![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingThis is still basically a giant infodump -- in other words, this is the "let me explain about Fisher, Lebrun, and Robert; some of Mal's backstory with Lebrun; what exactly Dom and Arthur are planning to do and why; and how and why Eames is involved in their mess" section, which is rather a lot to throw at you all at once, sorry! -- but now there is at least a bit more back-and-forth in the dialogue and some actual character stuff going on around the exposition. (2,200 words)
---------------------------------------------
Weregild, part 14
---------------------------------------------
Eames kicked idly at the dusty ground of the derelict Hunters Point shipyard. It was most likely laced with toxic waste, judging by what the barista at the local coffee shop had told him, but he wasn't especially worried. One benefit of turning furry at least once a month was an immune system that could beat nearly anything given so much as a whisper of a chance. Meanwhile, both the danger and the fact that Lebrun had recently purchased most of the property, nominally for a revitalization project, kept random passersby well away.
"To recap what you told me when I agreed to join your vendetta," he said, "Lebrun came to San Francisco in the seventies, promptly knocked off the previous Master of the City, and began establishing a sort of hegemony up and down the coast -- other Masters got to keep their territory, but only if they acknowledge him as a sort of regional overlord."
"Right," Dom said, speakerphone making him sound slightly more distant and tinny than usual. "Mal and I came to Oakland in '86, when Miles was transferred to Berkeley. Lebrun had been ruling Oakland directly, but the bay made that awkward so Mal persuaded him to let her hold the city in fief."
Eames nodded to himself. "And things went merrily along until Mal took Arthur as her human servant and you three became a triumvirate."
"Not a real triumvirate," Arthur clarified, old frustration lacing his voice. "Dom and I were both bound to her; we were never linked to each other at anything like the same strength. His marks were too old to stretch around mine."
"But close enough to make Lebrun nervous, which is when everything went to hell," Eames concluded, hurrying past what he knew were painful memories for the other two. "And you know about Fisher and Saito's proxy war, which is why Lebrun was in California in the first place. What you probably don't know, because Fisher never talks about it, Lebrun doesn't either, and I don't think Robert trusts easily outside his inner circle, is that Robert Fitzmorris, Lebrun's human servant, is Fisher's biological son."
Silence. Eames could practically hear Arthur's brain whirring as he processed new information.
Dom spoke first. "Vlad syndrome?"
Eames rolled his eyes. "I don't know how anyone would tell, what with the marks and all, but presumably yes. He was born about fifty years after Fisher turned Lebrun, to a thrall about whom nobody seems to know a bloody thing; apparently the poor woman vanished as soon as she wasn't needed for milk. Lebrun raised the boy and marked him once he was of age."
"That seems..." Arthur started, and trailed off.
"Weirdly incestuous?" Eames offered.
He could almost hear Arthur rolling his eyes, and the silence on the other end of the phone had an impatient air.
"They function well enough two by two," Eames continued, trying not to let his grin leak into his voice. "Nothing struck me as unusual when Lebrun and Robert each visited Sydney a couple times this past year, nor when Sally and I flew to San Francisco to deliver Fisher's orders. But get all three of them together, like they've been these past few days, and you could cut the tension with a knife."
Dom made one of his thinking noises, and Arthur said, "Details, Eames. Knowing they have weaknesses isn't much use unless you tell us what and where the stress points are."
Arthur and his fetish for specifics. Eames grinned wider and attempted to provide them. "Fisher ignores Robert most of the time, never acknowledges him unless Robert's directly addressed him first. He's quick enough to accept any results of Robert's work, though, even if he always finds something to criticize. That just makes Robert work twice as hard at supporting him, because he worships the old bastard and keeps hoping for his approval."
Arthur made a disgusted noise.
"I know, I know: dreadfully tragic and dreadfully common," Eames agreed. "But that pattern, while unhealthy, is at least functional to some degree. When you throw Lebrun into the mix, Fisher treats Robert like a slave and Robert just goes away inside his head, like he thinks he deserves it and can't even dream of fighting back."
That had been downright disconcerting for Eames to watch -- even worse for Sally, judging by the way her face had gone blank during the interminable formal welcoming ceremony when they'd arrived in San Francisco. It was just as well she'd not been invited to the strategy meeting the next night.
"Lebrun treats Robert like a favorite nephew and his heir apparent," he continued. "Robert runs his businesses like clockwork so Lebrun can focus his attention on politics. But when Fisher's around, Robert stops paying attention to Lebrun, and Lebrun keeps calling Robert to his side -- I'm not sure if it's to try reassuring him or to make a point to Fisher -- but either way, neither of them can get anything done." Which had made the strategy meeting run twice as long as it should have, even after Robert got over his daddy issues enough to participate at all.
"Fisher and Lebrun work hand in glove on any issue that has nothing to do with Robert, but the minute Robert's actions and loyalties come into the equation -- or the minute he walks into the room, for all I know -- they go cold and start playing dominance games using him as a pawn. And he won't stop them, won't side with either of them over the other. It's a right old mess, and from what I can tell, they've been dancing the same steps for centuries. I will bet you a thousand pounds the reason Fisher and Lebrun are almost never together, despite their alliance, is Robert and nothing but Robert," Eames concluded.
He listened to the wind skipping over dry ground and faded grass while Dom and Arthur chewed over that information.
"I don't see how that changes our plan," Arthur said eventually. "So long as you get Lebrun's blood and a personal item to me the night before the challenge, I can work the ritual and give Dom a chance at killing him. You're in no more danger than you ever were -- perhaps less, if having Robert around makes Fisher irrational. He'll be less likely to pin blame on you."
It was Eames's turn to roll his eyes. "More likely, actually, since he lashes out when he's feeling paranoid. But that's not the point. The point is that I think -- only think, mind you; I'm not sure -- but I think we might be able to use Robert as a wedge to convince Fisher that Lebrun is plotting against him. Hey presto, Fisher will take care of your vengeance for you, you'll have neatly got vengeance on him too, since he'll kill his only friend for no reason, and Dom can go back to his children instead of dying in a noble kamikaze strike. Because there is no way Lebrun will go down without casualties, no matter what hoodoo you cast on him, Arthur."
"No," Dom said. Not even a bloody pause to consider, just flat refusal.
"This is blood vengeance, Eames," Arthur agreed, though he did at least have the courtesy to sound reluctant. "It's not enough for Lebrun to die. We promised Mal it would be our hands on the knife."
"She was dying in my head -- I felt every second of what Lebrun did to her -- and the only thing she could hold onto was us and that promise," Dom said, his voice low and thick with something halfway between rage and despair. "Philippa and James are safe under Saito's hand, and it's not like I'm their real father anyway. They're better off with Marie and Miles. Like Marie says, at least their grandparents are still human."
"Dom--" Arthur said, and then he must have turned off the speakerphone option because he said, quickly, "Give us a minute, Eames," and the line went silent.
Eames let his right hand drop to his side, still loosely cradling the phone, and stared out at the choppy water of San Francisco Bay. It was a beautiful fall day. The sun was playing hopscotch with fluffy clouds, and the tattered sky was a heartbreaking shade of blue. The wind was brisk enough that when the sun vanished, Eames half-wished for a jacket, but not so brisk he didn't appreciate the scents it carried off the open water: brine and fish and the myriad blended smells of humanity and pollutants that whispered city to anyone with a half-awake nose.
Fuck Dom's family anyway. So what if he was a weretiger and would have died two hundred years ago if Mal hadn't risen and marked him in turn? So what if he wasn't those two kids' biological father? He and Mal had loved and raised them since they were old enough to remember, and that was what counted.
Dom should be in Hawaii with his children, not looking to commit suicide-by-vampire, and especially not dragging Arthur down with him.
"Eames? Eames?" Arthur's voice sounded small and flat, coming from down near his thigh.
Eames raised the phone. "Yeah?"
"Dom's taking a shower. Tell me the rest of it," Arthur said. He still sounded flat, like he'd been punctured and all the life had run out of him, leaving only bad memories and the inborn core of darkness that let him call the dead.
Eames sighed. "Right. So Fisher, Lebrun, and Robert fuck each other up when they're together, but they've been at this for nearly a thousand years. They'll paper it over in public. The other thing that might be important is Lebrun's new second. Her name is Meng Die, she's maybe two or three hundred years old, tiny, beautiful, and twisty as a corkscrew. She's plotting a coup and Lebrun knows it. He's let her run with it until now because it's helped him identify weak links in his organization, but he can't leave her unsupervised in San Francisco for two days, let alone two weeks."
Arthur scoffed. "So he'll kill her before you head to St. Louis. Why should I care?"
"Because Jean-Claude made her, and Lebrun, for one, would prefer not to piss him off before asking for his neutral judgment," Eames told him. "Lebrun's been arguing Fisher around to bringing her as a host gift, of all things."
"She's the one who knows the werewolf from the Washington hunt?" Arthur asked.
"Yes. Wolves are her animal to call." Like Mal had called tigers, like Lebrun called rats... and like Fisher called foxes. Which was the main reason Arthur had brought Eames into this mess in the first place.
"It doesn't matter. If she distracts Lebrun, it can only help us, and if not, we're no worse than we always were," Arthur decided. "I'll most likely see Ariadne at least once before everyone descends on St. Louis, and I'll start laying a trail to corroborate your story about hating me. As for the rest, we'll stick with the original plan. Don't worry about Dom; he's made his choices. Don't worry about me, either. The only person who has a chance of noticing and tracking the spell is Ms. Blake, and I'm working out how to approach her so she won't have any reason to bother."
Eames made a skeptical noise deep in his throat. "If you say so." Arthur was good at plans, but plans went to shit -- that was just how the world worked -- and Eames had heard stories about Anita Blake and the growing tangle at the heart of the St. Louis preternatural community. He still thought Arthur and Dom should have pressed Saito harder to get the challenge held somewhere else, but apparently the Queen of Nightmares had been fixed on the idea that even if Jean-Claude wouldn't take the Earthmover's empty seat, the challenge to replace their lost seventh should take place where he fell. Hence St. Louis and all its attendant complications.
"Is there anything else?" Arthur asked after a brief silence.
Eames considered. Fisher's lovely little dysfunctional family trio, Meng Die and her schemes, the chatty werewolf from Mt. Ranier... "Sally Cunningham, my partner in dancing to Fisher's tune, seems to be taking up with Robert, but I don't know how serious either of them is. It may be an additional distraction or a source of tension between Robert and Fisher."
Arthur grunted. "Remind me to tell Dom that I clearly don't have the worst judgment about the right time to start mooning over people, no matter what he thinks."
What? Oh, right. "Your Ariadne, I presume?" Eames said dryly. "Maybe so, but I'll at least give Robert credit for having the sense to fall for someone in his own camp."
"Fuck you, Eames," Arthur said without heat. "Listen, it's almost one o'clock and I need to get lunch and catch a nap. I'll see you in two days at the formal announcement of the challenge."
"Until then," Eames said, and hung up.
He stared over the bay one last time, then turned and headed back to meet with Sally.
---------------------------------------------
End Part Fourteen
continue to part 15
back to part 13
read the final version on AO3 (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The journal version is a beta draft, with all the errors that implies.)
---------------------------------------------
And I think that wraps up chapter two, unless anyone has a burning need to see Eames talking with Sally and Robert? I think it would muck up the pacing and focus, but I could maybe be persuaded otherwise if someone makes a good case. (Or maybe not, but you can always try. *wry*) Anyway, chapter three will start with Ariadne fetching Arthur and Dom to meet with Jean-Claude. Yay Ariadne!
This chapter needs more editing than chapter one (though I do want to also go back and make sure chapter one hints more pointedly at the nature of Dom and Arthur's plan, now that I know more or less what it is), but I should have the final version up on AO3 by, say, Tuesday night. :-)
---------------
And now, an experiment:
I don't think this will show up on LJ, since I don't have a paid account there, but I am testing out a kind of response poll I've seen a few other people do. Even if you don't have anything to say, please consider ticking a box or two to show you're reading!
---------------------------------------------
Weregild, part 14
---------------------------------------------
Eames kicked idly at the dusty ground of the derelict Hunters Point shipyard. It was most likely laced with toxic waste, judging by what the barista at the local coffee shop had told him, but he wasn't especially worried. One benefit of turning furry at least once a month was an immune system that could beat nearly anything given so much as a whisper of a chance. Meanwhile, both the danger and the fact that Lebrun had recently purchased most of the property, nominally for a revitalization project, kept random passersby well away.
"To recap what you told me when I agreed to join your vendetta," he said, "Lebrun came to San Francisco in the seventies, promptly knocked off the previous Master of the City, and began establishing a sort of hegemony up and down the coast -- other Masters got to keep their territory, but only if they acknowledge him as a sort of regional overlord."
"Right," Dom said, speakerphone making him sound slightly more distant and tinny than usual. "Mal and I came to Oakland in '86, when Miles was transferred to Berkeley. Lebrun had been ruling Oakland directly, but the bay made that awkward so Mal persuaded him to let her hold the city in fief."
Eames nodded to himself. "And things went merrily along until Mal took Arthur as her human servant and you three became a triumvirate."
"Not a real triumvirate," Arthur clarified, old frustration lacing his voice. "Dom and I were both bound to her; we were never linked to each other at anything like the same strength. His marks were too old to stretch around mine."
"But close enough to make Lebrun nervous, which is when everything went to hell," Eames concluded, hurrying past what he knew were painful memories for the other two. "And you know about Fisher and Saito's proxy war, which is why Lebrun was in California in the first place. What you probably don't know, because Fisher never talks about it, Lebrun doesn't either, and I don't think Robert trusts easily outside his inner circle, is that Robert Fitzmorris, Lebrun's human servant, is Fisher's biological son."
Silence. Eames could practically hear Arthur's brain whirring as he processed new information.
Dom spoke first. "Vlad syndrome?"
Eames rolled his eyes. "I don't know how anyone would tell, what with the marks and all, but presumably yes. He was born about fifty years after Fisher turned Lebrun, to a thrall about whom nobody seems to know a bloody thing; apparently the poor woman vanished as soon as she wasn't needed for milk. Lebrun raised the boy and marked him once he was of age."
"That seems..." Arthur started, and trailed off.
"Weirdly incestuous?" Eames offered.
He could almost hear Arthur rolling his eyes, and the silence on the other end of the phone had an impatient air.
"They function well enough two by two," Eames continued, trying not to let his grin leak into his voice. "Nothing struck me as unusual when Lebrun and Robert each visited Sydney a couple times this past year, nor when Sally and I flew to San Francisco to deliver Fisher's orders. But get all three of them together, like they've been these past few days, and you could cut the tension with a knife."
Dom made one of his thinking noises, and Arthur said, "Details, Eames. Knowing they have weaknesses isn't much use unless you tell us what and where the stress points are."
Arthur and his fetish for specifics. Eames grinned wider and attempted to provide them. "Fisher ignores Robert most of the time, never acknowledges him unless Robert's directly addressed him first. He's quick enough to accept any results of Robert's work, though, even if he always finds something to criticize. That just makes Robert work twice as hard at supporting him, because he worships the old bastard and keeps hoping for his approval."
Arthur made a disgusted noise.
"I know, I know: dreadfully tragic and dreadfully common," Eames agreed. "But that pattern, while unhealthy, is at least functional to some degree. When you throw Lebrun into the mix, Fisher treats Robert like a slave and Robert just goes away inside his head, like he thinks he deserves it and can't even dream of fighting back."
That had been downright disconcerting for Eames to watch -- even worse for Sally, judging by the way her face had gone blank during the interminable formal welcoming ceremony when they'd arrived in San Francisco. It was just as well she'd not been invited to the strategy meeting the next night.
"Lebrun treats Robert like a favorite nephew and his heir apparent," he continued. "Robert runs his businesses like clockwork so Lebrun can focus his attention on politics. But when Fisher's around, Robert stops paying attention to Lebrun, and Lebrun keeps calling Robert to his side -- I'm not sure if it's to try reassuring him or to make a point to Fisher -- but either way, neither of them can get anything done." Which had made the strategy meeting run twice as long as it should have, even after Robert got over his daddy issues enough to participate at all.
"Fisher and Lebrun work hand in glove on any issue that has nothing to do with Robert, but the minute Robert's actions and loyalties come into the equation -- or the minute he walks into the room, for all I know -- they go cold and start playing dominance games using him as a pawn. And he won't stop them, won't side with either of them over the other. It's a right old mess, and from what I can tell, they've been dancing the same steps for centuries. I will bet you a thousand pounds the reason Fisher and Lebrun are almost never together, despite their alliance, is Robert and nothing but Robert," Eames concluded.
He listened to the wind skipping over dry ground and faded grass while Dom and Arthur chewed over that information.
"I don't see how that changes our plan," Arthur said eventually. "So long as you get Lebrun's blood and a personal item to me the night before the challenge, I can work the ritual and give Dom a chance at killing him. You're in no more danger than you ever were -- perhaps less, if having Robert around makes Fisher irrational. He'll be less likely to pin blame on you."
It was Eames's turn to roll his eyes. "More likely, actually, since he lashes out when he's feeling paranoid. But that's not the point. The point is that I think -- only think, mind you; I'm not sure -- but I think we might be able to use Robert as a wedge to convince Fisher that Lebrun is plotting against him. Hey presto, Fisher will take care of your vengeance for you, you'll have neatly got vengeance on him too, since he'll kill his only friend for no reason, and Dom can go back to his children instead of dying in a noble kamikaze strike. Because there is no way Lebrun will go down without casualties, no matter what hoodoo you cast on him, Arthur."
"No," Dom said. Not even a bloody pause to consider, just flat refusal.
"This is blood vengeance, Eames," Arthur agreed, though he did at least have the courtesy to sound reluctant. "It's not enough for Lebrun to die. We promised Mal it would be our hands on the knife."
"She was dying in my head -- I felt every second of what Lebrun did to her -- and the only thing she could hold onto was us and that promise," Dom said, his voice low and thick with something halfway between rage and despair. "Philippa and James are safe under Saito's hand, and it's not like I'm their real father anyway. They're better off with Marie and Miles. Like Marie says, at least their grandparents are still human."
"Dom--" Arthur said, and then he must have turned off the speakerphone option because he said, quickly, "Give us a minute, Eames," and the line went silent.
Eames let his right hand drop to his side, still loosely cradling the phone, and stared out at the choppy water of San Francisco Bay. It was a beautiful fall day. The sun was playing hopscotch with fluffy clouds, and the tattered sky was a heartbreaking shade of blue. The wind was brisk enough that when the sun vanished, Eames half-wished for a jacket, but not so brisk he didn't appreciate the scents it carried off the open water: brine and fish and the myriad blended smells of humanity and pollutants that whispered city to anyone with a half-awake nose.
Fuck Dom's family anyway. So what if he was a weretiger and would have died two hundred years ago if Mal hadn't risen and marked him in turn? So what if he wasn't those two kids' biological father? He and Mal had loved and raised them since they were old enough to remember, and that was what counted.
Dom should be in Hawaii with his children, not looking to commit suicide-by-vampire, and especially not dragging Arthur down with him.
"Eames? Eames?" Arthur's voice sounded small and flat, coming from down near his thigh.
Eames raised the phone. "Yeah?"
"Dom's taking a shower. Tell me the rest of it," Arthur said. He still sounded flat, like he'd been punctured and all the life had run out of him, leaving only bad memories and the inborn core of darkness that let him call the dead.
Eames sighed. "Right. So Fisher, Lebrun, and Robert fuck each other up when they're together, but they've been at this for nearly a thousand years. They'll paper it over in public. The other thing that might be important is Lebrun's new second. Her name is Meng Die, she's maybe two or three hundred years old, tiny, beautiful, and twisty as a corkscrew. She's plotting a coup and Lebrun knows it. He's let her run with it until now because it's helped him identify weak links in his organization, but he can't leave her unsupervised in San Francisco for two days, let alone two weeks."
Arthur scoffed. "So he'll kill her before you head to St. Louis. Why should I care?"
"Because Jean-Claude made her, and Lebrun, for one, would prefer not to piss him off before asking for his neutral judgment," Eames told him. "Lebrun's been arguing Fisher around to bringing her as a host gift, of all things."
"She's the one who knows the werewolf from the Washington hunt?" Arthur asked.
"Yes. Wolves are her animal to call." Like Mal had called tigers, like Lebrun called rats... and like Fisher called foxes. Which was the main reason Arthur had brought Eames into this mess in the first place.
"It doesn't matter. If she distracts Lebrun, it can only help us, and if not, we're no worse than we always were," Arthur decided. "I'll most likely see Ariadne at least once before everyone descends on St. Louis, and I'll start laying a trail to corroborate your story about hating me. As for the rest, we'll stick with the original plan. Don't worry about Dom; he's made his choices. Don't worry about me, either. The only person who has a chance of noticing and tracking the spell is Ms. Blake, and I'm working out how to approach her so she won't have any reason to bother."
Eames made a skeptical noise deep in his throat. "If you say so." Arthur was good at plans, but plans went to shit -- that was just how the world worked -- and Eames had heard stories about Anita Blake and the growing tangle at the heart of the St. Louis preternatural community. He still thought Arthur and Dom should have pressed Saito harder to get the challenge held somewhere else, but apparently the Queen of Nightmares had been fixed on the idea that even if Jean-Claude wouldn't take the Earthmover's empty seat, the challenge to replace their lost seventh should take place where he fell. Hence St. Louis and all its attendant complications.
"Is there anything else?" Arthur asked after a brief silence.
Eames considered. Fisher's lovely little dysfunctional family trio, Meng Die and her schemes, the chatty werewolf from Mt. Ranier... "Sally Cunningham, my partner in dancing to Fisher's tune, seems to be taking up with Robert, but I don't know how serious either of them is. It may be an additional distraction or a source of tension between Robert and Fisher."
Arthur grunted. "Remind me to tell Dom that I clearly don't have the worst judgment about the right time to start mooning over people, no matter what he thinks."
What? Oh, right. "Your Ariadne, I presume?" Eames said dryly. "Maybe so, but I'll at least give Robert credit for having the sense to fall for someone in his own camp."
"Fuck you, Eames," Arthur said without heat. "Listen, it's almost one o'clock and I need to get lunch and catch a nap. I'll see you in two days at the formal announcement of the challenge."
"Until then," Eames said, and hung up.
He stared over the bay one last time, then turned and headed back to meet with Sally.
---------------------------------------------
End Part Fourteen
continue to part 15
back to part 13
read the final version on AO3 (Trust me, you want to read the final version. The journal version is a beta draft, with all the errors that implies.)
---------------------------------------------
And I think that wraps up chapter two, unless anyone has a burning need to see Eames talking with Sally and Robert? I think it would muck up the pacing and focus, but I could maybe be persuaded otherwise if someone makes a good case. (Or maybe not, but you can always try. *wry*) Anyway, chapter three will start with Ariadne fetching Arthur and Dom to meet with Jean-Claude. Yay Ariadne!
This chapter needs more editing than chapter one (though I do want to also go back and make sure chapter one hints more pointedly at the nature of Dom and Arthur's plan, now that I know more or less what it is), but I should have the final version up on AO3 by, say, Tuesday night. :-)
---------------
And now, an experiment:
Poll #7528 Weregild, part 14
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 7
Weregild, part 14
I read this section.
6 (85.7%)
I liked this section.
7 (100.0%)
I would like to read more of this story.
5 (71.4%)
I would not like to read more of this story.
0 (0.0%)
Tickybox!
6 (85.7%)
I don't think this will show up on LJ, since I don't have a paid account there, but I am testing out a kind of response poll I've seen a few other people do. Even if you don't have anything to say, please consider ticking a box or two to show you're reading!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-16 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-17 03:42 am (UTC)There ought to be a way to work some of it in during Eames's conversation with Sally and his later conversation with Robert, though. That would indeed build more ongoing tension. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-16 07:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-17 03:55 am (UTC)I keep wavering back and forth over whether Ariadne or Arthur is my favorite -- they are both my woobies, and I want them to be happy! (Eames is fun and I love him too, but he is not a woobie.) Anyway, I will be glad to get back to Ariadne as a narrative POV, because I love her, I want to help her build confidence and find a way to stop living in other people's shadows, and because I need more women in this story, my god. Especially since I have been rereading the Anita Blake books while writing, and the treatment of non-Anita female characters gets creepier and creepier the closer I look at it. :-(
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-16 01:04 pm (UTC)It worked pretty nicely, I didn't find it infodumpy at all. Seemed very natural to me, and the conversation itself was riveting enough that the lack of external actions didn't matter. I liked it! ^^
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-17 03:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-16 08:58 pm (UTC)Also, I can't formally be part of the poll but I read and liked this chapter.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-07-17 03:21 am (UTC)I think there is something inherently funny about Arthur getting teased. He's not uptight, but he does project a sort of... gravity, I guess, even when he's being lighthearted, and it's fun to see people ruffle him a little. Also, I think it's cute that everyone can tell that he likes Ariadne. :-)
I am actually using one of the easier methods of fandom blending, because I am ditching most of Inception's world-building rules and only keeping the characters' personalities and general relationship ties. If I were trying to, say, insert all the rules of dreamwork and the military program that developed the PASIV, work out how various preternatural creatures might react to Somnacin, and keep the entire plot of Inception intact in a world that includes legalized vampires, that would be much, much trickier. I generally feel that making two unrelated rulebooks play nice is exponentially harder than figuring out how a bunch of people might translate to a universe with a different rulebook.