Doing research for the next Ghost of Chicago chapter
I took this scene from season 5 of ER where we see Carter sit at the riverside with a patient. This tells us that it must be pretty close to the hospital so I assume he might have come there more often:
Then I watched the entire length of this youtube video of someone walking the Riverwalk to find the same place and compare (I did this during linguistics class btw, I got bored):
I noticed the Trump tower that wasn't there before and used it as the trigger for Robby to recoil against the changes of the city. I also researched the Wrigley building (those facts are all true but it was sold in 2019).
I used the moment to deal with Benton's behaviour towards Carter, specifically his disapointement about Carter's relapse and his initial refusal to believe the others that Carter is an addict.
I am the biggest fan of Exodus so I had to reference it here, as it also fits the theme of Robby losing trust in his abilty and being reminded that he is capable.
Love his journey. And look at how beautiful that village has been drawn. Oda's break was well worth it. This chapter seemed fairly long too. However, these are not TSC scans, and some of the translations are a little dodgy, but the main idea comes across (for example, there is a frame of Shanks telling the young viking boy we saw in the Shanks and Elbaph scenes to make sure he keeps an eye out for Straw Hate Luffy. The boy's excited to meet him, so I hope it's a typography error, but a pretty big one to make! Anyway, I'll refer to the official, when it's out. Seems to be. Other scan caps don't have this error.
Also, like I know that Lilith is a softie at heart, but Oda seems to be making her very soft (this was the second time in this chapter). I liked her impetuous violence! Love when the Straw Hats all get blown away by rainbows you can ride on, and dragons, and carp pulling boats and so on. Robin looks gorgeous!
Sanji's not on the boat (on the cloud), and maybestill blissed out after having been in Gerd's hand? (Giant oni sama?). Or maybe he just enjoys the clouds. Anyhoo, it looks as if Usopp (and Robin) will have time to shine.
The chapter was fun. Zoro slicing a tree to bring down Road and then declaring that it's okay because he didn't directly touch Road. Gerd and her companion further wiped him out. Loki remains in the Underwolrd, but it's not known if Luffy freed him or not, but Luffy struggles not to tell the other giants about him, so it's only a matter of time...
Franky's scientific explanation for rainbows and Dorry and Brogy's laugher at his expense (and foolishness) was fun too.
Working on chapter commentaries for Patreon and I am going so deep into like... Gary's character and I just love him so much as a character. But I'm doing a commentary on the chapter where Temsen first calls Gary and I just wrote:
‘Yes, well, you know how it is. I flew back in last night, and then it turned out when I charged my work phone I had all these messages and voice messages from Kent, and Anton, and Augus, and Enris, but…none from you? I hear you’ve been having quite the time, Gary.’ I like to imagine that Kent sent Temsen SO many voice messages, like:
'Dr Temsen, I think I have to quit. Call me back.'
'Dr Temsen, you'll not believe what I was asked to do today. When I signed up to Hillview it was to help omegas, not torture them. Dr Gary is out of his- Ah. /dial tone.'
'Dr Temsen, I've just realised you might not have your work phone with you. (Explains what happened). What do I do? This is wrong, isn't it?'
And then like... just... many many more exactly like this. And text messages. Things like 'what's the severance Hillview would offer if I quit?' alongside 'I don't like feeling like a rapist, I don't want to be a rapist, this is exactly what I didn't want to be when I joined here, I don't support this, I don't support this' alongside 'he was just crying, he was terrified the whole time, but his fear was so spiked from the beginning we didn't realise. I hope Dr Gary didn't realise. How could he not realise? You would have realised. I'm not cut out for this job' alongside 'I don't think that boy should be with Dr Gary' alongside 'you chose a hell of a time to go on holiday.'
And in the meantime just a laconic message from Augus like: 'Well, I certainly hope you've been finding time to enjoy the food at the very least, since I well remember that you're a bit of a gourmand. But I thought I'd advise you that there's been an attempted murder and Gary is currently living with the criminal and I think they might be sharing a bed? That sounds normal, doesn't it? Mm. I don't like soap operas as a general rule, so please come back. I think Gary needs - at the very least - some advice.'
On off weeks, I’ll be posting some commentary on the prior week’s chapter. Since this is a longfic, I expect that it will be helpful for keeping track of stuff, plus I might mention something you missed. Of course, this will include spoilers, so continue with that in mind.
These aren’t meant to be comprehensive! There is so much more going on that I’m not saying. Feel free to ask questions too, either in replies or asks. If it’s too spoilery, I’ll let you know. I’ll add them to the body at the bottom as I receive them.
See the directory for other meta posts.
Gift & Debt
What’s this?! We haven’t seen this card! But no worries, Jester makes the card about halfway through the chapter.
There’s a lot of toxic fandom discourse on what characters “deserve” and that eventually culminated into an intent to explore that in the story. This chapter juxtaposes a lot of the characters’ worldviews on what must to be earned/paid versus what should be given freely.
Luctus
The first thing I came up with for Luctus was the sensory perception: pain. It immediately came to mind when I looked up the latin word luctus, which means grief or sorrow. I didn’t feel that I needed to iron it out further for the emotion, so this was an easy fit.
Next was the school of magic. She wasn’t encountered in the stream, but her ability during the Lucien fight was a Slow spell with a dexterity save instead of the usual wisdom save. This wasn’t the only eye that had slightly different effects than a normal spell—Vigilan’s anti-magic cone dispelled magic rather than suppressed it until it passed out of the field (at least, sometimes).
Slow is an interesting spell. It’s transmutation, which is all about changing reality (and I had already decided on another Somnovem for that school). It affects a specific number of targets in a space. According to the PHB, wisdom is about being in tune with the world, particularly with perceiving it. Thus, a wisdom save for avoiding a Slow effect makes sense if the point is to resist a change to one’s own perception of the world. After all, if it was actually changing the space itself, then there wouldn’t be a limit on the number of targets, and it would be avoided or exited by leaving the area. So it changes the target, not the world. Makes sense for a level 3 spell.
But Luctus’s Slow required a dexterity save, which is the score for agility, reflexes, and balance. Dexterity saves are usually for dodging an ability, but not all the Somnovem’s abilities used that save, so it wasn’t about avoiding an eye’s gaze. There’s a couple ways to interpret that, like maybe it’s a stronger transmutation of the same effect, but it affects everything in that area, so it has to be dodged. However, Matt didn’t pull out any AOE measuring props to see who else he could get; Luctus looked directly at Fjord in episode 139, then Veth in 140. Matt also didn’t describe a beam or any projectile. They both felt a wave of grief and sadness, which imparted the effect. So I don’t think it was about dodging so much as it was about the character’s general speed and agility.
So I chewed on that for a while, until it suddenly clicked: dunamancy. Dunamancy has both chronomancy and graviturgy specialties. It would totally track to have either of those require a dexterity save rather than any other stat to resist a slowing effect. Once I had that, I came up with Luctus’s role.
And as I thought that over, I also had my fix for why Molly survived at Glory Run Road: Luctus used Cognouza to alter the timeline.
You might wanna check out those first two scenes in chapter 1.
Pieces
The first draft of this scene didn’t have the funky kerning and formatting. It was going to be very brief, only giving the reader a vague sense of what had happened to Lucien.
However, once I got used to testing out different types of formatting quirks, I decided to use that here to emphasize how disorienting it was for Lucien. Since this was third-person limited perspective, and his perception of the world would have been shattered, the text was as well.
Gems
I wanted to do a check-in with Nott because she spent so long in the early campaign keeping her backstory to herself, and she’s in the background for a lot of Fjord’s arc. Much of her dialogue makes more sense in a second watch of the campaign. She projected a lot of her issues onto other people, and she used that lens to decide what she should do for herself.
The actual events of the scene weren’t that important though. I almost cut it entirely and added a scene for Nott elsewhere, but I wanted Nott’s canon dialogue about not being good yet, but trying to do good. It’s such a big part of who the Nein are at every point in their story. Thus, I kept it.
Debts
This scene was so long originally. I think it was nearly 9,000 words at one point. Then I cut it, then it bloated again, then I cut it more, etc. I think this is the 5th or 6th major version of it.
I chose Fjord’s POV for this because his arc is coming into focus next and I wanted to lay some ground work about where his head is at. There’s also a lot of parallels between him and Molly that will come into play.
Gustav’s bail was always going to be a big scene in the early chapters because Molly would have been there to realize that Gustav knew about Kylre. However, then the origin comic came out, and I was like, wait, was Kylre the reason Lestera died? She wasn’t that old—no gray hair, no signs of illness, no weak constitution, etc. There’s no way to confirm it, but considering that nergaliids can passively feed off people, then Molly would have thought that was a possibility. No reason to be extra upset about it… unless Gustav knew all along.
Molly’s only really gotten angry a few times in canon, typically when other people are getting hurt. He didn’t show anger if people disagreed with him over plans or anything. In the comic, he dealt with his anger through choir practice, and that was honestly more fun for him than anything else, with his anger showing before he came up with an idea of what to do. He wasn’t even that angry at Kylre when he chased him down with the Nein.
But Gustav was supposed to take care of the carnival, he brought Kylre in, and he knew what was happening the whole time. Kylre’s betrayal was more straightforward, and it didn’t really harm anyone at the carnival (other than possibly Toya). It’d be like being angry at a wolf for hunting a person instead of a sheep. Instead, it seemed like Gustav put people in danger for coin, after all the lessons and mannerisms that Molly picked up from him.
So, yeah, Molly was pissed.
I also wanted to explore the Nein’s various moral leanings and perspectives of the world. Fjord and Caleb are more on the end of earning what you have—there’s an expectation of behaving a certain way under threat of punishment. Fjord would have gotten that from his time at the orphanage and as a sailor. Caleb learned that from growing up poor in a totalitarian regime and then training as a Volstrucker. It took a long time for both of them to shake out of that mindset in their respective arcs.
In comparison, Jester and Caduceus have kinder outlooks. They didn’t let outrage override their sense of fairness. It wasn’t like Gustav or the carnival had been rolling in funds, so it couldn’t have been just about money. So they stood up to the others and asked questions to get at the heart of why Gustav had done it in the first place.
Nott and Beau struck me as somewhere in the middle. Beau rebels against authority and has a powerful curiosity, so she’d be wary of the idea of meting out justice without knowing all the facts. Thus, I had her stop Molly (to protect him from getting arrested for murder) at the start, then hold him back until they got answers. Nott backed up Caleb, of course, but after the scene she just had about trying to do good, she’d feel uncertain about it while she does it. After all, how many people did she help torture and kill because she was scared of what the goblin tribe would do to her?
Taliesin said in a Talks that his concept of Molly was an unaligned character that broke traditional D&D alignment. Thus, Molly is not a good person. That doesn’t mean he’s evil, lawful, chaotic, nor neutral. He’s unaligned. He thinks he’s a good person and tries to do good—when he feels like it. He has a code that no one actually understands, but it makes sense to him, so who knows if he follows it? He likes mischief and causing chaos, but also wants things to make sense. He does what he feels like when he thinks he should, sometimes. Unless he doesn’t. But there’s rules to it. Maybe.
In short, he’s a two-year-old adult. Two. Years. That is not a lot of time to come up with a comprehensive, consistent view of what the world is, what it should be, nor how he should handle discrepancies. That doesn’t mean Molly isn’t capable of acting rationally or being persuaded to do something he doesn’t initially want to do. He listens to people, and even if he talks back, he’ll go with the flow.
That resulted in this scene, with half the group wanting to kill Gustav, and ending with them letting him go.
Easter egg: I had Molly’s swords get caught on the coat because it was Lestera’s. As discussed in the next scene, she wouldn’t have wanted him to kill Gustav, so that was added here as a symbolic show of her interference.
Stories
Molly drank alone to panic after he first got his Rite of the Dawn unlocked in Alfield, so I figured he’d try to isolate after what happened. Maybe he would have sought some comfort with Yasha because she’d trusted Gustav too, but she’s unfortunately not there.
Jester to the rescue! This provided exposition about Molly’s thought process through the prior scene, and it showed just how much it rocked Molly’s view of a few things. Even so, he’s not angry at any of the Nein, nor did he hold what they did against them. His emotions were just running high and he’s having trouble keeping a grip.
I wanted to explore Molly’s and Jester’s relationship a bit. In all honesty, their personalities are very well suited to each other: they like having fun, they understand each other well, they’ve got each other’s backs, and they both prioritize helping people at their own expense. They also enable each other to their detriment, and their maturity is a bit stunted because of that. That said, Jester’s a romantic and Molly’s a hedonist. They have very different views of what relationships should be and what they’d want out of it, so the scene doesn’t stray from a platonic feel. Thus, I had them order different drinks, and neither would ever order the other’s for themselves. Despite that they showed some physical affection and even got caught on each other’s horns, it’s all in silly fun.
This scene also gives a lampshade to the naming convention to for the fanfic (which was discussed in a prior meta post): each of the chapters is named after one of the cards, and the reason is that they’re conveying a theme through a story rather than saying something outright. However, it’s not just for the readers. The characters also refuse to acknowledge certain truths, so they cope by telling stories (Caleb’s book, Molly’s cards, Cad asking Gustav for his story, etc.). Heck, even Molly does it, by telling stories about his time at the carnival instead of answering Jester’s questions outright—but it’s not Jester who doesn’t want to hear the answer.
Worries
Time for the terrible spellcasters to be terrible together. At this point in their arcs, Caleb and Fjord are also enablers for each other. The worst thing is, they rationalize their decisions as being best for the Nein or the world generally, not just themselves. Yes, they’re worried about Molly, but there’s also that tempting blood magic that might be useful somehow, plus whatever happens to Molly might affect their aspirations, etc.
I went with Caleb’s POV because he would be having a rough time with the events of the day. This was basically sandpaper on an old wound. He betrayed his parents and murdered them for the Empire. He betrayed Astrid and Eadwulf by attacking them and then by fleeing the Sanatorium without seeking them out to tell them the truth. Ikithon betrayed them by altering their memories and warping them into weapons for the Empire. Caleb’s only just started to truly grasp that he’s been fed Imperial propaganda his whole life. He’s been wrestling with the idea of whether his own judgment can be trusted and whether he can or should try to do anything about Ikithon or the Volstrucker. Then the group decided to let Gustav go when he wanted to kill Gustav, and it hit him fairly quickly that he’d made a rash decision that was rightfully overruled.
He’s a mess.
Then, along comes Molly (also a mess) to ask for a silly favor to borrow Frumpkin because he can’t sleep. That manages to pull Caleb’s head out of his own butt long enough so that he can get to sleep too.
It’s almost like they feel better about their own bullshit when they help other people…
Zoran Kluthidol
The first part of this scene about the hounds was in one of my earliest sets of notes from August 2022. It was one of the first scenes I wrote for the Tombtakers. I’ll discuss more of Zoran’s backstory in a separate meta post, but the key thing for this scene is that goliaths travel in herds and are fairly isolated from other communities. A lot of this scene came from my brainstorming about what sort of goliath would leave his tribe and wind up at the Claret Orders.
Once I came up with the basics for both backstories, I considered what Zoran would have thought about Lucien. Timing wise, I figured that Zoran would have already been at the Orders for a while when Lucien joined, and Zoran would have joined as an adult (because that’s when he would have left his tribe). Lucien would have joined as a pre-teen. Thus, Lucien would have been a tiny brat compared to Zoran, a fully-grown goliath.
Then I thought, what sort of person would Lucien need to be for Zoran to respect him enough to take up an offer to form a mercenary group and leave the Orders? (Reminder: Lucien died at 23, after the Tombtakers were active for at least 5 years—so he led them away when he was no older than 18!)
A fucking brawler, that’s what. Someone who could kick his ass when he had no right doing it. This scene helped me flesh out both of their personalities in that respect.
Thing is, an introductory scene can’t just be about the character getting his ass beat by a mostly-dead antagonist if the point is to show he’s not a pushover. Thus, there’s some bits to show that Zoran specifically enjoys hunts, not just fights, and he doesn’t care as much about the outcome as Lucien did. It also shows that he’s still someone to be feared and does as he pleases because of it.
(And captainsparklefingers nailed that Zoran snagged a bottle of Lionett wine from the storage room!)
Zoran is the other Ghostslayer of the Tombtakers, so his POV gives insight into that as well. He immediately clocked how fucked up it was for Cree to make Lucien an undead, and he’s intuitive enough to recognize several implications that stem from that. He also doesn’t take what Cree and Otis say at face value; he recognizes their biases and takes that into account. Finally, he’s got some reservations about the Somnovem and the Pattern, even if he enjoyed how it felt at the time.
But Zoran’s not the schemer. As fucked as the situation is, he’s more comfortable following the others’ leads. So, for now, he’s settling in for whatever insanity Lucien’s going to lead them into, and he’s well aware it’s going to be messy. That’s what’s fun, after all.
Senses
Another check-in with Lucien. There’s some subtle hints of what the Somnovem are up to. I also included a demonstration of Luctus’s ability to warp time. As she mentioned in her later scene, she had to “undo” some things, so the reader gets to see an example of that here.
Dream: Bait
The introductory poem is “To a Squirrel at Kyle-Na-No” by William Butler Yeats, an Irish poet and politician. He’s a fascinating historical figure that turned to some seriously questionable views about how the world should work in his later years, and I thought that was perfect for including here. I’m being vague about it because I think you should read it up yourself—and you’ll hopefully get a sense of why I thought, of all the poems I could have chosen, his poem about trying to pet a squirrel was appropriate here.
It’s fairly obvious that the overarching theme of this dream is bait. I had considered including scenes where Lucien hunted for small animals, but honestly, that would be a terrible idea for kids in the Savalirwood. Fishing would have been safer, and it gave an opportunity for some exposition from an adult.
Every other scene in the dream includes an example of using bait to lure someone to or from something. First was Cree distracting guards while Lucien snuck out of a house he robbed. (There’s a clue as to whose house it was…) Second was Lucien trying to bait the goliath into harassing Cree instead of him, but it’s too tempting to bother the tiefling that’s already so close to the water. Third was Lucien distracting vendors so Cree could nab wares at the market, plus acting as lookout for Greytraders that might have caught her otherwise.
Fourth was an unfortunate example of Lucien leading some thugs to his group when they were looking to snatch orphans and sell them off to the Mardoons or Jagentoths—slavers. The fisherman mentioned three sets of three are extra special: Lucien’s red eyes, purple skin, and horns (as noted when he spooked the baker); Cree’s a “half-beast” girl with gold eyes; and the half-orc is also a “half-beast” girl, but with blue eyes. Being good bait isn’t always a boon.
And now, look back at that poem. Hmmm. HMMMM…
The rhyme in the market scene is the last verse of a popular Irish song, “Molly Malone.” Cockles are a relatively easily-foraged shellfish that are a common street food in coastal towns, and they’re often used as bait for fishing. Mussels are another shellfish, found both at sea and in freshwater. While Shadycreek Run is a fair distance inland, it’s also a trade point between the rest of the Greying Wildlands and the Empire. While I doubt there would actually be hawkers wheeling barrows of shellfish to sell in the Run, there’s some obvious puns and references to prostitution in the song, which was also a thriving business in town. Plus it’s totally the kind of place that would have rumors of a ghost trying to sell wares.
Gifts
Then we go to Molly, who, as expected, is doing his best to not deal with what happened and is instead fixating on his name. Identity was a big thing for him, so it makes sense that he’d focus on that rather than process his feelings about Gustav or mourn Lestera a second time.
I figured Fjord would be optimal for that conversation because Fjord was the one who wavered about his last name, Stone. Vandran had argued to him that it was a good name, which tempered his distaste for it. However, once Fjord learned about Vandran in the stream, that threw it all into question again. Thus, of all the people in the Nein who would understand, Fjord’s best suited.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a heart to heart with Molly without a +0 to Charisma moment like him insinuating that Fjord should have seen Sabian’s betrayal coming. That said, Fjord is dense sometimes, and even then, he’d be used to Molly’s brand of arrogance to know better than to take it at face value.
I can’t recall the exact context (I’ll update this if I ever find the quote), but Taliesin once mentioned that he expected a party pet to “make an alligator so happy.” I immediately thought of that while outlining this stretch of time and saw that the pet vendor would be dealt with here. I planned to include it as Molly’s dialogue for one of Jester’s pets, then realized that she would probably goad him to buy the peacock, which he would definitely decline. Molly had also mentioned that the carnival had named a horse Winter’s Crest because that was when they planned to eat it if it lasted that long. That evolved into this section where Jester bought him the peacock and he suggested the Nein eat it instead.
Jester had more gold to spend at this point because Molly pitched in to buy Nott’s cloak and for Gustav’s bail. The Nein also had more coin overall because more guards had been killed at the Sour Nest. Thus, while Jester is still pretty broke, she’s doing a little better than she had been in the stream.
Bruises
Caduceus is still taking it easy, but he’s learning to enjoy the trip. I wanted to include a POV for him because I thought he would do a half-apology to Molly, and it’s fun to explore their relationship since it was a blank slate. We also got to see that Molly’s doing better after a few days.
More cards for Molly’s deck! These will absolutely be chapter titles in the future.
Tyffial Wase
Tyffial was the last of the Tombtakers that I fleshed out. It took a while to come up with her backstory, but once it clicked, everything fell into place rather easily.
In the Critical Role artbook “The Chronicles of Exandria - The Mighty Nein” there is a blurb about the Tombtakers based on Beau’s notes that were submitted to the Cobalt Soul, and Adon Zeenoth personally crossed out Tyffial’s name. I took that to mean that Zeenoth must have known Tyffial somehow. They’re both elves, but there was no indication about their ages in canon. But why would he personally censor records naming her? There had to be something he didn’t want people to know about her, but I had to come up with what that would be and why he would do it unprompted.
First, I tried to come up with what Tyffial would have been doing before she joined the Claret Orders. Nothing really came to mind, so I thought instead, why would an elf with a long lifespan join the Order of the Mutant and then defect to follow an 18-year-old (or so) to form a mercenary band? I had considered the route grayintogreen took where Tyffial was also from Shadycreek Run and grew up with Lucien and Cree, but I wanted to do something new. There’s not a lot of takes on the Tombtakers, so there’s a lot of possibilities that hadn’t been done yet.
Then I thought, well, what if she was bored? Elves live a long time. What if she joined the Orders out of boredom? Then she’d leave once she was bored of that, too. That would make sense, especially if Lucien comes up with exciting jobs, and we (the audience) knew that eventually took the Tombtakers to Molaesmyr. But a young elf wouldn’t get bored that quickly. Their sense of time passing would be about the same as a younger race until they started getting up there in years.
So Tyffial is fucking old. The Order of the Mutant makes sense because then she can adjust her abilities and her looks using mutagens. And that gave me a reason for her to know Zeenoth, an Archivist at the Soul: he’s covering up her tracks when she comes up with a new identity. He’s taken bribes before, so a bribe mixed with threat of violence would certainly keep him acting on Tyffial’s behalf.
Tyffial’s backstory will be explored over time in TF&TS, but there will be hints aplenty about just how long she’s been around. For example: what names does she use to refer to certain places?
I’ll note that I came up with this before it was revealed that Ludinus Da’leth was artificially extending his lifespan. I was so hyped when C3 started exploring that. More things to chew on.
Lucien & Luctus
Yet another look into Lucien’s relationship with the Somnovem. I don’t want to point out too many hints, but there were several. Is he needlessly paranoid or rightly distrustful? Time will tell.
Now Lucien has a body! Kind of. Curious that the Somnovem did that after he was defeated on the Material Plane…
SPOILERS BELOW FOR CHAPTER 19: NEW YEAR // PLEASE CATCH UP ON "THE OTHER SIDE" BEFORE READING
So Chapter 19 was, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of Arc III of this story, and it is the climax/denouement arc. It'll likely be shorter than the other two arcs (10 chapters and 8, respectively), but I'm not yet entirely sure how many chapters it'll end up being. Broad strokes are planned but not prewritten, and the finer details still need to be figured out.
Now on to the commentary!
I really wanted to show the Frasers in this flashbulb family moment. Like, Hogmanay in Lallybroch with wee Brian and Fergus and everyone's really happy and fulfilled is this defining moment for them that I think they'll end up looking back on for the rest of their lives. But, let's not like, it's also a moment that will bring great pain because it's exactly what they'll always known they lost.
In this fic, Fergus is a little more fragile after losing his hand than he's shown in canon. We see in the later books his struggles with his mental health and the practical results/consequences of being disabled in his society, but we see very little of that in the books/show right afterward. I really think this is, in large part, because Fergus at that time knew he was a really big support for Jamie, who was still dealing with his depression and his grief. Fergus had pain, but even as young as he was and knowing the guilt Jamie carried for what happened to him, he really had to be the support for Jamie almost and couldn't really express any of that pain. But here, he hasn't had to live with being Jamie's reason to keep going on. He hasn't had to grapple with his hero drowning in depression and grief. So here, he's a lot more able to open up and let his vulnerabilities show. I wasn't sure what specifically he'd confide in them until I wrote it, but it kind of made perfect sense to me. He's seen Jamie and Claire, and even Jenny and Ian are shown to be deeply loving as a couple. And at this point in canon, he's right on the cusp of courting/sleeping with girls, and it made sense that this would kind of be on his mind. That he's just started that part of his life/development, but now he's afraid he'll never be wanted again, and will that mean he won't ever find the kind of love he sees in the adults in his life?
I also wanted this convo to happen because Claire was feeling really passive in this chapter. When I posted about the chapter not being right, that was exactly the problem. I had this whole thing where Jamie goes around before midnight on Hogmanay and gives toasts to everyone (including an indignant wee Jamie, who was offended he didn't get one). But it was kinda boring, kinda repeated a lot of stuff he's said already, and Claire really had very little active involvement in the chapter. I really liked this a lot better. Canon focuses heavily on Fergus's and Jamie's connection, but I try to explore Claire and Fergus just as much. Especially in those months after Faith died, Fergus and Claire really were comforts for each other. But beyond that, I think there are just some times you yearn for your mother's comfort, and I wanted that here. That he loves Jamie of course, and he idolizes him even. But he really needed to feel safe with his mother. Even though Fergus is now closer in age to Jamie and Claire (at this point, he'd only be ten years younger than Jamie now), they've re-entered his life at a point that he really needs them as parents, even though they're closer in age.
Also, a small thing that kinda happened on accident, but Jamie and Claire are almost always the ones carrying around Brian; in my head, they never really hand him off to Mrs. Crook. But I see this as a natural reaction to them having lost Faith, having come close to losing each other so many times. They now have this baby that they just cannot let go of unless it's between one of the two of them. I think it's also a tell that, subconsciously, they know that they aren't completely safe.
Oh, boy, the redcoats arriving! This has been a scene that's played in my head since I decided they were coming back to the past. I wanted to do a sort of flip on canon Jamie hiding from the redcoats with wee Ian. I knew we needed some action to start off this arc and what's to come, and them being shocked out of their false sense of security was the best way forward, I think. They've made general plans but haven't firmed them up yet, both thinking they had more time as well as really dreading when they'd have to leave. Earlier chapters have seen them both kind of grappling with the emotional toll of knowing that this time with their family is temporary. There's also a brief discussion about why the stones may have brought them to this year specifically...I think more of that will be made clear by the end of this fic.
Also, can we say Mrs. Crook for the win for not only getting Rabbie out of the house to warn Eilidh about the lie they told, but also managing to distract the redcoats so the Frasers could sneak from the house? Runner-up MVP next to Ian for concocting that story on the spot and Jenny for having the presence of mind to use the letter to their advantage!
Thanks so much for reading! Hoping not too long before Chapter 20 is ready.
This chapter covers more of Jun’s fight against Yoh. Yoh starts in a position of relative weakness and it gets worse, as Jun uses her own blood to write new orders for Pyron: attack Yoh until he dies.
… Except Yoh’s resilience seems to get to the terrible kyonshi! Tears flow from his cheeks and Yoh promises him he will free his soul. At last, Yoh has reached Pyron; at last, the dialogue isn’t Jun-Yoh (she isn’t listening, yet), but Pyron-Yoh, and that’s when progress can happen. Hopefully? Pyron seems really strong.
I really liked seeing how Jun stands. She’s one of these shamans who doesn’t wear combat-facilitating clothing and she casually turns her back to Anna and Manta a few times. Until close to the end she is projecting confidence and isn’t expecting them to step in, which is interesting. Manta has tried with other people; it would have been fun.
Jun also does most of the talking in this chapter. The monologuing-until-scene-reversal is a tried and true trope. I’d wonder if she was really so confident about her whole spiel! But I do think she is, if only for her to have a real character arc. Jun Tao so far is someone who has been raised like Ren, with this darker kyonshi shtick where she’s not even just enslaving ghosts but taking living people’s bodies away from them. Just reading this chapter I burn to see where she’s headed.
Destiny Can Wait - Chapter 16 - Knights of the Round Table.
This is the fastest I have updated in a long time. The silver lining to this Covid 19 lock down is that I have the time for my hobbies. The ideas for fan fics and drawings are pouring in.
When I was a kid I used to make blueprints for the mansion I would live in as an adult. Since I have time on my hands and made a blueprint for the Skywalker’s home on Naboo. Oh, hey - Anakin was working on blueprints in this chapter too.
I thought about making it more detailed, like adding where the closets, windows, and furniture were in each room, but I decided to keep it a basic layout. Just so people have an idea of how I envision their home when I am writing.
My sister and I like to watch home restorations shows (like Love It or List It) She saw my blueprint and joking around was like, Where’s the mud room? I didn't get the mud room. Is it open concept? Luke and Leia don’t get their own bathrooms? Is the patio screened in? I’m going to have to list it. So funny.
I love the Muse song “Undisclosed Desires” and have been so excited to get this chapter out. It’s a perfect song for Anakin and Padmé and it fits so well with the mood of this chapter.
This chapter starts out pretty dark. I wanted the atmosphere to feel like a confessional in church. It’s like a 12 step program for Anakin. The first is admitting the dark visions he saw.
To break up the seriousness I added in some humorous parts, like with Threepio, and Trevor’s comment.
The scene when Anakin takes the game console, from across the table, out of Trevor’s hands is in honor of the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.
