#iniquiticity

[ask meme]

2. Anything that you'd like to write but feel like you're unable to?

SEVERAL. Many of the "I read this thing, had a plot bunny, but didn't get to it before the interest in the books passed" variety, overlapping with "I had this idea but I'd have to reread/rewatch/do a bunch of research in order to get it right", and some "I have a great idea but it's just NOT fleshing itself out." Highlights include:

MDZS: I had a rough mental outline for a 5+1 companion to What Does Kill You of Jiang sect OCs over hte years figuring out/observing/protecting the secret of Jiang Yanli without telling Jiang Cheng. But all my writing-energy for MDZS vanished once I finished the main fic.

Magnus Archives/The Mechanisms: I do loosely one day want to go back and write the third and final And the Toy Soldier as Jessica Law fic, about the Toy Soldier going around the Eyepocalypse and Getting the Band Back Together by finding them in their respective nightmares and inviting them to escape into their Mechsonas. Arguably the only canon-review I need is to listen to The Deaths of the Mechanisms, which many fears would riff on...but I fear the essential vibes would now elude me.

LotR/Silmarillion: If I could sort of the various parallels of Celebrimbor & the House of the Stewards of Gondor (fathers & sons, cities in endless war with the Enemy, the question of rightful kings)...and What Happened In Eregion...and learn a ton about smithcraft for war and also jewelry...and do a BUNCH of worldbuilding and OC-making for Minas Tirith...AND commit to writing probably TWO novels' worth of fic...I'd rewrite Maker's Marks from the start. I really would love to do that one day. It's a fic that SHOULD (Celebrimbor joins the Fellowship! Moreover, Celebrimbor swears a terrible Oath like and unlike his kin's!), and I have an OVERALL outline that's good...

I have a scourger AU I'm working on here and there where Essek defects to the Assembly after his cover is blown. Bren is tasked as his minder...and also to get as much useful dunamantic knowledge as he can. Have a snip of a very calculated make-out:

This is worth pointing out, and I think it’s also interesting that Caleb kept emphasizing that he didn’t feel the need to be the one to kill Trent personally or take over his position (contrasting what some of the M9 assumed would be something he’d want).

There’s a couple reasons he could be reluctant to give voice to any thought he had in that direction. One is that it’s genuinely too emotional. He stuck to just “Ja.” when initially asked, and once pushed to give a longer answer exploded out a built up and harsh anger at both Trent and himself. Caleb likes to at least outwardly control his emotional responses, so letting himself actually talk about killing Trent might be too much.

There’s also definitely the fact that, as you pointed out, Caleb might not want to kill Trent and certainly not want to do it himself, because of all the twisted things Trent was saying to him at the dinner. Bringing any judgement to Trent or making decisions on what should be done with him himself might always be poisoned for Caleb. Being manipulated into killing by Trent is legitimately Caleb’s biggest fear, and one of the easiest ways to be safe from it would be to just refuse to play Trent’s game. So like he said, sure, Caleb would like Trent dead, he ruined his life, but Caleb doesn’t need to or perhaps even want to be directly involved.

Finally, I think the very act of deciding someone is guilty and then enacting summary justice in the form of execution is an idea that is also traumatic for Caleb. Even if he would be justified in this case, the memory of people Trent had him murder as a teenager and his own actions against his parents has got to be simmering just under the surface if he even contemplates killing Trent as some form of “justice” or “revenge.” 

I THOUGHT THIS AS WELL

cop/person getting a speeding ticket au

“Do you know how fast you were going?”

Alex drums his fingers across the top of the steering wheel, refuses to look at the man standing outside his car window. “I don’t know. Fast.”

The man – Officer Washington, Alex notes after sparing a glance at his name tag – scoffs. “You were going 65 in a 45. The limit dropped a mile and a half ago. This is a construction zone.”

“So do I get a warning?”

“No,” Officer Washington laughs. That only makes him angrier. “Your fine gets doubled. You ever been pulled over, son?”

“I just got my American driver’s license,” Alex finally snaps. “I’ve had it two weeks. If you’d actually go back and run it, you’d see.”

Alex hands over his license, registration and proof of insurance, still refusing to look at him. Washington hesitates for a moment, sighs, retreats back to his cruiser.

He’s only gone for a minute or two.

“Mr. Hamilton.” He passes back Alex’s documents. “You’re free to go.”

He drops his papers in the passenger seat, lifts both eyebrows. “Sorry?”

Well, Caleb is also my favorite so I may not be the most ideal candidate to filter out bias.

But I do think this is a huge part of what makes him a fascinating, unique, and, frankly, relatable character. 

It’s difficult to do an intense version of “show don’t tell” with a livestream ttrpg character, but the way Liam plays Caleb is 100% a way to do it. Especially because Caleb is a character whose actions are often as veiled as his speech, so giving internal insight to his actions is just as important as describing them.

And sometimes this means we find out 30+ episodes later why, exactly, Caleb was staring at the wand Calianna gave him (which he started doing in specific scenes Liam laid out and set aside time for him to do way back around episode 70), but boy is the payoff good.