[Fic] Random fragments that I will never finish
A small thing I did today:
As part of tidying my apartment in preparation for Susan's visit this weekend, I typed up a bunch of my paper notes into proper electronic files. This means that A) they won't be clutter anymore, and B) I will actually be able to find their contents when I need them instead of losing them at the bottom of a several inch thick stack of paper scraps.
Some of them I don't have any context for anymore, while others are pretty straightforward background worldbuilding or story outlining. And others are scraps of actual stories.
I have a lot more random story snippets than I remember actually writing.
Here are a few that I am pretty sure aren't going anywhere anymore:
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Harry Potter - untitled Hermione and Ginny fragment
undated, prompt = redeem
"What was it like growing up with brothers?"
Ginny shrugged, not looking up from her Herbology reading. "I don't know -- what's it like to be an only child?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly. I just want to know how all of you used to interact at home."
"Mostly we didn't."
"Ginny."
"Oh, fine." Ginny set down her book and tucked her hair behind her ears. "By the time I was born, Bill was already at Hogwarts, and Charlie was right behind him, so I only saw them summers. Percy... well, he's always been kind of stiff. And he does everything right so he was Mum's favorite."
She grinned. "I remember one time Mum was going on about
(I have no idea where I was going with that.)
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Homestuck - untitled Rose Lalonde fragment
February 2016, prompt = word #237, renew
"The Lalonde girl was in again today," Mel said as Sarah hung her coat and scarf on the pegboard. "Renewed a whole stack of those grimoires and Lovecraft knockoffs."
"You'd think it would be simpler to buy them," Sarah said. "Her mother sure isn't hurting for money."
"We should all be so lucky," Mel said, laughing. "Maybe it's a stab for independence or something. What gets me is that she lugs the whole stack in by hand. I know she knows we have a website. She uses it for hold and loan requests. So why do renewals by hand?"
(Again, I have no idea where this was going.)
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---------------
Daredevil - untitled post-Season 1 fragment
2/5/16, prompt = word #237, renew
The thing is, Fisk wasn't entirely wrong in his goals. He wanted to renew Hell's Kitchen after its devastation, wanted to make its streets and buildings safe, wanted to make the neighborhood into a beacon for the rest of the city.
The problem was that he decided his vision of the future was easiest to build by first burning the present, finishing what the aliens started. And that might work for building and streets, but it's no way to treat people.
Of course, letting people live in a disaster zone isn't good either, and it's next to impossible to lure developers without giving them [blah blah fill in later].
Matt thinks a lot about striking that balance, about holding on to the truth that people aren't disposable -- aren't things -- while also avoiding futile last stands that do nothing to actually improve the lives he's sworn himself to protect.
[and then a discussion w/ various people, plus a hug for hope at the end?]
(I think I abandoned this because it was more didactic than I wanted.)
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Daredevil - miscellaneous fragments whose context I have lost
6/13/15, random thoughts
Neither of Matt's parents were Blood. He thinks, sometimes, that might be why his mother left, unable or unwilling to face raising a child with that kind of violence woven into his soul.
-----
-----
In the end, he doesn't so much tell Karen as confirm her own discovery.
He expects anger, maybe a week or so of strained silence in the office. Instead, she nods, swallows hard, and acts like nothing's changed. She's not angry at all.
If anything, she pulls away from Foggy, which makes no sense.
(I think the first was an attempt at a Black Jewels crossover/fusion thing. The second is clearly a divergence post-Season 1, but beyond that, I got nothing. *shrug*)
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Riddlemaster Trilogy - Not Compassion (Those from the Sea)
8/12/10
She was too tired to cook dinner. And what was the point when she could simply call a rabbit to sit trembling on the stones of her threshold, shift into a wolf or a hawk, and eat the creature raw?
She put that plan into action.
Then, of course, the stones were bloody and dotted with bones and skin. She ought to clean the mess lest it worry her neighbors and their children.
She was too tired for that as well. And they were Earth Masters -- they knew the laws of life were as cruel as they were beautiful. If blood upset them, they were hypocrites.
Everyone was a hypocrite these days, it seemed. Even she was tangled between desire and habit. With all the power of the world in their potential to grasp, why would no one reach out and make use of it?
Edolen lay with her arms spread wide, listening to the murmur of grass as it grew between the stones of the city, and wondered if she were going mad.
When her neighbors ventured over to ask about the blood the next morning, they found only a note saying she had gone to the sea, and her house was theirs to do with as they wished.
They didn't see her again until the war came.
-----
8/26/10
The mouth of the Winter River was not most people's idea of a desirable home. The cold gray water rushed endlessly past, flinging itself into the teeth of the sea. Drab pines and firs huddled on the wind-battered shore. The earth was rock and sand and heavy clay, heartbreaking to farm. And the storms were ferocious.
Nonetheless, the river sustained trade, and a small village clung to the shore, its people the strange sort who liked the lonely wilderness. Their children tended to leave as soon as they grew old enough.
The woman who flew in from the south in the shape of an albatross slipped into their community with scarcely a ripple. Her restlessness was familiar to everyone.
Edolen found an empty stone cottage on the edge of the village and claimed it as a place to sleep. Beyond that, she made no pretense of moving through the forms of human life. Why should she? True, her people had been human, were born in human shape, but they had become so much more. They could be and do whatever they set their minds and wills to become and accomplish. The rules of any one shape only bound that particular shape. If she could slip any shape, she could slip any rules -- why, then, pretend to obey them unless she herself chose?
Edolen shaped herself to water and slipped into the sea.
(This was clearly an attempt to give the nameless Earthmaster woman some backstory (and also assign her a name that seems plausible, given the "Those from the sea. Edolen. Sec," line that... I think one of the dead kids under the mountain says to Morgon?) and try to make sense of the inherent tension of a society where everyone has that kind of unfettered power even if they haven't quite realized it yet. But I never really had a plot, so it stalled out here.)
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Original - untitled fairy-tale fragment
5/25/13 and 6/6/13, prompt = word #279, me
Once upon a time there was a witch who lived alone in a castle. This is not because she was the only person there, but because she was the only one awake. On the witch's twelfth birthday, the princess of the kingdom had fallen under a curse and the price of saving her was a hundred years of sleep. Selfishly, her fairy godmother had extended the spell to everyone the princess knew, locking the whole castle and the surrounding city in magical thorns and slumber.
But the few people who might have learned magic in other lands -- for in this country, magic was thought a fairy thing and not suitable for humans -- did not fall to dreams. They were left awake and bewildered, then awake and afraid, and finally awake and enraged. For a time they gathered in the castle gatehouse and lived on the cold food still hung over frozen fires, and tried everything under the moon to break the curse and bid the city wake. But as the nights and years rolled on, most lost hope and began to dream of escape.
One by one, they walked out through the maze of thorns that would not pierce their skin -- no more than the cursed slumber had snared their minds -- until only the lone witch was left. She was a woman grown now, come of age among silence and spells, and she had forgotten how to live in a world awake.
"Come with us," each other witch and wizard begged as they left the cursed city. "Humans are not meant to live alone. That is how magic twists and rots. Come with us away from this half-life prison."
But the witch always refused. And then she was alone with not even birdsong to break the blanket of wind in the thorns, unless she raised her own voice with no one left to hear.
She lived in silence for many years.
[Note: she makes art; when the city wakes, it is unfamiliar to the princess]
(This is one of the seeds of Sunbright and Shadowfall, even though I think it originally started as some kind of sideways Homestuck AU? By which I mean, IIRC this was loosely drawn from a dream, in which the lonely witch was Jade Harley, but I dunno exactly; it was a long time ago and I never wrote the details down.)
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---------------
And that's that for my brain-dump. Everything else is either too fragmentary to be comprehensible, or is something I actually do still mean to finish someday.
If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
As part of tidying my apartment in preparation for Susan's visit this weekend, I typed up a bunch of my paper notes into proper electronic files. This means that A) they won't be clutter anymore, and B) I will actually be able to find their contents when I need them instead of losing them at the bottom of a several inch thick stack of paper scraps.
Some of them I don't have any context for anymore, while others are pretty straightforward background worldbuilding or story outlining. And others are scraps of actual stories.
I have a lot more random story snippets than I remember actually writing.
Here are a few that I am pretty sure aren't going anywhere anymore:
---------------
---------------
Harry Potter - untitled Hermione and Ginny fragment
undated, prompt = redeem
"What was it like growing up with brothers?"
Ginny shrugged, not looking up from her Herbology reading. "I don't know -- what's it like to be an only child?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Honestly. I just want to know how all of you used to interact at home."
"Mostly we didn't."
"Ginny."
"Oh, fine." Ginny set down her book and tucked her hair behind her ears. "By the time I was born, Bill was already at Hogwarts, and Charlie was right behind him, so I only saw them summers. Percy... well, he's always been kind of stiff. And he does everything right so he was Mum's favorite."
She grinned. "I remember one time Mum was going on about
(I have no idea where I was going with that.)
---------------
---------------
Homestuck - untitled Rose Lalonde fragment
February 2016, prompt = word #237, renew
"The Lalonde girl was in again today," Mel said as Sarah hung her coat and scarf on the pegboard. "Renewed a whole stack of those grimoires and Lovecraft knockoffs."
"You'd think it would be simpler to buy them," Sarah said. "Her mother sure isn't hurting for money."
"We should all be so lucky," Mel said, laughing. "Maybe it's a stab for independence or something. What gets me is that she lugs the whole stack in by hand. I know she knows we have a website. She uses it for hold and loan requests. So why do renewals by hand?"
(Again, I have no idea where this was going.)
---------------
---------------
Daredevil - untitled post-Season 1 fragment
2/5/16, prompt = word #237, renew
The thing is, Fisk wasn't entirely wrong in his goals. He wanted to renew Hell's Kitchen after its devastation, wanted to make its streets and buildings safe, wanted to make the neighborhood into a beacon for the rest of the city.
The problem was that he decided his vision of the future was easiest to build by first burning the present, finishing what the aliens started. And that might work for building and streets, but it's no way to treat people.
Of course, letting people live in a disaster zone isn't good either, and it's next to impossible to lure developers without giving them [blah blah fill in later].
Matt thinks a lot about striking that balance, about holding on to the truth that people aren't disposable -- aren't things -- while also avoiding futile last stands that do nothing to actually improve the lives he's sworn himself to protect.
[and then a discussion w/ various people, plus a hug for hope at the end?]
(I think I abandoned this because it was more didactic than I wanted.)
---------------
---------------
Daredevil - miscellaneous fragments whose context I have lost
6/13/15, random thoughts
Neither of Matt's parents were Blood. He thinks, sometimes, that might be why his mother left, unable or unwilling to face raising a child with that kind of violence woven into his soul.
-----
-----
In the end, he doesn't so much tell Karen as confirm her own discovery.
He expects anger, maybe a week or so of strained silence in the office. Instead, she nods, swallows hard, and acts like nothing's changed. She's not angry at all.
If anything, she pulls away from Foggy, which makes no sense.
(I think the first was an attempt at a Black Jewels crossover/fusion thing. The second is clearly a divergence post-Season 1, but beyond that, I got nothing. *shrug*)
---------------
---------------
Riddlemaster Trilogy - Not Compassion (Those from the Sea)
8/12/10
She was too tired to cook dinner. And what was the point when she could simply call a rabbit to sit trembling on the stones of her threshold, shift into a wolf or a hawk, and eat the creature raw?
She put that plan into action.
Then, of course, the stones were bloody and dotted with bones and skin. She ought to clean the mess lest it worry her neighbors and their children.
She was too tired for that as well. And they were Earth Masters -- they knew the laws of life were as cruel as they were beautiful. If blood upset them, they were hypocrites.
Everyone was a hypocrite these days, it seemed. Even she was tangled between desire and habit. With all the power of the world in their potential to grasp, why would no one reach out and make use of it?
Edolen lay with her arms spread wide, listening to the murmur of grass as it grew between the stones of the city, and wondered if she were going mad.
When her neighbors ventured over to ask about the blood the next morning, they found only a note saying she had gone to the sea, and her house was theirs to do with as they wished.
They didn't see her again until the war came.
-----
8/26/10
The mouth of the Winter River was not most people's idea of a desirable home. The cold gray water rushed endlessly past, flinging itself into the teeth of the sea. Drab pines and firs huddled on the wind-battered shore. The earth was rock and sand and heavy clay, heartbreaking to farm. And the storms were ferocious.
Nonetheless, the river sustained trade, and a small village clung to the shore, its people the strange sort who liked the lonely wilderness. Their children tended to leave as soon as they grew old enough.
The woman who flew in from the south in the shape of an albatross slipped into their community with scarcely a ripple. Her restlessness was familiar to everyone.
Edolen found an empty stone cottage on the edge of the village and claimed it as a place to sleep. Beyond that, she made no pretense of moving through the forms of human life. Why should she? True, her people had been human, were born in human shape, but they had become so much more. They could be and do whatever they set their minds and wills to become and accomplish. The rules of any one shape only bound that particular shape. If she could slip any shape, she could slip any rules -- why, then, pretend to obey them unless she herself chose?
Edolen shaped herself to water and slipped into the sea.
(This was clearly an attempt to give the nameless Earthmaster woman some backstory (and also assign her a name that seems plausible, given the "Those from the sea. Edolen. Sec," line that... I think one of the dead kids under the mountain says to Morgon?) and try to make sense of the inherent tension of a society where everyone has that kind of unfettered power even if they haven't quite realized it yet. But I never really had a plot, so it stalled out here.)
---------------
---------------
Original - untitled fairy-tale fragment
5/25/13 and 6/6/13, prompt = word #279, me
Once upon a time there was a witch who lived alone in a castle. This is not because she was the only person there, but because she was the only one awake. On the witch's twelfth birthday, the princess of the kingdom had fallen under a curse and the price of saving her was a hundred years of sleep. Selfishly, her fairy godmother had extended the spell to everyone the princess knew, locking the whole castle and the surrounding city in magical thorns and slumber.
But the few people who might have learned magic in other lands -- for in this country, magic was thought a fairy thing and not suitable for humans -- did not fall to dreams. They were left awake and bewildered, then awake and afraid, and finally awake and enraged. For a time they gathered in the castle gatehouse and lived on the cold food still hung over frozen fires, and tried everything under the moon to break the curse and bid the city wake. But as the nights and years rolled on, most lost hope and began to dream of escape.
One by one, they walked out through the maze of thorns that would not pierce their skin -- no more than the cursed slumber had snared their minds -- until only the lone witch was left. She was a woman grown now, come of age among silence and spells, and she had forgotten how to live in a world awake.
"Come with us," each other witch and wizard begged as they left the cursed city. "Humans are not meant to live alone. That is how magic twists and rots. Come with us away from this half-life prison."
But the witch always refused. And then she was alone with not even birdsong to break the blanket of wind in the thorns, unless she raised her own voice with no one left to hear.
She lived in silence for many years.
[Note: she makes art; when the city wakes, it is unfamiliar to the princess]
(This is one of the seeds of Sunbright and Shadowfall, even though I think it originally started as some kind of sideways Homestuck AU? By which I mean, IIRC this was loosely drawn from a dream, in which the lonely witch was Jade Harley, but I dunno exactly; it was a long time ago and I never wrote the details down.)
---------------
---------------
And that's that for my brain-dump. Everything else is either too fragmentary to be comprehensible, or is something I actually do still mean to finish someday.
If you want to comment on this post, you can do so over here on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)