Metroid - the Bergman Affair feedback, comments, and workshopping

[BoobsWriter]

Very nice work on your two latest chapters.

I get the Green Arrow references, although personally I would prefer to see Felicity Smoke kitted out as a pony girl - nothing against Speedy, but she's a bit of a waif. I can't imagine her really having the power to pull a chariot at a decent pace. Whereas Felicity has got some seriously nice, solid looking thighs and ass, not to mention them calves she shows off with her knee-length power dresses. Still, your story, your choice; just my preference there. Oh, and I'm guessing this is the old Ra's, who's now dead in the TV show's continuity, not Malcolm Merlin, since why would Merlin Ponyfy his beloved daughter am I right?

You're really moving things along at a good pace now. That's something I have to admire about your writing, and something I struggle with in my own - your ability to tell a long, intricately plotted story that occurs over an extended period of time, but to tell it at a fast pace in comparatively few chapters. I tend to get bogged down in the details of my writing, always describing minutiae of scenes and physical appearance or subleties of expression and character that don't really help progress the story as much as I'd like. Guess I just enjoy writing that kind of stuff way too much... Speaking of which I'm gonna try to finish off my next 2 chapters and post them today... hopefully... although still a lot of action to get down... soon, at least - looking forward to the races!!

[MorbidFantasy]

Very nice work on your two latest chapters.

I get the Green Arrow references, although personally I would prefer to see Felicity Smoke kitted out as a pony girl - nothing against Speedy, but she's a bit of a waif. I can't imagine her really having the power to pull a chariot at a decent pace. Whereas Felicity has got some seriously nice, solid looking thighs and ass, not to mention them calves she shows off with her knee-length power dresses. Still, your story, your choice; just my preference there. Oh, and I'm guessing this is the old Ra's, who's now dead in the TV show's continuity, not Malcolm Merlin, since why would Merlin Ponyfy his beloved daughter am I right?

If we're going by visuals then yes Felicity is a little more beefier looking than Speedy, but take into account training and possibly the whole resurrected by pit of Lazarus thang and I think Speedy one ups Felicity.

[HunterOpera]

Chars I immediately recognized:

Nefaria/Katie

Wester/Scarlet

Roman/Gutters

Ra's/Speedy

Chars I had to look up:

Karin/Dearest

Chars whose origins I have no clue to:

American/Innocent

Ivo/Karma

Parcelsus/Punky

Harry/Tiger

We should start a new miniseries here, maybe 1-2 chapter one offs, similar to my Philosopher's Stone series, that ties into this big race. You can even place it here in the TR section for ease of access as long as the first chapter is largely about Lara Croft or at least sets up the universe around Croftverse.

I've had an Ada Wong fic stewing on the after burner forever but seeing her her is motivating me to maybe give her another go, haha.

So, as I was reading this, I put together a thing that would justify these various characters interacting with one another without anything else interfering in this strange continuity I've accidentally built; the question is whether or not I'm going to have time to act on it. I'm definitely going to finish this story, and I want both Masque and Bergman done this year, too. That would allow me to do some fun things with these other characters, leading into possibly something larger down the line - but then I noticed the we, and I'm wondering if you'd like to collaborate on this? That could be fun.

Failing that, a handful of one chapter write-ups might be interesting. Prologues that might just be named for the ponies as they are in Reins, describing how they got where they are. I'm going to have to think about this.

And that brings us to the other problem: fanfic allows for a shorthand description, because we already know what the characters look like. Lara Croft looks like Lara Croft, so I don't have to waste words describing her - I can instead use an occasional descriptor to highlight something about her we already know, or draw attention to some facet of her personality or appearance. The people around her, likewise, end up being described in relation to her and generally do not matter. I like to think I've done a decent job implying that the Parmistani people are physically a robust and colorful folk, for example, but the fine details of Zamir, Ivo, and Drasha are beside the point. Even James is sort of a blank slate, his name taken from an actual Earl of Faringdon who was actually a decent sort - a much better person than the character that has taken his name.

Trick of it is, the various ponies need descriptions for the story to work. Visualization is important. I'm trying to do the best I can to convey snippets of personality and appearance without taking away from the main character (Lara), and to give a sense of the people that own those ponies and how they act in contrast to the main antagonist (James) without taking away from his sense of menace and power. Most of those owners are true monsters when compared to James, with the possible exceptions of Williams and Karin.

So, on that note, the racers that have been identified, their owners, and the backstories I've cobbled together for them so far:

Countess Neferia is Madame Masque and Katie is Kate Bishop / Hawkeye. These are the characters from Masque'd Hawk, and it's a departure from how things went from the Matt Fraction Hawkeye comics. Kate Bishop hates being called Katie, so that seemed like a neat little detail to use against her, and Neferia despises Kate and is terrifying; she's an Iron Man villain, one of the big ones who Tony needed help from Dr. Strange to take down. The idea that someone that scary doesn't know how to game the system is absurd, and someone like Kate would be a hobby for her, not a threat.

Wesker is, of course, Albert Wesker. Scarlet is Ada Wong. I've got Wesker faking his death in Resident Evil 5 by, well, dying. He keeps track of his son and discovers Ada interfering in Piers' life and he's still angry about her treachery regarding him, so he provides much of the technology that results in her clone being spawned in the sixth game. The events of that game are meant to keep Ada off balance and to put Leon at risk, two things that she manages to overcome - but as dangerous as Ada is, a surprise attack from a dead enemy catches her off guard and he manages to capture her.

Roman Sionis is Black Mask from the Batman books, and Gutters is very much Selina Kyle / Catwoman. Roman isn't acting alone - he, Hush, and Scarecrow were able to nab Catwoman and have slowly broken her down, using her disappearance as a means of confounding Bruce while also taking revenge on someone they all have reasons to dislike. It's simple stuff, but ties into times all three of those villains have captured her. Their combined efforts succeeded where, individually, they failed.

Ra's al Ghul is the one from the Arrowverse, and Speedy is Thea Queen. I usually try to work my stories in with continuity, leaving the heroines I'm playing with in a place that could fit into their worlds. Bastet Collar, for instance, fits in well in the fifth Harry Potter book, and leaves Hermione where she would be at the end of that book anyway. The Thea here is a radical departure - a world where things went wrong, where Ra's took Thea and kept her as a slap in the face to his three greatest enemies: Ollie, Malcolm, and Thea herself.

The friendliest of these relationships is the one between Karin and Dearest, who is her rival, Sakura. According to the Street Fighter lore (and I'm convinced they told the poor bastard who wrote the SF Lore that he was writing an RPG, and that whoever it was started crying when he found out it was for a fighting game), Karin beat Sakura at the end of SFAIII, but realized it was a fluke and that Sakura was better than she was. This allowed her to grow as a person, and the two of them went from being rivals to friends, sharing a relationship roughly analogous to that of Ryu and Ken. Sakura is stubborn and a little crazy, and Karin is a little mischievous and doesn't really think through the consequences of her actions, and between the two of them they've ended up in Parmistan. This does tie into Street Masters.

... which means I might have to finish that one, too.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with Ada, though. She's a fascinating character with a lot of depth to play with, and I think you could have a lot of fun with her. What's the story?

[HunterOpera]

Very nice work on your two latest chapters.

I get the Green Arrow references, although personally I would prefer to see Felicity Smoke kitted out as a pony girl - nothing against Speedy, but she's a bit of a waif. I can't imagine her really having the power to pull a chariot at a decent pace. Whereas Felicity has got some seriously nice, solid looking thighs and ass, not to mention them calves she shows off with her knee-length power dresses. Still, your story, your choice; just my preference there. Oh, and I'm guessing this is the old Ra's, who's now dead in the TV show's continuity, not Malcolm Merlin, since why would Merlin Ponyfy his beloved daughter am I right?

You're really moving things along at a good pace now. That's something I have to admire about your writing, and something I struggle with in my own - your ability to tell a long, intricately plotted story that occurs over an extended period of time, but to tell it at a fast pace in comparatively few chapters. I tend to get bogged down in the details of my writing, always describing minutiae of scenes and physical appearance or subleties of expression and character that don't really help progress the story as much as I'd like. Guess I just enjoy writing that kind of stuff way too much... Speaking of which I'm gonna try to finish off my next 2 chapters and post them today... hopefully... although still a lot of action to get down... soon, at least - looking forward to the races!!

Thanks, man. I had a lot of characters to introduce in that last chapter, so I'm hoping they all stick enough to be memorable.

Arrow is kind of great. I dig pretty much everything DC is doing on the small screen and sorta wish they'd take their cues from that for their cinematic universe. I'm still kinda annoyed that we didn't get Harley in Arrow because of Suicide Squad, but what will be will be. Felicity is great, yes, but she's not the fighter that Thea has been trained to be - I like the idea of a Felicity pony and might touch on that if I take MorbidFantasy's idea and develop these other characters and their backstories a little further. The idea of Felicity's hacking skills combined with Parmistan's communication infrastructure is actually mind-boggling and slightly terrifying, a thing I'm kist thinking about now. A lot of food for thought.

You're dead right about this being the old Ra's. Thea is a weird one for me, because I usually try to leave these characters where I found them, and work within their continuities - it's important to respect these characters, I think, because they are iconic and that's what draws us to them. Or me, at least. If the character doesn't feel right it kinda undoes the story. That said, the world I've cobbled together takes its cue from the DC Cinematic universe, in that things got dark - Ra's won and has claimed Thea as a trophy, a reminder of how he defeated his three greatest enemies in one fell swoop: Ollie, Malcolm, and Thea herself. Oh, and Nyssa is a bloody force of nature in that world, but we might get to that. We'll see.

As to the nuts and bolts, that comes with time and experimentation. It's one of the reasons I write these things, is to experiment with technique and ideas and to figure out what works and what doesn't. It's the feedback that I do this for, and the idea that this is actually working out the way I want it to. The trick is to figure out what needs telling; if you're bored writing a bit, an editor once told me, your readers will be bored reading it. Figure out what matters, then the language that works best with it. Every story comes from some character's perspective, so concentrate on the details that the character would notice. Also, and this was one of the first things I learned, be prepared to murder your darlings, by which I mean figure out what works for the story and work towards that and that alone.

I have a cousin who believes that writing is a combined form of mental archaeology and controlled schizophrenia, where you're using your mind to clear away the dust off another world, peering into it and recording what happens there. It's an image I'm rather fond of. The idea, I think, is to dust with care and let what happens, happen: Reins is heading towards a much better ending than I had thought it was because that's where the story went. It will also make things better for Punky and Katie and all the rest, really, because given what's coming with Sam/Himiko... well, we'll get to that.

Lookin' forward to your next two chapters, man. I'll be watchin' for 'em.

[HunterOpera]

If we're going by visuals then yes Felicity is a little more beefier looking than Speedy, but take into account training and possibly the whole resurrected by pit of Lazarus thang and I think Speedy one ups Felicity.

Yeah. Pretty much this: it's why Speedy will get an early lead that will fade quickly, because she doesn't have the endurance or the strength to maintain her pace - especially when pared against people like Ada Wong, Selina Kyle, Sakura Kasugano, or Lara Croft. We'll see that a few times in the races to come.

In the meantime, any thoughts on who any of the other racers might be?

[BoobsWriter]

Thanks, man. I had a lot of characters to introduce in that last chapter, so I'm hoping they all stick enough to be memorable.

Arrow is kind of great. I dig pretty much everything DC is doing on the small screen and sorta wish they'd take their cues from that for their cinematic universe. I'm still kinda annoyed that we didn't get Harley in Arrow because of Suicide Squad, but what will be will be. Felicity is great, yes, but she's not the fighter that Thea has been trained to be - I like the idea of a Felicity pony and might touch on that if I take MorbidFantasy's idea and develop these other characters and their backstories a little further. The idea of Felicity's hacking skills combined with Parmistan's communication infrastructure is actually mind-boggling and slightly terrifying, a thing I'm kist thinking about now. A lot of food for thought.

You're dead right about this being the old Ra's. Thea is a weird one for me, because I usually try to leave these characters where I found them, and work within their continuities - it's important to respect these characters, I think, because they are iconic and that's what draws us to them. Or me, at least. If the character doesn't feel right it kinda undoes the story. That said, the world I've cobbled together takes its cue from the DC Cinematic universe, in that things got dark - Ra's won and has claimed Thea as a trophy, a reminder of how he defeated his three greatest enemies in one fell swoop: Ollie, Malcolm, and Thea herself. Oh, and Nyssa is a bloody force of nature in that world, but we might get to that. We'll see.

As to the nuts and bolts, that comes with time and experimentation. It's one of the reasons I write these things, is to experiment with technique and ideas and to figure out what works and what doesn't. It's the feedback that I do this for, and the idea that this is actually working out the way I want it to. The trick is to figure out what needs telling; if you're bored writing a bit, an editor once told me, your readers will be bored reading it. Figure out what matters, then the language that works best with it. Every story comes from some character's perspective, so concentrate on the details that the character would notice. Also, and this was one of the first things I learned, be prepared to murder your darlings, by which I mean figure out what works for the story and work towards that and that alone.

I have a cousin who believes that writing is a combined form of mental archaeology and controlled schizophrenia, where you're using your mind to clear away the dust off another world, peering into it and recording what happens there. It's an image I'm rather fond of. The idea, I think, is to dust with care and let what happens, happen: Reins is heading towards a much better ending than I had thought it was because that's where the story went. It will also make things better for Punky and Katie and all the rest, really, because given what's coming with Sam/Himiko... well, we'll get to that.

Lookin' forward to your next two chapters, man. I'll be watchin' for 'em.

Yep, writing as I post... coming along pretty well so far - 7000 words and counting divided between two chapters, which will progress my plotline by all of.... about two hours, according to the internal timeline... goddamnit...

still, I think this kind of thing works differently for porn-writing, since in my opinion some of the most important details of writing erotica are the visual descriptions and beat-by-beat recounting of physical actions. Although, yes, taken to an extreme, even that can be a little excessive if it prevents the plot from progressing at a reasonable pace.

Just wanted to add that I totally agree about the DC universe movies. Batman Vs. Superman was a huge letdown for me - completely humorless and lacking a cogent storyline for most of its first hour or so. Sure, Gal Gadot was hotter than I'd anticipated as Wonder Woman, but Superman came off as a total dufus, and Batman (aside from a few badass fight scenes) just looked dumb, getting manipulated so easily into fighting Superman by (by far the most annoying ever big-screen) Lex Luthor. Didn't the makers of the movie realize that Batman is at the heart of his character a detective? Meaning that he is smart enough to actually figure stuff out for himself. But on the flip side, yeah, the TV series made by DC are generally pretty good. Whereas most of the Marvel TV shows are a little lame if you ask me, but their movies (Deadpool, Iron Man, Cap America, Avengers etc.) are outperforming DC's in every respect.

Ah well, back to writing... BTW, I'm really not sure who the other guys and girls in your latest chapter are. The inclusion of Selina Kyle is much appreciated though - she was awesomely hot in the Rocksteady Studios Batman games!

[HunterOpera]

Yep, writing as I post... coming along pretty well so far - 7000 words and counting divided between two chapters, which will progress my plotline by all of.... about two hours, according to the internal timeline... goddamnit...

still, I think this kind of thing works differently for porn-writing, since in my opinion some of the most important details of writing erotica are the visual descriptions and beat-by-beat recounting of physical actions. Although, yes, taken to an extreme, even that can be a little excessive if it prevents the plot from progressing at a reasonable pace.

Just wanted to add that I totally agree about the DC universe movies. Batman Vs. Superman was a huge letdown for me - completely humorless and lacking a cogent storyline for most of its first hour or so. Sure, Gal Gadot was hotter than I'd anticipated as Wonder Woman, but Superman came off as a total dufus, and Batman (aside from a few badass fight scenes) just looked dumb, getting manipulated so easily into fighting Superman by (by far the most annoying ever big-screen) Lex Luthor. Didn't the makers of the movie realize that Batman is at the heart of his character a detective? Meaning that he is smart enough to actually figure stuff out for himself. But on the flip side, yeah, the TV series made by DC are generally pretty good. Whereas most of the Marvel TV shows are a little lame if you ask me, but their movies (Deadpool, Iron Man, Cap America, Avengers etc.) are outperforming DC's in every respect.

Ah well, back to writing... BTW, I'm really not sure who the other guys and girls in your latest chapter are. The inclusion of Selina Kyle is much appreciated though - she was awesomely hot in the Rocksteady Studios Batman games!

Sometimes that happens; time is a weird thing in fiction, but I'd guess that those two hours are going to be pretty important in the life of one Miss Croft.

The writing will take you where it take you, I think, and that's all to the good. I've found writing porn to be similar to writing any other action - it's a recount of the exertion and activity mingled with the emotional impact of said activity that works, at least for me, and it's one of the things that I admire about both your writing and MF's.

Agreed on the Marvel and DC thing - one rules the big screen and the other the small screen, though Peggy Carter is pretty fantastic and the Netflix series are unreal on the Marvel side of things. I don't give Marvel credit for Deadpool or any of the X-Films, though, because they're done out-of-house and Marvel has little say in how those are made. It's one of the reasons that Marvel is pushing the Inhumans over mutants, and one of the reasons they've jettisoned the Fantastic Four in their reboot. I don't think anyone at DC Comics or Warner Bros understands why their characters work or what makes them interesting, and we'll have to see what happens with the reboot of their reboot of their reboot. Gah.

I'm thinking I'm going to release a list of the others and a brief bit of their backstories today, then do a retro-active introduction chapter for each in whatever section those characters belong in. MF coined the phrase hunterverse, and I'm more than a little flattered by it, so expect me to run with that pretty hard. Selina is typically awesomely hot - there's something about the character that lends itself to the fetish of the writer or director, which didn't work as well in the Dark Knight Rises because Chris Nolan's fetish is Cillian Murphy.

Here, though? Here I can get away with whatever, provided I can keep the logic internally consistent.

[HunterOpera]

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Sazbi wrote:

Now I'm interested in spinoffs of the other "animals" or more backstory to them in this universe.

Yeah, so am I. I think they're coming; I want to finish off Masque and Bergman this year, but I might be able to give the others their own chapters wherever. I've talked about five of the others already, so let's reveal the others before we get the race going:

Karma is Carmen Sandiego. She came to Parmistan for the same reason Lara did, and got caught in similar fashion. She's more elusive than dangerous, but Ivo leads out of the most efficient intelligence and security forces in his world, something Carmen would have taken advantage of in the past. She's about halfway through her sentence, and without her out there doing things her organization fell apart. There wasn't much loyalty to Carmen in that organization simply because she'd left everyone else behind time and again, so she's kinda stuck where she is.

Punky is Claudia Donovan from Warehouse 13, and Paracelsus is, well, Paracelsus - a villain played by Anthony Stewart Head who can be described as "Giles as a 16th century sociopathic alchemist. Also, he is immortal." Warehouse 13 was kind of a weird show. Paracelsus was a character who was turned into a bronze statue near the show's end, but this was a process he had been show to be able to ignore before, and he'd been given more time to study the process he, himself, invented. Because the show is over I can play with that time line a little more; this Paracelsus escaped his bronzing and rekept the Warehouse, this time bronzing the rest of the crew and keeping Claudia as a pet because she was the one that really thwarted him. He's being a little more subtle than he was the last time around, not that Claudia can do anything about it.

Innocent is Rebecca Sutter from Hot To Get Away With Murder, a legal show that has little to do with law and more to do with pretty but awful people making out with one another. Rebecca was a big part of the first season before her death in the first season's two part climax, where she was tied to a chair and suffocated. In this world, her assassin didn't realize that she failed to kill her, but Analise Keating did and needed to get rid of Rebecca in a hurry, so she used the girl as leverage in building a relationship with William Millstone, a powerful American oligarch and the father of one of her students, Asher. This is before his suicide in the second season, so Asher is going to be getting an inheritance he currently knows nothing about.

Lastly, Tiger is Mary-Jane Watson, formerly the not-wife of Peter Parker and one of those characters Marvel has done nothing with for a very long time. She's been great in Iron Man since Marvel's reboot, acting in place of Pepper Potts, but I've got OsCorp and Stark Enterprises going head to head on a corporate level. Norman knows who Peter is, knows who Stark is, and doesn't mind hurting them both - especially if it gives him an in with his son, and that's how MJ ended up in this position.

So, the hunterverse (thanks, MF!) combines elements of Arrow, Tomb Raider, Warehouse 13, How to Get Away with Murder, Metroid, Spider-Man, Batman, Street Fighter, the Carmen Sandeigo games, Gymkata, Resident Evil, and Hawkeye. This is made possible, in-universe, by Paracelsus mucking about with time and reality and his meeting with one Melissa Bergman, which I'll try to explain a bit when I write Punky and touch on a bit more in Bergman. It shouldn't be too hard to work Bastet into this, so I suppose there's a touch of Harry Potter as well.

How big a hole have I dug myself? Can I keep track of this all? I'm going to pull a Star Trek reboot and much about with time to explain this all. I'm actually curious to see if I can pull this off...

[MorbidFantasy]

Hunterverse just seemed like the obvious categorical labeling, no thanks needed.

The hole is basically as deep as you need it to be. At first I was a little worried that you have too many potential outs now with any surviving super-friends of the racers wanting to rescue them. Then I realized that there are more than enough "reasons" why they couldn't be rescued.

1. Because they're dead (total defeat)

2. Because they don't know where their sexy friends are

3. Because they don't know their friends are missing (life model decoy)

I should have guessed Mary-Jane. I totally forgot about "Tiger". Haven't seen Warehouse 13 or HTGAWM though and my only recollection of Carmen Sandiego was from that children's cartoon back in the 90's, so those three were never in my sights.

I was half serious about the whole "we" thing. Our pacing and writing styles are somewhat different so it might be jarring for audiences if we split up individual back stories. Then again, it might also keep it fresh.

My Ada Wong fic was also a capture/bondage/humil fic and it would be easy enough to rework it into a tie in for Reins. It would take around 5 chapters with the stuff I have scribbled down, but truthfully I would be just as interest to see how you portray Ada. We may very well have different perspectives on her character given how enigmatic she is in the games.

Although I have a few ideas for the characters you've included, it all depends on if you're attached to certain continuities for those characters (e.g Arkham games for Selina Kyle or New 52 or whatnot) or if this is just a free style continuity given the universe mashups.

[HunterOpera]

Hunterverse just seemed like the obvious categorical labeling, no thanks needed.

The hole is basically as deep as you need it to be. At first I was a little worried that you have too many potential outs now with any surviving super-friends of the racers wanting to rescue them. Then I realized that there are more than enough "reasons" why they couldn't be rescued.

1. Because they're dead (total defeat)

2. Because they don't know where their sexy friends are

3. Because they don't know their friends are missing (life model decoy)

I should have guessed Mary-Jane. I totally forgot about "Tiger". Haven't seen Warehouse 13 or HTGAWM though and my only recollection of Carmen Sandiego was from that children's cartoon back in the 90's, so those three were never in my sights.

I was half serious about the whole "we" thing. Our pacing and writing styles are somewhat different so it might be jarring for audiences if we split up individual back stories. Then again, it might also keep it fresh.

My Ada Wong fic was also a capture/bondage/humil fic and it would be easy enough to rework it into a tie in for Reins. It would take around 5 chapters with the stuff I have scribbled down, but truthfully I would be just as interest to see how you portray Ada. We may very well have different perspectives on her character given how enigmatic she is in the games.

Although I have a few ideas for the characters you've included, it all depends on if you're attached to certain continuities for those characters (e.g Arkham games for Selina Kyle or New 52 or whatnot) or if this is just a free style continuity given the universe mashups.

I'm somewhere between annoyed and amused that I stumbled into continuity. Maybe I should build a website? Keep a list of these things in chronological order? I'll look into that later. For now...

The hole seems relatively easy to deal with, the more I think about it: I've got Paracelsus right there. Dude was a time traveler with a penchant for re-working things to suit his own whims and always knew more than he was letting on. Supposing he could go the way of Rick from Rick and Morty and start dimension hopping, there's no telling what kind of damage he could do or where he could go. The damage he could do for his own reasons. There's a lot to be played with there, so I think I have a central villain to play with, an AU that almost approaches a kind of sense.

I am completely workshopping with this, so bear with me; Parmistan, due to Paracelsus' influence, becomes a sort of dimensional sinkhole. It's a place that exists as a constant among several axis of time and space, like a hole in reality. The communication technology they've developed combined with the resources Paracelsus has gathered from others is allowing them to cook up a kind of trans-dimensional mafia, a group of people that are meeting and influencing different realities through a single fixed point. I could easily upload what I've got for Parmistan and allow people to play with the region and culture, setting up a kind of anthology space where people are free to use the setting as they like; that would allow for different voices, stories, and writing styles - all of which could keep it fresh. We could even work out parallel Parmistans. It's fiction: there really is no limit.

Would anyone be interested in that? I could put a handy guide together and then people could go nuts with it.

At this point, I do plan on looking at the various worlds I've already got intersecting, probably starting with Punky and working my way through towards some kind of climax, so, regardless, there will be more of this weird hunterverse I've stumbled into. The trick, as I see it, is to combine the stories while keeping them separate enough that people can read what smut they want without having to delve into the other stuff.

I've been pulling from continuities that makes sense for the stories: I've despised most of nu52 Catwoman, for example, so I've been pulling off of the oDCU Catwoman as my model, but I'm not tied to the idea.

There's a lot to consider here. Let's see where it goes.

[MorbidFantasy]

I get it, so basically Parmistan is a fixed convergence point in multiple universe/continuities, but depending on who you are, when you travel out of it, you go to the continuity that you originally came from, so DC goes to DC, Marvel goes to Marvel, and Croftverse goes to Croftverse. This way you can also have multiple DC or Marvel universe/continuities to draw on.

It could be that Parmistan itself used to exist as many separate planes but through magic or science, all of those planes fused together into one, similar to if you had a bunch of parallel strings that usually never touched but then you pinched them together at one singular point with you fingers.

This also fixes plot issues outside of Parmistan, such as Resident Evil's zombie outbreaks not being a big part of other character's awareness.

Edited April 27, 2016 by MorbidFantasy

[MorbidFantasy]

Chapter 17 was nice. I liked the interactions between the race animals. However, I did wish to see more of a change in the rankings as well as more description regarding the track.

The last leg of the race should have more artificial obstacles, be it terrain or equipment. The handicap could also be more severe or more tiered. No need to have all five top placers have the same degree of handicap.

Maybe have "pit stops" where the animals have to each service a number of stable hands before being allowed to continue the race. The handicap or rigging here could be that the highest ranking animals are given stable hands notorious for long stamina, or who have been ordered to keep the animals preoccupied for at least a certain amount of time.

[HunterOpera]

I get it, so basically Parmistan is a fixed convergence point in multiple universe/continuities, but depending on who you are, when you travel out of it, you go to the continuity that you originally came from, so DC goes to DC, Marvel goes to Marvel, and Croftverse goes to Croftverse. This way you can also have multiple DC or Marvel universe/continuities to draw on.

It could be that Parmistan itself used to exist as many separate planes but through magic or science, all of those planes fused together into one, similar to if you had a bunch of parallel strings that usually never touched but then you pinched them together at one singular point with you fingers.

This also fixes plot issues outside of Parmistan, such as Resident Evil's zombie outbreaks not being a big part of other character's awareness.

Exactly!

I'm thinking Paracelsus was the primary person responsible for this changeover, linking one Parmistan to another over a variety of planes. I also think that his personal world has drawn on elements of the others as he's needed them, as much for amusement as control.

[HunterOpera]

Chapter 17 was nice. I liked the interactions between the race animals. However, I did wish to see more of a change in the rankings as well as more description regarding the track.

The last leg of the race should have more artificial obstacles, be it terrain or equipment. The handicap could also be more severe or more tiered. No need to have all five top placers have the same degree of handicap.

Maybe have "pit stops" where the animals have to each service a number of stable hands before being allowed to continue the race. The handicap or rigging here could be that the highest ranking animals are given stable hands notorious for long stamina, or who have been ordered to keep the animals preoccupied for at least a certain amount of time.

I'm in the process of editing the final part of the race now, and it start the same and goes in a radically different direction. Remember when Lara broke into the Village of the Damned and set this whole thing off? The entire chapter is called "The Village of the Damned," and my plan is to have that place live up to it's name.

The handicap of being faster, stronger, or better in this chapter is getting there first and drawing attention to yourself.

I dig your ideas, though, and might use them in the chapter afterwards.

[BoobsWriter]

Just caught up with your last 2 chapters... and definitely enjoying the races. Seems like Lara is really having a tough time in your world. The continuous, casual abuse of her dignity and frankly her rights as a human being certainly seems to have taken a heavy toll on her mind. Has she really forgotten how to even understand spoken English, let alone communicate through language herself? I guess that is possible given the circumstances of her life over the past few years, but I can't help but wonder whether she still retains at least a little of her old self... if only for her to realize just how far she has fallen.

My suggestion would be for Drasha to subject her to some form of a final test, just to make sure she is broken once and for all. Like maybe she can be shown some footage of herself pre-Reins, where Lara is her old self-confident and arrogant self, perhaps video footage from an interview or something. Then they watch her for any sign of recognition - I guess it's up to you as to whether she does regain (even momentarily) a little self-awareness, But then again, as I said, the things she's been forced to endure over the past few years of your story would be enough to break even Lara - Just doesn't hurt to rub it in her face a little is perhaps what I'm saying, lol

I admit I'm a little confused about who is who in the race... I'm not really familiar with many of the characters you've co-opted into your world, and since they now all have new pony-names too I'm finding it difficult to keep track. But I guess Lara is still the main focus of your story, so it doesn't interfere with the overall purpose and route of your narrative.

Regarding your comments about DC/Marvel TV series and movies - I agree 100% that Agent Carter is by far the best Marvel TV show. Hayley Atwell looks great in all those period power suits and cleavagie evening dresses - seriously, five years ago, maybe 10 pounds lighter and in a little better shape, she would be my dream actress to play a sexualised Lara Croft character on the small- or big-screen. Even now, she could still pull off a more mature, milf-like Lara with some serious aplomb - would just love to get a look at her figure in some hip-hugging hot pants and a tight tank top... damn, really tempts me to write a new story set in the Agent Carter universe - so many potentially porn-adaptable scenes in that show!!

BTW, I posted up my next 2 chapters... nearly 10,000 words in total - got a little carried away with the oil wrestling, and am not entirely satisfied with the results, but it's set up the next stage of my story rather nicely. I also posted a thread for discussing my stories in the forums, and replied to your review there. Check it out if you have time.

[BoobsWriter]

BTW, have you heard the news about Alicia Vikander securing the role of Lara Croft in the upcoming movie?

Not sure how I feel about that yet... but not overly impressed frankly...

[Guest Guest]

Lara understands english. She's responding to the name Duchess, and understands they are talking about putting her in the race. She just doesn't remeber the relevence of the village of the damned.

Then again, I'm sure I'm wrong.

[HunterOpera]

Just caught up with your last 2 chapters... and definitely enjoying the races. Seems like Lara is really having a tough time in your world. The continuous, casual abuse of her dignity and frankly her rights as a human being certainly seems to have taken a heavy toll on her mind. Has she really forgotten how to even understand spoken English, let alone communicate through language herself? I guess that is possible given the circumstances of her life over the past few years, but I can't help but wonder whether she still retains at least a little of her old self... if only for her to realize just how far she has fallen.

My suggestion would be for Drasha to subject her to some form of a final test, just to make sure she is broken once and for all. Like maybe she can be shown some footage of herself pre-Reins, where Lara is her old self-confident and arrogant self, perhaps video footage from an interview or something. Then they watch her for any sign of recognition - I guess it's up to you as to whether she does regain (even momentarily) a little self-awareness, But then again, as I said, the things she's been forced to endure over the past few years of your story would be enough to break even Lara - Just doesn't hurt to rub it in her face a little is perhaps what I'm saying, lol

I admit I'm a little confused about who is who in the race... I'm not really familiar with many of the characters you've co-opted into your world, and since they now all have new pony-names too I'm finding it difficult to keep track. But I guess Lara is still the main focus of your story, so it doesn't interfere with the overall purpose and route of your narrative.

Regarding your comments about DC/Marvel TV series and movies - I agree 100% that Agent Carter is by far the best Marvel TV show. Hayley Atwell looks great in all those period power suits and cleavagie evening dresses - seriously, five years ago, maybe 10 pounds lighter and in a little better shape, she would be my dream actress to play a sexualised Lara Croft character on the small- or big-screen. Even now, she could still pull off a more mature, milf-like Lara with some serious aplomb - would just love to get a look at her figure in some hip-hugging hot pants and a tight tank top... damn, really tempts me to write a new story set in the Agent Carter universe - so many potentially porn-adaptable scenes in that show!!

BTW, I posted up my next 2 chapters... nearly 10,000 words in total - got a little carried away with the oil wrestling, and am not entirely satisfied with the results, but it's set up the next stage of my story rather nicely. I also posted a thread for discussing my stories in the forums, and replied to your review there. Check it out if you have time.

Glad you're digging the races. Lara still understands language, but as we just saw in Village of the Damned her mind isn't what it used to be. The Lara we all know and love is still in there, and more than capable of coming out when she has the chance to assert herself, but she's taken a hit. Her pride has been damaged as much as the rest of her, and that's going to be a tricky thing to fix in the next couple chapters. Thankfully, I've got a way out...

And we'll be getting into a little more Drasha-inspired abuse in the next chapter, and taking the idea of rubbing her face in her old life a couple of steps further. I've got plans. Terrible plans. And then a literal deus ex machina that should allow me to continue to explore a very strange world.

I needed to take some non-powered people from different places that could pose a challenge to Lara without overshadowing her; this is still Lara's story, and the focus needs to be on her for this to work. Think of the other names as appetizers that will allow me to look at different facets, though some of those facets will be dark. What the Countess has done to Katie / Kate Bishop, for example, and what Paracelsus has done to Punky / Claudia Donovan. I was actually having trouble with Masque'd Hawk because it had gotten so dark, but the ending of this story gives the heroines of these stories a way to fight back. I am going to take it. Good can, should, and must triumph over evil, and James, Nefaria, and Paracelsus are the very definition of the word. We'll see how that develops.

No kidding when it comes to Agent Carter, but the superhero medium lends itself shockingly well to smut fic, and even more shockingly well to bdsm-fantasy. I'm sure that's not a shock to anyone reading this.

I absolutely will; this weekend is going to be a little hectic, but I should get to it by the time the next chapter goes up.

[HunterOpera]

BTW, have you heard the news about Alicia Vikander securing the role of Lara Croft in the upcoming movie?

Not sure how I feel about that yet... but not overly impressed frankly...

Could be good. People were worried about Heath Ledger as the Joker, and at this point I'm willing to give anything the benefit of the doubt until I see evidence of failure.

She can't be worse than Angelina Jolie's take on the character, which I blame completely on the script. Those movies were fucking awful.

Lara understands english. She's responding to the name Duchess, and understands they are talking about putting her in the race. She just doesn't remeber the relevence of the village of the damned.

Then again, I'm sure I'm wrong.

Nah, you've got it.

Regarding "Reins of the Tomb Raider," Anon said:

Well written; hard to read something so depressing.

Thanks. Next couple of chapters should make this a little more palatable.

[MorbidFantasy]

Oh boy. The latest chapter had me recalling my own prison arc finale in FMC. Such utter unfairness and depravity. I like the creature cameos from the ponies' respective universes.

[HunterOpera]

Oh boy. The latest chapter had me recalling my own prison arc finale in FMC. Such utter unfairness and depravity. I like the creature cameos from the ponies' respective universes.

Glad you dug it. That thing was a monster to write.

[Guest Guest]

Lord Dipshit needs gelding. In every way imaginable

[BoobsWriter]

Could be good. People were worried about Heath Ledger as the Joker, and at this point I'm willing to give anything the benefit of the doubt until I see evidence of failure.

She can't be worse than Angelina Jolie's take on the character, which I blame completely on the script. Those movies were fucking awful.

Agreed about the Jolie Tomb Raider movies - bloody terrible. She's a good actress really, just her Lara was painfully unsympathetic and not even remotely hot.

This new girl may not be the worst thing to happen to the franchise, but I would still much prefer it if Megan Fox got a boob-job and signed up for an R-rated soft porn version with bondage and pervy bad guys - which of course I know will never happen, but it can't hurt to dream, lol

[MorbidFantasy]

If they do a tomb raider movie they have to do it as a movie and not a "video game" movie. That's one of the biggest handicaps for all of these game IPs that make it to the big screen. All in all I'm always skeptical with these adaptations for the aforementioned reason. With that being said, I'm giving Vikander the benefit of the doubt until we have more information.

By the way, I happened across the new Wynonna Earp series (supernatural modern western). Have to say, Wynonna and her sister Waverly have got it going on in those tight jeans and jean shorts.

[Guest Guest]

My ideal casting for Lara - over Angelina (in 2001) - KELLY BROOKE(early twenties then). Can't act near as well, but I'd have paid full admission just to watch her run in the outfit.