ways_back_room | Daily Entertainment

Voodoo - First

John - Trigger

Mako - Lights

Connor - Last

I have an exam of my own today, so I won't have time to tag other people's prompts until the evening (though I plan to). Here's mine:

Waco Kid: I choose to blame my agent for this.

Leela: Gallifrey Falls No More? OR: Where do you keep getting those janis thorns?

Kane: The Long Arc of History. OR: Genesis 4:16.

Caius: The Trouble With Balmora

Garyn: Expectations. OR: The Ruling King.

For any of them:

A long time gone
At the moment of victory

...or anything you can think of, really.

Edited 2013-12-12 19:55 (UTC)

Gene Hunt
Bruce Banner
Bruce Wayne
Javert
Jean Valjean

Write whatever you'd like! Alternatively: a prompt for all, or none: I can see heaven from here.

I shall just toss mine out here promptless:

Ichabod Crane (Sleepy Hollow)
Giovanni Bruni (Casanova movie)
Richard Sharpe (Sharpe)
Harry Callahan (Young Wizards)
Nancy (Doctor Who: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances)
Jonathan Levinson (Buffy)
Michael Carpenter (The Dresden Files)
Roshaun (Young Wizards)
James Norrington (Pirates of the Caribbean)
Gavroche (Les Miserables originally, now Neverwhere-verse/Milliways native)

Alex Knox - winter in Gotham

Captain Kirk - what to get for McCoy's birthday

Howard Stark - upon meeting Albert Einstein

Gibbs - how to celebrate Guy Fawkes day

Cyborg - road trip!

CharlieQuestion - summer in Metropolis

Or feel free to do what you please.

Putting up five prompts for each, just to give people some choice if they want to take one. Alternately, if you want to write something for one of these two, write anything you like, no need to follow the prompts.

Yugo - Lilies, Roses, Cherry Blossoms, Snowdrops, Fire.

Sherral - Sword, Shield, Gun, Fist, Youth.

Wan - Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Energy.

Oh yay, that sounds fascinating! I have ten of each plus a bonus:

Charries:

- Teja
- Hannibal Lecter
- Lady Margolotta

- Ned Poins
- Tower
- Lorenzo de'Medici
- Sirona
- Tamara the mermaid
- Katrina Crane

- Krampus

Bonus:
- Lady Loki (sandboxes)
- Madame Thénardier (coming soon)
- Jólasveinar (have a vague idea for NEXT Christmas)

Prompts:

black thoughts
secret books
the pain you're trying to escape
defying tradition
the scary one
finding solace in music
all the colours of the world
coming back to haunt you
beglittered
a mug of tea

Bonus -- random quotes I can see from where I am sitting:

"Deep breath. Calm down. We're still on earth, and there's a logical explanation for everything. Okay, almost everything."
"Cats Rule The Town"
"Please stay on the rug!"

Mix and match at will!

Edited 2013-12-12 13:56 (UTC)

If anyone wants to write anything for mine, have at:

Joshua Donovan - I'll find out the way to make it back someday

Helena Wells - It's a revolution, I suppose

Valentine Wiggin - Don't be blinded by the lights in your eyes

Fantine - don't you worry what they tell themselves when you're away.

Mark Cohen - That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight

James Norrington had thought he hadn't anything left to lose, as everything was lost already.

His career, rank, respectability -- gone. His ship -- stolen. The lovely woman he had meant to wed -- eloped with a young nobody. His sanity and sobriety -- swilled into the gutter with the dregs of the vilest drink in all of Tortuga. But then the very pirate who had caused the events that had cost him everything staggered back into his life, and Norrington discovered how far he had still been from rock bottom.

And however hard he had worked, in the months and years that would follow, it would still come to naught, dashed against the cliffs as by a raging sea, again and again. He stood up and fell, stood up again -- and in the end, he gave up his life in favour of these infuriating people, if only the dizzying descent would stop.

But it did not.-

Alex Drake: Forget

Vlad III, Dracula: Longing

Sherlock: Love

Earl: Gluten-free

La Fée Verte: Naps

Long John Silver: Wealth

Olga: Savage

None of this was exactly witchcraft.

Press a button. Flip a switch. On, off. That was all there was, in a nutshell, to the wizardry of all future machinery. How hard could it be?

Also, pictures of things instead of things. Moving pictures instead of painted pictures. Even that wasn't really hard to comprehend for a man who had once, during his original lifetime, been forced to abandon his beliefs in pure reason and the sane betterment of mankind in favour of a reality of witches, demons, and the abandoned superstitions of the Dark Ages.

All the myths were true.

And these people here quietly expected him to be worried about electricity and computers. It kept being a source of secret hilarity to Ichabod.-

This looks fun!

Felix (

venusadept_2 or variants; feel free to ask for variant details): "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings."
Fluttershy (

needs_fern): measure a year
Secondary Fluttershy prompt: What is a pony?
Kain (

baron_dragoon): race the wind and take to the sky

If he had to leave his darling Cosette, this is the way he wanted it to happen. She was there, along with the love of her life, the man he had risked everything for.

He smiled, wiping away her tears. "Do not cry, my angel. I am but going to God."

Only a few more moments passed, and behind the couple, he could see Fantine, smiling, finally comforted in her death, hair shining. She reached out a hand to him, to draw him up from his bed.

"Do not fear, Cosette, for I can see Heaven from here."

Oddly enough, in a world where everything could be replicated cheaply, things lost much of their value, and people tended to travel light. A good gift ultimately had to be something you could not get from a replicator, something either old-fashioned, or hand-made, ephemeral, whimsical.

Every year, Spock would mock (for a sufficiently Spock-like value of 'mock') the efforts that Jim and Bones made to get each other a birthday present that really counted. Old things, of course, were relatively easy. You only had to find something that was old and rare enough, and then conferred some sort of meaning for the recipient. Even Spock could play that game. Rare hand-made food or drink was another option for a gift. Especially Dr. McCoy was easy to please with real bourbon, distilled not replicated, not even shipped via transporter. "A horse-drawn cart is not a requirement, then?" Spock had commented, innocently, and McCoy had very vocally scoffed at that. Jim had counted that gift as a success.

Experiences were, of course, an equally valuable gift, even for somebody who has more experience with the universe and its diverse inhabitants than he actually cared for. But to be in the same room as something amazing and watch it -- a troupe of trapeze artists, a famous writer reading from her book, a singer performing half-forgotten gems of the Peking opera -- was still a privilege, and hence a good idea of a gift. Especially when you could enjoy that experience with your friends. Spock maintained, of course, that an audiovisual recording had just the same culturally didactic value as being present at the event.

But of course, he came along every time when asked to.

The year he was made admiral, Kirk went overboard with the gifts for McCoy: old medical print from the 18th century, bottle of tequila with an actual, illegal worm inside, tickets for a historically accurate performance of 'Chicago' in old Las Vegas -- all conforming to these patterns. Spock, noticing the plans, raised both his eyebrows, a rare occurrence.

But before they could enjoy it all together, everything changed.-

Sorry, that devolved into a drabble abut all three of them.

Completely forgivable.

I like the idea of this though won't be doing much writing until later.

Will Scarlett-down on my shield
Charles Xavier-truth for a truth
Sameth-engineer's vision
William Evans-empty sky
Moist von Lipwig-art of the steal
Jane Austen-what I know
Demeter-mother love
Tumnus-stone cold
The Pirate King-proper haul

Bonus
Tiwa-flying high
Ivan Vorpatril-safe

Can't think of any prompts off the top of my head, so:

Alyx Vance (Half-Life series)
D0G (Half-Life series)
Twilight Sparkle (MLP:FiM)
Princess Luna (MLP:FiM)
Vanellope von Schweetz (Wreck-It Ralph)
the cat (Coraline)
Hope & Eli Freeman (Half-Life OCs)

The inspector perceived himself to be forever divorced from society, humanity even -- bound to serve it with the severity of the law, but never to be part of it.

He would lean in a corner, observing all the potential law-breakers strolling by, and feel himself a creature unlike any of these. Here was a student, his head doubtlessly filled with seditious ideas and lots of hot air, whispering and laughing with the girl that clung to his arm -- who would want such inane levity in their life? Two artisans walked past in the other direction, bottles in hand, complaining loudly about their employer, his stingy ways and peculiar demands -- how dared they question authority in such a manner? A man, then, hurrying through the gathering dusk with a child on his hand, talking to it the entire time, both bundled thickly against the late autumn chill in rich coats -- could the rich not keep their young in schools and parks instead of dragging them through the mud? Finally, three little girls in ragged dresses and shawls, playing with a ball and a young dog that leapt joyfully back and forth between them, trying to catch the toy -- surely, that should not be allowed?

Javert cleared his throat, and the children turned, scared; the smallest started to cry, and they all fled, the dog running ahead into the dark alley where they all belonged. Why would people even burden themselves with such useless four-legged creatures in this teeming cesspool of a city?

They all seemed to take some sort of satisfaction from these things, lightening their lot in life instead of bearing it quietly as they ought to. Javert could not understand; he wished to have no part of it, and would be damned if he ever accepted anything of that kind into his life.

In fact, he was quite sure that he would be damned in any case, but that should not keep him from doing his best.

Edited 2013-12-12 15:48 (UTC)

He woke up at the top of the Devil’s Tower today.

For a moment, he didn’t remember how he got there. Had he turned green and landed there before the rage passed? The Hulk seemed to like deserts and desolation, after all. But Bruce was fully clothed.

It came back to him, slowly. He looked around and saw the empty bottle next to his sleeping bag. A fine whiskey. Far more expensive than anything he’d been able to afford in years.

And there was a tent. Not a big tent, but clearly the sort that was made to withstand the wind and cold of a taller mountain.

“Tony? Pepper?” Now he remembered. Stark had invited Bruce to get away from it all. No suits of armor, AIs, cellphones, or agents of SHIELD in sight. Just a couple of tents, a lot of good food, some excellent scotch, and stargazing.

Apparently, he thought as he picked up the bottle, Tony brought a lot of scotch.

“Hey, Bruce, you’re up.” Tony stuck his head out of the tent, looking like he had just showered. Was there actually a shower in there? “Want some grub?”

“No thanks. I don’t think I have an appetite yet.”

“We have plenty.” Tony ducked back inside.

Bruce stood, feeling just a bit unstable. Ever since he started carrying a big green passenger inside his body, he’d rarely managed to get drunk. Or hung over. It was strange to be wobbly. What did that mean? That the Hulk was behaving? That fine alcohol cuts past the primal? Or that he’d had a lot?

The night was still a bit blurry in his mind. There’d been a telescope. Tony pointed out a star that his friends at NASA thought might be where the aliens came from. And two comets that his classmates from CalTech discovered. Or was it three? Tony was showing off. Pepper seemed to love it, even as she tried to let Bruce get in a word edgewise.

Not once the whole night was there a single word about Stark Enterprises. Or Thunderbolt Ross. Or anything besides science. Bruce felt bad for Pepper, since she occasionally seemed lost. But she never stopped smiling. She loved Tony, despite it all. Or maybe because of it all. And she liked Bruce. He had a feeling that she saw him for who he wanted to be instead of who he was.

He liked that. He envied Tony, just a bit.

In three hours, a helicopter would arrive to take them back to LA. Back to the demands of being the world’s most famous playboy billionaire superhero genius. Back to the hard work of running a multinational corporation. And back to slipping off the grid and searching in vain for a way to live a normal life.

Right now, though, that was all far away. Bruce walked to the edge of the tower. Not long ago, if he had found himself up here, all alone and in tatters, he would have considered jumping. Even though he knew that it would be the Hulk who landed. Today, for this moment, he had no desire to try.

Bruce Banner lifted his eyes and surveyed the Wyoming landscape. And thought that from up here, he could see heaven.

I loved this one when it came in and welcome back!

I'm going to go with my loudest voices for now:
Mulan - Nobody seems to notice.
Quinlan Vos - Sarcasm is not attractive on you.
Thalia Grace - Well, that's what I said, innit?

And a couple of bonuses:
Jafar (Once Upon A Time in Wonderland) - Don't go into the woods alone.
Yang Xiao Long (RWBY) - The view was incredible.

I've had this fic in my head for about two years now, so here's an abridged scene from it. Maybe I'll write the whole thing, one day.

*

The sky is broken. Half of it holds a universe of diamonds on a piece of black velvet; the other flickers on and off like a broken streetlight, real stars one second, whatever he’s thinking of the next. She looks up to watch the show, standing in a street lined with cars from 1953, from 1986, from nowhere in between. If you can tell, through their burned-out frames and rusted tyre rims. He’s reliving the field again. Blood everywhere.

‘Should’ve gone home,’ she hums, in a tune she made up herself...oh, a year ago, something like that. A child’s nursery rhyme, only played backwards through a pink plastic record player. ‘Should’ve gone home, should’ve gone home, should’ve gone home.’

She skips along a pavement, jumping the cracks that have stars shining through. This is the price of not letting him forget. This is the price of not letting herself forget; a world for two now, because he can’t bring anyone anymore. No crime, no constructs, nothing to do but drink, and stare at the only real colour in the place. The Quattro is blood-red now, shines bright enough to hurt your eyes. He sits in it all day. She won’t go near.

‘Nelsooooooooon.’

She coos it, enticing, seductive. Come out, come out, wherever you are...

He has to be around somewhere. She’ll walk the streets until she finds him, or the cracks get so wide she can’t jump them anymore. It’s time to forget. It’s time to be free.

Edited 2013-12-12 16:09 (UTC)

Oh, OW. God DAMN it, that hurt.

Fucking gorgeous.

In the end, they cut it all a little short. It had been hard to predict, and the exact circumstances were too dissimilar. But he ended up finding all the right evidence that very day: everything he needed to prove Zucco's involvement with a low-end protection racket. He and X chased Zucco down that same evening, just as the moon was rising over the circus camped in Robinson Park. They had barely enough time to change before heading out to the evening performance.

It turned out to be a circus of another kind, as well, with the press turning out in force to see what Bruce Wayne might be doing at a run of the mill travelling circus - especially one, a reporter joked, where the only female acrobat is married?

Carefully avoiding the question, Bruce looked up over the heads of the reporters and sees a figure, male and clad entirely in faded black, slip out of the Back Yard behind the Big Top. His face was obscured by a hat, but he managed to catch Bruce's eye anyway, holding up one hand with his thumb and forefinger held in a circle. Then someone invited Bruce into the Big Top and he lost all sight of the intruder.

("Won't you want to watch?" he'd asked. "I can get you a ticket."

"Not a chance, Bruce. Only rubes pay for tickets. Anyway, the best seat in the house can't be bought.")

The performance was fine. Not really very exciting, to be honest, and he found himself shifting in his seat more than once, looking for the exit and thinking of what he was missing out there, in his city. Only X's fingers interlaced in his kept him still.

Until the final performance, when the trapezes were finally let out, and he watched a family of three fly through one of the most dazzling displays of acrobatics he'd seen in all his travels. That got him sitting back, watching.

And most of all, he found himself watching the boy. He was a prodigy, sure, but what got Bruce was the expression on his face, the pleasure in his eyes when he flew, turning somersault after somersault. But most of all, the look of pure pride in his eyes when his part was over, and he watched his parents do their tricks. The joy in that kid was blinding, he wondered the whole audience didn't see it.

Above Bruce and X, a dark shape sat among the tent's rigging, still as a gargoyle, watching the Graysons fly.

[OOC: Sorry!]

I ought to include prompts with this, but I've had my brain running out my ears for most of the past two days thanks to working on the company DR site. I hope you will excuse me if I just drop a couple of pups out there for folks to have a go at.

Gordon Freeman (Half-Life)
Ellen Park (Fallout 3)
BLU Medic (Team Fortress 2)

..... yeah, that's all I feel like asking people to write for today.

Melaka Fray
Dick Grayson
Dinah Lance
Korra
Niccolo Machiavelli
Will Turner
Marguerite Blakeney
Teresa
Renee Montoya

Prompts (taken from around my room):
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart."
"I don't blame my parents."
Black & Red
Housekeeping
Come on

Daily Entertainment

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James Norrington

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Ichabod Crane

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Valjean (musical 'verse, because that's all I know)

Captain Kirk

Re: Captain Kirk

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Javert

Bruce Banner

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Bruce Wayne

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