The SSSS Scriptorium

[Seilann]

Seilann, Sectoboss, your fics are wonderful ;u;

*knows it's futile but checks AO3 for more of Seilann's näkki!Lalli fic*

Are you psychic? XD

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4918981/chapters/11321014

Also microFerret, I need to catch up on your fic but I really enjoyed the first couple chapters!

[Róisín]

Microferret: briefly because I'm working today: yes, parts 4 and 5, which is the end, have been written for what, 5-6 weeks, or more, and my repeated efforts to upload them have so far only succeeded in repeated shutdowns of my iPad. I have a number of things I want to upload to the forum, not just the story but some recipes and photos to the appropriate threads. Way back, Sunflower told me how, and occasionally I have managed to get it to work, but most often the whole thing simply locks up. So I have to wait for one of the technically capable members of my extended household to pass through, and fix it for me. Most of my close household are even worse with machineries than am I, and my husband, who is comparatively good at it, is often lengthily away.

At least the iPad does not itself break down and die as previous electronics have. Guess I just emit static or something. It works fine most of the time, for things like this where I am just typing words straight into where they are to go. But if I try to transfer something larger, it dies.

For what it's worth, the rest of the story follows the two threads of what Mikkel and Reynir do, and of what happened to Lalli. And yes, Sigrun at the end of the third chapter is being even more pessimistic than the situation warrants, to try stirring Mikkel out of his misery and get him moving again. I think she succeeds.

[misea]

Spoiler: Carriers, Chapter 5 • show

5.
The first time he noticed the Black Noise was immediately after the incident at the grocery store. A single voice, barely audible. Telling him that he had helped. Thanking him for caring, for staying with during the Illness. Apologizing for causing so much suffering. It would stop for a while, but it would always come back. The same words, repeated for eternity.
Midway through his third day on Copenhagen, Wil noticed the second voice. Screaming, blaming the government for everything that had happened. Then, in a softer voice, calling a name, someone who would never come. The voices were starting to affect his thoughts. He was filled with despair, fear, and rage, all competing to overtake rational thought. He retreated back to his boat, his safe place. He curled up and didn't want to move again.
The third voice was followed almost immediately by all the others. There were so many, and what scared him was that his own thoughts started to sound more and more like those of the trolls. In some strange way, he almost wanted to join with them in their world of fear and desperation. He couldn't, though. Nor could he overcome them. Stuck in between, he could only waste away, remaining stuck between the world of the humans, and the mindless emotion of the trolls. At this moment, he believed he knew the difference between human and troll. Both had emotion; fear, pain, even forgiveness, but only humans knew what it meant. For trolls, life was simpler. There was no logic, there was no cause and effect. It was easy to endure anything without thinking about the future. For a machine, there was only logic. The great metal airplanes of old did not care whether they flew or crashed. Humans were cursed, Wil thought.
No, spoke a voice. He did not think it was his voice, it was not even in his language. But surely it was a part of him, for instantly the will to survive came flooding back. He remembered the greenhouse his parents had built, and how proud he had been to be put in charge of growing all the warm-air plants that would not grow outside, cinnamon and coffee and peppers. He remembered being so proud to pass all his Old World Technology classes two years ahead of everyone else. He remebered the obligatory blood test for immunity, on his fourteenth birthday, a month ago. For a moment, the despair came back. But then he imagined a new future for himself, forging a path through the Silent World, finding other communities of survivors, banding together, exploring the ruins of the world.
The voices were still there, but they didn't bother him anymore. Then, he heard something else.

Mikkel thought the scout must have been mad. Just moments before, he had shouted "Ei!" in his sleep and sprung out of bed. Now, he wanted Mikkel to turn on the radio and talk to the Black Noise? He checked with Tuuri, who wore an expression as confused as he felt.
"Yep, I'm not about to question it," she said. "He just said it's urgent. And he said you have to be the one on the line."
Whatever. If Lalli thought it was necessary, it probably was.

Wil couldn't believe his ears. The trolls mostly blotted out the noise, but there had unmistakeably been a normal radio transmission. With live people! He hadn't been able to hear the words, though. The trolls continued to jabber on. There was a runo to stop the Black Noise, but he had never heard of any Danes that were able to cast it. He tried anyways.
"Shut up!!!" Wil yelled in an alien pitch and intonation. Suddenly, the trolls stopped and he was able to hear the transmission clearly.

Spoiler: Carriers, Chapter 6 • show

6.
The Black Noise had stopped. Tuuri looked at Lalli, but he only shrugged. He pointed back to the radio and told his cousin to tell Mikkel to broadcast again. Mikkel complied.
"Hello, this is Mikkel Madsen of the Copenhagen Expedition-"
He was cut off by a familiar young voice.
"Ohmygoshthankyouthankyouthankyou! Mikkel, it's Wilhelm!"
Mikkel's expression contorted into something that the others had never seen before.
"What do you think you're doing out here? Shouldn't you be back training for your profession? You're in Copenhagen, for crying out loud! We're the only ones who've been out here in ten years! It's literally the most dangerous place in the world you could be right now! What do you think you're doing?" Mikkel paused for half a second, and it dawned on him. There was no other planned expedition to Copenhagen, and there were only two reasons people got sent to the Silent World without a military team. One of them was treason. So there was only one reason a good kid like Wil would be in the Silent World on his own. Mikkel clamped his hand over the speaker to muffle the words from the other end. The Finns would need to know. The others... he preferred if they didn't have to lie to their commanding officers. He very politely told Emil, Sigrun, and Reynir to leave the room.
"I'm sorry," he said over the radio. "I figured you were a carrier." Lalli and Tuuri were expressionless.
"How did you know?"
"Well, I'm a medic. They don't tell most civilians about carriers because of the panic it would cause. But due to the fact that you're out here in the Silent World alone and stopped the Black Noise without using magic, I was fairly certain you are one."
"Can I come find you, and join the expedition? I'll be helpful." Wil knew it was a stupid idea, but he so desperately wanted to see Mikkel again that it didn't matter to him if they would just have to leave him behind at the end of the mission. Mikkel was like family to him. At the Battle of Kastrup, Mikkel and Wil's father, a pair of farmers-turned-medics, had worked together for days straight to triage and heal the wounded. They had been close since then, and Wil had always looked up to him.
Mikkel snorted. "That's just like what Reynir said when he came to us in a box of food. Unfortunately, he and Tuuri are nonimmunes, so you'd be an incredible danger to them. But that's why we have Lalli here." Tuuri was more intent now, and quickly related the details to Lalli. Lalli responded that he'd already met Wil in the spirit world, and already liked the kid a lot more than Reynir.
"Ei." Lalli said, and Wil understood.
"Thank you. Is there anything else you can tell me about what to expect?"
"I don't know much about carriers, because there are very few of you," Mikkel said, "but I have a few pieces of information. First, the Black Noise that you've been hearing will come and go over time, but it's more than just noise. Because you're closer to a troll than a normal human, you have a lot of control over trolls. You probably don't have to worry about small ones, because just the force of your own noise is enough to overwhelm them. However, giants are a different story. They... don't listen to anything."
"Other advice... stick to the shores and head south. There are almost certainly other carriers out there. You've got a good shot at survival. You'll find other carriers eventually..." He trailed off. Why did everything have to be about Kastrup? There was Alma, whom he lost at Kastrup. He wouldn't have known Wil if it wasn't for Kastrup, and this expedition was taking him right back through the battlefields of that fateful defeat. Kastrup was where he had learned about the carriers. Kastrup was where Ben, in his cowardice, had doomed them all. Wil was doing the right thing by getting as far away as possible.
"Don't try to find your way back. Keep in touch through Lalli. Good luck, and explore the world for me. Bye, Wil."
"Bye." The Black Noise started working its way back in, and Wil found himself back in the present, standing on the deck of his boat, feeling like a not-so-bold explorer prepared to venture timidly into the forgotten depths of the Silent World.

Oooh, curious and curiouser...

Are you psychic? XD

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4918981/chapters/11321014

*squawks*
*completely forgets about textbooks and midterms and flails for a good five minutes*

the suSPENSE

[microFerret]

Microferret: briefly because I'm working today: yes, parts 4 and 5, which is the end, have been written for what, 5-6 weeks, or more, and my repeated efforts to upload them have so far only succeeded in repeated shutdowns of my iPad. I have a number of things I want to upload to the forum, not just the story but some recipes and photos to the appropriate threads. Way back, Sunflower told me how, and occasionally I have managed to get it to work, but most often the whole thing simply locks up. So I have to wait for one of the technically capable members of my extended household to pass through, and fix it for me. Most of my close household are even worse with machineries than am I, and my husband, who is comparatively good at it, is often lengthily away.

At least the iPad does not itself break down and die as previous electronics have. Guess I just emit static or something. It works fine most of the time, for things like this where I am just typing words straight into where they are to go. But if I try to transfer something larger, it dies.

For what it's worth, the rest of the story follows the two threads of what Mikkel and Reynir do, and of what happened to Lalli. And yes, Sigrun at the end of the third chapter is being even more pessimistic than the situation warrants, to try stirring Mikkel out of his misery and get him moving again. I think she succeeds.

Oh well. I hope your iPad feels better soon, because I would love to read that! Tech issues are never fun, though I'm pretty tech-savvy and am surrounded by people who are even more so, so I never have to deal with things like that for long.

*squawks*
*completely forgets about textbooks and midterms and flails for a good five minutes*

Oh, yeah, those...
I had sixty five hours of schoolwork last week, and then the only time I had left to study for the SATs I took yesterday went into working on the fic. Well. One does not simply have time for ssss, one must make time for ssss.
_{(Don't feel bad for me, I'm exaggerating. Not by much, but I enjoy the work, which makes it ok.)}

[LooNEY_DAC]

And now, as part of my ultimately futile effort to push this thread back into the "Top 10 by Post Count" list, I present:
The latest bit of the Western.

The Good, the Bad, and the Bestial
A “Stand Still. Stay Silent”/Western crossover fanfic
Part 11

Spoiler: show

Escaped Escapades

Wow, what a mess this was.

As Lalli had planned, the attacking Arapaho had created (more than) enough of a diversion for Sigrun and the others to escape, but boy, howdy, did it seem more like blowing the dam to stop the town below burning up: technically it worked, but it left you with even more problems than before.

Tuuri, Reynir and Sigrun had managed to get to their wagon at last, and when Sigrun opened up with the Gatling (no blanks this time; just live rounds, thank you), the Arapaho finally decided enough was enough. About half their number were left dead or dying in the village, but they’d accounted for most of the bushwhackers in the process, and the balance decided to follow the Arapaho’s example once the wagon came into play.

All that remained was dealing with the villagers, which Sigrun intended to do in no uncertain terms and in very short order.

*

“Do we really have so few enemies left that you needed to make more?” Mikkel asked Sigrun as the wagon bore them off towards their next adventure.

“You’d rather I’d ended ‘em, rather than leaving ‘em to the mercy of the other folk they betrayed?” Sigrun looked at Mikkel knowingly. “I thought not. ‘Sides, it seems to me they made us their enemies, rather than t’other way ‘round.” Her drawl always deepened when she got angry, and this was no exception. She deliberately tried to calm herself down as Mikkel mulled her speechifying over, but it was hard: of all offenses, she counted treachery as about the worst.

“I doubt they’ll see it that way, but you’re still right.” Mikkel still looked unhappy.

“Well, the way I see it, we drove off the bushwhackers once and for all, ditto the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] Arapaho, and we got our fee, so I don’t see what’s not to like about it.”

“It doesn’t set well with me, that’s all.”

“Then go try to pry something out of Lalli; or better yet, get Reynir a-Seeing.”

“We shouldn’t use those two like a crutch,” Mikkel objected.

“Then you’ll have to do like I do: live with it. There’s a whole world of things that don’t sit right with me, but I can’t change ‘em, so I have to live with ‘em.”

*

“Is everything ready, boy?” The hard voice hinted it had better.

The hired gun had seen the worst of the War’s fighting, from the Wilderness through the Crater and even Cold Harbor, before he’d decided there was no point to it any more. He hadn’t met his employer until after being hired on; if he had, nothing would have prevailed upon him to work for someone who, just by his presence, brought back all those memories. But he had hired on, and no one left his employer’s pay while still living.

Some days, even that terrible option seemed preferable to staying on.

The man’s lips had just parted to repeat his question when the hired gun finally answered. “As far as I have been able to arrange it, yes, sir.” At the man’s look, the hired gun protested, “I can’t make weather to order, y’know? We need a few more days of good weather to get it done for certain sure.”

“Oh, very well. It will wait until then.” A curt gesture dismissed the hired gun. “She will certainly wait until then.” The single most frightening smile the hired gun had ever had the mischance to witness split his employer’s face.

*

Reynir could see again, so he wasn’t wasting any more time with his eyes closed than he had to. He was busily devouring one of Emil’s fancy picture books (“Modern Breech-loaders: Sporting and Military”) when the others came in. They were bearing whiskey.

Part of Reynir didn’t want the visions; part of him embraced them; and yet another part really wanted the whiskey. That last was the most frightening aspect of it, and why he resisted doing this too often. He’d had a dipsomaniac uncle, and wanted no part of it.

When he related all this to his comrades, not without some trepidation, they were all surprised when Lalli spoke in his favor. “Future’s hard to See, and scary besides. Not surprised he needs a binge to See it. Not surprised he doesn’t wanna get to be a sot. Sots are worthless ‘less you can dry ‘em out. Shouldn’t press him to be a sot from Seeing, so no Seeing ‘less it’s really needed.” Lalli then turned to Reynir. “Gotta really bad feeling about tomorrow. Like before we got caught. Need you to See tonight. Won’t ask again for a good long while.”

Well, then. Reynir took the bottle...

Spoiler:  Authorial Notes • show

Sorry for the delay.

But...

A new caper is in the making.

Oh, I also put up some older stuff on my deviantArt.

Spoiler: The Complete Links to The Good, the Bad, and the Bestial - A “Stand Still. Stay Silent”/Western crossover fanfic - Caper the Second: the John Sturges Triple Mash-Up • show

Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

[Jolly]

Hiii everybody. Sorry for introducing myself and immediately disappearing ahaha. I'm just popping in to drop off a late night fic before I go to bed. Is this the right place? Gosh I hope so. Let me know what you think!
http://archiveofourown.org/works/4935574
I'd post the fic under a spoiler but I'm still not sure how to do that (still getting used to the forum, sorry)!

[microFerret]

Hiii everybody. Sorry for introducing myself and immediately disappearing ahaha. I'm just popping in to drop off a late night fic before I go to bed. Is this the right place? Gosh I hope so. Let me know what you think!
http://archiveofourown.org/works/4935574
I'd post the fic under a spoiler but I'm still not sure how to do that (still getting used to the forum, sorry)!

This made me laugh. 'Twas a good fic, and I hope you continue to write. Welcome to the forum, and welcome to the Scriptorium!

[Jolly]

This made me laugh. 'Twas a good fic, and I hope you continue to write. Welcome to the forum, and welcome to the Scriptorium!

Thank you!

[Talimee]

Oh, I also put up some older stuff on my deviantArt.

YAY! Finally I can stop crawling through this thread (as wonderful as it is) to search for chapters. Please, pretty please, upload the others, too?

And I really liked the last installment of this. =) Especially Reynir's fear of becoming an alcoholic if he continues to See. That is a very nice touch of reality you did there. I'm not so happy about the censored outburst of Sigrun, tbh. If it fits the situation why not let it stay?

*huggles* Anyway, many thanks for your continued great work! And I don't mean just tis story. =)

[SectoBoss]

Well, this is what happens when I drink too much coffee... I write a story of a troll trying to invade Tuuri’s dreams, only to find out that this harmless little skald has some serious magic protecting her. Where was I going with this? I have no idea! Here it is anyway!
(Also holy [expletive], this is my 21st SSSS work on AO3. I genuinely wouldn’t have believed that possible a few short months ago…)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4938328

Hope you like it, even if it was thrown together in a morning...

Also there's been a lot of good stuff posted since I was last here so I'm just going to say that I love it all!

[Róisín]

Happy 21st story! It's good.

[misea]

Well, this is what happens when I drink too much coffee... I write a story of a troll trying to invade Tuuri’s dreams, only to find out that this harmless little skald has some serious magic protecting her. Where was I going with this? I have no idea! Here it is anyway!
(Also holy [expletive], this is my 21st SSSS work on AO3. I genuinely wouldn’t have believed that possible a few short months ago…)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4938328

Hope you like it, even if it was thrown together in a morning...

Also there's been a lot of good stuff posted since I was last here so I'm just going to say that I love it all!

*happy squeaking* HOTAKAINEN SIBLINGS \o/

[KauniitaUnia]

*happy squeaking* HOTAKAINEN SIBLINGS \o/

*joins the squeaking* YASSSS

[Solovei]

Well, this is what happens when I drink too much coffee... I write a story of a troll trying to invade Tuuri’s dreams, only to find out that this harmless little skald has some serious magic protecting her. Where was I going with this? I have no idea! Here it is anyway!
(Also holy [expletive], this is my 21st SSSS work on AO3. I genuinely wouldn’t have believed that possible a few short months ago…)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4938328

Hope you like it, even if it was thrown together in a morning...

Also there's been a lot of good stuff posted since I was last here so I'm just going to say that I love it all!

Darn, I need to catch up you're beating me quite squarely, I'm only at 17.

[SectoBoss]

Darn, I need to catch up you're beating me quite squarely, I'm only at 17.

Fifteen more of Solo's tumblr drabbles later:
Me: ho, hum, it was nice while it lasted...