#eponymous fic 2019

[eponymous-rose]

Fic: Prank War (Jester, M9 | 2000 words)

(Written for @lumateranlibrarian‘s prompt!)

Prank War

Someone's been pranking the Nein, with surprising effectiveness. Someone who isn't Jester.

It's not that she's jealous or anything. It just seems like this is the kind of thing they could be working on together, and anyway, why wouldn't this someone come to her for advice?

One thing's for sure: whoever they are, they've crossed the wrong detective.

“You’re a fantastic detective,” Nott says, which is both super unhelpful and super true. “You’ll figure it out,” she adds, which is still unhelpful, but definitely more of a ‘maybe’ on the truth scale.

Jester scratches her chin, staring at the perfectly placed bird’s nest teetering alarmingly on the top of Caduceus’ head. “And you’re sure you didn’t put it up there yourself?”

He blinks. “Well, no, I didn’t. I feel like I’d remember something like that. I just fell asleep leaning against a tree, and when I woke up, here it was.” He glances up, half-crosseyed, at the nest and its three perfectly pink eggs. “Sorry, guys.”

“How about let’s put the bird’s nest back in the tree where it belongs,” Fjord says, and Jester turns to squint at him suspiciously. He stares back, and the exasperation in his eyes seems pretty innocent, really. Another dead end.

“It’s evidence,” Nott points out.

“Definitely evidence.” But the image floats to Jester’s mind, unbidden, of a momma bird frantic with worry... “But no. Put it back, I guess.”

Beau marches over, snatches the nest from Caduceus’ head, and leaps up to hook one arm over the lowest branch of the big tree overhead. “I’m honestly not convinced this isn’t some sort of longer scam you’re running,” she calls, nonchalantly balancing on the end of a narrow-looking branch and bending to place the nest in a safer locale.

“The Traveler works in mysterious ways,” Caleb murmurs behind her.

Jester heaves a sigh, moving up to offer Beau a hand down from the last branch. “I wish, you guys! This is good stuff! I just don’t understand why someone keeps doing all this cool stuff without telling me! The dick-shaped scuffs on the cave wall. The little tunnel dug around our campsite that filled up with water overnight and turned into a moat. The thing with Nott’s flask--”

“We don’t talk about the thing with Nott’s flask,” Nott says, primly.

“I’m saying, the Traveler loves this!”

Beau shrugs. “So why not ask the Traveler?”

Jester flings her arms up, then flops back into the grass with a groan. “He just laughs when I ask him!” Even now, she feels the warmth of someone else’s amusement running up and down her spine. It’s really irritating, and she kind of hates that it bothers her so much.

Nott has been tapping one finger against her lips, thoughtfully. “Hey. Hey, what if we did, like, a proper interrogation? Just sat down and went through each candidate, one by one?”

Jester props herself up on her elbows. “Could we do that?”

“We are on a bit of a timetable--” Caleb says.

Beau snorts. “Gotta be honest, that sounds fuckin’ hilarious. I’m in.”

“Our pay is time-sensitive--”

Fjord folds his arms. “Only if Nott gets interrogated as well. I don’t trust her in this as far as I can throw her.”

“The farmer was rather insistent that--”

Nott actually sticks out her tongue. “You can’t throw me at all.”

“Listen, if we--”

Fjord straightens, grinning. “That was the idea, yes. That’s how little I trust you.”

“Maybe we should--”

“I accept the premise of this self-burn but not its result.” Nott turns to Jester. “I’ll submit to your draconian questioning, if only to clear my good name!”

“I don’t think--”

Jester claps her hands. “Perfect! Let’s settle down here and set up an interrogation room. Caleb, can you make some really bright light I can shine in people’s eyes?”

Caleb winds down, fumbling over the last of his protests. “Okay,” he says. “So this is happening.”

---

Caleb sits with surprising good grace, given his earlier protests, and blinks politely at her while she tries to figure out the best way forward. “Do you--” she starts, then scowls. “Aw man, the sun came out. Can you make the light brighter?”

“Ah, sort of?” He waggles his fingers a moment, and the light behind Jester flickers. “Better?”

She glares at him; belatedly, he puts on an exaggerated squint, as though staring into a blinding light. “It’ll do,” she says, and decides to try to put him off-balance. “Why did you draw dicks around the campsite?”

“I didn’t,” he says.

She pauses, but a great interrogator never gets sidetracked by such small things as inconvenient facts. “Well, what about the moat around the campfire?”

“Not me, either.”

“Oh.” She tries another glare, but he only squints back. “Okay, Widogast. You win this round. But we might have more questions for you. Don’t leave town.”

He says, “I wouldn’t dream of it,” and Jester decides not to comment on the unnerving sincerity in his words.

---

“You may be wondering why I’ve brought you here today.” Jester leans in, her shadow eclipsing Caleb’s little bobbing light in what she hopes is a properly ominous manner.

Beau yawns. “Not really, no. You... you kind of spelled it all out.”

“I always knew you were clever,” Jester says, pacing slowly, stroking an imagined beard. “But are you--” She whips around. “--too clever?!”

Beau shrugs. “Honestly, I’d rather be an accessory after the fact than the main perpetrator.”

Jester deflates. “Oh.”

Another shrug, this one vaguely apologetic. “Almost as much fun, but a shorter prison sentence. You know how it goes.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry. But if you find who did all this without you, I’ll beat ‘em up for you. With you, if you like.”

Jester considers this generous offer. “I mean, I think it’s probably going to be one of our friends, Beau.”

Beau cracks her knuckles, grinning, and Jester can’t help but smile back.

---

Caduceus sits down a little too eagerly, Jester thinks, grinning broadly, which isn’t the proper attitude for an interrogation at all. “Oh, this is interesting. Okay, I think I’m ready. What are you going to ask me?”

Jester raises a scolding finger. “I’ll be the one asking questions here!”

“Yes, I--” Caduceus scratches his beard. “Isn’t that what I said?”

“Another question! You just don’t learn.” Jester leans in. Caduceus leans back a little, politely giving her more space. “Did you or did you not conspire to scheme to plot a seditious conniving of treacherous, um. Treachery?”

He gives that one some thought. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.” He shifts. “This is awkward, but I’ve never done an interrogation like this before. Is that the right thing for me to say?”

“You’d probably protest your own innocence, then break down at the most dramatic possible moment. Probably.”

“Oh.” He gets a bit of a worried look on his face. “That sounds like a lot. I guess I could try?”

She glares a moment longer, then sighs. “I guess you wouldn’t put a bird’s nest on your own head.”

He brightens. “Oh, is that what this is about? No, that wasn’t me.”

Reaching for a properly interrogatory closing, Jester blurts, “But maybe sleep a little lighter and notice next time?”

“That seems fair.” He schools his features to a semblance of seriousness. “Can I go now, uh, copper?”

Jester claps her hands together. “Oh, you have been listening! You’re good at this, Caduceus!”

He beams. “Thanks.”

---

This one, Jester thinks, is going to be a tough nut to crack. Start cool. Cool and chill. No problem. “It’s no secret that you’re basically positioned to learn how to be a criminal mastermind, being half of the greatest detective agency of all time.”

Nott sneers. “The same could be said of you.”

“Where were you on the night of the...” Jester pauses, doing the math in her head. “The night of the other night?”

Nott makes a show of thinking it over, then springs to her feet. “But the same could be asked of you!”

Jester gasps, putting a hand to her chest. “You’re accusing me? Your own partner?”

From somewhere behind them, she hears Fjord muttering, “This is... such a good use of our time.”

“Though it breaks my heart to do it, I must! I must stand for justice!” Nott’s pose is straight out of a melodrama. Jester applauds briefly, then goes back to glowering in order to better represent her agony of the soul. “If I can’t trust you, and you can’t trust me, who can trust who?”

Jester blinks. “Wait, is it whom?”

“Whom?” Nott thinks about it for a second. “Youm.”

“Well, you know whom you can trust. Youm can trust? It’s me, Nott! I’m your partner!”

“Can I? Can I really? Or can we even trust... ourselves?”

“Okay,” Fjord says, marching between them and waving his hands. “Okay. Nott wouldn’t do this without roping you in, Jester, and we all know it. I’m up next.”

Wiping a single artful tear from her cheek, Jester sighs and steels herself for the next interrogation.

---

“No,” Fjord says. “For the third time, it wasn’t me doing the moat, or the dicks, or the nest, or the thing with Nott’s flask--”

A shrill voice, somewhere beyond the circle of interrogation. “We don’t talk about the thing with the flask!”

“Regardless, it wasn’t me. And you can cast Zone of Truth on me if you want proof.”

Jester blinks. “Oh. Right. That. Wow, that probably would’ve saved some time, huh?”

Fjord groans, rubbing at his face. “Can we just chalk this up to a mysterious and unexplained phenomenon and move on with our lives? Unless I wake up with my bootlaces all cut tomorrow morning, I’m not going to go around accusing our family of--” He pauses, like he wasn’t quite expecting that word to come out, then shrugs and keeps talking. “--of doing weird things for no particular reason. That’s pretty much all we do!”

Jester sighs defeat, watching as Caleb’s interro-globe vanishes from thin air. “Okay, okay. I just... I guess I just couldn’t figure out why someone would do cool stuff and not invite me.” And, more than anything, she kind of hates the way her voice goes weird and small at the end.

His exasperation softens, and he glances over her shoulder to where the others are watching. “Look, Jester, whatever this joker’s doing, they’re obviously building up to something big and ridiculous and fun, and that’s got your name all over it. I’d see it as an homage. A tribute. Would the Traveler set you up to be hurt by something like that if it didn’t have a good payoff?”

Jester inhales slowly, because professional interrogators emphatically do not sniffle. “No. He wouldn’t.”

“Well, there you go. We’ll see how it goes. Okay?”

With a heavy sigh, Jester lets the interrogator persona drop from her shoulders like an ill-fitting cloak. “Okay. Let’s get back to work.”

---

That night, though, Jester lies awake, watching the stars wheel overhead and thinking about what it feels like to be missing out on something big, to have to just know some big party’s out there somewhere and let it go on without knowing when or even if you’d get invited. She figures maybe that’s what Caduceus keeps talking about, faith and everything else. Maybe that’s the Traveler’s brand of faith: having to trust that someday you’ll get let in on the joke.

She thinks faith kind of sucks, sometimes.

With a sigh, she rolls onto her side, watching Frumpkin make his nightly rounds, hunting down mice and pouncing on leaves and doing the cat-stuff he does when Caleb’s asleep—which he is now, apparently, judging from the faint snoring over on his end of the campsite.

But... wait. She squints, taking in the scene, and feels a giant grin threatening to break across her face.

Across from her, Frumpkin is hunkered down over Fjord’s boots, industriously biting through the laces.

“No way,” she breathes, softly, and two eyes glowing with reflected firelight, and maybe a little fey light of their own, flash up to meet hers. Jester winks. One of the faint lights flickers out in response.

This time, the warmth of the Traveler’s laughter is a deep comfort that follows her into delighted dreams.

[neuxue]

first line meme

Tagged by: @curiosity-killed thank you!

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you  published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if  anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

Okay we’re going back literal years to get to 10 stories posted, because I have posted exactly one (1) fic since 2019, but.

1. It is not until cool fingers brush across his cheeks and gently lift his chin that he truly realises he has a body.  —  (show you all your) demons and desires and dark sides

2. She came to him in Tel’aran’rhiod, and Asmodean knew better than to ask if it was because she feared to face him in the waking world.  —  To the City, Lost and Forsaken

3. A world breathed in, and Holland dreamed.  —  Our Torments Become Our Elements

4. Arya sees it in the moment of the Night King's death, with winter shattering around her in glittering shards, in wind unleashed, and it floods her with realisation stronger than any relief.  —  Requiem in Fire (Prelude in Ice)

5. agony and darkness and the beckoning edges of oblivion shatter into wakefulness a world the same but broken a mountain rising once more into pain tearing at self at memory a void gaping into the endlessness of time he has no eyes he cannot look away awoken again to a world changed he whispers and trollocs flood south he whispers and none hear as he is silenced again by the veil of darkness he cannot embrace pain he wakes and whispers again and the others sleep oblivious as silence and endless sleep stretch before him but elude him and—  —  Awakenings

6. Once upon a time, two demons burned an empire to ash, that a world could be remade.  —  Eschatarch

7. The child stared into the heart of the flames that warmed him even as they drew from him, and in his burning he barely felt the hands that grasped his shoulders and lifted him away, away, away, as the fire faded into his eyes.  —  Eponymous

8. "You will do well, Rand."  —  Chapter 52: (Different) Choices

9. Always the dreams ended the same way, night after night.  —  Dreaming a Disaster

10. “Sunhair” they call her, the young Aes Sedai who turns her studies skyward.  —  Orbital Dynamics

As for patterns... I like repetition and prose that borders on the overwrought? I expected to say I don’t tend to name the character(s) in the first sentence but turns out that’s not actually backed up by statistics, so. I guess I also seem to like starting... less in media res in terms of action but definitely in the middle of some mental/emotional Situations or confusion.

tagging... I feel like a lot of you have done this one already but @redbelles @qi-ling @paradife-loft @mamsellefreeman and anyone else who wants to and has not been tagged yet!

[goldenavenger02]

Susz's Halloween Recommendations Part 1: Movies, specials and TV shows.

Movies/specials

Girl Vs. Monster (2012)

Skylar, a teenage girl who discovers on Halloween she's a fifth generation monster hunter. When Skylar accidentally releases some monsters from a containment chamber she must recapture them before they wreak vengeance on her parents.

Notes: I've been watching this since it came out and it's always been a favorite of mine! Has a great message about facing your fears and not letting them control you with the backdrop of monster hunting!

Halloweentown (1998)

When a young girl living with her good-witch grandmother learns she too is a witch, she must help her grandmother save Halloweentown from evil forces.

Notes: I watched this for the first time last year, and I was pleasantly surprised even as an 18 year old!

Hocus Pocus (1993)

A curious youngster moves to Salem, where he struggles to fit in before awakening a trio of diabolical witches that were executed in the 17th century.

Notes: another movie I watched last year, and so surprisingly dark for Disney, especially in the 90s.

The Haunted Mansion (2003)

A realtor and his wife and children are summoned to a mansion, which they soon discover is haunted, and while they attempt to escape, he learns an important lesson about the family he has neglected.

Notes: Eddie Murphy trying to keep his family safe in this haunted house? It's one of my favorites!

Scooby Doo (2002)

The Mystery Inc. gang have gone their separate ways and have been apart for two years, until they each receive an invitation to Spooky Island. Not knowing that the others have also been invited, they show up and discover an amusement park that affects young visitors in very strange ways. Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby soon realize that they cannot solve this mystery without help from each other.

Notes: this is a childhood movie of mine, and the sequel is so good as well. Definitely a good mix of spooky and fun!

Scooby Doo: The Mystery Begins (2009)

A made for TV movie about the origins of the Mystery Incorporated gang.

Notes: a high school/Disney Channel style movie with horror elements starring Robbie Ammel and Hayley Kiyoko. This one is one I've been watching since it came out and it's one of my favorites.

Coraline (2009)

An adventurous 11-year-old girl finds another world that is a strangely idealized version of her frustrating home, but it has sinister secrets.

Notes: watched this one last year and I absolutely adore it! It's so terrifying and I highly recommend.

The Boy (2016)

An American nanny is shocked that her new English family's boy is actually a life-sized doll. After she violates a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.

Notes: the movie is suspenseful the whole time, and the last 15 minutes are absolutely horrifying.

Flashback (2020)

After a chance encounter with a man forgotten from his youth, Fred literally and metaphorically journeys into his past.

Notes: I watched this psychological thriller a few months ago and it has it's scary elements, but it's really interesting to see the main character descend into madness and obsession due to something in his personal life.

Edge of Winter (2016)

When two brothers are stranded by a brutal winter storm with an unpredictable father they barely know, the boys begin to suspect their supposed protector may be their biggest threat.

Notes: pretty sure this movie was filmed around the same time Captain America: Civil War, so it's very young Tom Holland, but this is a movie he is so good in. Definitely makes you wonder just how far parents are willing to go.

Hubie Halloween (2020)

Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem (and its Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something is going bump in the night, and it's up to Hubie to save Halloween.

Notes: Don't take this one seriously and you're more likely to enjoy it. Definitely more of a comedy than anything scary. Adam Sandler is very polarizing but I enjoyed this.

Hotel Transylvania (2012)

Dracula, who operates a high-end resort away from the human world, goes into overprotective mode when a boy discovers the resort and falls for the count's teenaged daughter.

Notes: a family Halloween movie that really is just a fun time.

Ninjago: Day of the Departed (2016)

On the Ninjago holiday: Day of the Departed, the ninja remeber those who have departed.

Notes: Takes place in between season 6 and 7 and really explores grief as well as the concept of being forgotten. Obviously you have to watch the seasons before to understand this, but it's really interesting to watch for sure.

My Friend Dahmer (2017)

Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys in the Midwest United States between 1978 and 1991 before being captured and incarcerated. He would become one of America's most infamous serial killers. This is the story before that story.

Notes: a fascinating look into an infamous serial killer, both parts fiction and non fiction and suspenseful the whole time.

TV shows

Teen Wolf (2011-2017)

Scott becomes the eponymous teenage werewolf of the series after he is bitten by an alpha werewolf the night before his second year of high school, drastically changing his once-ordinary life.

Notes: one of my absolute favorite TV shows, and perfect for the Halloween season! Especially since the movie is coming out next year!

Only Murders in the Building (2021-)

Only Murders in the Building follows three strangers, played by Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, who share an obsession with a true crime podcast. After a murder in their building, the three neighbors decide to start their own show that covers their investigation of the murder.

Notes: Already fantastic and season 1 is still coming out on Hulu! The blend of comedy and horror is always one of my favorites!

Cruel Summer (2021-)

The series follows two teenage girls in the 1990s and the repercussions on everyone's lives after one disappears and the other seemingly takes her place.

Notes: this has huge triggers for domestic violence, grooming and sexual assault. If you're not triggered by that, I HIGHLY recommend this, and I'm so excited for season 2! It also has some great LGBT+ rep!

Nancy Drew (2019-)

Nancy Drew (Kennedy McMann) is a brilliant teenaged detective whose sense of self had come from solving mysteries in her hometown of Horseshoe Bay, Maine – until her mother’s untimely death derails Nancy’s college plans.

Notes: I've been watching this since it came out and season 3 is about to start airing! The first season is so wonderful and full of twists and turns (season 2 isn't as good, but it's the CW) and I highly recommend!

Ninjago Season 5, Possession (2015)

The spirit of the evil Morro is released from the cursed realm and the Ninjas have to unite in the battle against an evil foe.

Notes: one of my favorite seasons of the show, and definitely one of the darkest ones! Deals with grief, depression and high expectations and it's so good!

Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013)

Scooby-Doo and the gang attempt to solve creepy mysteries in the town of Crystal Cove, a place with a history of eerie supernatural events.

Notes: this starts off similar to the original Scooby Doo show from the early 70's, but as the overarching plot gets deeper and deeper, you really spend your time just wondering "what the heck is going on".

I'm not going to put specific episodes of TV shows on here, because that'll get daunting, but part 2 is books and fics!

[my-little-yellowbird]

I was tagged by @gabolange (months ago!!) to do the one-shot fic writer meme, and why not!                                                        

list your five longest one-shot fics on AO3 (not chaptered works or series) with the word count, fandom, year, and comments/kudos/bookmarks. one-shots are the short stories to fandom’s books and a distinctly different process in my experience.

OK, so here’s the thing.  I’ve written over 120 Call the Midwife fics on My-Little-Yellowbird.com, most of them multi-chapter.. Only 8 are posted on ao3 and 30 or so CtM fics are on ff.net--it’s where I got my start.  I’ve always felt funny cross-posting my fics to different platforms, but that’s silly.  Writers that get paid to write don’t hesitate to promote their own stuff. Why shouldn’t fic writers??  I mean, we do this for FREE.  If a reader sees my stuff they can always scroll past.  the best person to promote your stuff is you. So maybe one day I’ll post them all to both fan sites.

Oh, and aside from a ridiculous there’s-only-one-bed-but-the-floor-is-made-of-lava Blake fic and a silly shout-out to Mary Poppins, it’s all Call the Midwife.

1. Dearest Friend -- 3,252 words, Turnadette, 2014, original publication 2017 on ao3. 32 kudos, 3 comments, 3 bookmarks.  This is an early tale written during the hiatus after s3.  I love eponymous stories, and we all have imaginings of what Patrick wrote to Shelagh during those long months in the sanatorium.  My head canon is built on the idea that both Sister Bernadette and Patrick adhered to a strict honor code.  Patrick would never put Sister Bernadette in the position where she would be asked to renounce her vows.   I will admit to almost having him push the envelope a bit, if you’ll excuse the pun, in a hidden letter.  In the end, I worked very not to say too much, or not enough.

2. His Safety Net -- 2242 words, Turnadette, 2015 - 33 kudos - 6 comments - 3 bookmarks. 2015 original pub, 2017 ao3.  When asked about my favorite fics, this one always comes to mind.  Again, so much of what makes the Shelagh / Patrick relationship work is their ability to say so much with so few words.  I wanted to get that across with physical gestures that speak to their level of emotional intimacy.  I also wanted to deal with the idea of commitment.  They’ve just weathered another storm partly brought about by the fact that while they do communicate, there are still secrets between them.  Has Patrick learned to trust her?  Will he ever?  In the end, it doesn’t matter, because they are bound together by more than romance.

3. How the Brownies Saved Christmas -- 1986 words, Turnadette 11 kudos - 3 comments - 0 bookmarks. 2018,  This one might have been a bit passive aggressive.  The holiday season is ridiculously stressfull for mothers of young kids (I blame Martha Stewart and Pinterest). This is one of my complaints about Shelagh, as well. W never really see HOW SHE DOES IT.  So I gave her helpers. 

4. Losing Her Breath --1,514 words, Sister Bernadette, 2009 (orig pub) - 14 kudos - 3 comments - 0 bookmarks). 2017.  Breathing is a thread through Turnadette (I know that sounds dumb, but bear with me).  TB, polio, smoking are all obviously big ticket items, but many of the most wonderful Turnadette moments have no words.  We just feel them breathe each other.  So I used the idea for this fic, set during the time when they were just starting.  Sister Bernadette is indeed losing her breath, as the TB is already growing within her, just as Patrick takes her breath away.

5. A Moment’s Peace -- 7,464 words, Turnadette 2019, 1 kudos - 18 comments, 1 bookmark. 2019  This was my first “commuter fic,” written onboard the train to Grand Central. My new job was pretty miserable, and the four hours on the train every day were near unbearable.   My betas gently encouraged me to try and redirect my new anxieties into classic Turnadette.  Hence--a coffee shop fic!

Funny thing is, I’m sure there are newer Nonnatuns that are just now learning that I have ever written a fic. I wrote most of my stuff before I went back to work, and all the kids were in school all day. Believe me, I’m trying!

[guylty]

A little bit late today, as I am just back from what I like to call “doing the Armitage”.

Sadly, without eponymous Armitage there, of course. I was recording some German language exam practice dialogues. I do this every year, and it is great fun. However, it also always brings home to me, how difficult it must be two narrate an entire book. It sounds easy – you sit in a box, microphone in front of you, reading from a page. But it actually requires a lot of concentration: In order to read consistently, you have to be constantly aware of your speed and your enunciation. There is someone on the other side of the window who will stop you if you make a mistake, and then you repeat the sentence where you got muddled. But the aim is always to read as naturally as possible, and to do so without making mistakes that require a rewind. The most difficult thing, actually, is minimising all background noises. Moving the pages is one thing, but with 3,000 Euro microphones that pick up even the slightest growl of your stomach, you have to be quite still while you are reading. I can imagine that that must be extra hard for an actor like RA, who is *performing* rather than just monotonously reading a text. Yet, when you move your arms, you can sometimes hear the rustle of your clothes! Hence it became clear to me why RA always dresses casually (in jumpers and the like) when recording – and taking his shoes off. The big biker boots I was wearing today, occasionally creaked under the table when I moved my legs, that’s the extent of the noise sensitivity. – In any case, once you get into the flow, and the sentences smoothly fall from your lips, you really feel a rush of satisfaction. 62 pages of dialogue took us 5 hours today. And now think of Armitage, recording a massive tome of Dickens for an audio book… Impressive, I can only say. I do hope he is paid handsomely for his work. He really is a masterful audio performer, a skill that is very precious!

But now on to the round-up.

I always have to snort a little bit when I see Richard using his middle finger to point or push up glasses. Here’s an old picture from a vlog by Sir Peter Jackson, posted by fizzyxcustard

Anybody heard of The Lunar Chronicles mentioned by invisiblegirl-00

This is what my daughter could be saying about me. Post by loracarol

Oooh, I love the illustration that goes with deepestfirefun’s fan fic. You might want to look into the fic, too. (I haven’t read it, though)

A sweet Bagginshield fan art by sodasacd

Scroll down to see a nice Thorin gif made by ladybugg1235

Hm, have we had this piece of fan art by thewarriorandtheking yet? 

And UNF, this is even more… eh… evocative. Also by thewarriorandtheking

Twinkle, twinkle, little star… another edit by ladybugg1235

Pragnificent writes about Dolarhyde’s and Reba’s approach to their love/relationship

Catching up on a few What a Guy Wants by nfcomics

And here’s another funny What a Guy Wants by nfcomics

Sorry, a short one. But in the spirit of the day, I’ll leave you with a little collage.

Have a nice weekend,

Guylty ❤

Armitage Weekly Round-up 2019/34 A little bit late today, as I am just back from what I like to call "doing the Armitage".

[pillarspromptsweekly]

Prompt #0077: January 28, 2019

[Inspired by meeting archmages in The Forgotten Sanctum DLC, but this prompt is not really particularly spoilery and can work with PoE1 or PoE2 timelines.]

In the Forgotten Sanctum we learn from the archmages we meet that scribing a new spell is, essentially, what it takes to hit that rank and be declared master of your craft. Wouldn’t it be something to see your Watcher’s name – if they are a wizard – attached to a spell making the rounds of Eora’s students of magic? Or Aloth’s? Or Fassina’s, or Maia’s, if she’s a Geomancer multiclass? Write a story of one of the game’s wizards – your Watcher, or another OC, or a companion or NPC, anyone who’s studied the art of the grimoire – striving to create their own eponymous spell. What would this spell do? What will the wizard call it? What circumstances lead to its invention? Does this wizard succeed in developing their new spell, or if not, what do they learn from (and what are the consequences of) their failure? If they succeed, how does the Circle of Archmagi react?

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[eponymous-rose]

Fic: After Hours [Jester, Beau | T | 1200 words]

[FFN | AO3 | 2018 Fic | 2017 Fic] 

Jester visits a temple and engages in a little artistic liberty. Beau's just along for the ride.

Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.

After Hours

Beau sighs. "Remind me how I got dragged into this?"

Jester shushes her. Loudly. "Because you're a very good friend and roommate who is always very helpful."

"Because I've got official-looking Cobalt Soul robes in case we get caught," Beau translates. "Hang on, asshole walking by in a second here."

Jester freezes in place, the soft scraping of dagger against stone coming to a ragged stop, until Beau finally looks back at her to nod the all-clear. Jester resumes her efforts, her tongue poking between her teeth in concentration. "But you definitely mainly came because you think I'm super beautiful and clever and wonderful to be around."

"Yup. That too." So much of what Beau says is sarcastic that it's sometimes kind of hard to tell when she's being deeply emotional and sincere. Jester is pretty sure this is one of those moments.

She works in contented silence for a while, though she knows she'll probably have to retire this dagger from stabby use for a bit if she keeps blunting it on stone like this. Nott probably won't mind. Anyway, she didn't even notice when Jester took it a few weeks ago, so it's technically everyone's dagger at this point, technically. She blows on the scraped bits of stone and watches the dust puff out, hanging in the air like motes in the beams of moonlight shining in through the window.

Apparently bored at the lack of passersby or angry devotees, Beau wanders up to lean over her shoulder and inspect her work. She whistles low. "Damn, Jes. That's a good one."

"Yeah?"

"Like, from an abstract aesthetic perspective? Very nice. Super veiny. Sort of... obscenely detailed."

Jester settles back on her haunches, beaming. "So it's obvious it's a dick, then? Only I saw the eye symbol and thought, wow, you know what else sort of has an eye—"

"Yup. Yeah. Hard to miss. Brings a whole new meaning to the word 'eyeballs'." Beau yawns hugely, stretching her arms over her head while Jester pulls out her set of paints. "You do realize you're vandalizing a temple to the god that my order worships, right?"

Jester pauses partway through mixing a nice vivid magenta, glancing back. "Is that okay?"

Beau scrunches up her face for a second, and Jester feels her heart fall somewhere down in the vicinity of the floor. Then Beau gives a short, sharp bark of laughter. "Nah, I'm just messing with you. Go for it. Nobody needs a sense of humor more than these kinds of people, anyway."

"Right?" Swallowing her worry, Jester starts on the first brushstrokes. "You're going to love this one," she says, a little bit to Beau, but mostly to the Traveler.

She practically hears Beau's expression shift behind her; she's way more of a nerd than she likes to pretend, and her particular brand of belligerent curiosity involves a lot of suspicious squinting. "How does that work, anyway? Can you, like, feel his presence when you do shit like this?"

Jester shrugs. "Sometimes. When I was little, I thought it was just what being creative felt like. Little tingles down your spine. Momma said she got it sometimes when she was thinking about a new song to sing and she figured out something super good. But then I was like, 'Well, Momma, what about when the tingles down your back turn into an actual hand on your shoulder?' and she was like, 'What?' and I was like, 'What about when the hand on your shoulder turns into a whole person and he's super cool and talks to you?' and she was like, '...What?' And I kind of figured out the Traveler was something special that only happened to me."

Except, she thinks, that's not true. Not only to her. Ever since finding out she isn't the only one, this really annoying part of her brain keeps flooding her with images of little kids growing up all across the Empire—little kids who probably already had so many friends—and meeting the Traveler, learning from him, following his teachings. She hates how sad that makes her feel, sometimes. How angry. It shouldn't, right? It's all really great, right? Everyone should know the Traveler, right? Right.

She shakes her head and works on mixing a familiar forest green. Beau meanders back to her lookout post, keeping time with the odd impatient sigh. When it starts to get annoying, Jester leans back and swipes a bit of sweat off her brow. "Art can't be rushed, Beau."

"Bullshit," Beau says, cheerfully enough. "I've seen you tattoo people so fast they weren't really sure what happened. This place is creepy, man. I don't want to hang out here all night."

Jester stares up at the vaulted ceiling, but her back's already aching from hunching to paint over the engravings around this column, and she's pretty much done anyway, so she just gives up and flops onto her back on the stone floor. "I think it's really pretty."

"Creepy," Beau repeats, emphatic. "It's just so empty and quiet at night."

"I thought you'd like sneaking around at night."

There's a snort from Beau's general direction. "Don't get me wrong. Skulduggery, stealing, kicking ass, bootlegging family wine, it's all best when it's quiet. But it's still creepy. Kind of lonely and weird."

"Oh," Jester says. "I always really liked being in the Chateau when it was empty. You know, if Momma wasn't feeling well or just wanted some quiet time to ourselves for a while. It's fun, seeing a place when it's not supposed to be seen. Like seeing some really fancy guy, only he's just wearing socks and a silk string wrapped around his—"

"Man, you saw some weird shit."

Jester grins at the ceiling, then closes her eyes, feeling the chill wind whistling through the open window. "But it's like, here's how things are supposed to be, and then here's the version only you get to see, and that one's special and just for you. How many people do you think see this temple when it's closed, with the moonlight coming in like this?"

Beau's clothing rustles; she's pacing around the room, judging by her footfalls. "Not that many."

"Right? And we're definitely the only ones who have seen it when there's this amazing colorful dick carved into the stone. So this version of the temple is ours. And sometimes it's good to have things that are only yours. Important, you know?"

Beau stays quiet for a while, so Jester opens one eye and catches her looking out the window, wistful and unguarded. Then she glances back, smirks at Jester, and stalks over, offering her a hand. "C'mon. I think your artistry's going to be thoroughly appreciated in a few hours, and we probably shouldn't be here for that part."

Jester accepts the yank to her feet, and when she glances at her handiwork—a masterfully engraved and painted magenta dick in a little forest green cloak—she feels an immediate wash of amused approval. "Yeah. I think that's a good place to end it. Thanks, Beau."

"Well, someone told me you're super beautiful and clever and wonderful to be around, so what choice did I have?" Beau slaps her on the shoulder, then stalks toward the window they'd forced open to get in.

Jester lingers, staring around the quiet room for a moment with a satisfied, possessive smile. Then she turns and follows Beau, tingles running up and down her spine.

[eponymous-rose]

Fic: One-Way [Nott, M9 | T | 1200 words]

[FFN | AO3 | 2019 Fic | 2018 Fic | 2017 Fic]

The Mighty Nein pick over a gruesome battlefield. Nott knows what it feels like to be a scavenger.

Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening.

One-Way

Nott turns slowly, pivoting on one foot in a way that sparks a distant memory of dancing, awkward and gangling and unaccountably embarrassed, as a young girl alone in her room. It had quite literally been a lifetime ago.

Now, in place of her own off-key humming, what she hears is the slow rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance, the rasping whisper of wind in tall grasses, and the soft groans and wails of dozens of people taking too long to die.

Jester, Caduceus, and Yasha are wading separately in silence through the battlefield; she can see the faint glow of their healing spells glimmering, flickering like matches before a strong wind. A sharp yelp draws her attention to another flare of light, where two of her friends are crouched beside a writhing form. One of the combatants. Beau is wrapping bandages around the stranger's lesser wounds, and Caleb... well, Caleb is doing what Caleb does best.

Pivoting away, Nott glances up at Fjord, who's standing frozen beside her, one hand drawn up to his mouth. He's not helping, she thinks, and feels a surge of disgust so profound that she knows it can only be misdirected self-loathing.

Because she's not helping, either.

The Nein had watched much of this battle from the sidelines, wary of the size of the forces clashing, and honestly, Nott's still not entirely sure which side they're supposed to be fighting for. They've settled uncomfortably into the role of scavengers when the opposing forces are this strong, the stakes this high. They hide in the shadows, and only move out to try to help with the dying left behind, picking up what supplies they can muster along the way. They're not ready for this, yet. They're not ready for any of this.

Nott's hand, as though of its own accord, has pulled out the flask that's gone half-forgotten in the past few weeks. She stares at her reflection, distorted in its gleaming surface, then sighs and holds it out, nudging Fjord in the side. He takes it without looking, swigs a long gulp, then strides forward.

Shivering, Nott follows behind.

Fjord crouches beside the first body they come to, a human with dark eyes staring blankly from under his helm. He raps a knuckle against the breastplate, and Nott's not sure whether it's an awkward gesture of comfort or an attempt to gauge the quality of the dead man's armor. "Sorry," Fjord says, softly. "I promise we'll be able to help more soon."

The part of Nott that's practically vibrating with the need to do something, anything, wants to call him out on making an impossible promise to unhearing ears, but she also knows she hasn't been invited to this particular conversation. She digs her hands into her pockets, finds a button there, and presses it hard between her thumb and index finger, watching Fjord dig through the corpse's belongings.

Jester passes by, and Nott meanders into her orbit, following her over toward where Yasha is sitting beside a wild-eyed human woman in tattered leathers, murmuring something that to Nott's ears sounds like prayer, her gaze fixed on the distant stormclouds. Jester, her expression uncharacteristically solemn, touches Yasha's shoulder in passing. "We've got five stable enough to move over there. Should be able to get them to the hospital. I'll check for supplies."

Yasha is silent until Jester sighs and walks away, and then she says, softly, "You okay, Jes?"

Jester keeps walking, showing no sign of having heard the question.

Nott turns away and scoops an unclaimed dagger from the ground, sticky with blood. Wipes it absently on the edge of her cloak as she walks. Picks her way through the carnage toward Caleb and Beau.

Caleb has a hard look on his face that Nott's seen on many different people over the years, one so often described as 'determined' when what's really meant is 'cold'. He's muttering instructions to Beau with the cruel efficiency of a field surgeon. The stink of burning flesh in the vicinity overpowers even the heavy tang of blood in the air. They're working on a hulking woman who's got some orc in her veins, judging by the greenish cast of her skin.

All three of them, Nott notices, are doing a poor job of hiding the shaking in their hands.

"C'mon, man," Beau says, conversationally but with her voice wavering. "Just pass out. It'll be so much easier for you. I know this sucks, but no questions asked, we'll drop you at a hospital next town we hit, okay?"

The woman snarls, too engulfed in pain to hear a word of it. Caleb ducks away from a flailing arm. "The bleeding's started again," he says, rasping like he's the one who's been screaming. "I am going to cauterize this. It won't be pleasant."

Nott can't tell if he's trying to warn the injured woman, Beau, or himself. Nobody seems particularly inclined to listen.

She turns away before the bad stuff happens and starts to run. It's what she does best.

"Whoa," says Caduceus, snatching her by the arm as she stumbles past him. "C'mon, stay here and breathe for a second."

Nott slips out of his grasp, but does as he asks, absently picking at her nails with the dagger, staring up at the sky because the stuff at her feet doesn't seem like a great alternative just now. And then, because it's only Mr. Clay in earshot, she hums a few bars of the tune rattling around in her head.

She's seen so many battles. She's seen goblin raids. Worse still, she's seen the things done deliberately in small rooms, without the desperate chaos or convenient excuse of powerful factions clashing. But there's something uniquely terrible about her friends—her friends—talking into the void of this horrible scene, getting nothing but echoes in reply.

"This is awful," she says, softly, staring at the wisps of cloud that seem to be racing to join the storm on the horizon. "I don't think I'm enough of a monster for this place."

Caduceus scratches at the scruff on his chin. She thinks that if he says one word about the cycle of life, she might just figure out the logistics involved in punching someone twice her height right in the fucking face. But he just shakes his head and smiles crookedly. "We're helping where we can, and I think it's okay that it doesn't feel like enough. If it did, I'd be reconsidering the company I keep."

Nott lets out her breath in a ragged sigh. Sticks the dagger in her belt. It's got a good weight to it.

As she turns to begin the slow trudge back to the others, Caduceus says, "Nott?" He stays quiet until she turns around, drags the silence out until she meets his eyes and realizes, with a start, that he seems lost for words. He fumbles a moment longer, then shrugs. Smiles a fainter—but more genuine—smile. "I hear you."

Nott snorts and turns back to watching her footing as she picks her way across the battlefield, swift-footed and graceful, as though moving to the beat of some half-remembered song.