#wip amnesty was a good idea it made me get more work done on this and its fun reading everyones stuff

[thesunshinydays]

[insert blaseball fic title here]

a wip for @blaseballwipamnesty about lenny marijuana learning how to deal with splort related anxiety before her first game, all as part of my scheme to put more real sports things into blaseball content. theres a lot more that i want to add to this including scenes from the game itself, but i just havent gotten around to it yet. also, this is @waveridden ‘s sister!lenny because thats my favorite lenny. overall id say it isnt even halfway done, though i do intend on finishing it at some point

i put it under a readmore because it needs content warning for food and a very frank discussion of dealing with a nervous stomach

“Okay so, I’m not nervous,” Lenny says, feeling like she might throw up at any moment. She’s looking down at what would normally be a perfectly appetizing waffle.  It has a chunk cut out, separated from the rest with a fork stuck in it.  She had tried to take a bite.  She really had.  But the idea of actually having to eat it was making her even more nauseous, so she is staring at it instead, as if that will let her passively absorb the calories she needs to pitch her first real game out of the shadows.  She is pointedly *not* looking at Mike Townsend sitting across from her as she continues speaking: “But let’s say, hypothetically, I know someone who is pitching their first game today and is nervous about it.  What advice would you suggest I pass along to them?”

“Well, first,” Mike says, “it’s normal to be nervous, so your friend shouldn’t feel bad about that.  Any athlete that says they’ve never been nervous for a competition is a liar.”

“Really? I’ve never been nervous, ever,” Lenny lies.

“Oh, obviously. But for your friend: the secret to maximizing personal performance isn’t about not feeling anxious, it’s about learning how to work with that anxiety in a productive way and knowing that you can perform your best even while nervous,” Mike rattles off rotely.

“Why does this sound familiar?” Lenny asks.

“Because it’s in the presentation that the splort psychologist gives during every preseason training camp, which, I might add, your friend would know if she didn’t, hm, I don’t know, fall asleep in the middle of it,” he says.

“At least I don’t know it word for word,” she snaps back.

“I thought it was your friend who needed advice?” Mike looks a little smug and Lenny kicks him lightly under the table in retaliation. He laughs.

“Are you gonna give me real advice or what?” Lenny asks. She tried to make it sound biting or sarcastic, but she’s not sure it worked. She looks down again at her waffle chunk and pushes it around the plate. Teddy had worked hard to talk the hotel manager into opening up the waffle station at around four in the afternoon for the team, since it was normally reserved for complimentary breakfasts.  She knew this wasn’t the team’s standard operating procedure. Normally, they’d go wherever they wanted for lunch, but Teddy had suggested this today instead. She feels shitty having to let the effort go to waste. She looks back up at Mike and says, “Quit it with the stupid psycho babble and give me something actionable, I feel like I’m gonna hurl.” 

“Well first off, milk is the wrong choice,” he says as he takes her barely touched glass of whole milk and pushes his untouched glass of orange juice toward her. 

He thought something like this might happen and got the juice for me in the first place, that fucking sneak, Lenny realizes.

“Second,” Mike says, ”stop trying to force yourself to eat if you feel like you can’t. It’s better to snack throughout the day if your stomach won’t settle than to eat a bunch at once. The ideal would be dried fruit and jerky so that you get carbs and protein to give you energy in the moment and through the course of the game, but we can make trail mix work.”

“Can’t, peanut allergy,” Lenny says.

“We can get you one with granola and almonds. Also, if you really, really can’t eat during the game, at least make sure you’re drinking a sports drink. It’s a lot of sugar, but it’s better than nothing and will keep you hydrated. Also, if you’ve recently had a lot of dairy, you might think about taking a lactaid.”

Lenny squints at him. “Those pills for lactose intolerant people? But I’m not--”

Mike cuts her off before she can finish. “I know, but it might help digestion go smoother and faster anyway, or at least placebo effect you into thinking it’s working.” 

“Okay, I was giving you shit earlier but this is actually really helpful.”  Lenny’s impressed. Somewhere along the line she had starting thinking of Mike as her weird mom friend -- her mind briefly supplies “adopted brother” but she stomps on that line of thinking before she can let herself analyze it -- and had forgotten that he was also one of the most famous (or infamous) pitchers in the ILB with half a dozen or so seasons of experience.

“My stomach isn’t quite as bad as yours, but I did used to get really nervous for games,” he admits.

“Used to? What changed? I thought you said anyone who says they never get nervous is a liar?” she asks.

“It’s not like I never get nervous, it’s just that… after enough games you start to get used to being nervous. That and well, after everything that’s happened, my perspective has shifted.” He gives a small shrug and looks past her out a window.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She knows she shouldn’t even have to ask. She asks anyway.

“The only games I get really, really nervous for anymore are eclipse games,” Mike says, still looking away, “‘Cause how I perform determines how long we stay on the field.”

[rsadelle]

Your writing is really good, do you have any tips? I started something but after reading yours and some by others I feel rubbish about it 😂x

Awww, thanks anon! I appreciate the compliment. ♥

I'm not sure I'm the best person to give tips to new writers; I've been writing for a long time and it's hard to look back and see what was helpful earlier. There are some ideas below, and maybe other people will chime in with additional tips or resources.

Write a lot. Writing is a skill, and like any skill, part of how you learn to do it is just by doing it again and again. I will also encourage you here to learn to write for yourself. This means write what you want to write without thinking too much about your potential audience. I know that this is much easier said than done. I have an advantage in that I've been posting fic for over 20 years, which means I come from a time before centralized fan fiction archives, before kudos and likes, and even before websites with comments. Look at the general comments to hits ratio on fic on AO3, and then imagine what it was like when people had to first find your story and then actually send you an email if they wanted to tell you they liked your fic. I learned to post fic knowing that maybe no one would ever tell me that they liked it, and that's a big part of why it doesn't bother me if other people don't like my fic the way I do. The thing I'm probably happiest about having written last year only has six kudos, and that doesn't make me any less happy about having written it. I've also written things that I never even posted, and yet that doesn't make having written them a waste. I don't know how to learn this in a world so focused on kudos and likes, but I do know it's possible to look at your writing that way.

The lesser talked about part of writing for yourself is to figure out a writing process that works for you. There are so many suggestions out there about what a writing process can or should look like, but it only works if it works for you. Try out a bunch of those ideas, certainly, but don't think that any one of them is the one and only way. Writing is also about the experience of writing. There are a lot of writing advice books out there, and I tried reading several of them before I realized that the reason they didn't work for me was that most of them started with the premise that writing is some difficult, torturous thing you have to force yourself to sit down and do, and that isn't how I feel about writing at all. There's effort in writing, certainly, but it isn't a horrible experience. If the way you're going about it is making you miserable, then it's not the right way for you. I don't want to discourage you from writing; I do want to discourage you from doing things that make you unhappy. This is especially true when it's a hobby, because hobbies are activities that we get to choose to do and enjoy.

Remember that you're a beginner. There's a great post I couldn't find with a quick google about thinking about how someone who's been writing for three years could be called a level 3 writer, and one way to combat the idea that you're not good enough is to think about a three-year-old as a level 3 human and remember that just as a level 3 human has a lot of learning and growing to go, so does a level 3 writer. You're not bad at it; you're just new. Again, writing is a skill, and that means you can learn and develop it. I also want to share with you the most important secret about life I've learned as an adult, which I wouldn't have believed as a teenager: it's okay to fail. It's okay if your writing doesn't go the way you want it to or if it's not loved the way you wish it were. That doesn't make you less valuable as a person, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you.

Read a lot. Reading is an important part of writing. You can absorb things about writing, or get inspired, or just remind yourself that you love written stories. It can also be helpful to consciously notice how authors do things you do and don't like so you can better understand how writing works. If you read a story or a book and you think, "I really liked that," can you see what the author did that you liked? If you read something you didn't like, can you see what made it not work for you? It can also be helpful to read outside your usual genres. I read a romance novel trilogy of a sort I don't usually read recently, and I found that the part of my brain that analyzes writing snapped itself on and I noticed all kinds of things about the style and structure that I don't necessarily think about in more familiar genres. If this sounds like the kind of thing you learn about in English classes in school, that's because it is. I obviously don't know anything about your age or life situation, anon, but if you're in school, pay attention in your English classes or sign up for one and get some guided practice in this. In my earlier fic writing days, I remember thinking that having done poetry analysis in high school was especially helpful for writing because poetry, more than longer prose works, really forces you to pay attention to word choices. I have also long thought that fan fiction is essentially literary analysis in a fictional form. Understanding the basics of how to pull apart and interpret a text can help you do the same thing when you go to write fic about it.

Learn the rules of grammar and punctuation. This is not an exciting piece of advice. However, I do think it's an important one. These are fundamentals when it comes to the written language. I think a lot about a scene in a book I read years ago where the character is very resistant to learning deportment until someone tells her something like, "You can flout the rules of society, but you have to understand them first." Writing is the same way. Once you understand rules of grammar and punctuation, you can decide how you're going to use, or play around with them, in a purposeful way to get across what you want to get across.

Ask for help. Anon, you already know how to do this because you asked me for tips! This is a hard thing, so kudos to you for starting in on it. There are a lot of ways to go about this: ask other writers you like for their writing tips, ask people for their favorite writing resources, ask people what they like about their favorite books, make friends with other writers you can talk to about writing. A note about asking people to help you in a beta reading way: be clear about your limits and the kind of feedback you want to get. For example, I don't worry much about how people will react to fic after I post it, but I am a delicate flower when it comes to feedback on things I'm still working on. I am a person who has wip amnestied fic because I got discouraged by how hard it would be to fix the things early readers pointed out needed fixing, and who once didn't deal with beta comments for a full two years because I didn't know how to make the story work. Now when I ask friends to read through my fic, I generally have specific questions I ask them, either in the initial email or in notes in the doc itself, which helps me get only the kind of feedback I can really deal with for that story.

Anon, I hope one or more of these things is helpful to you. You're very brave to start writing and to ask for help with it. Good luck in finding a way to an enjoyable and fulfilling writing experience. ♥

[wizardofahz]

Double Agent Danvers

A/N: During the “Partners in Crime” episode of Supergirl’s Attic,  @thatsjustsupergirl mentioned the “what if” idea of Lillian trying her season 2 recruitment spiel on Alex at an earlier point in her life, which reminded me of an old WIP, so I dug it out to finish. This takes place in episode 2x07.

If ao3 is your preferred fanfic reading medium, it’s also available there.

Content Warning: character death

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kara knows she has no choice. 

Cadmus has Alex, and they want Supergirl. In all honesty, other options exist--Alex would say that Kara shouldn’t give herself up--but Kara can’t bring herself to consider them.

So it’s with a willing heart that she goes to Cadmus, gets roughed up by the actual Hank Henshaw, and is thrown into a cell next to Alex’s.

To Kara’s relief, Henshaw lets Alex out of her cell. “You’re up, Danvers Jr.”

But Alex doesn’t leave. For the first time in years, Kara can’t read the look on her face.

“The bars are made of Nth metal,” Alex says. “They’re unbreakable.”

Kara quickly makes her way to the front of her cell. “Alex? I don’t understand.”

“Good,” a familiar voice from Kara’s left cuts her off. “That means Alex has done her job.”

“Jeremiah?” Kara stares as Jeremiah enters with Lillian Luthor. She turns back to Alex for answers. “Alex, what’s going on?”

“I’ve known Dad has been alive for ten years,” Alex says. “I’ve been working for Cadmus ever since.”

Kara looks back and forth between Alex and Jeremiah. None of Alex’s words are making sense. Kara doesn’t know if she’s in denial or if some other mental block is preventing her from fully processing the situation. Surely, if this is true, Kara would’ve seen the signs.

Even though she dreads a potentially further heart breaking answer, she asks, “And Eliza?”

For the first time, uncertainty flickers across Alex’s face. “No,” she says quietly. “Mom doesn’t know.”

Alex’s answer provides Kara with a palpable sense of relief. At least something in her life isn’t a lie.

“We’ll help her understand,” Jeremiah says, laying a comforting hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Together, as a family.”

Implicit in Jeremiah’s statement is the understanding that their family does not include Kara.    

“As touching as this family sentimentality is,” Lillian says, not bothering to moderate her mocking tone in any way, “we should proceed.”

Alex turns to the back of the room where a Cadmus lackey steps forward, a secure case in his arms. Alex opens it to reveal Red Kryptonite.

Kara recoils to the back of her cell. “No, Alex, please.”

“I really should thank Maxwell Lord for this,” Alex says, turning the crystal over in her hands. “Accidental ingenuity but ingenuity nonetheless.”

“Alex, please,” Kara pleads again.

“You’re going to destroy National City,” Lillian says. “And we’re going to stop you.”

...

Alex waits.

The Red Kryptonite-induced shifts in Kara’s personality will increase with more time under its influence. She will slide from caring to indifferent to cruel. Alex decides that will be the right time to talk to Kara. It seems fairer this way, less like kicking a puppy when it’s down.

“Congratulations, Agent Danvers,” Kara says. She doesn’t bother to move from where she leans at the back of her cell. Her nonchalance reminds Alex of Astra when she was in DEO custody. “You had me fooled.”

“If it helps, you weren’t the only one,” Alex offers.

Kara scoffs. She stares at Alex and then provides her read of the situation, “Let me guess: Cadmus sent Jeremiah to you when you were struggling the most. Jeremiah had just died. I was demanding too much of Eliza’s attention, and nothing you did could ever live up to her expectations anymore. He offered you the validation and support you’d been craving, blamed all of it on me, told you that by helping him you would also be helping all the other humans affected by the aliens in their lives.”

Alex shrugs. “Something like that.”

In truth, it was exactly that, and Alex is reminded that as goofy as Kara can be, she really does have quite the analytical mind.

“Have you ever stopped to consider that you’ve been played? If it makes so much sense, why wait to tell Eliza?” Kara asks, smirking and haughty, before promptly providing the answer, “Because it doesn’t make sense, and you were easy to turn because you were a weak, vulnerable child.”

Under different circumstances, Kara’s words might have hurt, but Alex came prepared. She’s been steeling herself for this moment, and she’s run the counterarguments through her head over and over again. “You’re right. I was vulnerable, but you’re wrong about being played. They helped me, gave me agency in a life that would otherwise have been consumed by you and your needs.” 

“Whatever,” Kara dismisses. She eyes Alex with greater curiosity, “Why not kill me the first time I was infected with Red Kryptonite?”

“Timing wasn’t right,” Alex responds. “People were afraid of you afterwards but more inclined to be forgiving. That inclination goes away with repeat performances. You know the saying, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ As for why now, with the Alien Amnesty Act, humans need a reminder that we need to look after ourselves first.”

Kara actually laughs at that. “You humans are so preoccupied with your own weakness. It’s no wonder you seem bound to languish in it for all eternity.”

Alex’s watch beeps, signaling that it’s time to go. 

“I don’t hate you,” she says, offering up what probably sounds like a superficial apology, but the sentiment behind it is real. “You didn’t ask for this any more than I did. I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

Kara rolls her eyes. “I don’t need your apologies. You’d just better hope that you haven’t bitten off more than you can chew.”

...

Kara wreaks the destruction they anticipate.

With her Kryptonite suit and broadsword, additional Cadmus technology, and an intimate knowledge of Kara’s sparring and combat weaknesses, Alex has little trouble subduing Kara.

“Do it,” Kara snarls. She’s sprawled out on the ground, Alex’s boot planted firmly in her gut as she hovers above her with Kryptonite broadsword pulled back and ready.

But Alex doesn’t move.

She’s killed other aliens before, killed Kara’s aunt even, but for some reason, she finds herself unable to do it one more time.

Kara provides that reason for her. “I may not have known you as well as I thought I did, but I still know you well enough to know that you can’t do it. You’re too soft, too soft when it comes to me. You spent so long pretending to care about me that now you can’t undo it, can’t shut it off in your brain. Congratulations. You played yourself.”

“Shut up,” Alex says, but only her mouth moves. 

Because Kara is right. 

Alex doesn’t know if she’s soft for Kara per say, but she does know her better than any other alien. Alex hadn’t been lying when she said she didn’t hate Kara. Kara hasn’t had it easy on Earth, and it’s not her fault that she required more attention from Eliza when they were kids. It’s not her exactly her fault that she became a heroic symbol when she really just wanted to help people. There just happen to be negative, unintended consequences from those things.

“I’m giving you permission,” Kara continues. “You get to be the hero, and I get to rejoin my family, my real family. Well, what are you waiting for? Do it.”

A loud crack has both of their bodies jerking, Alex’s from surprise and Kara’s from the Green Kryptonite bullet entering her body.

As Alex drops beside down beside Kara, she looks up to see Jeremiah approaching, arm still outstretched with his hand wrapped around a custom Cadmus gun.

Red fades from the blood vessels under Kara’s skin, and green promptly takes its place.

“Alex?” Kara calls out weakly, searching for her big sister.

“I’m here. I got you,” Alex says instinctively, but the words scald her throat with a sincerity that she doesn’t deserve.

She watches life fade from Kara’s eyes as her struggling breaths diminish into nonexistence. It is quite possibly the most horrible thing Alex has ever witnessed.

Alex forgets that her father is there until his hand lands on her shoulder. 

“I couldn’t do it,” Alex says quietly. 

“That’s okay,” Jeremiah says in an attempt to reassure her. “We asked a lot of you, maybe too much, but the hard part is done. We get to move on.”

But he misunderstands.

Alex doesn’t feel guilty because she couldn’t complete the task assigned to her. She feels guilty because it doesn’t feel like she did the right thing. So many years of deception, so many years of preparation, but the satisfaction of the outcome doesn’t rise to the occasion. It falls flat on its face.

... 

As it turns out, Eliza Danvers cannot be made to understand.

[pluckyredhead]

So @werelibrarian suggested a round of WIP amnesty where we post things we’re not going to finish, and y’all, I’ve got quite a graveyard. This one was inspired by the safecracking scene in DD S2, which made me desperately want Matt in a tuxedo as a gentleman thief/modern-day Robin Hood.

It was going to be just a glimpse of that universe, ending with a “Who was that masked man?” moment from Foggy, but then I started trying to figure out how I could have Matt and Elektra in on it together, and that would have required completely scrapping what I already had, and I didn’t want to do that because I really liked the dynamic between Foggy, Elektra, and Marci. So I just put it in a drawer and sulked about it, basically.

Anyway I might return to the idea of Matt as Robin Hood, but in the meantime...

“Excuse me,” Foggy says for the third time.  “Excuse me.”

The bartender finally looks over at him.  “Did you need a soda, kid?”

Foggy feels his jaw set.  “Macallan, neat. Also tequila, mezcal preferably, and a vodka martini, very dry.”

“You got an ID?”

He does, and it’s even legal these days, but Foggy hasn’t noticed this tightass carding any of his fellow students.  So Foggy might not look like the upper crust, no matter how much Rosalind - his mother - Rosalind spent on this suit.  He’s still a guest.  The open bar’s for him as much as it is for anyone else.

“It’s in my wallet, along with your tip,” Foggy says.  “Miss Natchios is holding it for me.  I could go get it, but I think her father, the ambassador, will vouch for me.  He’s right over there.”  He points, and gives Elektra’s dad a little wave.

Luckily, Elektra’s dad waves back, looking only vaguely confused.  Foggy’s not sure if Mr. Natchios actually recognizes him, or is just being polite, but either way the bartender glowers and pours the drinks Foggy’s ordered.  “Thanks so much,” Foggy says and, carefully juggling the three glasses, makes his way back across the room to Elektra and Marci.  He feels gross about throwing his weight around like that - weight that he doesn’t have, not really - but Elektra and Marci say it’s the only way to get what he wants in these circles, and so far that seems to be true.

“Foggy Bear!” Marci cries as he approaches, and carefully plucks the martini from his grasp.  Elektra holds out a languid hand for her tequila.  “You’re the greatest.”

“I am, it’s true,” Foggy agrees, and perches on the end of the tiny loveseat she’s occupying.  It’s uncomfortable.  Why is all rich people furniture uncomfortable?

“You look terribly cranky,” Elektra says.  “What happened?  Who was mean to our darling Foggy?”

Foggy rolls his eyes.  “I’m fine.  The bartender is a douche.”

Elektra actually looks irked, which is touching.  “I’ll have him fired for you.”

“God, no, don’t do that.  I’m sure he needs the job,” Foggy says quickly.

“The job is sucking up to rich people.”

“I’m not a rich people, remember?”

Marci pats his knee.  “Don’t worry, you will be.  A couple years at your mother’s firm and you’ll be able to get bartenders fired all on your own.”

“And they say dreams don’t come true.”  Foggy takes a sip of his scotch and nearly chokes on it as a hand lands on his shoulder.

“Careful with that, Nelson.  It’s meant to be sipped, not chugged.  This isn’t a frat party.”

Foggy coughs and cranes his neck to see Larry Cranston smirking down at him.  “You’re the one in the frat, Cranston, not me.”

“Yes, well, some of us are legacies,” Larry says.  His hand is still on Foggy’s shoulder.  “And some of us barely know who our parents are.”

Elektra eyes Cranston’s hand.  “You know, if someone put their hand on me that long without my permission, I would break their fingers,” she says cheerfully.  “Foggy, darling, would you like me to show you how it’s done?”

“Relax, Elektra,” Cranston says.  He does move his hand, but not without tugging a lock of Foggy’s hair on the way.  “Call off your dog, would you, Nelson?”

“Call her a name again and I’ll punch you in the face,” Foggy retorts cheerfully.  “No, worse - I’ll let her do it.”

Cranston just smiles at him, unruffled.  “Threats of violence might be par for the course in Hell’s Kitchen, but this is civilization.  You might want to learn the ropes if you’re going to keep letting your mommy trot you out at these parties.  Then again, why bother?  If you’re only gonna crash and burn when you take the bar, you might as well save the brain capacity for remembering which buttons to push on your dad’s cash register down at the ol’ hardware store.”

Foggy feels a flush crawling up the back of his neck.  Marci opens her mouth to retort, but Foggy beats her to it.  “Wow, Larry, have you been practicing that speech since the last time I kicked your ass in debate?  It's pretty good.  Of course, if you'd ever worked that hard on a debate, you might actually beat me for once.”  He pauses for a split second.  “Nah, probably not.”

Cranston glares, and starts to say something, but Marci talks over him.  “Go away,” she orders, and Cranston does, but not before Foggy hears him mutter, “Fatass charity case,” under his breath.

Marci watches him go.  “Wow, he wants you,” she says.

Foggy almost chokes on his drink for the second time.  “What?”

Elektra nods sagely.  “He wants to sleep with you and he's furious about it.  It's rather funny.”

“Well, I don't want to sleep with him,” Foggy protests.

“Of course not.  You dated me.  You have taste,” Marci says.  “Which is a matter of personal discernment and not how many zeroes are on your parents’ bank statement, no matter what Larry Cranston thinks.”

“Sure.”  Foggy stands.  “I need some air.”

“Foggy.  Don't be cross,” Elektra coos.  “He's nothing.”

“Yeah.  I know.  I'm fine.  I just need to take a little walk.”  Foggy levers himself up off the loveseat and makes his way out of the crowded living room.  He can't tell if it's actually overly warm and stuffy in there, or if he's still flushed.  Probably both.  Either way, he needs some air.

This is all Rosalind’s fault.

He always knew, growing up, that the woman he called “Mom” wasn't actually his mother.  His biological mother, Rosalind Sharpe, had walked out on Foggy and his dad before Foggy's first birthday.  She wandered in and out of Foggy's life at random for the next two decades, showing up on the Nelsons’ doorstep for a fraught dinner when she remembered she had a son, and vanishing into the night when she remembered he was a disappointment.

That is, until Foggy got accepted to Columbia Law.  Suddenly Rosalind’s quirky, easygoing, unathletic son - who, she never hesitated to remind him, could stand to lose a few pounds - was her heir, a future attorney cut from the same Sharpe cloth.  She jumped in to pay Foggy's tuition, advise him on course schedules, and, most importantly, introduce him to all her rich and influential friends.

Thus, parties like this, which just make Foggy painfully aware of how little he belongs in this world.  He's lucky that Marci Stahl and Elektra Natchios took him under their collective wing so quickly.  They've shown him the ropes, even if they're not exactly nurturing.  He's positive that if they ever ended up stranded on a desert island together they'd eat him first - but they'd be very complimentary about how good a meal he made while they did it.

And then there are dicks like Larry Cranston.

Foggy shakes his head and looks for someplace to hide out until he's on more of an even keel.  It's too cold to actually step outside for some air, so he finds himself wandering down a hall, further and further away from the party, until a peek into a cracked doorway tells him he's found the study.  He slips inside.

He's not alone.

There's a guy his age sitting behind the desk who looks up, startled, as Foggy slips in.  “Hello?”

“Oh, sorry, I didn't know anyone else was in here,” Foggy says.  “I was just looking for somewhere quiet to clear my head, I can go if you want.”

“That's okay,” the guy says, and smiles, and...wow.  Wow, that's a hell of a smile.  It's a hell of an everything, actually; even while inexplicably wearing sunglasses indoors, at night, the dude is all cheekbones and broad shoulders and sharply-cut suit.  He's scruffy-jawed but he still looks more at home in this mansion than Foggy does.  Foggy supposes that makes sense; their host is supposed to have quite the art collection, and this guy is very definitely art.

“I had something similar in mind,” the guy says.  “Unfortunately Mr. Van Lunt doesn't seem to have much by way of reading material that I can enjoy.”  He thumbs at the messy stack of newspaper on the desk in front of him and Foggy suddenly connects “sunglasses” with “blind” and feels like an idiot.

“That sucks,” Foggy says.  “I'm Foggy, by the way.”

The guy smiles again.  That smile is doing stupid things to Foggy.  “Mike,” he says.  “So what were you hiding out from?”

Foggy takes a sip of his drink.  “Oh, just the party in general.  I don't exactly fit in with this crowd, and I find that too much time with the rich and beautiful does a number on my head.  Present company excepted, of course.”

Mike actually laughs at that, throws his head back and guffaws like Foggy's said something incredibly witty.  Foggy grins, ridiculously proud of coaxing that big a laugh out of someone that gorgeous.  “What makes you think I'm rich and beautiful?”

“Well, you're here, so you're rich,” Foggy points out.  “And, uh, no offense, but I can see you.”

Mike beams, pink and pleased.  “So why on Earth wouldn't you fit in?” he asks, leaning forward.  “I mean, I can't see you, but you really sound like you should.”

Flirting, Foggy registers.  The best-looking guy he's ever seen is flirting with him.  He feels guiltily grateful that Mike can't see his blush.  “Well, you're right that I'm exceptionally beautiful, of course,” he says, and Mike laughs again.  Score.  “Heads turning as I walk by, cars driving into fire hydrants, poets throwing themselves into the sea over their failure to describe my radiance, the whole nine yards.”  He perches on the edge of the desk.  “I am also, however, dirt broke.”

[sorrelchestnut]

Cry Havoc, 9 and 13 from the ask meme

For the fanfic author askmeme, still taking questions if anyone wants to play!

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Oh, always, man.  Anything that I spend enough time on to make it to the internet always has at least one or two versions that get cast aside.  Though I’ll admit, for this fic less than most.  Some scenes or chapter branches get discarded halfway through, but for the most part I had a surprisingly clear vision of my main characters and how I wanted their relationship to develop.

Most of my versioning for this ‘verse came from stuff happening after the end of the main story.  I tend to get distracted easily and was working on sequels before I actually finished the original, and I couldn’t quite mentally pin down how I wanted it to go.  And on some level that’s just pure distraction, but on another it’s important: where the characters go from the end matters in where and how I want to make the end, so it’s nice to have it squared away in my head.  I’ve written a couple different half-done versions of her confrontation with Kellogg, for example.  Sole and Kellogg have more in common than they don’t, in a lot of ways, but how much of that do they see in each other?  How does that unfold?  Ultimately I think I came down on the side of a kind of detached annoyance: Sole doesn’t feel enough towards him to hate him, because he’s just an obstacle, a bump in the road on the way to her real goal.  That being said, I always wanted a version of the memory quest where Sole basically argues with his running narration through the entire thing until they have a more real conversation at the end, but that one never even made it out of my head and onto paper.

Branching off the same theme, I also had this half-hearted AU where she somehow made it out of the cryopod during Kellogg’s first attack, takes her kid and GTFO, and it’s her and Kellogg through the decades, sometimes on the same side and sometimes not, because MacCready might be her complementary match but Kellogg is the most like her.  I just thought it’d be interesting to see a ruthless, amoral human terminator of a mercenary squaring up against... well, Kellogg.  I always thought it was a shame Kellogg had to go so earlier into the narrative, because he was definitely the best antagonist of the piece.

(However I end up writing or not writing that questline, one thing’s for sure: she carries that pistol of his strapped to her hip for the rest of her life, and if you asked her she probably couldn’t even tell you why.)

Oh!  I was also for a while exploring a Deacon-centric poly sequel, but I could never quite make it gel.  At some point I’ll post the Deacon-POV bit that I ended up writing instead, because I never really got to get into his ruthlessness in writing everybody wants to be a cat, and I wanted a chance to explore the end-justify-the-means side of spying for a good cause.  I think right around the time the earlier version stopped working for me was when I started taking X6-88 with me a bunch on my current playthrough, and that’s not a coincidence.  The reflexively dishonest long-term pining from the Deacon-centric sequel didn’t really quite fit with Sole and Mac’s easy and bloody partnership, but X6 and his sneaky sarcasm and vaguely disdainful ruthless competence and uncomplicated loyalty snapped into place like a missing cog.

I’m actually prepping some stuff this month to post a sort of “WIP Amnesty” month this August, so hopefully I’ll get some of this stuff out then.  I could probably post some of the discarded versions here on tumblr if there’s any interest.

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn't listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

Oh hell yes, anything that gets longer than a few thousand words almost always has its own soundtrack, one way or another.  (Except Kin and Country, for some reason.  Never quite developed its own musical identity.)  It’s usually in flux, and I don’t have a proper playlist put together on spotify or anything yet, but if anyone’s interested the track listing for Cry Havoc is:

01. “Blood on My Name” - The Brothers Bright02. “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo” - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club03. “Fire” - Barns Courtney04. “The Wave” - Miike Snow05. "God’s Away On Business” - Tom Waits06. “Radioactive” - Imagine Dragons07. “Glitter and Gold” - Barns Courtney08. “Arsonist’s Lullaby” - Hozier09. “Devil Town” - The Builders and the Butchers10. “Don’t Sit Down Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair” - Arctic Monkeys11. “Devil's Teeth” - Muddy Magnolias12. “Down to the River” - Brown Bird13. “Deja Vu” - Something for Kate14. “Red Right Hand” - Arctic Monkeys15. “I Followed Fires” - Matthew & the Atlas16. “You Could Be My Baby” - SHEL17. “Pyromaniac” - Oh Land18. “Pretty Baby” - Brandan Benson19. “Raise Hell” - Dorothy20. “Feelin’ Good” - Nina Simone

All of my soundtracks are always 20 songs long, no more, no less.  No idea why I picked that particular arbitrary number to be the cutoff, but there you go.