Forsan et haec olim scripsisse iuvabit.

I never got into the whole Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons crossover thing. I like all those canons individually, but mixed together ... eh.

And then I saw that Tobu Ishi, one of my all-time favorite FMA writers (and probably my first fandom writing crush; dear heaven, s/he can drabble), had a new story up: Victorious Children, which is a Rise of the Braved Tangled Dragons 'fic ...

... set in the Hunger Games universe.

And it works.

This has everything to do with Tobu Ishi's fantastic grasp of characterization and narrative voice and the kind of fanficcer's inventiveness that sees exactly how to take a set of characters out of their established plot and set them down in a new one that's just as entertaining. Did I say entertaining? How about gripping, amusing, startling and plangent by turns? Each chapter is a more or less self-contained vignette that together add up to one heck of a story.

And not enough people are reading it. So here's my recommendation: give it a shot. The odds are in your favor ...

Title: The Roughest Day (Part 2/5)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Sierra, Smokescreen (this part; eventual Knock Out, Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Jack Darby)
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~5030 (this part; 9480 overall)
Warnings: Canon-typical violence.
A/N: I meant to cover the entirety of the action in this chapter, but realized in the writing of it that I had more action than I'd thought. So the three chapters, prologue and epilogue of my original plan have become four chapters, a prologue and an epilogue. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley, as the poet says. This chapter is for Ron, who introduced me to Blind Guardian ("This won't make your head explode!") and his sister Karissa, who giggled at the vain attempt to make Sierra feel better. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a jack and some Fix-A-Flat. (Part 1 can be found here.)

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          The bus jounced over a seam in the tarmac, dislodging Sierra's left earbud and waking her from an uncomfortable doze. ( Read more... )

Title: The Test (Part 2/2)
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Bumblebee, Optimus Prime; mentions of Ratchet and Megatron
Pairing(s): None
Rating: PG-13 (this part; R overall)
Word Count: ~2700 (this part; ~8150 overall)
Warnings: Aftermath of torture (no sexual content), psychological distress.
A/N: I have freely interpreted various (and occasionally conflicting) moments of backstory revealed in the Transformers Prime cartoon to create this piece; I have also borrowed details from other continuities (Aligned and G1) to flesh it out. The result is, perhaps, an unholy hybrid, consonant with no canon, but it is the story I wished to tell. In addition, everything I know about writing Optimus Prime I learned from Foxbear and Alathea2, but any failure of characterization should be ascribed solely to my inability to emulate their example. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a coupon for one free therapy session. Part one may be found here.

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It is the generous Spirit ...
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

— William Wordsworth, "Character of the Happy Warrior"
        Optimus Prime strode quietly through the hospital's corridors. Those who did not know him well were always surprised to discover that a mech of his size could move so unobtrusively. Most assumed it was the product of a warrior's training in stealth; few recognized in his light step and contained presence a habit of courtesy ingrained by long service in the Iacon Hall of Records, where the concentration of a scholar or a fellow archivist was not lightly interrupted.

( Read more... )

Diane Duane shows us all how not to behave in the presence of a Plot Bunny here. Heed the warning! Take heed!

Title: Sketch: Falsely True
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Ratchet
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1300
Warnings: Major spoilers for season 3, episode 11, "Persuasion"
A/N: This sketch came into being five minutes after I finished watching "Persuasion" and I have hastened to edit and post it because I am certain the scenario it depicts — an unsupervised Ratchet — will be jossed by "Synthesis." One character alone in a room with his thoughts is a difficult recipe for drama; plus, no writer worth his or her salt would pass up the opportunity for a snark-off between Jeffrey Coombs and Steve Blum or Daran Norris. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with free upgrades.
Dedication: For Eric and Mark and Kevin and Charlie, from whom I learned just enough to fake my way through a conversation (or a story) about computing.

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For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?
— Mark 8:36 (NASB)
          Ratchet has to admit that the wages of collaboration are excellent. He hasn't worked in a lab this well-equipped since he left the Ark and never in such ... splendid isolation. His every act is monitored, of course, and the guards stationed in the corridor have orders to offline him if he so much as pokes a digit outside, but otherwise the Decepticons do not trespass upon his solitude. Megatron is nothing if not shrewd: Starscream would be hovering at Ratchet's elbow to gloat over his defection, but the Lord of the Decepticons withdrew rather than rub corrosive into the wound. No doubt he will return if positive results are too long delayed, but for now Ratchet has no one to defy and nothing external to resist. The only way to keep his processor from implementing an endless loop of self-recrimination is to lose himself in the project before him.

( Read more... )

Title: Mere Mechanic Art
Fandom: Transformers Prime
Character(s): Jack, Miko, Ultra Magnus; mentions of Raf, Bulkhead and Optimus Prime
Pairing(s): None
Rating: G
Word Count: 2195
Warnings: Spoilers for season 3 through episode 6, "Chain of Command"
A/N: Off the joke about Agent Fowler's communications style in "Project Predacon," I commissioned this picture from the artist, Amber_Dawn. That picture then inspired this story, though the sketch described herein in no way resembles the original. Amber_Dawn draws much more skilfully than Miko, trust me. Crossposted to transficsation. Concrit welcomed with a groundbridge day pass.
Dedication: For Amber_Dawn, of course, with many thanks!

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Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
-- Robert Burns, "Ae Fond Kiss"

I hate being the homefront.
-- Foxbear, Dying Embers

It was quiet. Too quiet.

( Read more... )

Things are still rotten here: the downstairs landlord, having installed the best filter Home Depot can supply on his furnace [HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER], refuses to do anything else, says I should negotiate with the smoking tenant [MORE HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER], and declares his readiness to rent to smoking tenants in future [OKAY, I'M CRYING NOW]. I've had another talk with my HVAC company and finally got a tech to come out and actually look at the situation under the guise of writing me an estimate for a solution I was pretty sure wasn't going to work. He agreed and suggested a cheaper alternative that probably won't solve the problem, but might go a little way toward mitigating it. I think I have no choice but to sell and move now, but I'm going to try to stick it out till next fall when the current tenant's lease expires, in the hope that a) he might leave; and b) a nonsmoker might move in after all. Who's the patron saint of good neighbors?

That said, I'm still enjoying How To Train Your Dragon and ponied up for an iTunes subscription to Dragons: Riders of Berk which is less complex but cheerful and charming (and, for a weekly cartoon, surprisingly well-animated; Green Lantern should take note, except they've been cancelled, boo hiss). "Fifteen Kennings For 'Woman'," my Astrid-centric drabble sequence, is fourteen-fifteenths drafted and seven-fifteenths posted up to FF.net and AO3, where people seem to like it. Yay! Also, Hotel 13 came off winter break this week, which means only one more week until I get to see what comes of the cliffhanger from which our heroes were left dangling back in December. From the promotional stuff, it looks like this is going to be a fun ride.

And I, too, fear this is only the beginning ...

I think it's done snowing; looks like a couple of inches of accumulation. The plows are already clearing the parking lot, so I may have no excuse not to go to the gym tomorrow morning, dagnabit.

Also, I uploaded "Cry Havoc" to FF.net two hours ago and already over twenty people have read it. I have stories in other fandoms that twenty people haven't read yet. Clearly How To Train Your Dragon is a big deal ...

Title: New-Made Honor
Fandom: Leviathan series
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Alek/Deryn, Bovril
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1550
Warnings: Set post-Goliath, with all the spoilage that implies.
A/N: Since I have to struggle to read German handwriting at work, I thought I might as well make Alek struggle to master Roman script as part of his assimilation into British society. I originally conceived this piece as a drabble, but it was simply impossible to prevent Deryn and Bovril from expressing their opinions on the process, too. Concrit welcomed with a calligraphed note of thanks.
Dedication: This is for Noël, who borrowed $30 from me to purchase the entire series at once. Good taste is its own reward.

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      The gaslights in their brackets cast a warm glow over the secondhand oak escritoire – natural oak, not fabricated, a tactful flat-warming gift from the Head Keeper of the London Zoo to a pair of Austrian immigrants with whom she expected to enjoy (as the accompanying note had explained) a copious and fruitful correspondence. ( Read more... )

Saturday's Word Count:

1266 (first draft of an untitled novella in the "House of Anubis" fandom)

Sample Text:

( Read more... )

Wow! The last line of the sample text is where I thought I'd stop, at the end of part one, but then part two rolled out ahead of me so fluidly I could barely keep up. I stopped only to watch the U.S. Olympic gymnastic trials. :-) I won't have much time to write today, but if I keep hearing everyone's voices so vividly, I might get a fair amount drafted again. And then it's back to work tomorrow, sigh ...