silveradept | AO3 Output - July-December 02021

It has been another six months since the last output post. Already. Time moves too slowly and too quickly all at once. But I have more works and their commentary to serve up to you.

Crimson Thunder and the Leap of Faith (1770 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Calvin & Hobbes
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Calvin & Hobbes (Calvin & Hobbes)
Characters: Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes), Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)
Additional Tags: Slightly Older Calvin, Canon-Typical Hobbes Uncertainty Principle, The Talk, Fighter Pilot Flight of Fancy, Wagon Ride, No Children or Tigers Were Harmed in the Execution of This Fic
Summary:
The possibility that the end of a longstanding conflict might be imposed by fiat requires discussion of strategy, tactics, and the physics of whether or not a wagon can actually make the planned jump, as filtered through Calvin's imagination.

Calvin and Hobbes are always fun to revisit, especially when you get to put them in scenarios past the perpetual six year-old's interests and view of the world. Instead of it being about Calvin parenting a child, this time it's about that boundary between childhood and whatever happens next, and neither he nor Hobbes seem entirely eager to enter that next phase, so I wanted this to feel like something where they might be trying it for the last time, or near the last time, just to see if they can succeed, and so they can put off the inevitable for a little bit longer.

Some Magic in the Middle of Nowhere (2429 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Willow Rosenberg/Buffy Summers
Characters: Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Catching Up After All These Years, Defied Expectations, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Anti-Paganism
Summary:
Buffy stops by the magic shop that Willow has been running out in a fairly rural area, to see how she's doing, and to ask her or on a date. What she sees inside has her rethinking her mental picture of Willow.

Willow, as a character, gets a lot of development in Buffy, but also goes through a whole lot of different phases trying to find herself over the course of the canonical material, including whatever bits of the comic series I happened to glance through. I wanted to explore what a grown-up, rooted, Queer Elder kind of Willow would be doing, and how everything that she'd experienced would mean that some of the smaller stuff that might have freaked her out when she was a teen doesn't faze her in the slightest now. And that she's passing on that wisdom to others who need it, often when they don't want to consciously listen to what she's saying. This also gave me time to write a more settled Buffy, albeit one that is definitely on the move a lot and taking care of Slayer problems when they pop up.

Mistress Voltage's Current Examination Resistance (2813 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Supervillain Who Needs to Practice Tying Heroine to Devious Trap/Henchgirl wtih a Bondage Kink
Characters: Supervillain Concerned About Upcoming Exam | Mistress Voltage, Henchwoman With An Affinity For Ropes and Knots | Melody
Additional Tags: Rope Bondage, power perversion potential, Solicited Advice, unsolicited advice, Role Playing, Aborted Villainous Monologing, electric play, Secret Test of Character, If At First You Don't Succeed...Cheat Until You Do
Summary:
Mistress Voltage is very put out at the upcoming exam to retain membership in EVIL, and has recruited a willing henchwoman to help her practice skills she hasn't needed in decades. Will she get good enough in time for the exam?

This session has a lot of works where their intended recipients haven't commented on them. Sometimes they leave a kudos, which is helpful and mollifying, but I find that I really prefer when someone leaves a comment about how the work landed for them. Obviously, I'd like them all to be gushes of praise, but even a "Well, this didn't do what I was aiming for, but thanks all the same." kind of comment would be helpful. It's when there's no interaction at all that I just wonder whether it was a complete bomb that managed to fit inside the given parameters. I like this examination and superpower perversion possibility here (but I have to like everything I'm writing, or it doesn't work right), and I like the reveal at the end, but given the lack of interaction on it, it makes me feel like it flopped. Either that, or it's targeted to a very specific audience that will adore and appreciate it, and they won't find it because it's buried in with all of the other Original Works.

The Republic City Tour (4452 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Avatar: Legend of Korra, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Korra (Avatar), Asami Sato, Adora (She-Ra), Catra (She-Ra), Glimmer (She-Ra), Bow (She-Ra), Tenzin (Avatar), Jinora (Avatar), Meelo (Avatar), Lin Beifong, Triads (Avatar)
Additional Tags: Background Asami Sato/Korra - Freeform, background Adora/Catra, Pro-Bending (Avatar), Dinner with the Airbenders, Attempted Kidnapping, Not Very Successful Kidnapping, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions
Summary:
With the Runestone in the Sword of She-Ra not working, Korra takes Adora, Catra, and Glimmer out for a night on the town while Bow and Asami try to get it running again.

This was definitely a "what kind of benders would the She-Ra crew be?" story, but because of that, there was also going to be a high probability that Korra and her guests would get up to something that would necessitate the use of those powers. It's a fun romp through Republic City to see the sights, take in a game, bust up some mooks, duck the police, and learn plenty about each other along the way. That, and coming to the realization that Catra doesn't want to be Tenzin, but could learn a shit-ton from him about everything.

The PrincessCon Ploy (6878 words) by silveradept
Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Characters: Adora (She-Ra), Catra (She-Ra), Kyle (She-Ra), Lonnie (She-Ra), Entrapta (She-Ra), Scorpia (She-Ra)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Social Media Rivals, Etheria is an MMORPG, There Is Only One Bed, Cameos from Glimmer and Bow, Rivals to Girlfriends
Summary:
Both TheSheRa and Force Captain Catra have been invited by EntraptaSoft to PrincessCon by the CEO of Princesses of Power, an extremely popular online game they both play. Will the two leaders clash when their factions are tasked with working together, or will the two rivals realize there's more to someone than their streaming channel?

This session has a lot of She-Ra on the docket. I think it's because it's a megafandom still, one that I've seen, that the matching algorithms use that as the safety when something else doesn't get matched upon. Which means I've done a lot of reimagining of Etheria and the characters. This time around, I thought of it as a game both Adora and Catra had risen to great prominence (and social media channels) in, and Entrapta is a mischievous matchmaker who doesn't let them know anything at all about her plan to do it. I liked being able to do something that has both a few of the other characters appearing and still remains mostly focused on the two leads and their rivalry. It's always kind of fun to be able to write them as definitely going to be together at the end, instead of having had to wait through all the seasons of the original to see whether there even could be a relationship between the two of them on screen.

Fight Smarter, Not Harder (1799 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kairi & Roxas (Kingdom Hearts)
Characters: Kairi (Kingdom Hearts), Roxas (Kingdom Hearts), Xion (Kingdom Hearts)
Additional Tags: Sparring, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Kairi Wants To Be The Best, Roxas's Complicated Relationship With Feelings
Summary:
Roxas tries to help Kairi think differently about her combat abilities, based on Kairi's frustration at the latest spar and how little obvious progress she feels like she's making. Xion tries to help, too, although she's really here to try and convince Kairi to play a prank on Axel.

I should probably retroactively tag stories like these into a series, like "Kairi's Keyblade Lessons", mostly because I find that I can iterate on the theme of "Kairi is learning how to use her Keyblade better and sparring with various other members of the cast as they teach her better habits than they've learned." Or, in this case, try to make Kairi believe that she's done better than it appears, which is a constant frustration of mine, believing that it's either perfect or nothing's gone right when there are all sorts of gradations in between that are good results. With Roxas, the virtue Kairi is learning about is deception, and I think it shows all the way through the piece.

Perfect Play "A.I." (4064 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Chip's Challenge (Video Games)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Chip McCallahan, Melinda the Mental Marvel
Additional Tags: Computer Programming, Psionics, Mechanical Turk Gambit, Aliens, 21st Century, If At First You Don't Succeed Cheat Until You Do
Summary:
Melinda the Mental Marvel sends out a game as a recruitment tool for interns at her software company. Chip and many others try to beat the known challenge in front of them and an unknown challenge that will follow it. After trying to solve it programmatically and falling, Chip decides to try an alternate tactic.

It's always fun when you write for a fandom whose actual plot is a paper-thin excuse for the puzzles that are about to come. Why does Chip want to get through this maze of weird monsters, keys, and traps? Because there's membership in the Bit Busters Club at the end, but you have to wonder whether it's worth the 100+ levels and all the retries and the aggravation that comes from it. So, instead, I decided to move it up a few decades and have it be an exercise in lateral thinking against an impossible problem. There's really not much of a canon to compare it against or to see the variation from. I think it worked out well, myself.

The Secret of Olive Snook (1882 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Pushing Daisies
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Olive Snook, Narrator (Pushing Daisies), Ned (Pushing Daisies), Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, Emerson Cod
Additional Tags: Background Charlotte Charles/Ned, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Interactive Narrator, Trick Or Treat - Treat
Summary:
Olive Snook is mostly unbothered by the things that happen around her with frequency, because Olive, like many of the other people near and around the Piemaker, has a unique talent of her own that helps her put things in perspective.

Pushing Daisies is fun to revisit because of some of the narrative tics and specifics that happen during the show that ground it firmly in the world that's there. And in this case, for Trick or Treat, I thought about a bit on TVTropes where the plan for the show had been to possibly put the actual narrator on camera and fold them into the show itself, and I had the idea from the prompt that actually hearing the narrator might be Olive's special power in a world of people with special powers, and how that might affect the interaction between the narrator and the rest of the cast.

The Etherian Historical Society, Library and Archives (12684 words) by silveradept
Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: George (She-Ra), Lance (She-Ra), Razz (She-Ra), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Fandom Trumps Hate 2021, Libraries and Archives, Pre-Canon, First Ones' Tech (She-Ra), First Ones' Writing (She-Ra), Background George/Lance (She-Ra), Raising children, Worldbuilding, Mara Will Explain It All When She Arrives
Summary:
George, Lance, and the Library Squad before the events of She-Ra, on establishing an archive, doing research, learning what you don't know, and being proud of what others have accomplished. Two guys who love history (and each other) raising twelve children to be historians with zero clue about what that entails or about how much very timely help they're going to need.

I took on two Fandom Trumps Hate rewards auctions this year, and compared to last year's story, I apparently split the words that I spent on last year between the two for this year. They're both She-Ra, because that was basically the only thing that there was interest in for this year. This work was for the second bidder, who wanted me to write something that drew on my experiences of working in a library. I'm not entirely sure how much of that actually came through, except for the part that working in libraries is really often about matching people to the resources that are available. I think that shows through in the work, even as the artifacts, the books, and the scholarship going on are more drivers of the plot than they are the thing that gets focused on a lot with long digressions or descriptions of the books and artifacts. I hope it was good for the recipient, and it's probably going to be another one of those "very niche audience" pieces that doesn't get much interaction, but will be neat for the people who do interact with it. It's a lot of worldbuilding and envisioning what happened before the events of the series proper. I'm proud of it, still. (Turns out that the recipient had a computer explosion and hadn't checked the correspondence and notification accounts in some time, which is why there wasn't anything there at the outset. Problems are plaguing both of my recipients this year, it seems.)

Who Blacklisted Roger Rabbit? (2628 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jessica Rabbit/Roger Rabbit
Characters: Eddie Valiant, Jessica Rabbit, Roger Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Red Scare, Period-Typical Political Attitudes, References to Political Figures, typical cartoon violence
Summary:
After the Cloverleaf incident, Roger is having trouble finding work. Eddie puts his investigation skills to work to try and bring answers to both Jessica and Roger.

I haven't read any of the sequel novels that follow this continuity, but I feel like this story has a pretty good grounding in the real time period that would follow the heyday of animation and World War II, which helped drive the plot, honestly. Since Roger Rabbit was designed to be an American icon in both dress and coloration, I figured the suspicion that would run rampant about Communists infiltrating the entertainment industry would roll right over Roger. His wife, however, who sings in nightclubs and looks like she wouldn't be out of place on nose pin-up art, she would be the kind of person those knuckleheads would zero in on as a possible spy for some other power, even though it wouldn't be true at all. And Eddie's there because we need someone who can investigate to drive the plot forward, and to give a little bit of a "did he really regain his sense of humor or not?" drama to the work.

Discarded Shells (4148 words) by silveradept
Fandom: RWBY
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Weiss Schnee/Yang Xiao Long
Characters: Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long
Additional Tags: Post-trauma healing, Introspection, Everyone Needs A Hug, Weiss Schnee Needs Better Consent Models, Everyone Gets A Hug, references to past abuse, Hair-pulling
Summary:
Yang isn't entirely sure how she ended up in this situation, with a brat on one side and Blake on the other. She doesn't feel confident that she can handle it, as she thinks back over how it all came to be.

I try to incorporate the asks of a recipient into a work, but it also has to pass through my "what would be in-character, in my opinion, for these characters to achieve this result?" Which can lead to some really awesome creativity, as it did here. It took me a good amount of thinking as to how things would work out and feel correct for all of the characters involved - all three of them have significant issues that could nonetheless lead to building a strong bond between all of them as teammates, but I also thought of it in relation to what the other two would want from Yang, what strength they would want to borrow from her to help sustain themselves, the kind of strength that Yang might very well be afraid she's not capable of providing at the correct degree that they're going to need, instead of too strong and overpowering that would make both of them retreat back into themselves. This was another work where I haven't gotten any feedback at all about it, so I haven't a clue, other than the kudos and bookmarks, as to how it goes over with a reader. This is the cycle for me to sit with that frustration, it seems.

The Hunter and the Fox (16012 words) by silveradept
Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Characters: Adora (She-Ra), Catra (She-Ra), Glimmer (She-Ra), Bow (She-Ra), Lonnie (She-Ra), Kyle (She-Ra), Rogelio (She-Ra), Scorpia (She-Ra), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Pole Dancing, Oblivious Glimmer/Bow, Really Oblivious Kyle/Lonnie/Rogelio, Partners to Lovers, Burlesque-ish Variete Show, POV Alternating
Summary:
Adora and Catra meet in Ms. Fizz's pole dance class, and both of them don't want to let their crushes out on someone who probably isn't interested, despite what their gossip-mainlining friends have to say about it. When Adora gets to see Kat perform on stage in a different context, they both start to believe it's possible that they're compatible. Assuming nobody does anything self-sabotaging along the way.

Here's the other Fandom Trumps Hate work! Yet another alternate universe decision, this time in a university setting with some exercise classes and artistic performances along the way. I wrote this one out of order, with some of the things at the end coming first, and then figuring out how to build up to the things that had already been written. I think it turned out nicely, and accomplished all the things that I really wanted to do with it, getting a lot of the ensemble involved in trying to matchmake the two of them, and writing my much preferred form of Scorpia as someone who is deadly competent at what she does and just puts on a charming face to make people be more open around her. The hardest part was getting the ending into place, actually, after I'd figured out a way of getting them to stop being oblivious dorks with regard to each other and believe there might be a shared interest. I'm glad that I got them done on time this year, given how much everything has been going on. I'll have to think about whether or not to give a second work next year. It's always weird that there's anyone at all who expresses interest in my writing. Mostly because I still haven't really had anything that I would have thought of as a runaway hit or a consistent series of Big Name anything. Maybe I'm better than I look, but I can't see that from anyone else's perspective. (That said, the person who is was created in thanks for says they've read it twice and think that the work was well worth the donation, so I hit the target, at least. And the recipient of the first one said that I was talented, so I suppose I should believe that there's something in my body of work that people like.)

The Pre-Ball Decoration Decision Dilemmas (2563 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Elsa/Kristoff (Disney)
Characters: Elsa (Disney), Kristoff (Disney), Sven (Disney: Frozen), Marshmallow (Disney)
Additional Tags: Post-Frozen 2 (2019), winter holiday, Sven Is A Gossip, Keeping the Relatives Busy, Spite-Based Diplomacy
Summary:
Kristoff heads up to Elsa's ice castle, where she's already fully in the swing of decorating…and panic. Kristoff did his best to keep Elsa calm and make practical suggestions on where to put things.

Always be willing to write what you're offering. That's always the case with any of these things. Admittedly, I tried to consider what kind of space would have to happen for Elsa and Kristoff to be a viable pairing, but I also kind of secretly think that if Kristoff were going to be paired with Elsa, it would probably have been a hinge relationship with Kristoff at the center and being romantically inclined to both Anna and Elsa. That's not what was in the brief, though, and so I wrote something that I think reflects Kristoff's solid and dependable nature and how it would help prevent Elsa from getting too far into herself or stressing out about things that might result in accidental use of her powers. It went over well.

Show Him The Sky (4693 words) by silveradept
Fandom: Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gebel/Miriam (Bloodstained)
Characters: Gebel (Bloodstained), Miriam (Bloodstained), Johannes (Bloodstained), Zangetsu (Bloodstained)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gebel Survives, Convenient Fictions, POV Gebel, present tense narration, Post-Ritual of the Night, Is It All A Dream?
Summary:
Gebel returns to himself abruptly from the crystal corruption. While Miriam and Johannes offer him the possibility that they have won, he must be on his guard that this is another trick from the demon that has tormented him for so long. Can he even trust that he is who they say he is?

One of the things I did accomplish this year was going through the IGA-vania called Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, and mostly what it did was prove to me that I need more practice in those types of games if I want to appreciate them more. But it also meant I had a new Yuletide-eligible fandom to work with, and when this work came up, the prompts available talked about the possibility of what the world would be like if everybody lived in the post-game. Since this is a game with alchemy and the ability to construct creatures that look like all sorts of things, figuring out how to bring someone back from near-death was pretty easy. And the last line of the work was the first line I wrote, and then had to figure out how to get there from here, and it turned into an interesting exercise of writing from the perspective of someone who has very good reasons not to trust what they are seeing, and how they will interact with others, one who wants him to believe the truth (which he can't, not without verifying) and one who recognizes what situation he's in and feeds him convenient and believable fictions that allow him to reinforce the wrong conclusions he's drawing at first, with an eye toward getting him to the truth once he's willing to believe that it's not all a complete fabrication. And I had to do some re-reading and re-checking with this one to make sure that the action of the present was in the present and only things in memory were in the past tens. So I stretched my format muscles some with this work as well. The whole thing went over well with the recipient and with the only other person who had gotten material written for them in this fandom in the Yuletide collection.