Work in Progress Wednesday!
Feb. 13th, 2019 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tjs_whatnotAgain, sorry for the lateness, but I had to finish some things. Haha, which means, I have nothing to share today. All my things are either done, or in that exciting stage of beginning.
But, that also means I have all the time in the world to hear about your W(s)iP and cheer you on.
So, give them to me! Read and cheer others on too! Together, WE GOT THIS!
But, that also means I have all the time in the world to hear about your W(s)iP and cheer you on.
So, give them to me! Read and cheer others on too! Together, WE GOT THIS!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 12:53 am (UTC)Below him stars swarm like jungle insects, their radiance hiding any sign of the Galaxy from his eyes and his ship’s instruments. Above him hangs the dark curve of an unlikely planet, no star close enough to claim it. In front of him his fuel gage reads 17% and his nav computer is unhelpfully rebooting. So is P6-A4, who doesn’t like him anyway. All in all, New Republic Cadet Poe Dameron finds himself suspended within what’s probably a dense star cluster, and also completely lost.
Light flickers on the planet, warm and yellow rather than starlight white. Poe cranes his neck, looking up and over, and after a couple dozen heartbeats it flickers again. It is atmospheric? Surface? Natural? Intelligent? “Hey, P6-A4,” Poe calls, pounding his fist on the pilot compartment’s ceiling, which is completely useless but makes him feel better. “Hey, do me a favor?”
“What do you want?” his Astromech bleeps in annoyed cadences. “Where are we? What did you do this time?”
“I didn’t ask for an interrogation.” Poe misses his friend and companion, his BB-8, but he’s supposed to learn to work with anyone, even the only Astromech who doesn’t like him. “Scan that atmosphere for me, see if it’s breathable.”
“Jump out and check, learn something for once,” P6-A4 hisses and whirrs, but starts the scan anyway. Poe rolls his eyes, calls up some readouts on planetary gravitation and mass, and makes himself think. If he lands it’ll take 67% of his remaining fuel to get his ship off planet again, but right now he’s burning oxygen and drifting uselessly. Planetside at least has many more possibilities to find his bearings, some resources and maybe even help.
“73% N2, 23%O2, 4% other,”, P6-A4 announces. “Even you should be able to survive that.”
“Thank you so very much,” Poe mutters, turning the ship. “Down we go.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” P6-A4 grouses, and Poe blows a Mos Eisley cheer at the sour old can. The warm light flickers again, maybe beckoning, as he heads for the surface to see what might be seen.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 06:01 am (UTC)Oh wow, thanks! Poe is lucky -- he's going to find a friend at that flickering light.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 05:01 am (UTC)Great start! GO! Go!!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 05:57 am (UTC)beams Thank you. :) Now I need to work up the personage he meets..
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 10:10 pm (UTC)I'd love to read this when it's done. I don't usually read SW fanfic (how do you search good gen?) but this one looks like I'd enjoy it very much!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 01:01 am (UTC)"This is...this is Lieutenant Arashi. I was wondering if--I know you're on leave, but I was wondering--if you have time--I know it's an imposition, but--"
Riker bit back a sigh. Arashi? He tried to remember the details there. Tellarite. Stellar dynamics. Nice kid. Mild by Human standards, painfully shy and diffident by Tellarite ones, not to mention way more conflict averse than Riker had ever encountered with that species. He'd been on the ship during the Borg invasion, but he'd managed to stay one step ahead of them the entire time. Probably he just needed to talk it through with someone.
On the one hand, Starfleet had reams of therapists available for just that, and Riker could barely manage his own issues today, let along someone else's. On the other, he tried to be responsive to everyone on the crew. It was vital that they trust him to always be there for them. He had no problem shutting down someone trying to bypass the chain of command, but at the same time he couldn't be closed off to the concerns of the crew, even when those concerns got petty. And they could get very petty. Being the first officer meant walking a fine line between being a disciplinarian and a den mother. Or father, as the case may be.
"I'm in Anchorage," Riker said. "Alaska. I was just about to go for a cup of tea. Join me?"
"Um, yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
He'd hear the kid out for a few minutes, and then gently, or not so gently depending on how things went, nudge him toward the psychologists.
Riker gave him the name of the coffee shop he was headed to and closed the comm. He pulled on his boots and a coat. It was negative three outside, and a few fat snowflakes were falling, although they weren't expecting any serious accumulation, so he pulled on gloves, but left the hood of his coat down.
He took the long way to the coffee shop. It would take Arashi some time to get to a transporter, beam down from wherever he was, and then get to the coffee shop, and besides the walk would be soothing.
At least, the walk started out soothing, and then he turned a corner and came face to face with his old school. He hadn't intended it, not consciously, but there it was. The same and different. He crossed the street, dodging a half a dozen bikes, a city bus, and two private vehicles, until he was face to face with the place he had spent most of his days from the ages of four to fourteen.
It was a school day, and the kids were out playing. Younger kids screaming and jumping and scrambling across playground equipment, older kids on the climbing wall and showing off in a zero-g aerial gym. A teacher noticed him, and started to cross the playground toward him, probably wanting to know what he was doing watching the kids. He thought about veering away, but that would look worse, so he put on his best innocent face and waited until she was close enough to say, "I went to school here."
She took a few steps closer, and her jaw dropped. "Billy Riker!"
He grimaced. "I really prefer Will these days." Recognition dawned. "Ms. Monique."
She looked different. Her curly hair was mostly gray, and while her tan skin wasn't heavily lined, gravity had taken its toll on her chin and under her eyes. She'd gotten old. But then, so had he.
She stepped out onto the sidewalk and shook her head. "Billy Riker," she said. "Sorry, Will. You said you preferred Will." She looked him over. "I always knew you'd be a tall one."
He smiled, easy and charming, to cover up his discomfort. "How are you, Ms. Monique?"
She laughed. "I'm good. You know you can drop the 'Ms.', right? What are you now? Forty?"
"Thirty seven," he said, hopefully not letting the defensiveness into his voice. Did he really look forty? Then again, he'd felt about a hundred when he'd woken up that morning.
"All grown up," she said.
Will kept the easy smile on his face, but he hated that. Why did people who had known him as a child insist on commenting that he'd grown up? Had they thought there was a chance he'd somehow just stay stuck in perpetual childhood? It was inane conversation filler, and in his current mood, it annoyed him more than it should have.
"All grown up," he echoed.
Before he could make his excuse to go, she broke in with, "Where are you living now?"
"Space."
"Private sector?"
"No, Starfleet."
"Doing what?"
"I'm the executive officer on a starship."
Of course the follow up question was, "Which one?"
Here we go, Riker thought, and said, "Enterprise."
"Oh! Picard!"
He nodded. The Enterprise had a reputation, and ended up in the news a fair amount, but fortunately the average person only knew the name Picard. Only the hardcore Starfleet devotees had memorized the rest of the senior staff. Riker had met a few of them over the years. Once, in a restroom on Andor, he had spent twenty minutes being quizzed about old missions before he'd managed to break away. It was another reason he preferred deep space to the more central Federation worlds. There were only so many times you could be involved in deeply weird things before you developed a certain amount of notoriety. Many of their missions were classified, but enough of them weren't, and it could get uncomfortable to have random strangers that he had never met before know things about his career that he himself had half-forgotten.
In deep space, those encounters just didn't happen.
"What is the executive officer, anyway?"
"It's a little bit of everything," Riker said. "The captain issues the orders and I make sure they're carried out." And I take care of the minutiae of running the ship so that the captain can focus on the bigger picture. And I manage the personnel, which occasionally means holding the hand of a Tellarite lieutenant having a hard time getting over almost being assimilated by the Borg. Which reminded him. "I really need to go. I'm supposed to be meeting someone."
"Oh, of course. How long are you in town?"
"I really don't know."
"You should come back, talk to my class. They'd love to talk to a real life Starfleet officer."
Living and breathing Starfleet all day every day, it was easy to forget Starfleet officers were actually rare, relative to the rest of the population.
"Maybe," he said, and jotted his contact information at the hotel on a PADD for her before making a sort of running along gesture and giving her a wave and starting to walk away.
"Do you think Captain Picard might be willing to come and talk to them?" she called after him.
"Maybe," Riker said. No. Not for all the tea in China.
"Bye Billy!"
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 02:12 am (UTC)Oh, no. He is definitely a Will, lol.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 01:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 05:10 am (UTC)I hope this find a home soon!
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 02:02 pm (UTC)The larger story is kind of outlined in my head (it's actually part of the still larger Riker's War story that I have half-planned in my head) but I'm not convinced I'm actually going to write the rest of it. Right now I have all these scenes, but it's not coalescing yet.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 01:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 02:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 10:13 pm (UTC)This 'Billy' looks like he'd happily lose everyone's number if it gave him some time off from Starfleet!
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-15 12:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 01:40 am (UTC)Yikes.
So let me sprinkle a little of my writing mojo over everyone so you all write all the words you need and none that you done.
And here's a little teaser:
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 05:15 am (UTC)This was great! You know I'm a sucker for ALL THE MOZZIE! And he's superb here!
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 02:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 05:17 am (UTC)Go you, Bingo Royalty!
♥
writing
Date: 2019-02-14 02:38 am (UTC)Re: writing
Date: 2019-02-14 05:20 am (UTC)YOU CAN DO IT!!
♥
Re: writing
Date: 2019-02-14 05:35 am (UTC)Re: writing
Date: 2019-02-14 01:03 pm (UTC)Re: writing
Date: 2019-02-14 03:44 pm (UTC)But a friend has been reading later chapters and encouraging me and I decided to jump in and completely replace chapter one with a different chapter one. (I'm not sure it's *better* but it just feels better to be writing something from scratch instead of trying to patch up an awkward piece that I first wrote years ago.)
And then the second "big" project is actually plotless fanfic smut which is my way of avoiding working on the other project while still feeling productive. :-) That's the one I wrote an additional 2k words on this weekend.
Re: writing
Date: 2019-02-16 03:20 am (UTC)And yay for project for avoiding other projects. I have way too many of those too. ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 06:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-16 03:22 am (UTC)It happens. HEre's hoping you get to it and make it shine as soon as you can.
♥
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 01:56 pm (UTC)"Daniel lifted the champagne flute to his lips, pretending to sip as he scanned the over-dressed crowd wandering through the Stuttgart Museum. He lifted his hand to his bow tie, hardly daring to brush the expensive fabric for fear of nudging it out of place. Tuxedos, bow ties, gem-studded evening-wear. Nope. He could absolutely never get used to this – and he wondered how a scientist of Heinrich Schafer's intelligence and drive coped with this kind of hand-shaking meet-and-greet on a regular basis.
The scientist's spirit drowsed deep within, his fierce mind wrapped tight in Daniel's ascended power. Unlike the FBI agent Daniel had inhabited in the previous universe, this powerful man had to be swamped, completely overwhelmed. He would not have accepted Daniel's control any other way.
Schafer was a very different man – but then, this was a very, very different world. Here superpowered beings were accepted, expected, even. Alien gods, hulking scientists, avenging constructs – some from beyond the stars, others built by genius billionaires – were shown on every news channel. Here, the scientist Daniel had borrowed, due to be honored by the Stuttgart Museum, would awaken later to be surrounded by reporters and groupies frantic for his story of alien possession.
Daniel buried his grimace behind his glass. Apparently, it wasn't only in his own universe that over-dressed megalomaniac so-called gods bent on human domination longed to preen before a crowd, making speeches and believing themselves unassailable.
He sighed, allowing himself a moment to appreciate the museum's exhibits – great Assyrian winged gods carved from immense stones. Tablets covered with hieroglyphs. A sarcophagus – stone and wood, not hiding alien technology – lay beneath a thick glass case. He breathed in the familiar scent of ancient books, dust, and the heavy musk of centuries past.
A spark of power turned his gaze from the familiar antiquities towards the grand staircase. There. Loki wore the trappings of a human as easily as Daniel, but the throbbing energy beneath was as clear as desert sunlight. Daniel shifted Schafer's attention from the strutting alien while his ascended awareness measured and weighed Loki's power. It was undeniably strong, built on an utterly alien foundation grown under foreign suns. Frost giant. Asgardian. Magic-user. Conjurer. Loki was all those things and many more. But the power that shone bright and dense from Thor, from Freya, from Odin – even though the old man's soul was rusting and tarnished - was blunted in Loki. Twisted. Hardened by jealousy and bitterness into a jagged ball of cold steel that tied Loki's spirit up in knots.
Whether Daniel could unravel those knots to reveal the hurt child within – well, that was something the Others advised him was yet to be seen. The Ancients' power was great, but, in this universe, Daniel was going to need a bit of help.
The Others waited in the square outside, dressed as German tourists and citizens. They surrounded Schafer's well-guarded warehouse a few blocks away, where Clint Barton and his minions did their god's bidding. One whispered in a struggling scientist's ear on board a carrier flying over the ocean. And Oma herself stood beside all-seeing Heimdall on the Rainbow Bridge, awaiting Daniel's sign.
The smug smile on Loki's lips grew as the Asgardian caught sight of Daniel's borrowed human form.
Daniel strolled towards the edge of the crowd, all eyes turning towards him. 'Yes,' He sent a beckoning flicker of energy towards Loki, 'come closer.'
When Loki's staff tripped him, strong hands slamming Schafer's body flat on top of the glass display case, Daniel was ready. They were all ready."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-16 03:29 am (UTC)♥
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 10:08 pm (UTC)Next three POVs of scene are going to be DIRE though. Like, the readers should totally come out of the chapter screaming at me.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-15 12:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-16 03:30 am (UTC)I love every word of this!
You do group dynamics realllllly well.
♥