#(I actually managed to rescue the pages of the RP he was a part of on the original MSPAForums and he was a Seer of Frost XD)

[fdragon-art]

Day 51 (30 Days | Homestuck - Day 29) - Fantrolls/Fankids time! ("Made of Rage (WIP)")

"The Mage of Rage can be especially volatile. Even while knowing their rage so fully, they're still unable to truly stop it. Handled well, and they may tear a path through enemies as easy as a knife through grub sauce.

Handled poorly? Well...let's not dwell about that, shall we?"

[queens-nightmare]

Writing is an interesting process. Sometimes you manage to write something on the first try and besides maybe a few adjustments, it's pretty much the final draft. And then sometimes you write something that doesn't fit (anymore after a while), so you have to scrap it.

I was talking to some friends on some RP server about my writing and told them how Step 24 was rewritten into 4 new steps (which pushed the steps after that back). It was a mess because rewriting them meant I had to rewrite the steps coming after the pushed steps.

...This might sound confusing, let me draw something quickly, lol

Quick info: Step 24 was the original end of what I call "The third floor (mini) arc". But with the rewriting, Step 27 became the actual ending.

Okay, and how was the stuff rewritten? :) Let's look at the scrapped Step 24 for this (under the cut. Also long post)

Read it? Good.

When I write stuff, I have a problem with exposition. I love giving it, and explaining stuff so that hopefully everyone understands what I try to convey. Probably comes from the fact that I have a harder time understanding subtext often, so this gets mirrored in my own writing ^^;

The panel with Snatcher explaining #76's backstory was a response to an ask I got ages ago. Which... in retrospect wasn't a good move on my part. I shoehorned it in, so that I could answer something about this Minion. And just, the whole page feels just "a speedrun of clearing the problem between Snatcher and Moonjumper."

No.

No, no, no, no! Snatcher had gotten a burst of uncontrollable emotions after learning that the letters from his family are still intact. He wouldn't be this calm menace who just tells Moonjumper his reasoning. Even it maybe could make sense that Snatcher is calm about it because, well, it's been 300 years, and he probably got calm about his own death and everything surrounding it...

But on the other hand, everyone and everything in Subcon must be in a more emotional and irrational state currently, because it's been only like 2 - 3 weeks since Vanessa was rescued and it's been only a day since Moonjumper appeared.

There is tension in the air.

======

So, with scrapping this calm conclusion to the "third floor arc", I wanted these steps to be an emotional rollercoaster between the characters. After all, Snatcher as quite a lot of bottled up emotions, and so does Vanessa too.

After making Snatcher and Moonjumper have an actual physical fight, and also making it as long as it felt natural for Snatcher wanting to get that steam out of his system, I wanted to give Vanessa a little bit of an emotional spotlight too.

But there were two options how to go about it in Step 26.

In the scrapped version, Vanessa is delusional about it. She doesn't want to believe that the issue of the freezing isn't just easily talked out with some snacks and tea. So, she, as a naive young woman who was friends with a dream being for 10 years, thinks during the fight between her "BFs" (Best friend and (former) boyfriend) that all this must be a bad dream.

Right? She probably is just dreaming all this and Moonjumper here could change it to a good ending, where everyone gets along. But this isn't a dream, this is reality and so Snatcher has to swoop in and bring her to her senses.

However, I felt that this version took something away from Vanessa, which is something that is important to all this:

Vanessa is selfish.

She is selfish for wanting that Snatcher just accepts Moonjumper and gets along with him. And also getting potentially back into a relationship with her since she was trapped for 300 years in her mind, so she technically is still the Vanessa right before the freezing (plus like 2 weeks of slowly adjusting to the new Subcon).

But Snatcher wasn't. He had a mindful journey of 300 years of experiences that changed him. He is Snatcher now, not that naive young man anymore named Phoenix Burnbright.

So, to give the hint for this, I shifted the text so that Vanessa is aware of how selfish she is. And Snatcher knows this too because he uses Moonjumper to stop Vanessa from turning the room into a fridge.

Not himself, or the Subconites, or anything else. He chose Moonjumper to stop this as quickly as possible. Oh and of course, Snatcher acknowledges that it technically makes sense from Vanessa's POV to have these wishes.

Who wouldn't wish that everything can be solved that easily?

Wait, I just realize that Vanessa isn't as delusional about life as you maybe think now. It's true that she probably has a false sense of real life because of Moonjumper allowing her to have beautiful dreams each night, but she also had to dance around her mother Elizabeth for 10 years, so she knows not everything can be just solved with the snap of a finger.

Also unbeknownst to Elizabeth, she technically prepared her daughter for the harsh would of the nobles, lmao. Y'know, putting on a mask around other people to keep your real thoughts a secret.

But yeah, Vanessa isn't screaming for Moonjumper to stop this bad dream but instead states very clearly that "If you [Snatcher] can have an emotional outburst, that I should be allowed to have one too."

And so I shifted it to exactly this. At least I think I did. I know my writing, but it always depends on the readers if the author managed to get their point across.

Thanks for reading, hope my text wasn't a tangled mess :'D

[ansgar-martinsson]

The Best Intentions - Ansgar/Joline Part 1

((A/N - I’ll be reposting parts of this RP with @theothercourse every few days. Revisited it and I enjoyed re-reading it. Hope you do too. Lots of *ahem* in this RP, but that’s par for the course with Ansgar. Plot, too. :) Enjoy and if you like it let @theothercourse know!))

The Best Intentions

Part One

“Mamma, are you sure I can take the car?” Joline bellowed through the craftsman style home that she shared with her mother. She scoffed at the trainers she’d just laced upon her feet and toed out of them again. “I can take my bike.”

The older Lindberg woman sauntered through and handed her daughter a proper pair of pumps. “Wear these. They’re smarter.”

Jo folded at the waist to slip on the new pair heels, hopping on one foot when one shoe refused to cooperate. “You sure about the car?”

“Take it. I’ll ring up Elias to take me to my treatment.” She reached out and caressed her daughter’s hair. “Knock ‘em out today, yeah? Go do justice!”

“I will, mamma.”

“You work too much.”

“So you tell me,” she leaned and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Thanks for the ride. Call my mobile later, yeah? Tell me how it went today.”

Emelie Lindberg nearly pushed her daughter out the front door. “Go. Before I go for you.”

*~*~*~*~

Joline unfolded herself from her mother’s borrowed Mini Cooper and stepped onto the distinguished carpark of @martinssonconstruction. Her knees protested the confines of the stupidly small car. She glared up at the glittering tower feeling under dressed to be standing in the carpark, let alone entering. And she dressed for the occasion, a freshly pressed purple button down blouse over a denim skirt and the Louboutin heels her mother burgled from only she knew where.

The late summer sun beat down, an oppressive heat that made it difficult to breathe. She could feel her natural blonde hair thrashing against her black dye job, fighting to get free of its prison.

Dipping back into the car, she fetched her clipboard of work permits, purchase orders, requisitions and recent estimates for repairs at the Stockholm Opera House. Despite her wounded pride, she also included some of the letters addressed to her of where she failed. Each pointed out just where attention was required in her house. The house manager could do only so much without owner intervention.

Joline rolled her shoulders back, pushed her reading glasses into place high on her nose and marched a steady pace across the carpark. She flung open the glass door and clicked her heels on the marble floor from the front door to the reception desk. Two administrative assistants answered an influx of ringing telephones.

‘Martinsson Construction, won’t you hold please?’ repeated over and over for the onslaught of calls.

After signing her name in the guestbook, notably three pages long for the 28th of July already, Joline stood before the receptionists to ask (insist) that she see Froken Wiessing immediately. But the phone calls didn’t stop…

Against her better judgement, after waiting an exorbitant amount of time, she marched into the President Office. “Froken Wiessing, please forgive the rude and unannounced intrusion, but I must insist. Its imperative that we go over these repairs. The sprinklers in the rehearsal room have been going off at random and the director… is… not… happy.”

She slowed her speech as she realized that her eyes didn’t deceive her. Froken Wiessing and all her family portraits and certificates of accomplishment had been replaced by someone quite different. “You’re not Froken Wiessing.”

The floor didn’t swallow her up.

How she wished it had.

Typically, Ansgar Martinsson hated virtual press conferences. Hated them with a passion. Despised them. Loathed them. Wished the person who had come up with the very innane and fucking stupid idea would have his skin sloughed off in the depths of hellfire and be hoisted upon a pike to rot for eternity.

He much preferred the in-person version. Much preferred speaking his mind, standing on a stage in front of an audience, interacting. He loved charming the shit out of the reporters in the room; both the females who wanted to fuck him and the males who wanted to be him… or in some cases, yeah… to fuck him.

But that time, Ansgar actually relished answering the press’ questions within the solitude of his office, enjoyed being able to shut his door and hide behind his computer screen, where he could take his time, where he could engage his slightly sluggish brain before his motor-mouth. He appreciated his PR VP’s insight into his strangely fragile psyche in that moment. He’d even given Janetta the indulgence of a “thanks,” a handshake, and a “nice job,” when he’d learned she’d arranged for the press conference to be a virtual one instead of a live one.

“It’s okay,” Janetta had said, shrugging. “You need time, Sgar. I get it. I got your back.”

***

… But apparently his receptionist did not have his back. Judging from the way the intruder was ranting, there would be no appreciative “thanks” or “nice job” in the cards for Britta. Just the opposite. Quite the opposite.

“What the fuck?” Ansgar stood quickly, and almost by reflex, wrenched his top right-hand drawer open. His fingers twitched as they hovered over the pearl handle of his Ruger Blackhawk within, ready to snatch it up and shoot - defend himself if need be. “Who are you, and how did you get into my office?”

“Oh, uh… hi,” Jo intoned absently while flipping through her overloaded clipboard, sifting through document after document to search for… well, hell, she didn’t know what. Anything.

“Yeah, I… uh, I used the door.” She indicated with a tip of her head in the general direction of said entry way to explain her appearance.

No sense of humor, noted.

The man growled and gnashed his teeth at her, his jaw rippling with the effort. If he could spit fire, she sure as shit would be singed.

Maybe all the way burned.

Third degree burns by the heat and intensity of the glare from the lion of a man. Then he flared his nostrils, and she wondered if he could in fact breathe fire.

Jo tapped her foot on the marble floor to check her escape route. Only solid.

Damnit! Hard unforgiving marble. Her rescue chasm must be on holiday. No black hole to whisk her away from the wrong place, wrong time, and wrong person.

But she wouldn’t wither, she wouldn’t retreat, she wouldn’t show weakness. The theatre needed her, her performers needed her, her season subscribers, her box office staff, her technical designers.

Could she lie about her identity? Should she? She tried to remember how much she’d gotten through of her rehearsed speech that she wrote in her head during the nearly hour long wait by reception.

Maybe she’d just ignore that bit.

“Yeah, uh… I… this is a matter for Wiessing. I’m here for that.” She clasped her Opera House work file between her palms, holding it up as proof. “May I see her? Please?”

The lion in a suit worth more than her house pressed his hands into the massive desk and dropped his head to his chest. Summoning fire or just breathing, Jo couldn’t tell for sure. But when he lifted his head again at her, he held a broody confused smolder.

A resignation?  A surrender?

Then it was gone again, an exasperated sigh escaped him. The incredulous annoyance returned, his impatience driving off him in a steady current.

Thank Heavens! No fire. No sunburn or heat blisters.

Jo raked her hand through her pin straight hair. “I waited. Out there. For an hour, but I’ve been waiting since February for a meeting. With her, with Wiessing. I’ve got a new season starting in September, companies that need a proper and functional rehearsal space, season ticket holders threatening to pull their patronage if they’re not entirely satisfied, and a sprinkler system that goes off without warning.”

Pressing her luck, she stated, “That’s who the fuck I am.”

Companies… rehearsal space… ticket holders… patronage….

Sprinkler system…

I waited for an hour…

Waiting since February…

If Ansgar was angry at this… this… girl… this girl in obviously borrowed Louboutins intruding into his private office, he’d suddenly and swiftly become furious at her words, and the implications thereof.

He lifted a hand, silencing the tirade he saw coming in the massive inhale of her breath. “Wait, let me understand you,” he said, preternaturally calmly, his eyes narrowing. “Are you telling me you are a representative of the Stockholm Opera House?”

“Yes,” she said, her breath huffing out through her nose.

“And are you telling me that the sprinkler system in the building is… faulty?” He cocked his head. “Do I have that right so far?”

“Yes,” she answered, “and the Prima Donna is….”

“I don’t care about the Prima Donna,” Ansgar barked. And then, after a calming breath, he continued, the words pushed out through grit teeth. “What I do care about is that you represent one of my largest customers, and that customer is dissatisfied.”

“Not so much dissatisfied, but…”

He cut her off again. “And not only that but you have been, quite rudely I might add, made to wait since… since how long?” He squinted, cocking his head as he strode out from behind the desk.

“Um, February.”

He nodded in annoyance. “February,” he repeated. “Your building has had a leaking sprinkler system since February.”

The young woman before him shrugged, her lips pressed together in a resigned moue. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s not just leaking, it’s… it’s going off whenever, getting everyone wet, ruining set pieces.”

“I see,” he said, his own lips twisting into an expression not unlike hers. He nodded again, an irritated, whispery chuckle burbling up through his nostrils. He pushed off the edge of the desk, and turned one of the guest chairs around. “Please, sit,” he gestured. “I do believe we need to discuss how I can make this right.”

And then, he held out his hand, a broad smile brightening his face. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Ansgar Martinsson. I am the CEO of this company.”

“Joline. Joline Lindberg,” she introduced herself wearily, accepting and shaking his hand. She smiled weakly when his didn’t quite reach his eyes. “House manager,” she stated, “Stockholm Opera House.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said automatically, but not entirely sincere in the delivery.

She quipped, “Charmed, I’m sure.” She kept it to herself, under her breath. Jokes landed on executive types as well as water to a flame. A lot of hissing.

She waited. She waited for the usual faux impressed high-pitched, ‘Fancy title for a woman.’ 'How did you get that job?’ Or something as equally as vile. But it didn’t come. Instead she got a solid, “I’m positive we can sort this.”

Okay, so Ansgar Martinsson wasn’t that type of man. From the superior attitude that drafted her way from her intrusion, she assumed male dominance, but no. His was a general arrogance, believing others capable (man or woman), just not as capable as he. She could live with that. Possibly work with that.

Jo hugged the portfolio of problems to her chest as she situated herself to the guest chair. Soothing her denim skirt down for the sake of modesty and decorum, she perched herself on the edge of the seat in anticipation. She flattened the stack of documents in her lap, squeezing her thighs together. She adjusted her thin-rimmed glasses and breathed.

“Your predecessor…” Ansgar began confidently taking another seat opposite her.

“Steffan,” she reminded when he hesitated.

“Ah, yes… Steffan. Forgive me, I’ve been away,” he almost dismissed out of hand, but his eyes gave him away.

“I met with him,” the CEO explained, “a number of times, in regards to–”

“–Restorations!” Jo blurted out suddenly, interrupting them and taking them both by surprise. Her face lit up like a spotlight on the Prima Donna performing her eleven o'clock number.

His name. Ansgar Martinsson. She recognized it from her files, some of the early ones when she inherited the job as manager. A delayed response, but her mind had been running it over and over again as familiar for another reason than the obvious founder of Martinsson Construction.

She muttered, “Sorry. Sorry. I’m so– it just came to me.” She rifled through the files, her fingers walking deeper and deeper into the stack, her back curling forward. “Sorry… I know it’s just here. Somewhere.”

With a ‘aha’, she finally produced at least one of the documents left to her. ‘For the future,’ her colleague had told her. “Plans for the small theatre in the south wing. You’re mentioned, and there are some estimated costs. I’m sorry… I just recognized your name.”

“That’s quite all right. I strive to make my name memorable.” A glint of mischievous joy brightened his features, so much that he almost looked like a young boy.

“I don’t want to ruffle feathers or step on toes or point fingers at anyone,” she admitted softly. “i took over this job from Steffan six months ago. I only want to do what’s best for the theatre but I’m afraid I can’t do it alone. Wiessing kept promising help. ‘Soon,’ she’d say. She was swamped filling your shoes, there simply wasn’t enough of her to go around. So… i guess my plea is, may I have her back please before anyone else gets soggy in my house?”