Crowded Upstairs

Ganked from settiai:

Five ways you know a story is by Lady Norbert:

1. It's almost certainly shippy. Only about 10% of my stories aren't.

2. At least one reader has been converted to supporting the ship in question. Shad/Ashei became well-liked by those who read If It's Dinsday, This Must Be Castle Town. Skinner/Elizabeth became ridiculously popular, which is interesting considering she's an OC.

3. If it's a period piece (which many of them are), you know I've spent an unhealthy amount of time researching things to make sure they're just the way they ought to be. And I probably take the time in a final chapter to make sure you're aware of my Google-fu, and provide citations where applicable.

4. I'm very particular about sensory imagery. I have a strong idea of color, texture, smell, taste, sound, etc. and I try to make sure the reader gets the same impression. I think description is probably my strongest suit in writing.

5. There's a very good chance that a character, probably the main character, has some kind of daddy issue. Flora in Knights and Knaves feels like her adoptive father Professor Layton doesn't really want her. Sabrina, the protagonist of my never-finished Lord Voldemort backstory Riddled With Hatred, had a combative relationship with her unloving male parent. And do we even need to mention Elizabeth Quatermain?

Title: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
Author: ladynorbert
Fandom: X-Men: Beyond Evolution (RPG)
Prompt: 50-B, #25 Haze
Character/Pairing: Jamie "Multiple" Madrox/Cordelia "Assisi" Winter
Rating: G
Word Count: 842
Summary: During their visit to Cordy’s grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving, Cordy and Jamie explore the summits of Hawk Mountain.
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: Jamie Madrox is canonical to the X-Men universe and is the property of Marvel Comics. For the purposes of this RPG (and therefore, this story), he 'belongs' to blaze_rocket. Cordelia Winter is an original character played by me. This didn’t necessarily happen in the realm of the game, but it certainly could have; they did go to her grandparents’ for Thanksgiving last month (the game operates in real time). At this stage, the kids are still doing their little dance of ‘I like you but I’m not sure how to take it to the next level.’ Hawk Mountain is a real place, one that I know well and love dearly, so all of the descriptions included in this story are accurate, including those of the people; I’m a volunteer at the mountain, and my husband and I did in fact work at this year’s holiday open house, so as a joke I kind of gave us cameos.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Keeping my word and working on those ficlets; yay for slow work mornings.

Title: Cult Shadows
Game: Ever Winter Tales
Characters: Lorelai Parker (Lady Sif) and Tristan Grady
Prompt: "There's nothing quite as annoying as people who think that they're better than I am"
Author's Notes: For shining_phoenix, who owns Tristan. I know virtually nothing about this character, so I hope I do this decently for her. The cool thing about writing this is that suddenly, this muse works again, and I might actually be able to participate in the game.
( Cult Shadows )

The head cold, or sinus infection, or whatever the hell this is has been lifting slowly. Last night I turned in almost right after Who Wants to Be a Superhero? (though I signed on long enough to post chapter 14) and actually took a full dose of NyQuil. I rarely take a full dose, because if I don't get enough sleep it makes me excessively jittery. But last night I slept almost ten full hours. It took care of the worst of the symptoms -- the sore throat is gone, as is most of the congestion -- and now I'm in that weird time between being completely sick and being well. I'm achy and drained, and I keep blowing my nose, but I'm still ten times better than yesterday. Eating very little, but sucking down fluids like there's no tomorrow. I should be back to full capacity at some point this weekend.

My sunny godchild called this morning to say that the first week of October (the back half of British Invasion III) happens to be the week of her fall break. Translation: Discordia will be very crowded. It begs the question, How many gorks can you fit into one house?

Got my first birthday present today, a Chris and Sarah ficlet from clez. Made me laugh very hard. Thanks, Clezzy!

I'm hoping to do chapter 15 of EQ tonight, if only that; this is going to be a rather big deal, so it will probably comprise only one diary entry. Elizabeth and company are about to meet a famous person. Probably the most famous and important person they could possibly meet in 1900. Chew on that, true believers.

Anyway, back to dosing myself with juice and soup and pain relievers.

Title: Manhunt (Part 2 of 9)
Author: ladynorbert
Fandom: Brutality (Original)
Prompt: 30-A, #15 Storm
Character/Pairing: Sarah Masterson, and the entire fictional LAPD
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,243
Summary: Someone's running down a major hit list, and the deaths hit so close to home that the entire LAPD is devoting some of its man-hours to solving the crime spree. But how far on his list will the killer get?
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: There are only two characters in this entire story who belong to me! Sarah Masterson and Jon Colby are mine. Everyone else belongs to someone else; see part one for a full disclaimer. This is a multi-part story designed to finish off my Sarah table. Part one is here. Beginning in this chapter, there will be periodic switching between Sarah's point of view and her partner Chris's; if you read my story "The Last One Standing" you know what I mean.

Manhunt, Part Two

Title: All That Glitters
Game: Ever Winter Tales
Characters: Jacqueline Durand and Cin Lovelle
Prompt: And they'll never know the gold and copper in your hair.
Author's Notes: For blcksunaphelion, who owns Cin. There is a reference made (without name) to Garrett Nolan, the High Priest of Loki, who belongs to clez. Warning, this one has a PG-13 rating, maybe even flirts with an R rating, for adult suggestion.
( All That Glitters )

Title: High Tea
Game: Halfway House
Characters: Elizabeth Quatermain and Princess Alice, with mentions of the Cheshire Cat, Queen Redd, and Prince Charming
Prompt: Cat's in the cradle
Author's Notes: For blcksunaphelion and her wonderful sense of the absurd. She owns Alice; I own Elizabeth, the Queen, and the Cat. Bill the Lizard also appears, and is an NPC. Prince Charming, who appears only by mention, is owned by blaze_rocket.
( High Tea )

Title: Daydream Believer
Author: ladynorbert
Fandom: Brutality (Original)
Prompt: 30-A, #12 Fantasy
Character/Pairing: Sarah Masterson, Chris Tyler
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,147
Summary: Just this once, Sarah lets herself dream. (Set in the future, after the sergeants have become werewolves.)
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: This muse is awake and won't shut up, for the first time in months. I must make profound apologies to clez, Chris's owner, because I am about to take a really, really HUGE liberty with him. Since it's still quite up in the air which way this will go in the game no matter what the shippers say, I decided to handle it in the way you see here. For those of you who don't play the game, Brutality is predominantly a werewolf RPG; Chris and Sarah are definitely going to become werewolves later in the game, but it's not definite that they're going to become, to use the wolfy vernacular, mates.
This is actually a continuation from an unfinished RP we have lying around on our computers; Sarah has just had a sparring session and chat with Cole, the Alpha wolf (also played by Clez), who has encouraged her to talk to Chris about what she's been keeping from him. The RP file stops where she knocks on his door. This is one way things might go when he lets her in. Nate Wilder and Marion Barnes, who appear by mention, belong to Clez and nentikobe, respectively.
( Daydream Believer )

I can't remember the last time someone other than me wrote a ficlet for one of my characters.

Not to be whiny, just...I miss that. I miss the days when some of the kids and I used to trade ficlets on a regular basis. I've had really rotten days that were made surprisingly better by a surprise ficlet. I'd like to get back to that, if at all possible.

Speaking of ficlets, I finally wrote one. Posted the last installment today. If you're curious, there's stuff about that under here. ( Here, that is. )