#fanficcing

[shiftingtribemaster]

Thought I would share something from my HTTYD AU! I don’t have a name for it yet, but this is the OC protagonist, Zira!

[visionsthatdance]

Parallelogram

A quadrilateral with two sets of opposite sides that are parallel.

*

It’s a losing battle, but it is not over yet.

The ground quakes. Apokalips' sky is afire with the red flash of gunfire and rising smoke. The buzzing flash of Lightray’s strikes and the thwoom of Barda’s megarod have long faded behind them. It is only Orion and Scott now, travelling through the secret, deepest passages of Apokalips. 

"You should have told me they were planning this." Orion's voice is blunt. Clipped. Orion had noticed his lack of surprise then. "There were other ways."

"Look," Scott murmurs, scraping up a response, "I hate this plan too. That's my wife back there." 

Unbidden, he feels a facet of the Anti-Life equation chiseling through his brain

existence =

The final hell at the end of all things, and it’s the filthy couch.

apathy

It would be so easy just to sink into it.

His vision is glitching again. Orion. Where is Orion? Did he leave again? Or no, Orion was left-

(fear * suspicion)

Something shifts and he is on his knees. The dust of the ground weaves around him, dragging him to the core of the planet. Sheol, Oberon had called such a place once.

A distant child’s laugh- so far and distant, Scott almost doesn’t hear it at all. He clings to it with both hands. It is not real- Shilo has not been so young in years- but it does not need to be. What it represents is the part that’s real- the only part that matters.

“Stand.”

Orion’s voice hits him like a punch in the face. The static fades. The dust settles. The darkness does not, but even in the void around them, he can see Orion’s extended hand.

“Standing,” Scott replies, his voice trailing into an exhausted warble as he takes Orion’s hand. After days on the run,  Scott’s strength is almost spent. But somehow, even with eyes bloodshot and tired as his own, Orion still has strength to spare. Orion pulls Scott to his feet. Scott’s injured knee buckles, but Scott does not crumble. Orion himself has an unsteady gait- still recovering from the fall into the X-Pit, from the radion that had riddled his body so badly that even a Mother Box couldn’t clear it all away. 

They could not face him like this. Not if they hoped to win.

/ despair

“I know,” Orion says, taking in Scott’s thoughts with a glance. Something in Orion’s face gives, and Scott watches his eyes trace from Scott to the open field ahead. 

N = Y where: N = hope. Y = folly.

Scott wants to laugh. As if either of them are in any shape to open a Boom Tube. Even if they got one open, Scott couldn’t leave Orion to face Darkseid alone. He’s an escape artist, not a coward. But this isn’t Orion’s fault. Years of fighting alone, and now with the anti-life equation warping them both- Orion isn’t thinking clearly. 

All the more reason to nip in the bud now.

“Stand,” Scott echoes, meeting his brother’s eyes. “Together.” 

Orion’s surprise lasts only a moment. “Standing,” he says, gruff, and his eyes do not go back to the field. 

Good.

They may have started this apart, but they were going to finish it together.

[athelise]

I have a million wips and all I wanna do is start a new project

[vixenofcourse]

Plotting a murder or two with @asirensrage

[trekkele]

Sometimes there's this fic you really really want to read but you're just gonna have to write it yourself and that really sucks

[tangent101]

Writer’s Block, Fanfics, and LiS

Well. After a Browser shortcut decided to send me to a new window and eat an entire post, here I am at attempt number two to look at a rough draft for a Life is Strange fanfic I'd been procrastinating on for far too long. The last update had ended right with Max knocking on the door to the apartment where the Caulfields live (I’ll go into detail on that in a moment).

I blinked and gave Max a startled look as she knocked. "Dude, you live here. Don't you have a key?"

Max glanced up at me, her face coloring, as she started fumbling at her pocket. "Sorry, I forgot! With everything we--" she started to stammer. Her mouth snapped shut and she turned back toward the door as we heard a bolt thrown open and a man shout on the other side of the door."

"--Max!" this bearded bear of a man shouted over his shoulder and then lunged out of the door to smother my girlfriend. She barely had time to give out a startled eep. A smirk threatened to break through my facade as I watched. I guess Mr. Caulfield had lightened up some since I'd last seen him. He'd always been reserved before, and I don't recall ever seeing him hug his daughter in front of me. For that matter, it'd always been dull when I'd go visit Max. She had no computer games, only a few toys, and everything had to be in its place.

Hell, most of the time she'd come to my place because we could play and be kids. Joyce never minded our messes... the smile fled my lips. Mom. Hell, the house is far more fucked up after the Storm than anything Max and I ever could do, not even the time we dug up the back yard looking for our time capsule.

"Chloe? Chloe Price, is that you?" I heard and looked up from my feet to see Max's mom standing in the doorway. Her eyes were red and puffy, with dark shadows under them. I swallowed and tried to pull myself together. I could see Max wiggling in her father's arms and realized all at once I really had to pee... and Max was probably worse.

"Hey there Missus C. It's been a while... um, not to be rude but it was a long drive and we really need to use the bathroom!" 

"Oh! Of course! And please, call me Vanessa," she responded. Man, she has mellowed out. She used to insist I call her Mrs. Caulfield and now she's letting me call her Vanessa? I blinked in surprise while she stepped up to her husband and gently smacked his arm. "Let our daughter breath, Ryan, before she wets herself. I'll have you clean it up."

Okay. First... their apartment. I know most folk like to think that Max lived in a nice house in the suburbs of Seattle and lived comfortably. I've gone on at length about how this isn't the case. We've had evidence from multiple sources that Max is in fact from a lower-middle class family, and most likely lives in an apartment in one of the less wealthy parts of the city. For instance, Max wears clothes she picked up from a thrift shop. I know some folk like to think this is all "hipster" and the like but... given how important Max's scholarship is (to the point she considers rewinding and telling David the pot belongs to Chloe even if she watched him smack her previously because he threatens her scholarship outright) (yes, another strike against this child-abusing piece of shit... I swear the longer I think about him the more I hate David Madsen) this really suggests money is tight for her parents.

Hell, look at Max's camera. It's an old beaten-up camera that is in fragile enough condition that a drop to the ground breaks it. Kodak Instant Cameras are sturdy and made of thick plastic. The only way that either being knocked to the ground or Max later landing on the camera and crushing it could break it is if the camera had previously been broken and Max had fixed it - and given that Max knew how to fix the camera, that seems likely to be the case. (Given the expense of Instant film, Max probably used all of her money from allowances or part-time jobs to pay for film. I've mentioned that the Photo Wall is over a hundred dollars worth of pictures.) 

Anyway, I ran into a quick problem when I was first writing this... and realized that Max would have a key to her parents' apartment. I considered the possibility Max left her keys behind seeing she'd not be home, but decided it was simpler to just have Max forget she had them. Hey, we all do that at times, and Max has a lot on her mind (and bladder).  

As for the writer's block... well, this story has been paused since before Farewell. I must admit I actually held off on writing it because I was hoping we'd get to meet Ryan and Vanessa during Farewell - but while we saw them briefly during the funeral, there were no lines and what we did get left a bad taste in my mouth. That said, it's closer to canon than BtS has proven to be, and did remain true to continuity. 

Max and Chloe talk to me. I know, it undoubtedly sounds strange to say that... but it's how I write. The characters become a part of me and they let me know what they're going to do and what they want to do. I've had characters insist "I want to do this instead" and often I'll let them. They know the story better than I do. But Ryan and Vanessa don't talk to me. They don't exist to me outside of some text messages and so I'm left aimless and with no idea of where the story would go once Max and Chloe reach Max's folks.

That's the crux of the writer's block. Well, that, anxiety, procrastination... you know, the usual for writers. But another problem is that I tend to write first drafts and edit as I go. My first drafts are closer to final drafts than what first drafts should be. And that can be problematic. You see, the way to get through Writer's Block is to write. Anything. Everything. Just "vomit words onto the page" and then use editing to pick out the gems. And that's what I ended up doing tonight.

This scene doesn't work. I'm realizing this as I go along. To be honest, I did just now come up with this bizarre amused thought - of Max and Chloe getting to the apartment and then finding there is no one home because Ryan and Vanessa got in their car (assuming they still have one - not all city folk do, and I had considered them selling the car as the extra cost of insurance and the like might be too much for them) and drove to Arcadia Bay to find their daughter. 

Maybe I'll go with that. It's cheating, I know. It's a little bit amusing too. And the idea calls out to me more than trying to deal with the Caulfields and getting their character wrong. Sadly, I still eventually need to figure them out, seeing that "Life is Strange: A New Year" does involve them at some point. But I'll burn that bridge before I reach it, I'm sure. 

[priestessamy]

This just in: I don't know how to write smut so I just do my usual thing but with

Implications