and Coffee: Chapter Three Analysis

chapter one analysis | chapter two analysis

back again for another chapter analysis. i think ive been looking forward to this chapter the most, it’s where some big decisions were made!!! this analysis is a long one, i hope that’s all right! i kinda got carried away. so, let’s dive right in, shall we?

some fun stuff before we start!

chapter three was supposed to be the last chapter of the fic

idk if any of you were there when i first started writing this fic, but it was only going to be three chapters with a possible epilogue. however, everything changed when i finished the end of chapter two. (lil atla reference there for ya) (sorry i know that was bad, moving on). like i said in my last analysis, i had an idea of what i wanted to happen (the separation of korrasami) so that they could come back together. it was just a matter of what separates them. so, i’m not sure where i got the panic attack idea but once i did, the rest of the story changed. i realized i couldn’t quite possibly finish the story in one chapter so i split the ideas i had and decided on it being four chapters

now, this being said, maaaaajor changes were made in my story outline. most notably: korrasami was going to be a couple in this chapter

this was originally going to be a full fledged “they meet, they get to know each other, they fall in love, happily every after” but the thing was, i planned on treating their romance as korra’s recovery; that being with asami is what made korra better, that all she needed was a partner, someone to love, and that is not what i wanted to portray with this story. i’ve never been a fan of stories that give a character a love interest and all of sudden their problems are fixed and they’re completely happy, and here i was about to do just that. i knew i’d never respect myself if i continued down this narrative, and when chapter two ended with korra’s panic attack, i realized her growth needed better love and attention. so, i changed what happened and gave her some therapy

this change in the storyline also let me explore more of kuvopal !!! (is that their ship name?)

so, back to LOVE WITCH for a second (because that glorious fic really did steal my heart) not only did it make me love kuvira’s character more, it also got me into the kuvopal relationship! and yet again, i wanted my own go at it. with the original timeline, there was just no space for me to include the lil bread crumbs of their relationship. however, however, however; by splitting the ending between two chapters (and adding some stuff in between) i was able to lay some foundation for them, which im very happy about :)

into the chapter we go:

let’s talk about the meeting! the whole reason this fic came to be! i’ll start by saying i always knew the project was going to get pulled out from under asami. 1) because thats some angsty/hurt shit right there and im a sucker for writing angst 2) i didn’t feel like creating a whole ass presentation because knowing my ass i would’ve made a powerpoint about it so i had every detail down to the font asami used and 3) getting the presentation taken away from asami was a pivotal point in her character arc.

i actually started the chapter in two different ways. at first, i’d written her whole entire morning with there always being one thing that was off. like, instead of a perfect omelette, it was going to split and asami would’ve had a scramble, still good, but not her favorite. instead of going through all green lights on her way to work, asami was gonna meet every. single. red. light. i would’ve gone through with this if it hadn’t felt strange; i wanted to give the impression that something bad was going to happen but i felt like having something go wrong with every thing in her morning was gonna be a dead give away that some even bigger big bad was about to happen, if that makes sense. so instead, i went with the picture perfect scenario, almost too perfect, if you ask me. and indeed, it was too perfect, because hiroshi was too much of a coward to tell his daughter any sooner that his board agreed to get a new presenter

im just gonna cite a bunch of my favorite lines/bits from this chapter because i really enjoyed writing it xD

Iroh has already begun but Asami hears no words, only a blaring ring in her ears. Her face feels hot and she wonders how red she is. She stares at the black binder, notes the natural grooves and curves of the material, the plastic covering over top of it, the metal spine peaking out at the bottom. She’s only brought out of it’s dark trance when she feels a hand be placed on her arm; Kuvira. 

when you’re upset, do you ever just, hyper focus on one thing and its like you’re analyzing it under a microscope for the first time? yes? no? well, i do that, and personally, i do because if i focus on my anger/hurt emotions any more, im going to explode and i dont want to explode. so, this instance about looking at the grooves in the binder and each of the components of it just hits with me, idk if does with you too, but like bruuh.

Asami has her hand over her mouth, silently sobbing, feeling as if she’ll throw up. She leans her head on her wheel, her mind wanders to what could’ve been, what should’ve been. She feels as if her car is closing in on her, that the metal is compacting. The seatbelt keeps her locked down to the driver’s seat and she can’t leave if she wants to. The Satomobile holds her hostage and she lets it. Even while it’s hurting her, even while it’s harshly molding itself onto her, she stays at her father’s heel because, what else is she to do?

this is one of my favorite things ive ever done with asami’s character, is using future industries/satomobiles as a sort of vehicle (heh) for her relationship with her dad. this paragraph just kind of hurts, but the good hurt? but also not good hurt? it’s just, (and not me over here boasting about my writing or anything) it’s so poetic that she has this breakdown and she’s so upset with her dad, i mean “what should’ve been” like, asami KNOWS that the shit that’s just happened is more than wrong, yet asami is still somehow wondering how she can please her dad and it’s in the literal legacy hiroshi built for himself. “she stays at her father’s heel because, what else is she to do?” i remember writing that and being like “shit, am i really gonna do this? yeah” ugh, i could go on forever about how i love this section, but i’ll stop here for now.

Asami begins yelling, screaming at the top of her lungs, letting all the thoughts, all the insecurities her father gave her finally be released into the world. Kuvira lets her, simply nodding and following along on the couch while Asami paces her living room. She spews out word after word, about the work, about the presentation, about Iroh, his position, her position, the company, the CEO, and she only stops when she feels the weight of her father rest on her shoulders.

back with more diction; i really love this paragraph because of how we circle back to hiroshi. note how i first say “the CEO” and then a few words later say “her father” because, in a way, this is asami’s confession that hiroshi is CEO first and father second, if i haven’t already explicitly said so. it’s so heart wrenching and sad but my favorite thing about it is this isn’t even about korra. like THIS right here is a prime example about how i realized this fic became more than just a love story. in the planning stages of this fic, asami was going to go through getting the presentation taken away from her, but what was she going to focus more on? the fact that korra wasn’t around anymore. and yes, asami still does think about korra after this, but so much more happens for her. asami gets to know kuvira more, asami gets to know her lab partners more, (and my personal hc is that they’ve all been lab partners for two years and only NOW asami is getting to be friends with them in their senior year, but hey, better late than never!) and to me, what’s even better, is that a bunch of realizations come to asami w/o korra being there. asami is growing and the idea of being able to grow without needing to have a partner in order to grow is so important to me, not only for the fact that growth should be endless and something you do all the time for yourself, but asami literally wants to share it with korra. not boast about changing and growing and becoming better, but just be better with korra. sdlfakds i swear, im fangirling over my own writing, oops

okay, moving on from The Meeting and onto the rest of the chapter

this dock scene was also another part i wrote beforehand and it had a completely different ending in that asami was going to ask korra out on a date. of course, korra would’ve said yes, and then yay yay happy ending. this didn’t happen and i’m glad it didn’t. in one version of this dock scene, asami was actually going to be upset with korra for disappearing, and even worse, mad that korra wasn’t there to comfort her after the presentation. oof, i know. so so glad i didn’t continue down that line, cause it is toxic, and my girls aren’t like that at all.

Once Korra’s eyes meet hers, Asami says, “That doesn’t mean you always have to be on your own.” She smiles at Korra, at the girl who’s turned her world upside down. Her hand remains on Korra’s cheek and she feels the girl sink into her palm. “I’ll be here for you, and it seems like Tenzin will be too, what with saying he was calling you more. And you have his family, and your own family, even though they’re away, they’re here to support you, we all are. You can still be strong and turn to other people for help. It takes great strength to ask for help and I know for a fact you’re strong enough, those bags of coffee beans were nothing for you.”

i like this line of dialogue here for a few reasons, mostly because asami is so soft and so right and the joke at the really helped lighten the mood but didn’t take away from what she’d just said before. i don’t have too much else about the Reunions section, though if you guys have any questions or anything you wanna point out, please do so! i think what i will say is that i tried to be as real and gentle with korra’s progression. i was so nitpicky about everything i wrote because i didn’t want to get any of it wrong or over dramatized or fake. recovery from anything is so important and it takes time and it’s not a straight line so i hope i did a good job with it the rest of the fic. 

moving on, i love the found family trope and this leads me into the next section, New Friends

when i think about this section, i like how soft it is, and i really enjoy the ending bits: korra recounting memories from the south, asami meeting tenzin. i think what i like about the end of this chapter is that, it kind of leaves the question: what’s next?

asami has grown, she’s changed, she sees the errors of her father’s ways but she’s not excusing them. korra has grown, she’s changing, she’s taken the first step in recovery. now it’s just a matter of, what happens with this growth now. and i really loved how i wrapped up the fic in the next and last chapter, so i hope you enjoy it too :))

honorable mentions:

there were a lot of changes in this chapter and one of them got changed twice! korra was gonna get a therapist but then i was like, we gotta get the krew together, and then i was like supppppoorttttt grouuuppppp, because lets be honest, all the krew has stuff they need to work through, and i know therapy isn’t for everyone, but mental health is so vital and important. asami is an advocate for therapy in the chapter but there are also other means to take care of yourself and your mental health and while i’ve never been to a support group, i understand finding comfort in knowing you’re not alone.

i guess what i’m trying to say is please take care of yourself and dont be afraid to lean on others. i know not everyone has the means to get a therapist/psychiatrist and i know that your friends aren’t made to only be your therapist. buuuut, don’t be afraid to reach out, there’s nothing wrong with needing help and support :)

anything i would’ve wanted to change?

honestly, i think the only thing i would’ve wanted to change was mako’s speech during the support group meeting. for me, it was a lil bit too poetically out of character. not to say i want to change the content, but rather the manner in which it’s presented. other than that though, i really loved writing this chapter :)

so this analysis was reeeaaaalllly long, i understand if not everyone made it to end. anyways, thanks so much for reading this analysis and the fic! once again, i’m very much open to questions and any comments, i love them very much! i’ll see you guys in the next analysis of the final chapter :)

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #104

UPDATE 104: Dragon Hits Hard

Last time Skitter, Regent and Imp had managed to find Heckpuppy, who was fighting a suit that regenerated endlessly. They manage to convince her to run away, so now they��re leaving, or at least that was the plan until they stumbled upon the suit they feared a lot. How shall they face this? How is the suit even like? Let’s see.

From what I’m reading here, it seems like this Azazel suit looks more...organic than the rest of Dragon’s suits? More lifelike, so to say. The hide even gets wrinkles in the right places, and the insides are so tightly-knit it’s impossible for her bugs to do anything. This was the work of two weeks yet the rather competent team of Armsmaster—I mean, Defiant, and Dragon managed to make quite the feat!

Ah, looks like Taylor somehow deduced how that was possible!

A thought dawned on me.  It was a half-formed thought up until the moment I devoted some attention to it.  Then it clicked.  Tinkers had a knack, a specialty, be it a particular field of work or something they could do with their designs that nobody else could, and I knew Dragon’s. She could intuit and appropriate the designs of other tinkers.

Soooo what I’m understanding here is that Dragon managed to intuit and appropriate Defiant’s tinker techniques and used them to accelerate the building process so they could make the suit the Azazel suit. In that case, if they have enough resources and materials, it should be rather easy for them to make more and more suits of excellent quality. They may actually have a chance against the Slaughterhouse Nine, especially since Dragon is, well, an AI and therefore is never in direct danger. I hope to hear about how she and Defiant tries that, it should be interesting!

Skitter thinks about it all in ways that show how Dragon has been using other tinkers’ inventions, and that it was why she had joined the heroes. It not only gives her access to the Protectorate’s tinkers, she also can get her digital, most likely inexistent hands onto any villainous inventions the Protectorate confiscates. We should all be glad she’s not part of Cauldron or even remotely affiliated to them or she’d have access to even more tinkers and their skills. I can’t imagine any situation she’d accept being part of Cauldron, thank goodness.

This realization makes Skitter feel like she’s against a very invincible foe, but it’s not like they can afford to lose. Either they defeat Dragon oooor...well...then everything they worked for is useless. Coil won’t be happy about it and Dinah will be still captive. What’s more, I think the Undersiders and the Travelers would have reasons to fear for their lives, given their failure would mean Coil’s plans would vanish into nothingness. Hmmm...this isn’t something his powers could stop unless the last time he used his power was a couple weeks ago or so.

Also, the Slaughterhouse Nine’s visit was just two weeks ago. Boy does time move in mysterious ways in this story.

If I was even close to being right, then Dragon was the incarnation of why tinkers were so dangerous.

It really is. She’s feasibly the result of a tinker’s work, given she’s an AI and I doubt she materialized in a random hard drive one day, so she really is the incarnation of everything a tinker is capable of. Quite the fearsome enemy for the Undersiders.

As expected, the first thing the Azazel suit does is counter Skitter’s bugs, because by now that’s a requirement when Skitter is in a fight. How shall it be done this time?

Turns out I was wrong, the suit isn’t immediately countering the bugs. What it’s doing is use Defiant’s trademark nanomachine supercutting to set up arenas and limit the target’s movements. No word on how tall these barriers are, but I suppose they’re reasonably tall, enough for pretty much the above average villain to not be able to go over them. Skitter’s giant beetle is likely to not be around and even if it was, when it approaches the suit would take measures to squash it. It has been...what, three seconds? And Azazel already has the advantage. Figures.

That wouldn’t stop Siberian though. What technologies had I seen that they might use against her?  Or was it a technology I hadn’t seen before?  There were some ugly possibilities there.  Something long ranged that could take him out before he could get to cover?  A microscopic form of attack that could fill the air and debilitate him if he wasn’t in an airtight container?

Well it’s true these barriers won’t be effective at all against the Siberian’s form, but they sure would be very effective against the Siberian’s real body. By now I’m sure they know they have to track down the real body in order to really be able to do anything.

“Just don’t touch it,” I told her. “Not even in a joking way.  You’re likely to lose your finger or your hand before you realize something’s wrong.”

Now that I think about it...the Azazel suit wouldn’t have any compunctions about killing, no? Because it’s made to go against the Slaughterhouse Nine. Otherwise I’d consider how feasible jumping into the barrier to put yourself into mortal danger is, to stop the attack. Then again, that likely would end with the loss of a limb, a hand or something, and that’s just not worth it for a quick ‘hey gotcha’ unless you can get a quality prosthetic that’s better than the original limb.

Seems to me like the idea of putting themselves in danger did at least cross their minds. It’s ruled out precisely because of what I had said, because these machines are made to be lethal against the Slaughterhouse Nine, but they think they’re holding back anyway. Maybe because the Undersiders aren’t as big of a threat as the Slaughterhouse Nine. True, our dear villain protagonists have made quite a name for themselves but they’re dangerous to Brockton Bay, not to the entire world.

“So what do we do?”

“It’s still a machine, a well made machine, but it’s a machine.  We can break it, given an opportunity.  But our number one goal is going to be keeping it from catching us out of position and walling us in.”

I don’t think breaking it is going to be much of an option, given their shortage of offensive options other than Heckpuppy’s dogs and Shatterbird’s glass. The dogs may have a bit of a chance, but the glass...that may not. True, Shatterbird hasn’t been with the Slaughterhouse Nine for a while already, but maybe they have a counter for that already.

Their options to move the fight somewhere else are kind of limited. Thankfully, looks like they have a lot of time to discuss because the suit is doing nothing? Sure there’s a lot of conversation going on! Either way, going to the rooftops is something she’d like to avoid, as that makes it pretty difficult to get away. I think I can see the logic. At least when she’s on surface level she can have some hiding places in buildings and alleyways.

Heckpuppy’s henchmen are left behind because this will be an important fight and therefore it’ll be Undersiders only. Going in! So of course, the universe has to throw a curve ball. The suit that deploys drones is approaching. Hmmm...kind of redundant. Both Azazel and the drone suit seem to specialize in limiting the opponent’s movement. But hey, it’s still bad news.

Facing a choice about what suit to encounter first, Skitter decides Azazel is the one to face right now. They move towards it and...well...turns out maybe the suits are trying to round them up together, most likely for ease of capture. I saw that coming, really.

Drones incoming! Nanomachine barriers incoming! A potential route is open, from what I can tell I believe Skitter’s idea was to limit the suits’ movement, because she got into a dilapidated minimall. Some drones follow her and Heckpuppy, one of them reaching our dear valiant protagonist. Bam! Iii hope she has a plan because this isn’t good at all. Her suit’s going to defend her against the drone’s electricity, but any distraction or moment of weakness will be her doom.

Being in this minimall didn’t stop Azazel, though. It shone, and then barriers came out of the ground. Oh goodness, this went pear-shaped faster than I thought it would. We’re not even halfway into this chapter! She’s surrounded by Defiant’s nanomachines technology, and it’s looking pretty damn fatal to me.

Tentatively, I commanded some of the bugs out from beneath my costume.  The insulation had protected some, luck and sheer durability had saved a scant few others.  They died the second they moved more than an inch away from my body, vaporized.

So she pretty much has no space to move at all, and it was already proven these nanomachines can vaporize so much stuff. This sounds like an accident waiting to happen, doesn’t it? A wrong move can end pretty badly for anyone who moves a little too much. It doesn’t seem to me like Dragon and Defiant are in the ‘cause as little harm as possible’ mindset anymore.

There comes Azazel! Veeery slowly. It’s even taking the time to not crush stuff around, while Skitter is hanging from her hand and in danger of falling down onto vaporizing hedges. Apparently she has more faith on her own strength than I do – holding your own body weight with one or both hands is pretty tough, you know – because she’s not that worried about falling, even taking the time to test something.

“I’m going to fall!” I screamed.

I could sense Azazel lunging forward, crushing a store display as it hurried to the opening, its mouth opening. It directed a blast of superheated air at the ground, so it cut through the lowest portion of the disintegration hedge, clearing the area beneath and around me.

Oh, okay, it still intends to not cause fatal damage to the targets. Good. Still, what’s the machines’ plan here? Keep the villains trapped in one place while the PRT agents come to spray them with foam? Capture her in like a cage or something and haul her to the PRT building? Wait for Defiant to arrive? I’m not entirely sure.

Time to think of a plan. The situation doesn’t look good at all, all of her allies are busy with their own fights, thanks to the drones the other suit is throwing around. Even if any of them was free to help, what could they do? Azazel was right there, standing right above Skitter. The dogs may not think twice before lunging through the disintegrating hedges, and needless to say, that’d be very harmful for them and Heckpuppy would be outraged. It’s starting to seem to me Skitter will have to rely on herself and only on herself. How do you outwit a machine, though?

“This statement is false,” I told it.

“I’ll go with true.  There, that was easy,” Azazel replied.

Damn.  Wouldn’t be able to shut it down with paradox.  Dragon apparently had a sense of humor.  The reply sounded canned, a recitation.  Or she had a liking for popular culture I wasn’t aware of.

It would be incredibly pitiful if Dragon’s state-of-the-art suits could be defeated by a simple paradox, hah! Besides, looks like the suit is not obligated to respond to anything the captured villains say. Even if Skitter brings up a more complicated paradox Dragon maybe didn’t make a canned response for, it’s not like it’ll work or even provoke a reaction. Sooo what options are there?

Bugs are a no go, obviously. Skitter’s baton and other stuff aren’t likely to endure the disintegration effect, so batting away the branches of the hedges won’t work. Heck, even if Skitter had an EMP right now I don’t think it’d work, as I’m sure Defiant would engineer his nanotechnology in a way that protects it from EMP. As I see it, her only hope may be to attack the suit. Perhaps if the suit is defeated, the hedges will disappear or deactivate?

It’s possible the nanomachines are vulnerable to fire. Right, that’s a possibility, but as I see it, if they have a vulnerability then Defiant and Dragon must be aware of that too and therefore would have equipped Azazel with something to counter it. Maybe it has a fire extinguisher equipped, for all I know. Right now, given the situation, Skitter may have only one try before Azazel does something that’d trap her for real.

I wonder why it didn’t douse her with the containment foam? Perhaps the suit got too confident when the hedges were erected? It just seems a tad reckless to be giving your target enough space to be moving. You can’t give a parahuman enough space or time to think, that’s just tempting luck.

Skitter’s train of thought about her options is kind of like mine in that everything she has won’t work, but then she thinks of something that’d have never crossed my mind.

What other tools did I have?

My voice.

I’m not really certain where she’s going with this, I’ll say. Azazel is not required to reply and it’s not like a well-timed paradox will defeat it.

Dragon was smart.  Smart enough to write an A.I. that wouldn’t crumble to a simple issue with paradox.  But the A.I. wasn’t necessarily brilliant.  It had leaped to my defense when I’d said I was in danger.  Either it wasn’t smart enough to discern truth from a lie, or it wasn’t allowed to when a life was potentially in danger.

So Skitter plans to exploit the suit’s protocols, the ones that are supposed to keep her alive. That’s going to be difficult to do when all you have is your voice. The scenario about leaping to her defense was because there really was a very real danger. Unless Skitter plans to be saying ‘I’m touching these with my head, watch me!” while bending towards the hedges then crafting a scenario where she’s in danger will be difficult.

Regent and Imp are given the order to hide, so Skitter has the time and space to work. Outwit that machine!

Why’s Azazel programmed to talk and respond? Seems a bit superfluous for its main function. If/Once this suit defeated, the 2.0 version better not have the ability to respond!

“What if I told you that you were putting a human life in grave danger?”

“I have no reasonable cause to believe that.”

So this will work only if there’s reasonable cause. Any scenario Skitter can craft here would have to be something the suit can take a glance at and decide ‘oh that looks dangerous’. That’s going to be pretty difficult to do when you can’t even stand up.

It seems the scenario she’s making up relies on Imp having a second trigger that makes her invisible even to technology. That sounds plausible, in a theoretical frame. Judging by what happened to Grue, the second trigger augments or adds new powers that are related to the existent one. Either way, she says Imp is here, possibly brought by Trickster. Ah, that’s why she told Regent and Imp to hide.

“Imp could not be in this room. As of two minutes ago she was recorded at a distance of .4 miles away from this location.  She could not return here in that span of time unobserved.”

Alright, this scenario pretty much states in these two minutes Imp had a second trigger event, or she had one some time ago and all this time she was willfully letting herself be seen by the machines’ sensors. Seems to me like a bit of a flimsy scenario. True, second trigger events don’t necessarily require a lot of time to happen, but it’s flimsy nonetheless. Thank goodness the suit seems to be falling for it.

Imp may be right now on Azazel, Skitter says. Given Azazel’s current position, any kind of movement could make her fall onto the hedges that are underneath the suit, harming her gravely. No opening the mouth, no moving the head or a wing – that ensures Azazel shouldn’t be able to shift positions to get away from the mortal danger. Even if it had a way to stop someone on the machine, such as a force field or something, that doesn’t change that this fictional Imp could fall and die. For a scenario that was thought by the seat of her pants it sure is surprisingly solid once you ignore the flaky foundations.

“Maybe I should be more specific,” I said.  “I told them to help in general.  They might not be helping me, so it’s very possible that any other suit might be in immediate proximity to Imp.  Be careful you don’t accidentally crush her.”

I love how she’s turning her teammate into Schrodinger’s Imp. To me this seems like it’s stretching the scenario to its breaking point, as it could give the machines enough ground to take calculated risks as the probability of Imp not being in immediate proximity is much higher than the probability she is there, given the number of suits and that there’s only one Imp.

No visible reaction to this statement. Skitter is pretty damn lucky, seriously.

“Now,” I said, picking my words carefully, my pulse pounding, “I’m going to light a match and try to burn this thing away.”

‘And you better not counter it or else Imp will fall and die’, is what’s between the lines. Skitter takes out the matches and hesitates, deciding to use her bugs to make some sort of net. Very thick net. The drones that are still hovering nearby don’t react to the net that’s being formed up in the ceiling. Once the preparations are made, Skitter gets in position to run and lights up a match, getting it close to the nanomachines.

Wow, those things are really weak to fire.

The nanomachines are gone, therefore the danger of falling onto the hedges is gone too, Imp be damned. Azazel moves as fast as it can, spraying containment foam around. The drones and the suit are countered by the net Skitter made, she’s using it to hold the foam and turn it back onto the machines. She even manages to make the foam expand right on the suit’s jaws. Oh boy, when Defiant and Dragon check any recordings or datalogs about how Skitter defeated the suit...I hope their reaction is shown. Just to see what they’d think about all this. Skitter defeated the suit specifically made to defeat them and the Slaughterhouse Nine, just with her words and a net.

Skitter evades the foam and doesn’t evade a grappling hook, she’s forced to hide behind a large structure to avoid being pulled by the hook. She holds her position, hoping Azazel’s battery won’t last long enough to do much more, and soon it’s proven she’s right. Iii’m not sure I like this part about the grappling hook, but okay.

Other than opening its mouth to spray the foam and turning its head, Azazel hadn’t budged from its position.

It’s still operating under the assumption Imp may be around and therefore moving may crush her. Alright! This suit won’t be dangerous as long as you don’t get close enough to be sprayed. Either way, the suit has been defeated, pretty much. All that’s left is wait for the rest of the Undersiders and Travelers.

Everyone is now here – except Imp and Trickster, who stay hidden because if any of them is seen the deception Skitter concocted would be null. The dog that had been trapped is cut free, thankfully with zero description of the rotting meat suit it’s leaving behind. The team brags about how well they did against the suits. At least three suits were destroyed, and once Sundancer drives a small sun into the suit that uses technology that’s very flammable, that makes four destroyed suits.

Although I’m glad to see a victory, I’m not entirely certain this arc was a good idea. Dragon is a threat to the Undersiders, yeah, and here she went all out with more than half a dozen suits, yet they all managed to defeat four – at least four. Kind of makes Dragon look less like the threat she is. It’s a tad disappointing, honestly.

“We got lucky,” I said.  “What with Imp being able to force Piggot to shut them down, and the way I could exploit it’s A.I. to lock down its movements. Maybe you can make a program versatile and leave yourself open to the program using loopholes to work around any safeties you put in place.  Or you can make it heavily restricted and leave it open to vulnerabilities like what I exploited there.  I guess we’re a ways off from an A.I. being smart enough to work around those limitations.”

Makes you wonder if Dragon is a smart enough AI for that. To me she is. She even chose to cooperate with Armsmaster out of her own free will, even though it’d be, you know, cooperating with a criminal, even if he wasn’t officially indicted in a court of law. Despite her own self-imposed limitations, Dragon is a very versatile program.

“It’s a matter of time,” Regent said.

“You’re such a pessimist,” Imp retorted.

“And I’m so right.”

Damn right!

There are four suits left to defeat, and since the Azazel was one of them, the rest may be a tad easier. Everyone barely gets to leave the minimall before Skitter’s phone starts ringing, communications are back.

Tattletale: “Phones are back on.”

“Why?  Is she baiting us?  Trying to get us to reveal our positions?”

“She’s gone,” Tattletale replied. “Suits leaving the city, satellite phones are working.  Few factors at play, there.  I got word back from the Dragonslayers.  Paid them a few million bucks to tell me how they keep getting the upper hand on Dragon, tell me how she’s relaying commands to her suits.  With that, I had some squads plant C-4 and knock down cell towers. That slowed her down, cut her bandwidth, so to speak, and limited her ability to reprogram them on the fly. I’m guessing you guys took out one or more suits?”

So it’s a victory! They defeated Dragon – again! From what I’m understanding here, Dragon usually would have the ability to reprogram the suits, most likely so they’re not stopped by things like Skitter’s theoretical Imp scenario. Being unable to do that, the suits were left to their own devices, controlled only by their own AI. But yeah, once the Azazel was definitely out of commission, it was clear Dragon was at a disadvantage.

I wonder if the Slaughterhouse Nine would figure the Dragonslayers’ methods too. I don’t imagine they have a few million dollars to spare, so they’d have to figure this out by themselves. Maybe the suits do have a chance against the Slaughterhouse Nine.

“That cost the Protectorate a good chunk of cash, and it’s detracting from Dragon’s primary mission, which is the Nine.  My guess is she’s zeroing in on them.  Better to have a few suits closer to where she thinks they are than to leave them here in the city for you guys to keep breaking.  So she thinks, anyways, and the bigwigs that are footing the bill seem to agree.”

I mean, it costed you millions of dollars, Tattletale. Seems to me the big loser in this whole debacle is everyone’s wallet. Hey, maybe she can pass the bill to Coil and say it was a necessary expense. Better for this to be his money spent than the Undersiders’ money, haha! Besides, I’d say the humiliation of having so many suits so soundly defeated without any losses on the Undersiders or Travelers’ part is even more important. How can the heroes really consider themselves on top when things went like this? Say, what was it Piggot had said?

“The Azazel.  Note that there’s no version number.  It’s a fresh design, crafted to go up against the Nine and put up a serious fight.  The first truly original suit she’s made in four years, and I assure you that Dragon has advanced her skills in that timeframe.  If that isn’t enough of a pedigree, the Azazel was created by Dragon working in tandem with her new partner, a fellow tinker.”

Armsmaster.

She saw the reaction from us, smiled a little.

“Yes.  A new partner.  It was his suggestion that we park the suits here when they aren’t needed.  And even though I know he’s a new cape, nobody you’d know, certainly nobody who’d have a grudge,” she smirked a little, “I think it’s a safe bet to say he had you in mind when he was building it.”

After saying something like that Piggot and Defiant sure have some serious egg on their faces. Piggot had seemed so confident about the Azazel and about how it’d put up a serious fight against the Undersiders. I mean...technically it did, it very much did! But then it was defeated with the power of theoretical scenarios. I really doubt that was how Piggot or Defiant imagined the best suit of the lot would be defeated.

Things are actually looking up! The Pure is gone, Faultline’s crew – oh, right, they exist on the sidelines – are not here either, and the heroes were walloped once again without even being able to give much of a fight, except for Dragon. No matter how you look at this, this is a victory. The only enemy group that’s around is Hookwolf’s group, no? Fenrir’s Chosen. Although...given Hookwolf isn’t with them anymore, maybe they’re not that much of a threat anymore.

Coil better give them a nice bonus for all of today’s work, by the way! Without Dinah to give the probabilities, he must have been rather uncertain about the optimal strategy to accomplish this. Show some gratitude, Coil!

Tattletale is saying it’ll be a while before Dragon strikes again, and next time she’ll do it only because she’s certain she can win. Oh, goodness, just what the future needed: Dragon being a bigger threat. I hope so, at least. That’d be fun.

So, with this, Brockton Bay is now under Coil’s control. This is just Monarch 5, though. It’s still kind of early to close this arc. There must be enough fuel for one or two chapters more, lately the arcs haven’t been as short as just five chapters. Perhaps the heroes have a last final move?

Either way, Coil gives orders: everyone shall take days off and won’t be wearing their costumes. Aw, damn, that’s going to make it difficult to deal with everything in Skitter’s territory. She can’t go in there without her costume and start giving orders around. Charlotte is the only one who knows who Skitter is, if I recall correctly. I guess Skitter could give orders via phone, but it’s just not the same than Skitter and her swarms walking around the neighborhood, doing some restoration work.

“We’ll talk later,” she said. “Gonna go see if I can get more details on what happened.  Betting someone blew their top when they realized you guys demolished two of those suits.”

Speaking of someone blowing their top, what happened to Piggot? They didn’t leave her to wander the ruined alleyways and return home all by herself on foot and with handcuffs and a gag, did they? As if things weren’t humiliating enough for her with this defeat.

We’d won.  We’d cost the PRT too much in resources, pride and money, and they’d apparently decided it wasn’t worth their time to uproot us.  I hated the bureaucracy, the fucked up mindset of the institutions, but it was clearly working in our favor here, at least.

You know what would be even more humiliating? If, under the villains’ rule, Brockton Bay really recovers noticeably and at a faster pace than it was doing under the heroes’ benevolent watch. It sure would make them look ineffective, maybe even uncaring about the civilians’ plight. It’s already pretty good they drove out groups that had no concern other than their own profit and survival, so now Brockton Bay is under the benevolent care of the Undersiders and the Travelers.

Which in theory isn’t really that good of a situation. I’m sure for the majority of the population it’d be real hard to think of the situation as ‘their benevolent care’, given they’re dangerous villains.

Besides, Coil is still a threat. He says he’ll make the city work well and prosper, but I sure don’t trust Coil as far as I can throw him. I really can’t say if his presence is good for anyone.

So, this is the end of the chapter. Nice! Let’s stop here for now.

Next time: in three updates

[ladyofpurple]

GIRL ITS BEEN MONTHS SINCE YOU UPDATED TPOY!! please tell me you haven’t given up on it )-:

I KNOW IM REALLY SORRY OMG

This took a bit longer to answer than it should have because I was trying to figure out how to reply, I guess?? The short answer is basically that writing bits of fic during my exams when I didn’t actually have the time to was super productive, mainly because I Didn’t Want To Do The Thing but my entire future hinged on Doing The Thing and anxiety-driven avoidance is excellent creative fuel, apparently. The problem is, of course, that once I finished and started getting my results back and actually had time to breathe again my brain kinda fizzled out and I never wanted to look at a Word document ever again in my life. Writing is really hard right now, for some reason. And not just TPoy — everything I try to write either gives me a headache, makes every idea I’ve ever had go flying out the window like magic, or looks like absolute garbage to me. (I’ve been trying, though, I promise!!!) There is more TPoY, though!! I swear to God!! It’s just coming along a little slower than anticipated.

The long answer is... a little more complicated and probably more than you’re interested in, and the main reason is the short one anyway. But I’ll put a long answer under a cut just in case (aka the entire history of TPoY lol), since I’ve lowkey wanted to post about it for a while now but didn’t quite know how to? May get a little very personal, I suppose.

Basically, TPoY is and always has been a garbage fic. I don’t say that to disparage my own writing or attempt to elicit praise from anyone: I have always considered it a glorious dumpster fire of experimentation, a ridiculous Frankenstein’s monster of all my favorite ML tropes as a practice run, since it had been so long since attempting to write anything at all. I’m thrilled that people like it, of course! Whenever people send me asks about it my answers always involve a lot of exclamation points and variations on “I AM CURRENTLY SOBBING ON THE FLOOR IN GRATITUDE” because I honestly have no idea how to express how genuinely teary-eyed I get when someone tells me how much they like it, or post a comment. That being said, it was always intended for my own amusement and/or therapy, and that it’s gotten so many bookmarks and kudos and comments is incredibly surreal, even after a whole year.

When I started writing it, I was working through a lot of stuff. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, and as we lived together in his hometown I was stuck there on my own for another year before I could move back home. 2016 was filled with a lot of horrifying shit that kept happening one after the other and I eventually almost had to drop out of school because I couldn’t handle it all. The relationship was pretty toxic but all I knew at the time was that I was scared and alone and heartbroken. 

When I started writing, it was after 8 months of the worst bout of depression I’ve ever experienced, and I still wasn’t well, but I functioned passably enough to start hyperfocusing on things. I had an idea about a fic I suddenly wanted to write, and it would have a happy ending and all, but I could work through my feelings in a way I hadn’t tried to since before my ex and I got together. I pulled a lot of the start of the fic (the rejection, the miscommunication, the avoidance) from my recent breakup, yes, but also from my first rejection, aka the only other boy I’d liked enough to confess my feelings to. We were 17, and he admitted that he knew, and then suddenly we weren’t friends anymore. A year and a half later, I got together with my ex, and suddenly after three years of dedicating my life to “us” on his whims he was ghosting me without explanation.

I see a lot of myself in Marinette at that age. The awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the incredibly obvious lovesick obsession with a cute boy who’s nice to you. I wondered if maybe she would react the same, if put into similar circumstances as I had been. Focus on the self-doubt that would follow, based on insecurities she’s already shown in the show — coupled with your standard teenage hormone-fest —and you’d have a fabulous starter for angstfic and a free therapy session all in one.

The problem with that is nobody knows this backstory but me. People focusing on Marinette’s insecurities is nothing new. Other people are annoyed it’s such a popular trope. And the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on certain aspects of the main characters’ identities for the purposes of a story I started on a whim has been making me insecure for a long time because people in the fandom are tired of those characterizations. I’ve never gotten hate comments —I don’t even remember ever getting constructive criticism on TPoY. But I’m well aware that the plot is far from original and definitely lacking in certain places, and as the comments roll in and the hits go up my anxiety mounts because oh my God I’m that guy in the fandom.

I always intended on focusing on different aspects of their characterizations in different fics to suit the plot, y’know? Not ignoring parts of their personalities, but just... emphasizing other parts. But TPoY is the one most people have read. I have a couple one-shots where I tried to do something like that, with different aspects of their characters, but short one-shots can’t really compare to a 100,000+ word WIP, even if they even slightly compared in popularity (they don’t). So my only notable contribution to the fandom is TPoY. And that makes me anxious.

Then there’s the Frankenstein-like obsession with adding every trope I’ve ever wanted to write in a fic like this. I’ve mentioned before that the original plan for this was, like, 10-15 chapters at most. But every chapter I write I’m like, “But what if I did this???” Like I said, I never intended it to be even remotely popular. The only other fandoms I’ve written for are microscopic in comparison. I had no frame of reference for a pairing this big — all my previous experience was from Fanfiction.net, for Christ’s sake. I assumed I wouldn’t finish it, and even getting to chapter 6 was a surprise. But that hyperfocus somehow held on for dear life and I was banging out chapters like nobody’s business. And people were responding to it. And I think that kind of went to my head a little? Not like in an “I deserve all this attention” kind of way, but more like a “People like?? This thing I’m doing??? I cannot squander this opportunity, I must give them m o r e” kind of way. It was the best I’d felt since the breakup and I didn’t really think I deserved it, so I kind of wanted to... prove I did, I guess, by writing everything I’d ever wanted in a lovesquare fic in hopes that people would keep liking it and me and I’d keep feeling nice. (I mean, I’d planned to add in a ridiculous amount of tropes anyway, I just ended up adding a lot more than I’d planned.)

On the one hand, people go nuts for that shit. On the other, it’s getting harder and harder to justify cramming all this shit into the same fic. This compulsion keeps fucking me over by giving me spur-of-the-moment ideas for sub-plots I never wanted and certainly didn’t properly think through before posting the foreshadowing or setup for — yet at the same time they’re usually thought of and integrated several chapters in advance so I can’t just... leave them out? And part of me kind of doesn’t want to?? And I’m trying with every fiber in my being not to rewrite just the first 3 chapters, let alone the entire fic. A side-effect of my FF.net history at 13 was Never Edit Anything. Yeah, I’ll do some spell-check. Maybe some rewording here and there. Sometimes I’ll post a chapter and come back sporadically over the next few days to change out some punctuation or whatever. But if I don’t like a section after writing for a while? Throw the Whole Ass Chapter out. After it’s posted? This Is Your Life Now.

let’s not talk about how everything after chapter 27 was supposed to go very differently

Never mind that, after writing a hundred thousand goddamn words in a year, one’s writing skill tends to evolve and increase over time. Not just in regards to vocabulary, but with consistency and pacing and structure. This means, of course, that I can’t ever reread my own writing without the Evil Writing Goblin in my brain telling me to start the whole thing over from scratch. It’s fine.

I suppose I could get a beta, but I’m very bad at taking critique and as I’m even worse at talking to people than I am at posting on time I don’t think that would work out very well.

The point of this goddamn novel is that TPoY means a lot to me, probably a lot more than people realize. It’s kinda dumb and very cheesy and absurdly long, but it was the first real thing I did for myself after my whole life fell apart. I will finish it!!

But it’s hard to write it right now. I’m trying— I’m writing four chapters at the same time right now (a bit less than 10,000 words combined at current count). I don’t want to try to rewrite the whole fic or keep “mischaracterizing” the characters or lose the suspense I’ve tried to build (or, God forbid, try to keep interest so hard it hurts the rest of the fic) and risk alienating readers. I can’t stress enough how much these supportive comments mean to me, even on something as silly as a fanfic. But I also don’t want to force myself to write it or write something just because other people might or might not like it and risk alienating me. So I’m stuck at a kind of anxiety-induced impasse with myself that’s just made worse by the fact that I’m having trouble writing anything at all at the moment.

Jesus Christ this was longer than I meant it to be. Please don’t take this as a pity-party or anything. I don’t want sympathy or, I don’t know, reassurance or anything, I just wanted everything to be Out There because it really is the most in-depth response I could give and y’all deserve an honest answer. Some of you guys have been reading since the beginning and I can’t express how much that means to me. I feel really bad when I haven’t updated in a long time, because I know my fic makes some people really happy!

And PLEASE don’t take this as a “STOP ASKING ME ABOUT TPOY GODDAMMIT” because this is the opposite of that. I FUCKING LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME ABOUT TPOY. I L I V E FOR IT. But it sucks when the only answer I have is “I don’t know when it’ll be up, sorry :( ”

I mean, that’ll probably still be the answer I give, unless I by some miraculous (heh) stroke of luck) start hyperfocusing on writing again.

But at least y’all kinda know why now.