In + Finem + Omnia

Today I juggled my two hobbies quite well. In the morning I drafted ~ 20 or so hardware routines - nearly the entire body of the routines I'd need for my assembly program project to go forward. In the afternoon I revised yet another chapter for Avatar/Backrooms. yay :D In the evening I almost finished my routines ... almost. I realized that for them to work efficiently, my routines for merging and appending strings had to be adjusted. Easy fixes ultimately. I design these programs so the routines live in their own spaces, with their own variables and can be stacked together without cross-contaminating each other. Still not done with either project but I'll take incremental progress over statis.

As for my Avatar/Backrooms work; I've been meaning to get into the deets here so let me try while I'm still awake. What I'm working on is only Arc 3; I've got 4 & 5 outlined but undrafted. Arc 3 consists of 10 chapters, 6 of which I consider almost fully edited, the rest are raw.

In brief, this is what they're about:

1 - Spider and Neteyam (as a na'vi) spend a weekend together in Colorado; this is Spider's first exposure to what na'vi even look like (he's lived a quasi sheltered life with Quaritch hahaha); it's an entirely non-linear chapter that tells the story backwards. It's got this 'archival' thread running through it. That's because - in order to quickly get up to speed with the whole Pandora thing - Spider's been listening to research logs by Tom Sully and Grace Augustine and those two just discuss everything so it madness. Neteyam, the boyfriend hahah, tries to be gentle revealing the admittedly difficult past Spider's parents (Miles and Varang) are responsible for. Also - the whole Backrooms thing....

2 - Grace & co are still trying to understand what the black death / plague running through the forests is about. This is a spicy chapter because much to my own surprise Grace and (na'vi) Payakan have a budding romance happening. We also learn a lot about Payakan's tragic past here (as well as Grace's).

3 - Varang breaks into Mile's house and they have a confrontation. She wants guns; turns out an upstart by the name of Wukula did a coup d'état that deposed her 15 years ago (after the disastrous war). He's ruining the mangkwan and she wants the RDA surplus weapons so she can get back into power. She claims she's not mad about how Miles totally stole Spider from her. But I think she's mad. And then along the way we learn something interesting about Miles Quaritch that might explain why his characterization is a bit different here.

4 - Spider is alone; and he's still getting up to speed with the Backrooms lore from the logs of the scientists who explored the place decades before. Like found footage horror but it's audio logs. Then we learn he's been going into Backrooms by himself ... and making his own audio logs along the way.

5 - Back to Grace & co, she hates this but in order to figure out what the plague is and how to defeat it, Grace realizes she's going to need the Backrooms to take her to Earth again. In this fic the Backrooms connect different worlds and when you arrive at a planet, it changes your body into a version that can survive on the planet; those would be the avatars. She ... turned against the RDA and hasn't been back to Earth in almost 20 years and really doesn't want to. But she knows Tom Sully used to keep a well stocked lab on their Colorado property (where coincidentally Spider is staying at but she doesn't know that....) Kiri volunteers to go to Earth with her (if she stays na'vi).

6 - After the confrontation, Parker visits Quaritch at the house. The Colonel was studying the 'evidence' Varang left behind along with her demands. And he realizes Wukula intends to strike the wind traders at a certain location. And that Varang wants to fight him there. A kind of three way aereal battle for dominance. The guns might be enough to give her advantage. So he convinces Parker to give her the weapons. He wants to get back in her good graces.

7 - Grace and Payakan explore the eastern side of the forest where the plague is thicker; she realizes something about the way it spreads and maybe its weakness.

8 - Two contrasting phone calls; Spider and Quaritch vs Spider and Varang. It's like Spider is the kid of a divorced couple and he's got to keep the peace between them.

9 - Ah, now we follow Spider as he goes into the Backrooms and really pushes forward. It's kind of freaky inside but the kid isn't afraid....

10 - Quaritch delivers the guns and sneaks into Pandora with Lyle and Hicks (from Aliens; hehehe). They're all na'vi-fied avatars thanks to the Backrooms. Quaritch then seeks out Peylak; he warns him about Wukula's attack and Varang's strike; and he wants to be an outrider to help defend them. (there's a history between these two; Miles owes him a few lives apparently).

The real fun arcs are the next two; I'm pushing myself to get through these chapters just to get there. After that I kinda / sorta understand the remaining plotlines and I certainly know how I want it to end. But I haven't gotten there yet. Anyway, I can't even stay awake anymore - signing off!

Today I revised a whopping 2 chapters of my Avatar/Backrooms x-over. I'm about to try the next. I'm not finalizing these just yet. The point is to whip them into shape. They're ... awful ... as I simply typed them from my notebook at warp speed. The first chapter I revised ballooned from 4K+ words to 6K+ words. Today's second and third chapters also ballooned by a modest amount ~500 words a pop. In fairness that was a very, extra sprawling first chapter whilst the others were mercifully short and to the point.

It's possible I revised them spicier than I intended. Welp, it's a Spider x Neteyam fanfic at heart, isn't it? Yet we've only seen them together at the start of it. And we won't see their dynmic blossom until I get to the 5th Arc (I'm working on the 3rd Arc atm). Apparently there's a lot of um, er emotion that yearned for releif - keeping it clean I suppose. It's not explicit; I don't expect these chapters to move the needle anywhere near to M or X.

Ah, and then a development that took me by surprise, Grace Augustine x Payakan - OK, na'vi!Payakan. He's an OC but I'm drawing from the original character a lot.

What I'm really looking forward to present is how Miles Quaritch grows as a character through this setting. In the fic's 'canon', Quaritch / Varang ended badly ... like he steals Spider from her badly. Until she returns (thanks to the Backrooms) to take what's hers. She's so epic. (The fic's premise is that the Backrooms permit travel between worlds and in addition to that it changes your body to something like that of the native population; a so-called avatar body.)

This fourth chapter I'd like to at least start revising tonight sees Spider educate himself about the Backrooms and how to use it. Like 'Async', the RDA and its scientists love to document everything. He's tapping into that. It sits at 4K words in this sorry state so there's just no way I finish it tonight. I'll make a good start of it though. Then I'm off to watch Godzila Minus Zero heh heh