The first chapter of Not a Princess, “Unfamiliar Ceilings”, is now up on Archive of Our Own.
Also, I broke 7K words on “Nothing Good Happens After Midnight”. Whoof. Of course, part of the last bit was an emotional wringer, now I need to stop, breath, and re-plot some more….
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Congratulations on breaking 7k! I can already promise that I’m very much looking forward to it! I’ve almost finished reading Count Taka and I am in awe. Just, utter, awe. It’s amazing and I hope you have a wonderful day!
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Thank you!
*G* Count Taka was fun. One of my goals is to get into a good enough headspace to pull something like that off again.
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*perks up*
*prepares bank account*
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…Meep.
(Hear that, bunnies? We’d better pull this one off….)
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Unfortunately, your plot bunnies are Communists.
They refuse to work for corrupt, capitalist ideologies.
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Nope, worse. My plotbunnies are Distracted By The Shiny.
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I read this chapter aloud to my two-year-old this morning, and I have never seen him sit so still for so long. And he asked for more afterward. Congratulations, you have a tiny fan. 🙂
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D’aww. 🙂 Kids know what they like!
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Chapter 10: All-Too-Familiar Ceilings
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I think not, not if the ideas the bunnies have pan out.
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*EG*
That might be a nice title for an epilogue chapter… a few years down the road. Like, ten or so…
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*Snrk*
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I dig it. 🙂
So, the Dragon is matchmaking, and the Doc can see it, while the matchmakees are Utterly Oblivious…
That said, I don’t think Will is explicitly trying to set up Sharl and Hank as a *couple*, although Will respects and trusts Hank enough I suspect he would be happy with that outcome. But Will is *definitely* setting them up for some kind of partnership — Hank and Sharl are both problem-solving types, and Sharl has more problems that she can reasonably handle. So getting her a Problem Solving Partner (in the person of the best problem-solver Will knows) just makes sense.
Getting his daughter a good match, and himself grandkids to spoil, would just be icing on Will’s cake. 🙂
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Bingo! Sharl needs help, and right now Hank needs someone to help to keep him calmed down and not haring after Cain before he’s all the way healed up. First things first.
A good match would be awesome, but right now Will’s first thought is damage control. 😉
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So, would you rather face a murderous, insane, monster, driven mad by internal forces, or face a murderous, rational, monster, that has perfectly good external reasons to be pissed off?
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Hmm. I think I’d go for rational – they’re more predictable.
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And rational means “at least a chance to negotiate with.” Unless you’ve done something to *rationally* convince them that eliminating you is the best rational option….
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OT: In 2024, November Fifth is two days before Kirito canonically clears SAO. It is also a Tuesday, and voting day for the 2024 US Presidential election.
Normally that is not something that would be important in a SAO fic.
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What’s this about an SAO fic?
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I have a calendar drawn up as a way to help plan WIP. Which is in the plotting equivalent of what in Catholic theology would be purgatory. (I didn’t make many design choices, just a wish list, because I was often able to talk myself into it when I thought about any one element, but could not think about the whole.) I have a bunch of canon and RL events that I’m planning to mention here on the corresponding dates. My hope is that this will help my plotting efforts.
I’ve been stalled out really badly, but it isn’t clear that I can afford the time and energy for even this.
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Ouch. Hang in there!
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I’d like to know myself….
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Part of SAO canon post Aincrad is the psychological gap between the survivors and their families driven by the survivors’ experiences in SAO. Kirito personally makes choices about how he plays in SAO so that the gap doesn’t permanently sever him from Japanese society.
We can top that. We can increase that gap by giving the families experience in RL during Aincrad that change them from what they were when the survivors were kids.
I am doing that, and blindsiding the survivors best by imagining a Japan in a state of political stress and social upheaval. When Kirito wakes up, the nurse is going to make sure he is oriented to time, place, and self. In the US, one of the topics for that is the current President. The Prime Minister of Japan does not work as well in Japan, and is especially bad for Kirito here, because the prior incumbent wasn’t in office in 2022, and left office weeks earlier due to a very serious security force corruption scandal. What none of the adults are briefing him on is that the Chinese are forcing a calculated breakdown in relations, and the 2024 US Presidential campaign was very fraught on several related topics. That is above Aki’s pay grade, Kikuouka has lost too much sleep over it to be trying to scam Kirito with it, and his parents love him too much to dump that load of crap on him. He may wish they had.
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Good chapter. I like the Sharl PoV especially.
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🙂
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