Aurora is essentially the “perfect woman” in the context of the society she lives in. She skipped high school entirely and went straight into university, so at only 20-years-old she’s already an accomplished data analyst. She’s savvy about taking care of herself, and is drop-dead gorgeous to boot.
The artifacts were her project. She discovered their existence while researching something or other for one of her classes, and met Talon in pursuit of them. Through working together, they decided to become “engaged to be engaged” lol.
Her hope was that with utilizing the artifacts, humans would be better able to protect themselves against the increasing numbers of killer mecha that pop up and wreak havoc. However, her plans still ultimately relied on CR1515 to destroy the mecha, because it never occurred to her that humanity’s protector might not come through.
Although smart, she struggles with thinking outside the box.
She agrees to become CR1515’s companion and live in the space station with him, and while she’s emotionally conflicted about it, she sticks to her word.
I’m currently forcing myself to read Outlander for research purposes. Not doing a real review on it given that I’m not remotely the target audience for the novel, but I do enjoy ranting about it.
The love interest, Jamie, is way too much of a woobie for me to like him on any level. He shows up injured, proceeds to get shot, then is given a good thrashing — all within a few chapters. In the meantime, his dialogue seems to revolve entirely around some horror story from his past, with plenty of scars covering his body to prove it (naturally the main character is there to tend to his wounds and listen sympathetically).
A story with the Woobie allows the audience to vicariously experience relief from some pain by fantasizing about relieving the Woobie’s pain. … Woobification can also tie into a disturbing hurt/comfort dynamic, in which fans enjoy seeing the Woobie tortured so they can wish the hurt away.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing, given that Outlander was originally published in 1991, but I can’t help but look at Jamie and think that he’s so pathetic, he wouldn’t do anyone any good in a post-2020 world. Like, if there was only one package of toilet paper left in the entire city, and Jamie had a family counting on him to come through for them, he’d probably get hit in the eye and be left completely incapacitated, thus failing miserably. Ain’t got time for that sympathy crap in this society. Toughen up, dude, and learn how to take care of yourself.
I prefer men who are capable of protecting babies against hordes of zombies during the apocalypse. Just sayin’.
The big question for Talon was, “Should he turn out to be a jerk?”
Having him be the meanie antagonist for the story would be comfortably in the realm of familiar — a sort of “Gaston” figure from the Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast. Mind you, tropes aren’t bad; people like to have familiar and new concepts evenly mixed in their entertainment, so this was a perfectly valid option.
But I didn’t really like the idea of Aurora being betrothed to (and working closely with) someone who was bad — she’s smart enough that she’d notice if he was possessive and angry under the surface, and independent enough that she wouldn’t be in a relationship with him if that was the case. I decided instead that Talon should be a decent guy in the context of the world they live in.
So, I flipped the story.
Talon will take the place of the tragic hero, who’s girlfriend is kidnapped away and he has to desperately seek her out. CR1515, in turn, is the villain who arrogantly looks down on humanity and does what he pleases.
I do feel bad that I haven’t been posting more of my fiction writing for the past several months.
At this point, I’ve got half of The Scion Suit written, which I’ve decided to expand from a novelette into a branching, multiple-possible-endings novel. Unfortunately, with the fact that the reader gets to periodically choose which path to go down, I haven’t the slightest idea how I’d go about posting it on a blog.
Not to mention, I’ve reached the part where I planned to switch over to MSG Hartmann’s perspective, only I’m not in a state where I can readily get into a masculine frame of mind. I’ve decided to put it off until after the arrival of baby #6, so I don’t have pregnancy hormones affecting what I write (though I still plan on publishing The Scion Suit in 2022).
In the meantime, I’ve started working on a different idea, which is a lot more feminine with plenty of emotional drama. The catch is that this one is so securely rated M, I don’t know if I should post it as I work on it, or wait to officially publish it.
I’m not entirely sure if I’m using the sex scenes to distract from the philosophical rants, or vice versa. They both get pretty heavy, lol.
I’m going to be honest: progress is slow. Winter is not remotely my most productive season when it comes to writing, so even if I decided to post this new story with all the juicy bits cut out (and by that I mean the philosophical rants), it will still take some time to get to that point. By which I mean … February.
I can’t help but jokingly think of this as “Beauty and the Beast with robots”.
This is still massively underdeveloped, of course, but I find it to be a thoroughly fascinating idea.
Aurora’s eyes closed, and for a moment she drifted into sleep before she snapped herself back into consciousness. The horizon was growing lighter, and he still hadn’t appeared. While she was doing her best to maintain the vigil, it was difficult to feel a sense of urgency when the fate of humanity rested on someone who was now hours late.
“He’s not coming,” Talon murmured, closing his hand around Aurora’s. His skin felt burning hot over her cold fingers, so she snuggled up against his side to soak in his warmth.
“He has to,” she replied quietly.
“As soon as the first sun rays appear, we’re out of time.” Talon motioned to the frozen mecha that stood some yards away, still poised in mid-attack. “The artifacts won’t hold it after daybreak.”
“He’ll be here,” Aurora weakly insisted. “He’s the only one who can stop it.”
“We need to leave before we get killed.” Talon stood then pulled on her. “Come on.”
“But what about the artifacts?”
“They’ll probably be destroyed. We’ll have to worry about that later.”
Aurora reluctantly followed Talon, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking back. Recovering the three golden artifacts had been a long and difficult process, and activating them to imprison the mecha had cost them the life of a friend. The thought of being abandoned by CR1515 at the last minute was too much to bear.
“Let’s go find him,” she suggested hopefully.
“If Robot Boy was coming, he would have been here hours ago,” Talon snapped, using the derogatory nickname for CR1515. Even though he was humanity’s protector, there were many people who resented and feared his abilities, and consequently sought to drag him down in petty ways. Despite the intended disrespect, CR1515 had never given any indication of noticing the nickname or the negative attitudes towards him … until his failure to appear that night.
“The Gate isn’t far from here. Let’s just go see if we can contact him, at the very least.” Aurora hated the thought of giving up, and even though she knew her idea sounded silly and irrational, it was far better than doing nothing.
“You go then, if it will make you happy. I need to tell the others what’s happened.” Talon stopped and turned to Aurora, put his arms around her waist, then kissed her lips. “Don’t risk waiting around, though,” he whispered. “If he doesn’t answer in two minutes, get underground.”
“I promise I will.” Aurora closed her eyes as they kissed farewell again, then continued to the Gate alone. She approached the metal door, standing in the middle of an empty lot free from any buildings or walls, and pushed the small button next to it. Silently, she began to count the seconds, feeling the weight of fatigue build with every number.
At 64, the door swung open.
She hesitated, then stepped through.
Aurora was no longer in the empty lot with solid earth beneath her feet. She was inside a large room with windows on every side, looking out at a dark sky that was speckled with innumerable stars, and her breath caught in her throat at the realization that she was no longer on the planet, but far above it in space.
Metallic footsteps came towards her, and she turned to face CR1515. It hurt to find him home, staring at her with his expressionless face, and she couldn’t stop herself from crying out, “How could you?”
He stopped. “Have you never questioned whether or not you are worthy of my help?”
“Aren’t … we?” Aurora was lost for words. The truth was, through all the hard work and sacrifices that they had made to reach their goal, it never once occurred to her to wonder what CR1515 thought of them – she had assumed that he would assist the moment he was needed, because he always had before.
“I have grown tired of humanity. Save yourselves.” He turned to walk away, but Aurora jumped forward and caught hold of his back, pressing herself against him as she begged,
“Please. Please. We’ve done everything we can, but that mecha is … a lot of people will die if you don’t do something right now!”
“No,” came his harsh reply.
“I swear that I’ll do anything you ask, if only you’ll kill that thing!”
“You swear?” CR1515’s metal hands pressed down over her wrists, holding her in place with her arms around him.
“I swear!”
“I want what your species takes for granted.” He thrust Aurora’s arms away from him and once again turned to face her. “I want to touch, and to love.”
She stood, numbed by the words, unable to stop the thought, He’s a robot, from repeating itself over and over in her mind. CR1515 possessed the likeness of a human, but he was undoubtedly made of hard metal. How could he touch?
“Will you be mine?” he asked.
“But …” Aurora’s voice faded.
“Those are my terms. If you won’t accept, then begone.”
“…Yes.” Her lower lip trembled, and she wondered if she should try to take back the word despite having said it.
This year has been very draining for a number of reasons. I don’t even want to get into them, because of the overwhelming, “Ugh, just get everything over with already,” feeling that comes with them.
So, along the lines of Things That I’ve Been Thinking About….
Mandatory Exposition: I wrote The Scion Suit in 2019 as a response to a Reddit writing prompt, and it ended up becoming mildly popular, etc. This year, I’ve been working on an expanded version of it.
Given the circumstances of when I originally wrote the story, MSG Hartmann’s character ended up being regretfully underused. I wrote some other thoughts about that. With rewriting and expanding The Scion Suit, I’ve had a lot more time to further develop his character.
At some point during the last several months, I decided that Hartmann coped with the stress of military life through womanizing (specifically PUA), and it’s had a rather interesting effect on his overall characterization.
In 2019, I wrote, “Brooding, he hung around to watch Carol work on his beloved Suit, and his heart stung with jealousy when he saw how tenderly she touched the metal. When she opened it up to wipe down the leather interior, he couldn’t stand it anymore; it was worse than walking in on a spouse in the thralls of another lover.”
But, this new course in characterization has resulted in a fundamental shift.
Instead of feeling possessive ownership over the Suit, Hartmann instead sees himself as The Other, who has no choice but to return the Suit to its loving spouse (Carol) after every excursion. He uses the Suit, but he knows that he doesn’t belong to it — which adds an element of pain to his actions and motivations (and all that jazz).
His development and redemption now involves learning to see himself as a person worthy of an actual relationship and future goals, instead of simply being a military puppet with zero long-term prospects.
But he still has to give up the Suit in the end … because of the aliens… >.<
All I need to do is write up the last few paragraphs, which I have neatly planned out and all that jazz.
But something about it doesn’t feel quite right, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what.
I’ve decided that it’s been long enough that I ought to go ahead and post what I have written, and I apologize that it’s not 100% finished.
Miranda waited outside the prison gates, resting against the hood of her car as she kept a careful eye on the drive between the thick walls and the building kept therein, occasionally fidgeting to check the time on her phone. Her fingers were growing numb in the late Autumn air, and while she considered retreating into her car to keep warm, she knew that she didn’t want to miss the exact moment he appeared.
After ten long years, she was about to be reunited with the man who had both destroyed and saved her life. He had gone into prison every bit a scoundrel, and Miranda hoped against hope that the improvements he had professed to have undergone during their correspondence were genuine. It was easy to keep up a facade in letters, and she didn’t want reality to prove differently.
Two figures appeared, and a relieved smile swept across her face as she recognized the gait of one of them. She stood straighter as they approached, but she didn’t take a step forward until the guard saw the former prisoner and his small box of personal items through the gate to the outside world, then turned to retreat back to his duties.
Damon faced her wordlessly, and they both struggled with how they should greet each other in the moment. He awkwardly put out his hand at the same time that Miranda moved for an embrace, and they laughed nervously then settled on a one-armed hug.
“You sure about this?” he asked, as Miranda motioned for him to get into her car. “It’s not too late to have second thoughts.”
“I’m sure. Just … don’t ever lie to me again, okay?” She folded her arms and bounced lightly on her feet, feeling both antsy and cold. There was a clarity in Damon’s face that hadn’t been there when they had first met a decade ago, and it made her certain that what they had written to each other wasn’t just a fantasy.
Damon looked her up and down, and a mischievous glint entered his eyes. “In that case,” he murmured, pushing Miranda back against he car as he pressed himself against her, gently touching the side of her face as he locked his gaze on hers. “Should we pick up where we left off?”
Miranda wrinkled the bridge of her nose. “With deceit and blackmail? Definitely not!”
“I meant in our letters.” He brushed his lips against hers. “I seem to remember a very sweet confession of love from you, and I want to reciprocate it.”
Her heart quickened and her eyelids fluttered as they deepened the kiss, and his touch felt both new yet familiar. Memories flooded her mind of the nights that they had spent together before his incarceration, back when Miranda had been reluctant to admit how much she loved the way Damon had made her feel alive and feminine while underneath him, and she quivered with emotion as her hands found the nape of Damon’s neck. However, her touch made him flinch, and he took both of her hands into his as he said, “You’re freezing.”
A minute later, Damon’s boxed was neatly in the trunk, and they were both sitting in the car with the engine idling and the heat blasting as Miranda held her hands over the vent to warm up, continually glancing over at Damon to study him. “You’ll like the ranch, I think. It’s good land, and the house is a decent size, too, with a detached garage that you can use as your shop. All we need now are the horses.”
“Sounds good,” he replied simply.
Miranda took a deep breath to work up the nerve, then said, “Let’s get married.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” Damon grinned. “You don’t want me down on one knee, after sneaking a diamond ring into your glass of champaign?”
“Don’t you think that we’re a little old for that sort of stuff?” Miranda shook her head with a smile. “We can stop by the courthouse on the way home and get it done today.”
“Sure. No point in waiting any longer than we already have.” He reached over to touch her leg, his fingers absentmindedly stroking the fabric of her pants as he sank into his thoughts. After a minute, he said quietly, “I half expected you to lose interest as soon as I was out.”
Miranda giggled slightly. “I half expected to discover that everything was a lie. We’re a couple of pessimists, aren’t we.”
“Guess so.” Damon chuckled as well. “We’ll suit each other well enough.”
They paused as Miranda popped her car into gear and began driving, then she ventured to ask, “Are you going to reach out to Alicia?”
Damon frowned. “No.”
“Why not?” Miranda asked, surprised.
He looked away. “I … don’t want her to be ashamed to have me as her father. Right now, all I have is my former life and the time I spent in prison, which isn’t anything to brag about.”
Miranda opened her mouth, then thought better of what she had been about to say. Instead, she mused, “I guess a little bit more time won’t hurt,” then glanced over at Damon as she bit her lip. She wanted to argue with him, and tell him that he was being pointlessly insecure about his daughter, but she had grown enough sense to know that she shouldn’t push him during his first hour of freedom. There would be plenty of time for that later. She asked sweetly, “Do you have a recent photo of her?”
“Yeah.” Damon shifted to pull out his wallet, and produced a picture of a 10-year-old girl grinning widely at the camera. “The warden gave it to me this morning.”
“She seems really happy,” Miranda murmured, doing her best to divide her attention between driving and studying the picture. “Spitting image of you, too.”
“Ha. Maybe a little.” Damon smiled warmly at the photo. “Lets get that ranch you wanted up and running first, then we’ll see how it goes.”
“Do you think I can actually do it?” Miranda felt her nerves bubble up as she thought about the plans that she had worked out with Damon over the last few years. “I’m terrified that there’s nothing left of me outside of being a lawyer.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“For starters, there’s not going to be someone announcing whether I won or lost. How am I supposed to know how well everything is going without that?”
Damon patted Miranda’s shoulder, then smiled devilishly. “You’ll just have to go off of how pleased I am with you.”
She felt her cheeks turn warm. “It looks like there’s one part of you that hasn’t changed at all.”
“Don’t think it ever will.”
Miranda smiled as she reached over to take Damon’s hand and give him a squeeze. “It’s a good thing I’m not a pushover; you’re going to have your work cut out for you.” She laughed. “All right, we’re here. Let’s get married before either one of us has second thoughts.”
After a short ceremony and several signatures, they were back out on the road, silent as they drove towards the outskirts of town, each deep in their own thoughts.
I’m going to go ahead and say this again: I don’t NaNoWriMo.
This is the wrong time of year to put the pressure on.
You see, I’m one of those weirdos who has a family.
I’m currently designing children’s clothing and shopping for fabric, I’ve got Thanksgiving to plan out and execute, which will be shortly followed by preparing for Christmas … and Animal Crossing is a mere 3 days away from a major update. I don’t have the time or energy to write 50,000 words this month. Or next month.
Instead of trying to write a novel as fast as possible, I’m a huge advocate for creating sustainable writing habits all year long. It’s important to have the space to live and breathe as a person, as well as the time for ideas to fully mature before they’re set down into words.
Frankly, NaNoWriMo is another aspect of a Fast-Food culture where everyone wants instant gratification at the cost of quality. Let’s face it: people are going to churn out something derivative this month, then spend the next year flogging it to death on social media to extract out as much money as possible from mindless consumers. Rinse and repeat.
So go ahead and spend the next four weeks furiously rewriting someone else’s ideas — I’m perfectly aware that nothing is going to stop you.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
It’s something that I haven’t done in years, but I like that I still have it in me to pull it off. I usually bounce from activity to activity, fulfilling an obligation here, stealing ten minutes there, trying to make the most of my day. I haven’t spent so much time on one activity in ages.
The funny thing is, as soon as I finished, I launched into an analysis of the author’s psychological problems. I couldn’t resist — the romance was so badly tacked on, it just screamed to be probed and dissected.
At some point, I decided to experience novels beyond what was written on the page. I try to see the authors behind the words, and can get a pretty good idea of what they’re like before I go searching for the bio. Unsurprisingly, the above author turned out to be divorced, and currently lives alone with two cats — which is probably why she failed at portraying romance effectively.
But otherwise, the story was very enjoyable. After all, I finished the book in two days.
That’s also why it can be so hard to share my writing with others, because it feels like I’m exposing huge portions of my insides to anyone who bothers to look. Guess why there’s a reoccurring theme about social outcasts? Obviously it’s because I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by a group of BFFs who love and support me. /sarcasm
As serious as I am about the craft of writing, I’m a flake about marketing. Big time flake. Heck, I worry that developing that part of my brain would hurt my artistic integrity, so it’s easy to shrug it off. My goal isn’t to become an entrepreneur.
Actually, there isn’t any real point to this post. I’m rambling.
Before 2020, I had been planning on some real-world marketing strategies to get my name out there as an author. Obviously when people started wearing gloves and hitting the hand sanitizer hard, I put those plans on the back burner. It still doesn’t feel like the time is right to engage with the real world yet, and I don’t want to fuss over stats on social media.
I don’t mind biding my time.
It’s nice to take a couple of days off for an indulgence, just because I felt like it.
By Autumn Rain 