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Chapter 9 Brainstorming!

I'm not saying I'm planning to sign up or anything, I just love this story to pieces and have been extremely saddened to see it go by the wayside. After indulging in some kung-fu epics and thinking about the Cult of the Illuminated spoilers, I started to get some ideas for what could happen next. Please, if you've got any ideas of your own, feel free to share them; if any of these ideas inspire you, feel free to sign up.

-In a sweeping turn of events, Breath of Heaven contacts the Gold Faction on behalf of Kestrel, to help protect Cricket. Unfortunately, this comes down on Kestrel's head-- as far as the Bureaucracy sees it, HE is the one who has disobeyed a direct order and abandoned his faction! The Gold Faction won't take him for fear he's a spy, and the Bronze is gearing up to put him on trial. With no political clout to back him up, Kestrel is a sitting duck. Meanwhile, the Gold Faction trains Cricket, and she begins to get the sneaking suspicion they care more about her necklace than about her. And where, she wonders, is the dashing Kestrel? Can Cricket suss out the haps and devise a plan to save her man before it's too late?

I am kind of opposed to taking the story into Yu-Shan, since it's just such a goshwow move. It seems like its weirdness and the constant, intrusive machinations of heavenly politics would overshadow the "romance" aspect that's kind of key to the story. That said, we do already have a bunch of characters who hang out in heaven all the time, so it's not like many plotlines would cease being viable if everyone packed up and moved to YS. _Ikselam

-Imagine everyone's surprise when, during dinner, there's a knock at the door. It's an attractive, long-haired goth boy who claims to be Shoat's BROTHER! Ba na na! He apologetically explains that Shoat has a tendency to lie, and that she likes to run away because life hasn't been the same since their parents died, and it's been so hard for him to have to be her "father." Shoat is scared poopless of the guy, but of course, Cricket is somewhat taken by him, thanks to her naturally maternal role with Shoat. And man, is Kestrel PISSED. Breath helps him get to the bottom of this wacky mystery!

I don't think this is a great idea, since it involves introducing yet another important character -- it would just draw attention away from the existing characters, who are going every which way with their own little plotlines. _Ikselam

-Shoat really should die sometime soon. I like her and all, but her death could go a long way towards furthering the plot and adding nuance to the emotional connections between the characters. Who should kill Shoat and why?

I was kind of hoping lil' Shoatling would get a happy ending, but if she's gotta die, I'd suggest she nobly sacrifices herself to protect Cricket or something. Ideally this would happen somewhat further down the line, when a) it would be less likely to screw up C beyond repair and b) Shoat has had time to realize that C is a much better mommy than DotIViUV ever was.

If you want to take the group into Yu-Shan, obviously Shoat would need to be jettisoned before that happened. C might be able to wilfully overlook her creepiness, but it's doubtful celestial lions would be as tolerant. _Ikselam

-It seems like we're getting closer and closer to characters who have never met, actually meeting. What should the first impressions and general relationships between the following characters involve: Breath of Heaven and Cricket, Breath and Shoat, Breath and Kamaria, Kestrel and Kamaria, Kamaria and Cricket? Should Cricket meet Sauda in a giant mud pit and duke it out foxy-boxing style? --dissolvegirl

"Should Cricket meet Sauda in a giant mud pit and duke it out foxy-boxing style?" Yes. This is precisely what should be done. :) -- Halloween <- Feel free to delete this.

I agree with the idea that Breath's storyline should somehow become integrated with C&K's; right now, he's too parallel. The obvious point of contact there is Kam; it seems likely that Breath has figured out she's after C, and wants to be around to catch her (or catch her next agent, who might lead him back to her). It seems like it would also be a good idea to start hinting at the function of Cricket's MacGuffin amulet, and also at what kind of powers she has besides Superlative Seamstress Skills.

My best idea on how to deal with Breath's sudden appearance at the end of last chapter is to get him, Cricket, and Kestrel all together in a room, and then have Cricket start demanding to know what the hell is going on, and why attractive foreign men suddenly seem to be appearing out of nowhere to save her from mysterious perils. No idea how dense the exposition should get at that point, or what her reaction would be. _Ikselam

Chapter 8

I was fairly pleased with this chapter. There were nitpicky grammar errors, mainly having to do with a paucity of commas, but I thought the twist at the end was pretty decent. It provides a reason for some plot movement, without seeming totally out of the blue. I'm not keen on the idea of Breath suddenly becoming a good guy, but I think there's room for his actions here to be plenty Machiavellian. _Ikselam

This chapter was intreguing. I had always sort of pictured a tearful, emotional scene where Cricket told Kestrel what had happened in the past (and actually, that could still happen, only with an obvious twist at the end), but I think having it related through Cricket's mom worked surprisingly well. It added a second layer to her constant harassment of Cricket to find a man and have a kid, and I think it works well. The twist at the end has me terribly excited, though. Looks like secrets are getting revealed all over the place. I love it. --dissolvegirl

I'm excited too! I particularly liked the detail of the Rime ward. - willows

The description of the ward was a nice touch. On reflection, there were a couple continuity questions which suggested themselves.

• In the part where Cricket's mom exposits, she says she knows Cricket had an abortion. I'm not sure if she also implies that she knows that Cricket is sterile (which would be a bad thing to imply, since it would make her "get married, have kids!" thing make no sense whatsoever).
• Very minor: When Breath searches the apartment, he found an intact bottle. Unless it was a two-potion night, he shouldn't have; Liuwen smashed the bottle after downing his Potion of Machismo in part 5.

_Ikselam

See, on the first bit, I suppose it could go either way. But I was assuming it meant Cricket's mom knew Cricket was barren, which would make for an extremely compelling and fairly realistic mother-daughter dynamic. Cricket's mom said she is not ready to tell Cricket that she knows, just as Cricket is not ready to tell her mother. The prodding to procreate would then be Cricket's mom's way of trying to get her daughter to confide in her. Meanwhile, Cricket's mom feels guilty because she realizes her prodding has to be causing Cricket pain, but does it to try to help their relationship-- and Cricket feels guilty for hiding it from her mother. Mmm, tasty angst. But of course, that's if Cricket's mom does know about the infertility; it was left unclear, whether intentionally or not. --dissolvegirl

Thanks, and again I apologize a thousand times for the inexcusable lateness. As to Breath, beleive me, I had no intention of turning him into a complete Good Guy. For example, when asked about his presence there -- he was brought there by an interest in following the actions of Kamaria. In my view his line is extremely quick thinking; I'm not necesserily convinced he even knew Cricket was there before spotting her but he could certainly put 2 and 2 together after finding her and keeping tabs on Cricket would be the obvious way to track down Kamaria, now knowing something of what she was after. Cricket's mom does know about the infertility as I wrote it and as it is suggested; a fertility god would not go out of their way to harm a newborn, but might go very out of their way to harm someone who spoiled their own fertility out of a perceived vanity, as Cricket's Mom picks up on and uses as an opportunity to tell what she knows. I view, in this light, Cricket's mother's constant badgering of Cricket as, as dissolvegirl mentions, a subtlety of the mother-daughter dynamic of the two. She wants Cricket to tell her about it, and so makes it so that Cricket has to jump through hoops to keep the secret, hence the badgering about getting married and having kids. A little sadistic but, again as dissolvegirl says and as Cricket's mother herself alludes to when she says 'A mother always knows,' a fairly realistic example of a mother-daughter relationship, or a parent-child relationship in general. The bottle-finding is a legitimate continuity error with no excuses for it. I guess it was a two-potion night.

I have no idea, and am very interested to see what exactly [Breath] is going to tell Cricket, and Kestrel when he shows up. I had originally planned for Kestrel to show up before Breath, and had a little scene where Kestrel finds Breath instead of Cricket and Breath explains that he has come to usher the two away to Yu-Shuan, having made a deal with lions at one of the gates not to file reports about these individuals entering heaven so as not to alert Sauda and Kamaria to Cricket's whereabouts, the catch being he couldn't make the deal with the lions at the Sijan gate owing to increased observance of that gate by the Powers that Be due to the importance of the necklace mission. I ended up scrapping this plan, however, due to both time constrains and narrative flow/realism of plot.

The way I picture it, Breath quickly realizes that something inside had to take out Mortwright and, when Kestrel and Cricket both reveal they know nothing, figures out what's up with Shoat but says nothing, because to do so would tip his hand too much, creating a very interesting group dynamic. Mainly, I wanted to tie the Kamaria plot and the CnK plot closer together than they already are, as I think Kamaria was becoming rather important and risked pulling the action too far away from our intrepid heroes. But, that's just my vision, and its out of my hands now.

Peace be with you, --SandJack

Chapter 7

There was a lot of stuff I didn't understand in this chapter. If you have some author's notes, that would be great. --dissolvegirl

I liked Bobbin a lot. Shoat's is clearly doing some kind of resonance-related thing, but the motivation underlying her specific actiosn eludes me at the moment. _Ikselam

Ah, yes. There were some ends that I was going to tie up before my brain started to hurt. The upshot of Shoat's motivation, at least in my eyes, is this: She sees the dead flowers and realizes that it is her resonance and, knowing there are others about who may know of such things, realizes she needs to create an alibi or she'll lose her cover.

So she begins to weave a fiction of SOMETHING happening in the house, something that affects children. So she decides to deepen the mystery by affecting the other child in the house, and feigning a dream of her ill-health in order to gain access. It is easy for her resonance to affect the child, already straddling between two worlds.

She doesn't want to hurt the child, but she feels backed into a corner. Now, her fears of being discovered are greatly exaggerated in her mind, at least as I see it, noone would ever have necessarily traced the wilting flowers back to her. But she doesn't know that, and she wouldn't believe it even if someone told her.

She likes cricket, being with cricket, and doesn't want to give that up. Not for much of anything.

As to Kamaria's plan B, that space intentionally left blank.

-- SandJack

(posting from the library, as my networking exploded) That seems like a very...mature and thoughtful thing for a person of the Shoat's age to be doing, which is what confused me. Regardless of her paranoia, which is a different issue entirely. - willows

The way it's explained above certainly seems very calculating and "adult," but it could just as easily be the result of a healthy dose of low cunning. It's also possible that Shoat has been in a previous situation which gave her the idea. _Ikselam

Is Shoat really as old as she appears to be? I've been reading mostly under the impression that she was acting young to suit her appearance -- when a person exalts the aging process stops, or at least slows greatly. Were I a deathlord, ordering my minions about, a childlike adult, especially one skilled at acting like a child, would be a powerful weapon indeed.

But that's only one interpretation. --SandJack

I think in the Abyssal book it says that the current shoat is about 10 years old, but it does say (or is it heavily imply? I've only skimmed the book) that the Dowager tends to off her Shoatlings when they get too old. In which case, one could meet canon and dramatic license in the middle-- perhaps Shoat knows she's getting a little too old and is getting desperate to prove herself useful to Mommy. --dissolvegirl

For my part, I deliberately tried to stay away from the idea of Shoat-as-grownup-who-looks-like-kid, mainly due to the healthy contempt I developed for that particular character concept during my Vampire days. I wrote with the assumption that her anxiety was mostly real (though from a different source than the other characters surmise), and that she doesn't really have a huge capacity for active guile.

Speaking from my own viewpoint, an actual 10-year-old deathknight is far more interesting than a deathknight who just happens to look like a child. I'm also not totally convinced that aging should come to a screeching halt for Abyssals (or anyone else) who exalts prepubescently. But it's all good; I'm not going to go all aggro on someone for writing in stuff I wouldn't have written. _Ikselam

I, too, was writing Shoat as the age she appeared. No matter how odd the relationship, I can't see an adult Deathknight who looked like a child calling their patron "Mother." Also, if we went with the idea that Shoat was older and more mature than her appearance implies, there's no way my brain would be able to make sense of her reaction to the flowers in the first place-- the dramatic freeze and the despairing in the pseudo-POV. It seemed as if she went from being too childish to too adult, and for the life of me I can't reconcile the two. That's just me, though. --dissolvegirl

In an ideal world, characterization would remain completely uniform across all authors. However, as a character in this very series noted a few parts back, the world we live in is not an ideal one. Sure, this part did a few things which didn't conform to your or my conception of how things should work; I don't think it actually did anything bad or unwarranted. Let's find some way of reconciling the opposing viewpoints here, or using them as a starting point for new ideas. The "getting too old" direction could work; I'm sure there are other possibilities, too, but I am kind of tired and can't think of them right now. _Ikselam thought the whole concept of sticking Shoat in the story was totally wack when CrownedSun did it, but ended up getting some good ideas from it.

Thoughts on my charactarization of Shoat: As I look at it now, I think I was writing Shoat as a child that has had a lot of life experience. Shoat, as a person, had never had to grow up -- clearly, she still had a strong parent figure who gave her all her direction and provided for her completely, after a fashion -- and because she had never had to grow up, she never had. It doesn't really matter how old she is, however -- the important bit is life experience. She can be a ten-year-old easily. Ten year olds are cunning. Damn cunning. They just don't have as much raw knowledge as more mature individuals. They havn't failed as often to lose from their mistakes. But Shoat? Shoat has. Shoat has learned that failure is not an option, and has learned how to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing no matter what -- believe me, this is something that a 10 year old is more than capable of.
--SandJack

I can agree with that. Either as the result of being older than she looks, or because Mommy would cut off her arms and legs and stick her in a box made of shrieking ghosts if she messes up, Shoat is significantly more capable than a normal 10-year-old.
She could also be getting Whispers. _Ikselam

Just as a note on another topic, I would like to note that -- as of events in my chapter, at least -- Kestrel kind of /can/ go back to Heaven, even if it wouldn't really be a good idea for him to do so. Breath of Heaven got the death sentence lifted, and Kestrel is now an Independent Sidereal as opposed to a Rogue Sidereal. I thought I'd best mention this, since it seemed to have gone unnoticed in this last part:) Check out the very first scene of my part, some chapters back.
-- CrownedSun

Kestrel doesn't know this, though. _Ikselam

I'm really happy that you signed up for a consecutive chapter, Hal. Despite the bit of confusion I felt after reading chapter 7 for the first time, I enjoy your writing and can't wait to see where 7b takes our beloved hero and heroine. ;) --dissolvegirl

Thank you dissolvegirl! The truth is, though, there were thought thread I had that just didn't make it to termination that really need to get out of my head in order to make sense. Unfortunately, at the time, I had a massive headache that delayed the posting of that chapter and prevented me from going into as much detail as I'd have wanted to. So, now's my chance to make some sense of it. -- SandJack

Chapter 6

I'm really interested to see how people thought the two-part story arc that Ikselam and I did worked out. It was really interesting to make an already-collaborative project even more collaborative, and it was a heck of a lot of fun.

I don't really have author notes, except that writer's block hit me about three different times while writing this, and if it were not for Ikselam's infinite patience and wonderful help it never would have gotten done. Also, I never got around to outright saying it, but we thought the wards painted on Kamaria's chest would be good if they sort of bound her into service to her mother. I was going to have a scene where that came out, but this monster of a chapter was getting away from me, so I just sort of cut my losses and ran. --dissolvegirl

I think it came out well, considering the aforementioned writer's block. I'm glad you put in the conversation between Cricket and Eventide; I'd been a little worried that Cricket + Kestrel == LUUUURVE thing was progressing at an unrealistic pace. I was also glad to see some of Cricket's edge come out. It's a very important aspect of her character, but it's easy to fall into the trap of soft-pedaling it.

Shoat's line to Morty wasn't the one I'd have chosen (as you know), but it was just as good as my idea.

The best little nugget in this chapter? The Committee on Dramatic Gestures. As I think I've said before, the Court of Hours is also an excellent idea. You should add some of your ideas to Creatures/TheSpiritCourts; not enough people come up with good spirit courts, and yours are very good indeed. _Ikselam

I really, really loved your idea of Shoat's dagger being forged of the souls of her parents; I just didn't know how else to work it in. I think your idea was spookier, admittedly. As far as adding stuff to the Spirit Courts goes, I have this tendency to come up with just enough of an idea for use as a background plot device (The Court of Hours) or a cute turn of phrase (The Committee on Dramatic Gestures). I've never been good at finishing things, as the time it took me to get this chapter done demonstrates. However, you write delightful fluff, and I'd be delighted to see you expand on those ideas. *grin* --dissolvegirl

Out of curiosity Ik, what WAS your line? -- SandJack

Mort pops in, notices Shoat; she says something creepy/childish, like "You don't belong here." End scene. _Ikselam

Chapter 5

I just signed up to write the next part. I've got some pretty firm ideas of what I want to do, but I'd still like to hear what you had planned, CrownedSun. Please email me the ideas you had but didn't get to use.

I also signed you up for the next part, dissolvegirl, as per our discussion only minutes ago. If you've a sudden change of heart, feel free to remove the signup. _Ikselam

Don't worry, I'm still game if you are. :) --dissolvegirl

SandJack tingles in anticipation

Chapter 4

Question, for the CaK fans. This part I'm writing -- it's looking to be pretty long, if I go from "introduce the characters" "set up the conflict" and "resolve the conflict" all in one part. If I make it as long as it would need to be in that case, especially still developing my Breath/Sauda storyline like I plan, I'm probably going to need to add ANOTHER few days to my deadline. I'm a long-winded bastard, what can I say;P

However, I think this particular part shows a lot of potential for being a "two part resolution" one. I.e., introduce my wee little villain and set up the situation, then let someone else finish it up in the next part. Does this sound like a good idea, or should I just bite the bullet and put my nose to the keyboard and write a very long part??\\ -- CrownedSun

I think either option would be a good choice. That said, if you choose the first, I would like it better if you introduced the seed of a resolution and had the next writer construct the results of that. - willows

Ultimately, you're the one writing this chapter. We haven't seen it, so really, only you know what way is best for handling the resolution of your chapter. Honestly, I had the same issue with my PotW part (originally, I'd planned for Taban to go back to the village, return to Lyeshe, and have a big boss showdown), and decided to go the "let someone else finish it up" route, and it worked out well. A long part means more to read, so I like that equally as much. -dissolvegirl, who wasn't of much help except to say both options are viable

My bias favors punctuality over completeness, in general. It is nice to have long, polished, complete-in-themselves chapters, but I also think that long extensions can cause a story to lose momentum. Like, if your favorite weekly TV series only aired twice a month, would it still be your favorite? \\ _Ikselam reminds others that his word is not law, even when it pertains to WBM.

---

Okay. I'm not happy, really at all, with how this chapter turned out -- but I was having a hard enough time with it that I decided it was best to just get it out there and let someone else deal with the "ending" as it was. I apologize to Dissolvegirl -- I'm sorry this part sucks so much:( The inspiration just wasn't flowing, and I wasn't sure if spending another few days on it would even do anything. In the end, I decided that I agreed with Roger -- best to go ahead and get it out there.\\ --CrownedSun, who has written much better stuff than this:P Grrr.

I think it's a good thing you didn't force youself CrownedSun i like this part: short, but sweet. - HeWhoSpeaksOfDarkness

First of all, you've got nothing to apologize for, especially to me; it's not MY story, it's everyone's. That said, there were some really good ideas in this chapter, a couple continuity glitches, but nothing so bad as you seem to think it was. :) I enjoyed reading it, and you gave the next author a lot to work with. Which, I think, is as good a measure of success as any in this medium. --dissolvegirl

You know, this is a situation where I would not be completely averse to CrownedSun writing a completion to his own part -- if he feels it is necessery -- for an extended date. It might give you a chance to get some resolution on this chap that you feel halfheartedly about. And don't worry, it is good, gives a lot to work with as others have said, and really opens up the Breath of Heaven storyline that I put in as a kindof throwaway in a way that I find really enticing. But as I said before, I know I've felt about my chapter that it would be great if I had a chance to get some follow through on it, and I don't think it would be completely out of the question to give CrownedSun the opportunity to have his(her?) followthrough if that's what CrownedSun really wanted to do. Otherwise, someone else sign up soon! I wrote mine to recently in the past to feel justified taking a chap ;-) --SandJack

Chapter 3

Clocking in pretty much halfway between the previous two chapters in wordcount.

This one turned out to be a very different story from the one I thought I was going to end up telling, mostly due to what the various characters want as opposed to me. A lot of it was because I was wrestling to flesh PV out and simultaneously keep him a Minor Character. Good and bad came out of this. In the end, he's a character that I would have liked to do more work with, but the contstraints of the other characters were just pulling too much for me to do more with him.

In the end though, I'm only really dissatisfied with the fight scene, because I thought it could have been more. I worked it a thousand different ways, on paper and in my head, and this is the last one that came out. It's not bad, it's just still not what I'm looking for. But no sense in keeping it from y'all just because I can't quite get a hang on it.

Or it could be the fact that I've been rapidly becoming more ill over the course of writing it, I think I'm coming down with a cold. The lack of proofing is the fault of this, I just don't have the energy any more.

Having said that, I really enjoyed writing it and really liked a lot of the parts. I hoped you enjoyed!

-- SandJack

I liked it, and I see what you meant about thinking in cinematic terms. I realized who the ghost talking to Kestrel was about a paragraph before she declared it, and laughed. I love that Cricket's mom still doesn't have a name.

Portentous Visitation was pretty neat, as was the messenger-spirit which visited him. Something you made up? Kind of a bummer he got killed off without the chance for development, but them's the breaks. It wasn't too bad, since you managed to make him distinct without giving him any hugely engrossing quirks of motivation or personality. I was glad Cloud didn't die. Not sure what I think about Pincushion-Hand Prana...

Fun stuff; we're off to a strong start on this one. I hope to see you in the queue again sometime.\\ _Ikselam I am once more in love with the world.

The messenger Spirits were something I came up with while doodling PV. I was drawing something standing behind him that he might use to help him fight, and then it turned into a doll with a head of flame. The rhyme came pretty naturally after that.

As to the rhyming questions, I worked under the assumption that it's much easier to Rhyme in Old Realm than in english. Besides which, only one of them was really informative in this case, and the other two seemed more like a part of the ritual.\\

-- SandJack

Yeah, Pincushion Hand Prana was around where I started to feel really ill ;-) And I didn't kill him off, necesserily. I left it pretty open on purpose. I actually came back to cut the end off in a cliffhanger and offer to finish it up in a second chapter, but seems you were entertained, and CrownedSun has already signed up for the next chapt :-) So, you live, you learn. I'll definately be in this queue again.

-- SandJack

He could have just been wearing a glove, and stuck the needles into that. But even as-is, it's such a small thing in an otherwise excellent chapter.

And it is indeed pretty open, since there's a scene transition right as Kestrel takes the shot. If someone in the future wanted to, they could say he was just knocked unconscious, or badly wounded but not killed, or something like that. But I think it's not really detrimental to just assume he's dead.\\

_Ikselam

Actually, I was working on the assumption that it was an extremely broad interpretation of Tool Shaping Hand (or whatever it's called -- my DB book is unavailable at the mo.\\

-- SandJack

Shaping Hand Style. I'd forgotten that existed... which shows how much I care about non-Solar Charms. ^_^\\

_Ikselam

I really enjoyed this chapter, especially how Cloud got fleshed out. I love Cricket's mom even more after this chapter with her good-natured harassment of Cricket's love life. There were some decidedly modern turns-of-phrase that took me out of the moment in the scene between Cricket and Kestrel, but other than that, I loved every second of this chapter. Thanks for writing it. :) --dissolvegirl

You're welcome. Oddly enough, the modern turn of phrase that I'm thinking of ("Good Egg") was entirely on purpose. There was just no way to convey the depth of meaning that I feel when I call a person a Good Egg.\

--SandJack

I finished proofing the chapter not too long ago, and I think I agree about the dialogue in the last scene. "Good egg" wasn't the culprit. It was the combined effect of things like "I hear that," "had enough of that drama," "selling point," and heavy use of the word "yeah." The "drama" and "I hear that" were the most jarring to me.\\ _Ikselam

Yeah, I was going for casual conversational style, rationalizing that there's no real reason not to use modern phrasing in a fantasy setting. But if others find it jarring I'll definately cut it out in future eps. --SandJack

Chapter 2 proper

Yeah, pretty long. I didn't see the sun come up because it's snowing out, but it's there. I'm sure of it. Hopefully this wasn't complete overload, in either the melodramatic sense, the new-character sense, or the "how can I follow this up?" sense. I feel it spiraled slightly out of control near the end there; see "Roger not sleeping." Maybe I'll go back and edit later.

I was originally planning to have C&K actually meet at the end, but a) it's 6:00am and I haven't slept, and b) I think this works better with the chapter's overall mood.

I've thought of at least two explanations for Breath-of-Heaven's behavior. One is that he's happy because he's manipulating Sauda; he thinks she's no good for Kestrel, and is trying to break them up. The other is that he's manipulating Kestrel, to a greater or lesser extent. I'll leave exactly why he might be manipulating Kestrel as an exercise to the reader.

I think I will take a nap now. Hopefully all youse folks will enjoy.\\ _Ikselam

Utterly amazing, Roger. I laughed, I cried, I... Okay, okay;P It was great. The kamikaze writing spree paid off; hopefully it wasn't too painful:D\\ -- CrownedSun

You know that famous Pink Floyd song, "Comfortably Numb?"\\ _Ikselam

I was expecting something neat because of the notes and snippets I read. I did not expect something like that. In all honesty, I think that is my favorite WBM chapter to-date. Wonderful stuff. I think I might go read it again. --dissolvegirl

I wasn't really expecting something like that, either. I think it ended up as it did because Five Tears of Forgiveness' character resonates pretty strongly with a lot of my general thoughts about Sidereals, and why I think being one would be really sad and alienating.\\ _Ikselam

Whatever you were expecting, I believe I speak for everyone when I sum it up with holy freakin' whoa. That said, when I read the last scene with Cricket I always hear "Elsewhere" by Sarah McLaughlan playing in the background. --dg

I'm pretty sure FTF's theme actually is "Comfortably Numb." Or maybe one of Peter Gabriel's songs; not sure which, off the top of my head. Maybe "More Than This."\\

While riding the T to work, it occurred to me that Kestrel's theme song could very well be "She's White," a very silly song from Electric Six' very silly album, Fire. Then I spent the rest of the ride coreographing a video for "Gay Bar" in my head, featuring Ledaal Kes and Elias Tremalion. It involved many buff, shirtless Legionnaires and Immaculate monks, and various sight gags involving daiklaves and other massive, phallic weapons.\\ _Ikselam

She certainly speaks for me anyway. Or would, except I'm happy to say it myself: Holy Freaking Whoah! I'd pondered writing the next part myself, and I might do so still (give me a bit...), but I'm not sure if I can do this story justice:) Even so, very impressive. -- CrownedSun

That was an excellent read, Roger. Thanks. - willows

I am glad you all liked it.\\ _Ikselam

soliciting ideas for chpt 2

Okay, I've signed up to write the second episode. I've got a few ideas, but would love input from others. Where do you think the story should go from here? Are there any particular elements/scenes/characters you think I should include? Does Cricket need someone to save her, or can she take care of herself? Should I actually have a fight scene which occurs in a big grove of flowering cherry trees? Should I make the mysterious assassin a Chosen of Serenity? Is Kestrel dissatisfied with his love life because he's denying the fact that he's gay? Either tell me here, or email me if you dig that way-cool conspiratorial vibe.\\ _Ikselam

I'm definitely of the mindset that a good romantic story can include a healthy amount of action and ass-kicking, too. :) I tried to hint at something that no one seemed to catch onto in the first chapter.. I'll email you and tell you, in case you feel like building on it further. --Dissolvegirl

Chapter one

A nice change of pace. It's good to have a more girly romance/drama story to counterbalance the fighting/adventure/testosterone stuff in the others.

One criticism: You know the word is "Anathema" and not "Anethema," right? I noticed you did this in your [[CricketAndKestrel/PotW004|PotWPotW part]] , too.\\ _Ikselam

It's one of those dumb mistakes you keep making, know what I mean? Thanks for catching that. I do the same damn thing with guarantee-- the "u" is always migrating everywhere and the second "A" has a tendency to become an "E." I'm a sorry excuse for an English major in those respects. ;) --dissolvegirl

Writing "garuntee" for "guarantee" and "grammer" for "grammar" aren't the most prevalent errors I see online, but they are among the most puzzling, because the people who commit them often seem to be well-educated and literate. I guess we've all got our quirks.\\ _Ikselam