[Deconstructing Deconstruction]

Hmmm... interesting topic, and not one I've actually sat down and intellectualized. For the most part, my writing is seat-of-the-pants, without outlines, and subject to changes as the story develops. I might have thought I was going in one direction, and will wind up somewhere else entirely.

I think some small amount of deconstruction is almost inevitable if you want to shake life into something that's become the literary equivalent of a raddled whore, such as anything involving vampires these days. But, and it's a big but for me, there is a point when it's too much and you do lose sight of the escapist nature of fiction. Even realistic fiction offers a form of escape, if only from our own lives and into someone else's shoes for a bit.

I'm put in mind of Mary Doria Russell's absolutely gorgeous books, The Sparrow and its sequel, The Children of God. Her protagonist is absolutely wrecked, destroyed utterly and left devoid of faith. It's brutal. I can count on one hand the number of times a book has moved me to literal tears like those did. But it is a journey towards redemption, and in spite of all it cost him, he does find some measure of peace. Those two books will haunt me, always.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

Oh, you evil wench! This chapter was a real treat, in all aspects. We get some more elven culture, relationship development, politics and DRAMA. Oh my, the drama!

Now, I have something to criticise. Namely, Gend's metarole in the story. He's being cast as the villain here, and it has been adequately foreshadowed in the past few chapters, but it still comes off as... fake? Forced? Not sure how to define it, precisely. It's as though he's not a true character, but a force used to inject drama in the story and create turbulence in the relationship. Of course, I say this because I have absolutely no idea what his motivations might be (Is he a traitor? Does he want Vale for himself? Does he really distrust Sand that much?), but there's more to it. Perhaps it came off too suddenly, without sufficient warning (we knew Gend was against the relationship, but not that he was willing to sink that low), or perhaps he's simply a rather... undeveloped character. We don't get to learn much of him, after his brief introduction in the first chapter. I'm sure that in the next chapters we'll get to see more of him, and the consequences of his decision (and besides, we all know that by NWN2, Sand's back in Neverwinter), but this is more of a general comment. At *this* point of the story, he isn't that well-rounded as a character.

Now, the good stuff! As usual, you're awesome with the little details that truly make up the world you're setting the story in. Then, I have to hand it to you, pulling off cute and sweet stuff like that. I swear, if I were to try and write the kind of dialogue you used here, I would *vomit*. But you pulled it off really well! Especially with the uses of Elven and Common, how anything said in Elven feels more intimate, more... 'private,' if you will. Definitely a plus. So yeah, all in all, this story rocks. Even if you're an evil wench who can't let these two poor elves be happy together.

Gods, I love your reviews, because they make me think!

Yes, Gend is underdeveloped in term sof explaining why he just did what he did, and it's one of the things I'm already tweaking for the rewrite. I really couldn't do too much without cleaning up the prior chapters, though, so yes. There will be some more development for Gend, but it comes later.

Ack, my elves are cute and sweet? Well, yeah, I suppose they are. Oh, well...feck... I do like playing with dialogue and I suppose that does show. And I'm glad the elven comes off as more intimate than pretentious of me. That's how I wanted it to feel, as though they resort to their own first language in moments of intimacy. But I am really making a concerted effort to write a happy ending for the poor elves, honestly! I'm not utterly heartless.

But thank you again, as always, for reading, for taking the time to review, and for poking me!

[Review Replies for The Winter Of A Lifetime]

Oh hey! That's pretty awesome! Thanks for the link, I'll be putting it to good use! And heh, that's an original mother-daughter activity. Though I think you'll regret the beta offer when/if she starts getting into lemon.

::snorts:: As long as she doesn't ask her father, we're good... I'm pretty much unshockable.

[Review Replies for The Winter Of A Lifetime]

Oh, gods, I am gobsmacked, seriously! I really had not considered that English was not your first language, and now I'm even more impressed by the quality of your writing. English is such a fucking bastard of a language to learn, and every rules has not only exceptions but outright contradictions. I'm a native speaker of the language (although I frequently claim to be fluent in both English and American), and I screw up.

This is a link to a site I use for my teengirl, who is much more proficient in texting than in actually writing, although I'm trying to get her to post some stuff on the Pit. I even offered to beta for her, which I rarely do. I'll proof for friends for grammar/spelling/mechanics, but I dislike trying to direct their writing because I'm terrified that I'll change their style too much. Every writer has a unique voice, and it shouldn't get lost.

Punctuation rules

Gods, above all, do NOT stop writing.

[Review Replies for The Winter Of A Lifetime]

Like I said, it's minor, but one of those things that can occasionally jar the reader. (So saith the Grammar Bitch, who had this shit beaten into her at a young and impressionable age.)

In dialogue, if the attribution is not a completely separate sentence, the dialogue text should end with a comma right before the end quote, and the attribution should begin with a lower case letter. For example: "I can't believe you just said that," he snapped. The attribution really doesn't work as a standalone sentence. Did he bark that out, or flip out and pillage the town?

Obviously, there are times when you attribute dialogue without one of those he said/he replied/he retorted endless sequences that can drag on. In that case, the period before the end quote and initial cap on the new sentence is perfect.

Aside from that, poetic writing isn't necessarily poetry, but it is rich and complex and dense with imagery. That's a very good thing, imo, since writing should be a passionate thing. It should make you feel something, even if it's the urge to scream and heave the book out the window. If the reader doesn't react, it isn't working. You, gods, you get into your characters' heads, and you make me see them as flesh and blood, and you make me care about what happens next.

Writing shouldn't be a dying art, and when I read something that makes me read until the end, straight through, and be hungry for more, well...

[New? Introduce Yourself!]

I hadn't noticed this until now, so... hello.

Let's see. I'm new to AFF but have been posting fics over on FF for a bit in the Neverwinter Nights game fandom. I'm a voracious reader, an avid player of CRPGs, a geek, and addicted to caffeine, chocolate and sarcasm. I enjoy a good debate that doesn't degenerate into name calling and finger pointing. I have been a practicing polytheist for most of my life, of the garden variety pagan persuasion, and have a pathological dislike of fluffy bunnies.

I write because the stories in my head won't go away until I do, and I love to get useful concrit on what I write. By that I mean just don't tell me what you don't like, tell me WHY you don't like it. I live with a teen, a tween, a husband, and my mother. Trust me, I can take it.

So far, I am really enjoying AFF, and hope to stick around for a while if you don't mind.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

I do remember reading somewhere that the lead writer on NWN2, Davis Gaider, said he didn't like writing romance. Gee, ya think?

Heh. If I posted the other fic here, I'd be swamped with complaints about not enough sex, I fear. It would need a lot of trimming as well, since I really hate the first few chapters. Low on the project scale right now, I think, but posting this one over at the Pit would be easier. Given some of the more recent abominations that have been put up, I might not even tame it down first.

I'm actually in the target range for Casavir, and I found him massively unappealing. Here my PC is, my snarky little elf rogue on first playthrough, looking at all the frigging orcs SHE just killed to save his ass, and he wants to protect HER?

[Elves/Immortals and ages]

BronxWench: A woman might outlive a man for 10-20 years (or even 30, in some cases). Those years are not spent at the peak of one's physical and mental maturity, like elves. They're spent fruitlessly battling decrepitude, senility, dementia, illness and ultimately death. You're not going to have TIME to mourn your loved one, you'll be more concerned about remembering important stuff before it fades for good, being able to shit on your own and praying not to slip and fall every time you go downstairs. Your GOOD years, anywhere from say, teens to 60-70, will most likely be spent together. Sure, he might die first, but you're not going to be able to go cruising for young tail afterwards. You'll be lucky if you remember the anniversary of his death, after all, so mourning him while you can is a pretty good idea.

I really wanted to mull a bit before I tackled this. This keeps drifting back to the notion of love versus the sexual appeal of older people, or the sexual appetites of older people, and that's really two different topics.

On love, yes, we mourn when we lose a loved one. We mourn for ourselves. We're the ones stuck here without them, after all. Some people may never move past that, or may never have the time to move past that, which in and of itself should be a good thing, since it means they may have had a good long time with their loved one. But it's natural. It's not something to be feared, or dreaded. We get older. Shit happens. Our bodies aren't as limber, we suffer ailments we wouldn't have had to worry about when younger, and some of us do experience senility and dementia. Hells, we're lucky if we even find one person in our lives that we truly, no-holds-barred, let all the barriers down, love. Me, I'd rather celebrate what I had, and what I still have, rather than waste what time I do have in mourning. If the gods are kind, I'll still have living family that will need me, and love me. I'll adapt. But your mileage may vary, and that's fine. I don't have any lock on the wisdom of the ages, after all.

Now, sex. Even at this point in my life, and I am far from decrepit, I couldn't see myself chasing young tail. I'm not entirely sure where that's coming from, although it's not all that important. I'm not ageist, mind you. I like younger people, really. I mean, sure, there's visual appeal, but a lot of sexual attraction for me is mental as well. And I'm not talking love, here, just to be clear. I certainly never thought I had to be in love with every one of my lovers. That would be... exhausting, actually. Love is hard work. Sex is fun. I don't mistake one for the other as a general rule.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

The big fic is posted over at the Pit, and is much tamer than this one. To be honest, I had no idea AFF existed when I started writing fanfic. Yes, I know, I am sometimes quite hopelessly oblivious.

I started writing fanfic after being intrigued by a group of lively people on the Bioware forums started something called the "Shirtless Sagas" dedicated to writing romances other than the canon "I want to... protect you" Casavir routine thrust upon us by the NWN2 game developers. Between that undying declaration of interest, and the long underwear your character avatar wears when out of armor, the Bioware forum ladies took off. Eventually, the entire thing migrated to the Pit, which is when I got bored at the pool and began writing myself.

I might post an edited version on the Pit, someday, just to see heads explode.

Edit:

To clarify my own post (having been distracted by a rather desperate teenager needing to rehearse lines for "Arsenic and Old Lace"), the events in Alchemy occur primarily before and after the events in the big fic. In theory, it can function as a stand-alone story, since it's not Sand's POV. However, because it does contain events that happen after the big fic, there are some minor spoilers, and I was threatened with ritual dismemberment at dawn if I spoil the ending at the Pit. ::shrugs:: Like that would be new for me.

[Elves/Immortals and ages]

While I agree with your and wanderingaddict on the fact that elves might adapt to humans (I don't necessarily see this as a rule, I think that it's possible that the elven mind simply functions in a different level than the human's, and unless the elf is raised since birth in human lands, he's never going to think the same way as one), I don't necessarily believe that elves really do behave like that. Some might, of course, but I don't see it as the norm. I am honestly not fond at all of the old "elf sees humans as cute little playthings to keep himself amused throughout the ages" that is disturbingly prevalent in many stories.

Ack! I wasn't going for that impression at all!

If the elf was raised amongst humans, he might see having a relationship with one as perfectly normal (or might in fact be attracted to his elven brethren due to the mystique of rediscovering his past), but I think that normal elves (those from elven communities) wouldn't necessarily think of mating with humans as something innately desirable. Sure, it's a new, invigorating experience, but I'd wager that there's just as many elves who'd rather not bother with them and pick an equally long-lived partner to spend the rest of their lives with. Which, in my opinion, makes a whole of a lot more sense (since I honestly have a hard time comprehending how an elf who allegedly cares about his mates actively pursues a cycle that ends inevitably in death over and over again).

Just going off the FR world, there are elven subraces for whom mating with a human is so repugnant that it's unthinkable, and so yes, this is valid. Sun elves in particular do not view elf-human pairings as even remotely acceptable, and even many moon elves will have the same reaction. Wood elves are not as particular, and in the Yuirwood area, it is the half-elven community that act as the protectors of the land and the hidden star elf community. It's also not a given that an elf who has a relationship with a human is necessarily going to seek out another human partner.

And also, the whole "it isn't a lifetime commitment for the elf the way it is for a human" just reeks of relationship inequality. The human spends his entire life with the elf and when he dies, the elf just shrugs and moves on? Yeah, you can't tell me the elf actually cares in this case. Like I said, I can understand the elf that doesn't give a crap, but how do you reconcile such masochism, caring about someone you know is going to die in what, for the elf, is a rather short time?

Let me posit this. From an actuarial perspective, women tend to live longer than men. Statistically speaking, most women form relationships with men either their age or older. This, too, is both relationship inequality, and masochism, since the odds are strongly in favor of the woman outliving the man. When my Other Half dies, I'm certainly not going to just shrug and move on since I happen to love the daft bastard, but the alternative, not wanting a partner in my life because I'm terrified he will die before me and leave me alone, is equally untenable. There isn't a safe formula for loving someone, and making age or possible differences in lifespan a criteria for deciding who to love is colder than I can be.

Now, having said all that, we've sort of hijacked this away from the original notion of older people being sexually appealing. So, in a futile effort to pretend to stay on topic, one thing that has always interested me when this topic comes up is the biological dichotomy that exists in peak sexual appetite/interest between men and women. Men peak rather early on, biologically speaking, in the late teens to mid twenties. Women don't begin hitting their sexual stride until they are in their thirties. And yet, at least in Western society, older men are distinguished, and older women are just old. Hmm...

I shall now take my not-yet wrinkly butt off the soapbox and turn it over to the next person.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

One of the things that always struck me about Sand in the game is that he's the classic highly intelligent but common sense deprived sort. I actually have a friend like that, which is a scary thing IRL. She's a member of MENSA, but so NOT ask her to walk and chew gum at the same time. Actually, you shouldn't feel sorry for Sand, so I'm pleased that you didn't. He admits that he was an intellectual whore, and an idiot. In many ways, he still is, given that in the game, he never managed to tell the PC about his Luskan past until it comes out in the trial. This would be the billboard moment for stupidity in my book, and I had a great deal of fun with it in the fic that spawned Alchemy.

I love the half a cat comparison. It's true, that, although in my case it was half a mouse, literally. It's not so much that I don't like delving into emotional stuff. I fear going overboard. Irrational, I know. I love picking apart motivation, and a lot of that is emotional, so go figure. Now that NaNo is over, I may just go pick away at the chapters I have up already, and take it from there. Free time is a good thing.

Truffles from Leonidas... ah, well, let's just say that I've made it a mission to discover the kinds of chocolates that could induce euphoria in dead people. These come close. They make Godiva taste like chocolates with training wheels. I actually haven't been down that way in the city for a while, so I'm not even sure if they're still open. I should ask my Other Half to check it out for me one day. A post-NaNo splurge!

[Elves/Immortals and ages]

I think that you're both forgetting that elves aren't "naturally" staid and set in their ways, but they are relative to the human pace of life. elves that grow up surrounded by other elves, where planning long-term means "sometime in the next 20 years" is the norm, are slow to change and set in their ways, whereas elves that grow up with a bunch of humans adjust to the much "quicker" pace of life.

and I've always had a problem with the "adult" status of an elf. they reach sexual maturity at like, 20 or so right? to me it's really more of a "mark of status" so to speak. at 100 you're a full-fledged, "graduated college" out on your own independent adult. anything under that is the same way we'd view a high school student, or a college kid. they're mature in a lot of ways, but not quite at the right stage just yet.

Very true and good point! The years between 20 and 100 are the high school/undergrad equivalent for elves, and yes again, elves might start a project and walk away for 20 years or so, and it's fine by them. But elves that choose to live among humans, or (gasp!) to have a relationship with a shorter-lived partner are not going to mourn forever, because there's some foreknowledge that this isn't a lifetime commitment for the elf in the same way it is for the human.

And having said that, a fairly moribund piece just got a serious kick in the ass, and has jumped much higher on the priority list...

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

Okay, first of all, I have to say I find it endlessly entertaining to read about them bathing, washing each other's hair and all that. It's something so mundane that yet adds so much to the story! And politics! We see more of that! And hmmm, hints of NWN2 there. This means it's roughly 18 years before that game begins. I laughed so hard at the 'balor proposing to Lord Nasher' bit. That was awesome, awesome wit. Along with the 'burn them' and other juicy bits.

The relationship stuff is, I think, fairly well exposed... but I honestly can't imagine Sand breaking like that. I mean, yes, he's sharing something horrible, but he strikes me as the super rational kind. Maybe his voice will crack at one point, maybe his eyes might get a little wet, but actual tears? It's very hard for me to imagine it. I suppose I'm rather used to the 18-years-later version of him, who is always collected and a supreme master of snark. Also, you might wish to add a bit more of explanation/description here and there. Why was Vale suddenly crying at one point? It'd be really cool if you sort of led the reader towards Vale's state, explaining in detail what he's feeling, how his body starts to ache empathically, how his blood boils with impotent fury at being unable to undo what happened, how his heart just breaks at the sight of Sand looking so vulnerable, etc. Don't be afraid to ramble! Just step into the character and type whatever comes to your mind. And ditto for Sand, too, unless you want to keep his psychology a secret and show us only Vale's side of the story. Otherwise, the reader feels like a witness to the scene instead of actually getting into the minds of the characters.

But anyway, this is just because you said you wanted some concrit, feel free to ignore it if you want. The story really is pretty cool the way it is now.

No, no, don't you dare apologize for concrit!

Seriously, this is good because so much of this lives in my head, and needs to get out and onto the screen. Part of the problem, I think, is that this was spawned from a much larger fic, in which Sand is quite central, and Vale is peripheral, and yet I'm telling this one primarily from Vale's POV. I'm missing stuff that should be obvious, and might have been had this not been a spawnfic.

For example, in my head, Sand is a little more emotional because he's still too damned close to what happened in Luskan. He's also feeling vulnerable to some extent because in many ways he's no freer now in Neverwinter than he was in Luskan. He may not be asked to do quite the same level of underhanded crap, but it's not his choice. BUT that's not clear enough from what I've got down on the screen.

Vale does need to be a bit more obvious as to why he's reacting so strongly, too, and I hope that's going to come out more later on. I do need to ramble more, and that's the perfect way to put it. I'm sometimes too cautious about boring readers with too much detail and emotional stuff (worse accusation in the universe for me is to be told I write like a chick), but it shouldn't be dry, either. I've been told elsewhere not to spend as much time as I do on the stuff like the bath, or the small details that make it more real to me, at least. I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who finds the small stuff amusing.

Politics, well... I view Machiavelli as sort of a guide to life, along with the truly amusing antics of the Senate of Rome. Half of the NWN and NWN2 issues were political in nature, and it shouldn't be a dirty word in fanfic. It's bad enough no one can get polytheism right. Oops, no ranting... bad Wench! Over at the Pit (our fond name for FF) I tend to growl with the writers I know about that issue. I used to debate theology as a sort of amusing little hobby, until that forum fell apart. Words to live by...never bet with a Presbyterian minister, She won, and it cost me truffles from Leonidas.

Anyway, keep the concrit coming, please! This is great stuff, and very refreshing after a diet of what I get at the Pit sometimes.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

::snickers evilly:: I am generally known for being elf-obsessed, although I will extend that obsession to tieflings on occasion, especially broody, sarcastic tieflings with a flair for pulverizing That Which Offends.

I did enjoy your reaction at the end of the review, though. NWN2 has so many plot holes that it begs to be played with, liberally, and I felt obligated to rise to the challenge. And of course, having two snarky elves in one package is tempting beyond words.

Anyway, being that this is my first attempt at slash, keep me honest, and poke as needed. I really do welcome concrit, and prefer knowing where I go wrong so I can avoid it in future.

And if you're not going to finish Ceald's story, at least tell me how it ends!

[Explain Your Avatar]

My avatar is a fairly generic drow elf female, no specific NPC or PC that I can recall.

Or was...

I am now channeling Flemeth, a rather interesting NPC from Dragon Age 2.

Or maybe not.

[Explain Your Username]

I gamed online with my husband and his Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory clan under this name, and then began posting fanfic elsewhere under this name. I'm sort of used to being Wench by now.

[Elves/Immortals and ages]

Well, yes. I miss all my pets that have passed away, up to and including one particular fish. But I still think that mourning someone for 400 years, unless they're a bonded mate, is a little too long. All that the elf could have to offer is lost while they indulge in their grief. Case in point is another abused NPC from NWN2, Daeghun. He comes across cold and emotionless, and they drop the teaser that his wife died in the original attack on West Harbor. Okay, 18 years of mourning is not excessive by elven standards, or even human standards, but the elf could possess an emotion or two by now.

I shouldn't complain, though. It's all fodder for the overactive imagination that drives me.

[Elves/Immortals and ages]

Uhhhh, what's the problem with that? He experienced a traumatic event in his youth, which you can use as a part of his backstory to justify his choices. An elf at 102 is like a human at 14 (see Spoiler below). Don't we have a lot of well-written stories about humans experiencing traumatic events at such a young age? It can serve to explain both the elf's and the human's choice in adventuring career, their class levels (why, I was going to be a warrior, but that event awakened something in me... sorcery!), etc. It's a bit trite, but hey! If the player can pull it off...

Though if you're aiming it from the 'elves try not to live in the past' angle... there are things that you can't just ignore. Ignoring a traumatic event is called being in denial. It's not that healthy for your mental state.

But since we're touching the whole 'elf-slash-supernaturally-long-lived-critter' angle, it's important not to go overboard with the 'immensely old' approach, because it just skids into Mary Sue territory, with a healthy dosis of plothole and Deus Ex Machina. In the real world, age brings wisdom and experience at the hefty expense of physical fitness. In supernatural works, this isn't necessarily the case. Usually, old means wiser, smarter, more powerful... and with the body of a person in their twenties. That's just Suish. If I'm reading about an old character, it'd be nice to be able to explore the flaws that come with old age, especially if the writer themselves must take the time to think things true and come up with reasonable explanations for what they're writing.

Specifically, in my NWN2 world, the PC is supposed to have a shard of a sword buried in their chest in infancy. The game timeline would have that occur approximately 18 years prior to when the game begins. Sorry, but the elf PC was not an infant when the shard would have to have been buried in his/her chest if said elf PC is 120 when the game begins. Logic gaps drive me batshit.

Traumatic events in even an elven version of childhood or adolescence should definitely have a lasting effect. No arguments there from me. The "leave the past behind" philosophy should apply more to mistakes made and lessons learned, and also to not allowing the sorrow of losing a shorter-lived lover to color the rest of one's life. Yes, you mourn, but mourning for 400 years would be excessive. And yes, while older usually means wiser, smarter and more powerful, I always keep in the back of my mind that true wisdom occurs when we realize how very little we do know. Approaching life with an open mind and a willingness to see it fresh, treating each new day as a new experience, well, that has virtues all its own.

I'm hardly the same person I was at 20, or 30, or even 40. Honestly, I'd slap my 20yo self senseless were I to meet me.

[Elves/Immortals and ages]

Elves being more my obsession than vampires, there's also the mindset of the elves in question to consider. I tend to stick with the Forgotten Realms version of elves, with a smattering of Tolkien thrown in, and it is not uncommon in that fic/game world for elves to take human lovers despite a huge disparity in lifespans. Elves also mature at a slower rate, and young adulthood for an elf would put them perilously close to the squick line in terms of age gap to begin with, so as a sensible elf-obsessed writer, I make the mental adjustment and assume any reader will do so as well if they're playing in my fandom.

One interesting bit of FR elven culture is the notion that the past serves as lessons for the future, but living in the past makes a longer lifespan intolerable, and therefore, living in the now is encouraged. A younger partner, human or elf, does not necessarily become a mere protege, or even bed toy, under that outlook, but a way to approach life with the fresh viewpoint of the younger partner.

What does drive me insane, however, is the game writers' complete lack of regard for these niceties. If I game with an elven character, that OC should NOT be 120 years old when the storyline of the game calls for an OC to have endured a traumatic experience that in the world timeline occurred 18 years ago. It's thoughtless writing, and eggs on people like me to insist on driving a double-decker bus through the resulting plot hole.

Trust me, I do NOT need encouragement.

["Overage"?]

From a purely personal perspective, old age is very much a state of mind. I've known people who acted much older than their chronological age, and then there are people like me who get challenged on their age constantly. Despite being six years older than my husband, most people assume I'm roughly that much younger than he is. Go figure. I attribute it to the fact that I never cry if I can resort to being a sarcastic bitch and/or laughing instead, and damned good genes (thanks, Mom!).

Well, that and sex just gets better as I get older.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

I've been concentrating my writing in the NWN fandom, and there's a small core of decent writers who do give some good concrit. We've gotten to know each other pretty well, and I can count on them to poke me hard when I go off on a tangent. A lot of it is via PM, which is fine by me.

And yes, I did NaNo this year for the first time. It occurred to me that I was sustaining better than novel length on fanfics, and when my muse gets cranked, I'm good for some seriously scary output. NaNo is harder in that I'm not taking time to edit as I write, and my inner editor required a massive intervention as a result. I also tried not to write elf smut for NaNo, which was a huge mistake, and one which shall not be repeated. The challenge is a blast, though. I took today off, but I'll reach the 50k words tomorrow by my word count widget. I'll add a little more and submit Sunday, since I hear their word count widget is not as generous as mine. Margins of error, my new golden rule.

I'm good with about 5 hours of sleep, as long as I keep pounding the caffeine.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

Heh. I'm going for it. I've gone insane, truly I have. I'm still writing the parent story.

And then there's the other story languishing on my HD because I really need to spice it up more, and didn't want to make heads explode elsewhere. I started the rewrite, trying to tame it, and now I get to put back all the parts I cut out, and ramp those up.

Of course, NaNo should be done by Sunday, which will give me back that time, and since the family's already trained not to bother me unless blood is involved...

Sleep is vastly overrated anyway.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

Oh, gods... I'm not sure if I love you or hate you, KS. It occurred to me that I could most likely post a rewrite of the relevant sections of the parent story, edited to include all the good bits I had to edit out while writing it, and to exclude a lot of extraneous plot stuff that works elsewhere but really doesn't fit the slant of this fic.

On the bright side, the writing is basically done. I just need a more reliable source of my current favorite coffee, preferably administered intravenously.

[Review Replies for Alchemy]

I suppose the logical place for me to start is to say that while I'm not new to writing fan fiction, I'm new to writing on AFF.

Alchemy is actually a plot bunny that latched onto my ankle with nasty sharp teeth and refused to go away. It spun itself off a rather long fanfic called Stormborn over on (cough-cough)FFnet, in which a certain sarcastic elven wizard features prominently. Because he is who he is, he insisted that I write a back story for him, and that would be right about when my ankle came under attack. I'm trying to stick to both the OC game campaigns for NWN and NWN2, as well as the character development I've done in the parent story, while still writing the parent story, a NaNo entry and a few other projects. I am now officially addicted to espresso and chocolate.

Having said that, I wanted to reply to my two wonderful reviewers, Shadow Knight and wanderingaddict. It's always encouraging for a first story to get attention so quickly.

Shadow Knight: I do agree that the rape scene is sketchy. I will admit to actually having a great deal of trouble writing that at all. I much prefer consensual sex, which puts me in a bind when I need to write noncon. And yes, the snark develops over the course of the fiction, as Chapter 2 shows. I've never seen Sand as fluffy in the slightest, and even in the throes of passion, he is still the same edgy, sarcastic elf we all love. I'm glad the sex works in Chapter 2, and I will have to work on spicing it up a little more, since Vale and Sand are not a one-night stand by any means. There's some big time jumps, which is why I did include dates throughout the chapter. I was hoping to imply, but probably need to make it clearer, that Sand has spent nearly a year in contact with Vale, and has been interested in Vale, but still resents being forced to work for Neverwinter. And, because I am an utter geek, thank you for loving the elven! I actually work from the glossary and grammar rules, and while it can be painstaking to find a way to phrase something, I love the challenge. Finally, this really is my first slashfic, so I'm loving the feedback. My elves don't view same gender relationships as out of the ordinary, so I can't see making them stick to purely het affairs, even if the parent story is het.

wanderingaddict: I actually feel like I should begin by saying this is partially your fault, you know. I read Ceald Amothien first on FF, and then here, and was totally blown away. I am very much a fan of Valen, and gods-be-damned, that was HOT! Okay, fangirl rant over... Vale is a character that really screams to be developed, in my opinion. He's snarky, powerful, and he's an elf, which should pretty much say it all. And then there's Sand, also snarky, most likely powerful (but not sharing that with the Neverwinter crew) and an elf. It had to happen. As far as my timeline for Alchemy goes, it begins well before the NWN OC campaign, will surf past that and the NWN2 OC campaign, and end up well beyond that. For the record, I am pretending that WotC's 4e crap does not exist, and the Spellplague never happened.

Anyway, I will check back here, and would love to hear more from you, since I am having way too much fun with my elves and have a feeling I might be revising another story that's been bouncing around my HD to fit AFF.