Chapter 4 of The Heart's Landscape completed.

[tocryabout]

"The Ring of Gyges", voilà. Features a much-overhauled Snowbird (no, I am not writing a blond-haired Inuit demigoddess, actually), opera, status epilepticus, and a fucking soulpatch.

[Read from the beginning]

I'm hella glad to get this one done. For some reason it was absolutely exhausting.


P.S. In reading this entry on reader entitlement (linked on metafandom), I'm a little shocked at how many people have blanket "no WIPs" policies. I understand how frustrating it is to start reading and have someone stop writing, but still, I find WIPs and serials to be the most entertaining part of online fandom. I like the soapiness of following a story as it unfolds, rather than bingeing on it all at once. More to the point (for me), I like writing that way -- there is no accountability like other readers and the instant gratification of feedback. I doubt I'd have finished Aphanes if I hadn't been posting it chapter-by-chapter.

Anyway, a little discouraging to see that so many people are probably skipping my stuff out of hand because it's not finished yet.

Comments

[to-cry-about.livejournal.com]

A soulpatch is facial hair between the lower lip and the chin that doesn't extend to a full goatee. This gentleman has a small soulpatch:


I'm not sure there is a just and democratic solution to the mutant problem that doesn't leave the human majority completely vulnerable. If mutants all had the same powers it might be feasible, but Magneto's plastic prison shows the difficulty and expense of keeping mutant criminals behind bars. (Never mind the logistics of arresting Joel or Nightcrawler or Kitty Pryde, and so on.)

I find the health care morality issue interesting too. I don't think I could blame somebody for paying for health care that other people can't afford--it's your life, your body that's at stake. In Joel's case, it's not even a matter of waiting lists and jumping the queue, since the procedure just isn't available in the public system. And yet I think the private health care system is very unjust and that people shouldn't support it. Is Joel actually guilty of something or is he just indulging himself by being politically fastidious? (Nobody with an iPod is really living in voluntary poverty, after all.)

Jeanne-Marie's origin is as described in the comics, more or less, so I can't take credit for that. ;)