Fic Update Thread 58: the extra variety

[Mamorien]

There have actually been two several Threads of Destiny main story chapters since I last mentioned the other OEX meat, Shell 2 and 3.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...54-shell-2
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...55-shell-3

[Jinx999]

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/th...t-35469617

Cerulean Stars: An Asari Security Officer in Commander Sisko's Court

The Past Tense episode has now finished.

[Norgarth]

Beware of Chicken (original)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112821164

[Jinx999]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/642921...adult=true

Eleutherophobia (Animorphs). And there are complictions.

[Mamorien]

Beware of Chicken (original)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112821164

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...the-forest

[Jinx999]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112866482

The Weaver's Web (Worm)

Presentation!

[Norgarth]

By the Horns (Battletech AU)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112864502

[Lunaludus Scribex]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1740075/28/The-Brooch

The Brooch (Sailor Moon) has updated for the first time in over a decade.

[Norgarth]

Beware of Chicken (original)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112881020

[robkelk]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/1740075/28/The-Brooch

The Brooch (Sailor Moon) has updated for the first time in over a decade.

Also on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/585587.../172427425

[Shepherd]

https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34447-4/...oses+5.htm
Cross Purposes 5 (A Brane of Extraordinary Women, Bionicverse).

[Mamorien]

Beware of Chicken (original)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112881020

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...-back-home

[Mamorien]

Young Justice: Multiverse (DC) Chapter 14: Young Justice Part V: Barry Goes to the Doctor.

See the end of the chapter for more notes.

I hate this chapter. I do not like it. I struggled to write this one so much. It has been in the work for MONTHS, and I still hate it. But it's done and so different from the original copy. The next chapter, though, is 10/10.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/478660.../169238155

Lantern Granger: On Patrol (HP/DC) Chapter 13: The First to Fall.

They’d been two dozen when their class had begun training. After almost half a year, fifteen graduate to gain their rings. And now one has died.
“We always knew what the job entails. It’s why new members are always needed. We never thought it would be this soon.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/635421.../172763422

[Shepherd]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112903460
Sentry Solutions: Lifting People Up (Marvel SI).

[Mamorien]

Threads of Destiny 456-Geomancy 1.

They mounted the clifftop and turned to look over the vast expanse of the lake and the vale surrounding it, stretching out into the rolling rocky hills that gradually rose into more mountains.

"Look upon this. The majesty of nature, to a mortal, and even to a young cultivator, evokes a primal awe. This is the world untouched by man, eternal and magnificent. But it is not so. These stones travel, these woods die and grow anew, and even that great lake which you have contracted is a young spirit by the standard of the world. It was not here when the Horned Lord walked the world nor when the glacial ice still crouched atop this cliff. The ground changes. A wise man must be ready to change with it."

Meng Duyi continued his lecture.

"One could call this the difference, the power of pacts and negotiation that a geomancer of the Weilu tradition must commit to. Spirits change, if differently than men do. Their long existences may be broken up into sharp divides, or they may evolve with the changing patterns of wind and water. The River Jing has shifted its southern course from east to west and back again a dozen times in our recordings alone."

We cannot bind the world in place. We can only bend it to our needs.

Meng Duyi concluded, "We cannot bind the world in place. We can only bend it to our needs. Adjust, react, and negotiate. In many ways, our methods are deeply yin."

"And the imperial ones are the opposite," Ling Qi realized. "They are forceful, domineering, and yang."

"It is so. I will not pretend they have no points. Their origin was not ours. Even before Tsu set the course of seasons, the lands of the south were rich with the bounty of the forest. In the crumbling citadels and pollution left by the fallen gods in the north, our accommodations would have been foolish."

"That is surprising to hear you say, teacher. Why so?"

"Because there are spirits which men must deal with using a closed fist." Meng Duyi rapped the point of his staff against the stone. "There are the foul winds which blow from the eastern wastes, the Rasping Wind and its millions of vile children, the Twelve Poxes. Many of the spirits of the Celestial Peaks were akin to them, the broken and malicious leavings of the Dragon Gods. To understand a philosophy or approach, one must comprehend how it arose. To the first geomancers of the Celestial Peaks, to do anything but cut and carve and tame through force and guile was foolish."

"Were the Peaks truly so unnatural?" Ling Qi wondered.

"An incorrect construction," Meng Duyi corrected. "Natural. A meaningless term. Is a wasp’s nest 'unnatural' because it is constructed? No. Rather, the Celestial Peaks are the Celestial Peaks, and the Emerald Seas are the Emerald Seas. Different foundations give rise to different houses. This is where the imperial method errs. It sees all lands as the same malicious ruin on which it was built, and so seeks to 'tame' them all in the same way. One can quibble over which spirits are best treated with as neighbors and which are best exorcised and driven forth, but the base assumption that all must be locked into their current shape and only allowed change when it suits their engineering is where we must butt heads with those northerners."

"Is that the difference then? That the Weilu method sees spirits as people to be negotiated with and lived with or fought and potentially slain, and the imperial method sees them more as obstacles to be broken down, repurposed, or removed?"

"That is how most understand it. The imperial method is suspicious of spirits. Down to its core, it is built to protect men, no matter the cost to spirits. This has its own costs to those men in the future."

Ling Qi looked over the vista. She imagined it as it might be in the future, roads winding through it like veins, and the lights of little settlements springing up, nestled amidst the hills and spreading along the curve of the lake. She could understand that urge. Nature could be beautiful, but so, too, were the works of people, and if it came down to it, she was human, and she valued human lives.

Zhengui, Hanyi, and Sixiang were her family. It was not the same as imagining their settlements and human presence intruding on random spirits of wood and hill.

"What is the downside of the Weilu method then?"

For a moment, she worried she had offended him. Then, the old man rolled his shoulders, bones cracking and popping. "Danger. Where two tribes of men meet, squabbles will come, and men and spirits are more different than that. Men will give offense, and spirits will take where the words of a contract are loose. The flexibility of our method is its own weakness. Diversity is strength. It is also a promise of conflict."

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21188/...geomancy-1

[Norgarth]

The Weaver's Web (Worm AU)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112923467
And the Empire is down to 4 capes...

[Norgarth]

Beware of Chicken (original)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112936889

[Jinx999]

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36983/...-chapter-1

Tower of Somnus has started updating again.

[Mamorien]

Beware of Chicken (original)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112936889

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...freshments

[Shepherd]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112952192
Sentry Solutions: Lifting People Up (Marvel SI).

[Norgarth]

Scaling Up (Worm/D&D/various)
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/th...t-35514704

EDIT:
By the Horns (Taurian focused Battletech AU) 2 short chapters
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112947593
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112954100

Edit 2:
My Life as a Teenage Juggernaut (Worm/Marvel)
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/th...t-35514728

[Norgarth]

By the Horns (Battletech AU)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112972796

Edit:
and another
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-112979699

[Mamorien]

Letters to the Lantern! (HP/DC/TMNT & OMFUG): What the Shell?!?

The owner and manager of O’Neil Antiquities writes to Green Lantern concerning unearthed scrolls from ancient Egypt. Quite mysterious, but then April has never shied away from a mystery no matter where it might lead her.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/539020.../173008567

[Shepherd]

https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34447-5/...oses+5.htm
Cross Purposes 5 (A Brane of Extraordinary Women, Bionicverse).

[Shepherd]

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...-113013482
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/...l-regrowth
Beware of Chicken (original).