Weeping mandragoras and birthing scorpions

Hi there
Thanks for whoever updated my account to premium! Unfortunately the system sent me your message, but not your contact details (silly system...) Just drop me an answer to this post and we can get in touch!

It's been so long since I updated this, I don't know how many follow this page anymore, but it's a practical spot to post an update on Outlands, and also some musings in regards to serious writing decisions I'm contemplating in the future.

( Bunging in a cut here due to length )

For anyone thinking to check here for possible Outland news: next chapter should be coming in a couple of weeks. Yeah, it should have been out already, and in an ideal world, it woulda. The week off for holidays was expected, the trip to the emergency room followed by surgery and two weeks of recovery was not ^^; All fine now, and I can finally sit at a computer again without feeling like my insides are gonna decorate the keyboard, so I'll be picking up the nearly finished chapter soon. Stay safe, y'all!

Wow, where did March and April go?

I've been neglecting my DW, I'll update it with my current fic list sometime this week. In the meantime, news! I've (FINALLY!) picked up the next short arc of Outlands. I'm doubly excited because I actually found something for Vibiana (Leyam's dangerous wife, not the easy-going one) to do, albeit briefly.

Would anyone familiar with Outlands like to be a beta reader? Specifically, and since it's been over a year since I posted the Parties arc (bad Mal!) I'd like someone who read that but hasn't reread Outlands since. I want to be sure the new chapters are readable and understandable even if someone hasn't read Outlands for a year, and that I'm not relying on some small detail or other that most readers will have forgotten - such as Vibiana. Give me a shout if you're interested and I'll create a private access list again.

Landing on the other side (in terms of longitude) of the planet mostly successful, and internet up and running faster than expected. Let's just hope it holds out. I'll take advantage of this current connectivity to answer some emails and comments, and if it lasts long enough, to get the next chapter of Hail to the God Machine out on AO3 probably on Saturday. And if life continues to be somewhat crap-free, I should have the next Source of All Things ready by next weekend as well.

Been busy in this fandom!


Hail to the God Machine! (Destiel)
(This is gonna be a multi-chapter Destiel epic...)
Sam and Dean Winchester grew up in Paradise 342, some two hundred years after the Apocalypse ripped the world apart. Now that was a messy business, humans dying left, right and center - but then Evil was defeated, and earth became a promised land, as was foretold in Revelations.

Now humans dwell peaceably in the eternal sunshine of a world unchanged since 1836. God lives among them in the form of a Machine managing all their needs, from their marriages to their daily meals, while their angel overseers keep the humans safe and content. The system is perfect. The angels all say so.

Dean and his friends in the human resistance beg to differ. The angels, particularly that new Seraph who just blew into town, can take their ‘perfect’ Paradise and suck it.


---

The Parable of the Truck and the Dove (Destiel, Sabriel)
The Heavenly Host have captured Jack. With Castiel’s life on the line, they demand that he create new angels.

So Jack goes ahead and creates a couple of new angels.

And the Host rejoice. For all of a few seconds, and then they are collectively reminded of that quaint human saying, ‘be careful what you wish for.’


---


In the same continuity as The Two Blades series:

Welcome to the Family! You Will Never Need Enemies Again (Destiel, Mick Davies/Sam)
Mick Davies’ mission was to recruit the American hunters as cannon fodder in the Men of Letters’ secret war against the supernatural. But instead of conning Sam Winchester into joining under those terms, Mick struck up a friendship with him, and treated him like a potential ally rather than a pawn. An error in judgment his superiors would like to bring up during Mick’s quarterly performance evaluation. The kind that ends with a bullet in the back of the head.

They’re not worried that this will make an enemy out of Sam. The man is weak. He actually came to like Mick, that’s how deluded he is. With their knowledge, power and connections, the British Men of Letters have nothing to fear from a bunch of scruffy down-at-the-heel hunters.

They don’t know who Sam has on speed-dial...



The Winchester Effect (Destiel, Mick Davies/Sam)
After the Men of Letters tried to torture and kill him, Mick had no qualms about resigning. He'd have formally handed in his notice if there'd been anybody left alive in the wrecked compound to hand it to. Come to think of it, that worked even better as a way of saying 'I quit'.

Maybe now, with no more secrets and lies between them, he'd be able to get closer to Sam Winchester. They were already friends and fellow survivors of the Men of Letters. There was no reason why this growing mutual attraction between them wouldn't lead to a real relationship in time. Or so Mick thought until he ran full tilt into the Winchester Effect.

A romantic comedy featuring demons, dinosaurs, angels, assassins and other nuisances constantly interfering with Mick’s love life.

A few months back, when I started my OP CP9 run, I said I was done with classic One Piece pairings. It appears I forgot one of my fics there ^^;

Like Steel For Chocolate (One Piece, Sanji/Zoro)
Sanji's cooking has reached a whole new level, it's almost uncanny. Especially when his thoughts and emotions somehow get into the mix along with the ingredients.


A golden oldie of a GW, the first fic I posted IIRC.
Two Halves (Gundam Wing AU, Heero/Duo)
The two kingdoms of Sanq and Lin were at war for years; a conflagration involving magic, armies and political murder. The conflict left both nations devastated and strewn with refugees. The king of Sanq finds his infant son, lost at birth, among the death and the ruin, a miracle he barely dared to hope for.

But there isn't just one boy, there are two, clinging together like two halves of a whole that cannot be separated.

Decades later, the truth behind that second child’s existence will put a hole in the world, or possibly save it.


One Up (One Piece, CP9, Gen)
We've all done it: hanging around with friends and colleagues after hours in a bar, swapping hard luck stories. When CP9 is involved, the stories tend to get somewhat bloodier as a rule, but the gist is still the same: Who has the best story, and who is going to pick up the tab.


Two never-to-be-finished Naruto works:
ANBU (Naruto, hints of eventual Sasuke/Naruto)
A kunai had been slammed into the door's cheap wood, cracking the veneer. From the blade piercing its large strap, a mask swung back and forth with a faint scratching noise as it brushed the door. It was white with two orange streaks in the stylised shape of a dog. The mask of an ANBU.

They'd given him their answer. He was in.


Long Time Man (Naruto, hints of eventual Kakashi/Iruka)
Standalone (sort of) chapter of a work that will never be finished.


Finally, I have FINISHED posting the ENTIRE (whew) Diplomatic Relations series with all the follow up chapters, Kindred and a bonus new chapter/epilogue to the whole series. Now don't say I never do nothin' for ya!

For Supernatural fans, I also finished Mind the Gap.

Busy busy Mal is busy...

I've just finished up the archiving of Freeport, and Kindred should be wrapped up by next week. There might even be an additional little bonus chapter to Kindred if the weather and the muses hold.

Mind the Gap (Supernatural, Destiel)
(Direct sequel to Penitentiary Wing)

Castiel was back with the Winchesters - technically he had never been away.

In the absence of any immediate life-or-death crisis, Dean had finally come clean. About feelings and stuff he’d been harboring for almost five years, about the sordid human desire he felt for an angel and his best friend. It’d taken a couple of tries and he had seriously considered drawing a diagram at one point, but he’d gotten through in the end. And incredibly, instead of laughing hysterically and then flying away, Cas had kissed him like it was the most natural thing to do at that point. Which was how they’d ended up in bed.

And from there on, everything was grade A awesome. No more complications, misunderstandings or problems in sight. Nope. Smooth sailing.

Of course Dean knew that wasn’t going to happen in this or any other universe. Because Life did not work that way for Winchesters. He knew it was going to blow up in their faces somehow. But for once, Dean was not going to let that stop him. Because...

Because it was Cas. And five years was long enough.


---


Meeting in Mariejoie (One Piece, Kalifa/Mihawk)
Trying to get away from the irritating politics raging through Marijoie, Mihawk wanders into a rose arbor and happens upon a strikingly beautiful woman.

This could have been the setting for a very romantic meeting if the two people involved weren't driven, uncompromising and soaked in the blood of thousands. Sparks still do fly.

One semi-sleepless night later and it's ready to post ^^; I have no self-control when it comes to my hobby.

Penitentiary Wing (Supernatural, Destiel)
After his crimes committed in Heaven and on Earth, Castiel expected a swift execution. Naomi could have just left him in Purgatory to die, but she was the kind to tidy up loose ends rather than let monsters eat them. A clean death in Heaven was preferable to evisceration in Purgatory, but Castiel feared the Winchesters might also be two loose ends Naomi would try to ‘tidy up’.

Instead of the Heavenly firing squad, however, Naomi decreed that Castiel would return to earth to protect his friends from harm. He would be their assigned guardian angel and Heaven would leave the three of them alone from now on.

Oh, but make no mistake. This was a punishment, not a reward. Because Naomi set a condition.

(Divergent from somewhere in Season 8/9, though not necessarily where it appears to be at first. Timelines may seem screwed up initially but this is entirely deliberate - well most of it is deliberate, though errare humanum est and all that)