Mobsterswitched

((So I am afraid this art post comes with a bit of sad news: Unfortunately, mobsterswitch has been discontinued. As such, I thought it was unfair to not post the guest art I received for the story, so here are the last 3 panels!

Page 20 was drawn by poposite, page 22 was drawn by Liz, and page 23 was drawn by selandrawscrap! They are all lovely pages, with great art, and I'm bummed that I can't use them, however I didn't think it fair to keep them hidden away on my harddrive forever.

Now, despite being "cancelled", the author of this blog really enjoyed the story. In fact, that is the reason this blog has been cancelled: she was putting so much time and effort into the backstory and all that that it really started less resembling fanfiction/a fan project, and more resembling an original work! Soit just became an original work, which can be found here going forward, and under the tag "Faraldo City Private Investigators".

Right now, act 1 has been taken down from broader reading to finish up the last round of proof-reads and edits before publication. When the book is finally published (to Kindle only, right now), it will be announced both on Liz Lucas's blog, as well as this blog. That will be the final post for this blog.

==> Majestic Pastry Spire: Explode

((oh it will not! (un?)fortunately, i am nearing college graduation, so between job hunting and studying for boards and all of that, updates may come a little slowly for a while. hopefully i will pick the pace back up soon, though!

==> CD: Make a tower out of doughnuts! 

Oh man, this is pretty much the best idea you have had all morning! You are an architect, like the kind that make buildings!

Look at those turrets!

You wonder if you might be able to fit cannons on those majestic pastry spires.

==>

==> CD: Play your second favorite game: tag! DD’s it, better start running! 

CD: Hee hee, ha ha! DD: And this, Heavy, is why I typically dissuade you from the purchase of sugary foods first thing in the morning. HB: Aw, come on boss, it’s just a little fun! High spirits an’ all. DD: … HB: Alright, maybe I’ll hold off next time. Y’could give him some of that wine under your desk though, we’ll build ‘im a fort, settle ‘im down. DD: What wine? Don’t you have a case to go to?

==> DD: Whap CD over the head with newspaper. We do NOT throw doughnuts, CD! Bad!

==> CD: Become homo-erotically interested in your fan. 

Well, uh … Well gosh!

You’ve never thought about any household appliances like that, and it’s kind of skeeving you out, to be perfectly honest!

==> SS: Wake up, and realize you aren't in Kansas anymore 

What time is it, 9:30? 10?

Waking up seems unlikely for Scout!

Guess you’re still CD then! Which isn’t a bad thing at all!

==> [CD] Play ringtoss with the donuts and Detective's nose!

This is literally your favorite game! Unfortunately, it’s not Detective’s favorite game, so you usually only get one shot each time you play.

Looks like you missed today. Oh well!

==>

==>

Detective doesn’t act as excited about the doughnuts as you feel, but you think he’s probably just as excited as you are. He likes the kind with the blueberries in, because they’re not as messy. You remembered that, so you made sure HB bought a lot of those!

Or maybe he’s not excited about the doughnuts because he’s too busy being excited about the case you just got! He tells you about it, and says that you and Heavy are in charge of this one. You think Heavy’s offended, because he grumbles a lot about it, but you’re not sure why: it’s a missing jewelry case, and those are always the most fun to solve! You like them because you rarely get shot at, and everybody’s always so happy when you bring the jewelry back to them!

Well, usually. Sometimes they’re annoyed because you find the jewelry in their sock drawer or somewhere silly like that. But most of the time they’re really happy!

Maybe as happy as you are now; the whole Company’s here! Well, except for Scout. But that’s okay, it’s still really early for Scout to even be awake, much less at the office! Usually when you are all here you like to hang out or have a meeting or something! You wonder what you’ll do today?

==> Be the two Neanderthals 

You can’t be two people at once, and the whole idea of that kind of strikes you as really funny! But you can be one person at once, and you’re very good at being Cheerful Demoman. That is to say, you’re great at being yourself, so that’s what you decide to do!

==> DD: Answer the caller 

You clear the nicotine out of your throat and pick the receiver up. You don’t bother with pleasantries like “hello” or “good morning”. If they’re calling you, it’s probably not a good morning for them, and if it’s your team calling you, it’s not a good morning for you.

As it turns out, it’s not your team: it’s a dame, and she’s not hysterical or screaming you deaf about Mr. Mittens. Nice change, if a little peculiar. She tells you she wants to hire you though, and it’s all you can do not to sag forward onto your desk in relief. Your dry cleaning doesn’t pay for itself, so thank goodness she had the sense to call you about her stolen … brooch?

Missing jewelry. Great. Not your speed, usually, but what’re you gonna do? It’ll keep Brawler and Demo busy for a while anyway. You ask for the details of the thing, and she fills you in on it.

It’s valuable, she says. A family heirloom, although the way her voice sounds when she says that makes you wonder if that’s as true as she wants you to think. A big stone in the middle – looks like diamond, she says, and the fact that she qualifies it with ‘looks like’ gives you pause. Gold setting, diamonds all around the big stone. You ask if the gold and the big stone are real, and she tells you it is. You can tell by her tone that she’s upset that you asked, but it’s not your job to hold her hand, it’s your job to find her brooch.

You tell her you’ll send your men by later today to look for clues. She lives outside the city proper, in the part of town that has underground irrigation and lush, green lawns rather than rocks and dust. Nice place, so maybe the heirloom story isn’t too far off. She tells you she’ll give them your deposit when they get there, and you thank her and hang up.

==> DD: Quickly retrieve arms from the s – wait, no, start making calls. 

Like you said, you don’t have a safe full of weaponry, and you wish you could stop thinking about that nonsense. That’s the sort of thing you might do if you were a mobster, maybe, but not in this life, no sir.

You do have a phone though, and you make use of it.

Five seconds into the first call, you remember why you hate talking to clients on the phone. Not that you mind little old ladies screaming about their cats’ morning routines, you just would really rather they didn’t scream about them at you.

==> DD: Look out the window in a decidedly hardboiled manner 

You spin around in your chair for the purposes of looking out the window and ruminating over the activities of passer-by. There’s nothing unusual down there, just people on their way to work in the morning, like every other morning. You check your watch: it’s just past nine. Your team will be in soon – at least, two of them will, no telling when Scout will decide to show up. Better find something for the other two to do then, stat.

==> DD: Take a moment to ponder your life if you were a mobster 

You do, briefly. And then you stop, because frankly the speed with which you jump onto that particular idea is disconcerting.

Besides, committing crimes seems like a quick way to ruin a suit.

==> DD: Drink some of the cabernet sauvignon you’ve got stashed under your desk