Non-Actionable Puffery

From a Dragonlance/Christmas Carol fusion fic I've had in the works for about two years now, and which I would love to finish in time for Christmas this year (knock on wood):

"Mage," spoke a voice then, "come forth."

And this voice Raistlin knew. He sat up and drew back the curtain.

Before him was the form of a man, clad in white robes and bearing a staff. From the tip of this staff shone the extraordinary light, and in the glare Raistlin could scarcely see his face. But even as the light diminished, the face continuously changed; not withering and diminishing, as other faces did in Raistlin's sight, but shifting again and again. Now he was a young man in the fullness of his strength; now a child, eyes alight with innocence and eagerness; now a wizened elder, carrying the knowledge of countless years. Or perhaps the face did not change, but the figure bore all these faces at once, and mortal eyes could see but one at a time. And indeed the child's eagerness shone also in the old man's eyes, and the wisdom of age lay in the gaze of the hale youth.

"What brings you to this place, lord?" Raistlin asked.

"Rise, and walk with me!" commanded Solinari.

I love A Christmas Carol, and I really do think Raistlin is the perfect candidate for the Scrooge Treatment! First of all, in Test of the Twins, he really does change his ways after learning what future his plans would bring about - it's just a little too late by that point for a different life to be possible. So we know the Scrooge Treatment would work on him!

Look how Scrooge is described in A Christmas Carol: “Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.” And now look how Rastlin is described in Winter Night: “But there was something disquieting about him—secret, silent, self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.” I mean...Scrooge!Raistlin is right there in the books!

And I would be remiss, while we're talking about Christmas Carol/Dragonlance fics, not to mention the wonderful gift I received for Yuletide in 2024: "A Dragonlance Carol" by fayolin - it's a great time and I really recommend it! A very different and delightful take on Raistlin getting the Scrooge Treatment....

Some of you may remember that back in 2019, I posted the first half of a fic called "Screwtape on Maedhros", which is exactly what it sounds like: a Screwtape Letters fusion/pastiche. There it has languished, unfinished, for six years. I always knew where I wanted to go with this fic, but for one reason or another haven't made substantial progress - until recently! So I'm pleased to share a draft for the next letter from Screwtape, written following the Nirnaeth Arnoediad:
( Read more... )

For Six Sentence Sunday, albeit slightly belated, here are a bit more than six sentences of something I originally started for tolkienekphrasisweek - my first attempt at a reembodied Maedhros. (I thought it would be a short little ficlet...it got away from me.)

"At last the lady Vairë came to me, and asked me, if I would not leave the Halls, still to accept the gift of embodiment, and to come and work under her direction. 'For,' she said, 'it is not in the thought of the One, nor is it the wish of His servants, that anything should be wasted.' And so I acquiesced, and was embodied, but dwelt still in the halls of the Weaver as the living among the dead. And I worked, and I saw that the work of my hands was fair - that my hands, whatever else I had done with them, might still be turned to fair work."

Indeed, his hands were moving on the loom even as he spoke, threading wisps of cloud across a pale blue sky.

But why, I almost asked - and though I bit my tongue, perhaps he perceived the question in my face, or else his thoughts ran this way already.

"I know not why she came to me," he answered my unspoken question. "It was not for what craft was in me, for though I learned to weave in my youth, and liked it well, I did not then come to mastery - and in Beleriand my hand never touched the loom. Perhaps it was for love of Fíriel, her cherished handmaid, though she herself had never known me. What is certain is that it was not because I deserved mercy. I did not. I have never deserved any of their mercies, but they have been merciful to me regardless. Merciful beyond telling."

I could think of nothing more to say to that. His hands, the fair and the marred, kept moving smoothly on the loom, passing the bobbins in and out, in and out.

For Six Sentence Sunday, six (very rough) sentences from the same SWTOR WIP I posted an excerpt from in September: ( Read more... )

For Six Sentence Sunday, here are (approximately) six sentences from one of my SWTOR WIPs:
( Read more... )