Subject: [FFML] [fic fragments] I too am seeking advice
From: "Gr. Designer the Rt. Hon. Prince Drogn of Sol" <kaiju_jutsu@worldconquer.org>
Date: 8/24/2002, 5:22 PM
To: ffml@anifics.com


I have a couple of scenes that are, well, a bit darker than I usually like
dealing with, and I want to see if they come one too heavy for the source
material also. The problem is that the one I'm ion more immediate need of
and least sure about is based on Batman: The Animated Series, and none of
my prereaders are particularly familiar with it. With the wider audience of
the FFML, I'm hoping someone can give me a rundown of reactions to it. It's
a very short peice, serving as a bit of backstory to run before the titles
and make what happens in the story proper be less out-of-left-field.


here it comes:

                         /|   |\/|   |\
                        / \___/  \___/ \
                       |   _ _    _ _   |
                        \ | V \  / V | /
                         \|    \/    |/


     The familiar signal rolled over the ever-present high-level smog
of Old New York, more commonly known as Gotham. It had been going for
nearly thirty minutes, and Police Comissioner Gordon, now only days
from retirement, turned away sadly to shut it off. "Looks like it
wasn't a hoax after all," he sighed. It had been a faint hope, with
all the equipment that had been recovered with the body...

     As he pulled the handle, a shadowed figure in cape and cowl
stepped out of the the darkness, and he felt just a moment's hope
flare, only to be extinguished as he recognised it for Batgirl.

     "No, no hoax," she confirmed. "Robin and Warhawk have already
stopped two revenge attempts on his wife and their child... she's
being taken to a place of safety and given a new identity. Their
butler... Arthur... died from a wound taken in the second attack
just a few minutes before I left. He... He took a bullet... to
save little Cecilia... "

     Gordon suddenly realised that the reason Batgirl was having
trouble takling, was that she was crying. She turned away and
adjusted the mask to wipe at her eyes.

     "It's kind of funny," she continued shakily. "I mean, here's
this little old man, pushing a hundred and ten, whose biggest
adventure in the past ten years was when a water pipe broke in the
laundry room. Two card carrying superheroes in the same room, and
he's the one who jumps in front of the gun while we're still in
shock... He was a freind, sometimes a father figure for all of us,
but now..."

     He'd never be able to say why he'd done so afterwards, but it
seemed the most natural thing in the world to go over to the young
woman looking out over the edge of the roof, and gently, chastely
hold her. He didn't try to look at her face; it didn't even occur
to him. She leaned into him for a moment, then reached up to
replace the mask, and shook loose. Jumping easily onto the railing,
She retreived one of the bat-grapples from her belt, then turned
to look at him once more. "Thank you... father. For just now, and
for all the times you've helped us... for all the times you helped
him. I have to get back now, but I wanted to let you know that you
were as much my inspiration as Bruce." Before he could repy, she
tipped backwards off of her perch and dissappeared into the night.

     "Barbara?" Weak-kneed from shock, the aging policeman stayed
gripping the ledge and looking into the night for several more
minutes.

                           ---=- + -=---

     On a hill outside of Gotham, Arkham Asylum for the Criminally
Insane was rocked by the third day of a riotous party the inmates
had thrown when the news of Batman's death had been released. There
were no neighbors nearby to complain, however; the space around it
had been reserved for a cemetary in the name of having clear
sightlines in case of an escape. The smog was thinner this far out,
and enough moonlight penetrated to illuminate a new grave marker,
still strewn with decorations from the funeral service. It was a
marble pillar about five feet high, topped with a statue of the
man whose grave lay below in his 'working clothes,' and a bronze
plaque bore the legend,


                      HERE LIES BRUCE WAYNE

                           THE BATMAN

                           BORN 1967

                           DIED 2012

            "To live and die in the name of justice
            is the greatest any man may strive for."



[roll titles]


The second is a little more sketchy, and based on a single line of canon
and a few more from the chapter I just sent to the prereader list. It's
taking place on Genaros, while the Sexaroids are waiting for Sylvies
shuttle to return for their escape attempt. Nam and Lou are the purple and
blonde haired sexaroids who die in the short clip we see of the attempt in
BGC 5, Meg is the redhead, Hyatt is a compatriot who's not really my own
invention, being dropped in directly from Excel Saga with a few years added
to her look, and who shares XS Hyatt's little anemia problem becuase she's
afraid to get her blood suplly and filtering system overhauled. The reaon
for that is the head huamn doctor, one "Bloodsucker" Barnaby, who is a
seriously sick puppy. He gets his jollies while performing unnecissarily
gory 'surgery' on sexaroids, and has dirt on enough people to keep it quiet
from the higher ups - besides, they're just buma, right? Right... anyway,
Hyatt's gone too long with overaul and has frequent coughing fits, with the
occasional trickle of dark, depleted blood, and risks shutdowns if she goes
much longer, so Meg (the group leader) has told her to bite the bullet and
do it so as not be be risking them all - she'll check the duty schedules
and make sure the appointment is for some time that Barnaby won't be there.



Nevermind, I can't do it. It's too blecch... and that's the problem.
Admittedly, it's not as much of a corner as I've written myself into some
other times, but the only real way I can see to get out of it to to drop
that part of the story and leave the horros of life on Genaros as property
as unspecified as in the original... Basically, Hyatt goes to get it odne,
and Mr. Sicko has decided to change his schedule at the last minute because
he's seen a major surgical operation on the schedule, even if it is a
relatively routine operation on a station loaded with 33s models. Lou has
to be his assistant, and he behaves himself until the actual work is done,
sucking up Hyatt's terror and Lou's sickened, helpless rage, and then
proceeds to... test... the newly reactivated circulatory system. Sadistic
plasures over, he leaves Lou to actually put things back together and write
up the paperwork, and she's stuck apologising to her friend and trying to
keep her hands steady and eyes uncloudedd by tears while closing her up
again... and that outline is as detailed as I can bring myselkf to be,
becsuse whiole bnlood and guts are no big deal coming from a medical family
(cadaver jokes run rampant over the thanksgiving turkey, for example)
actual sadism and, well, vivisection porn is way, way too out there. I
quite literally feel sick just thinking about it, but dropping it entirely
feels like I'm not doing the story justice. Actually, it's meant to be
interspersed with Priuss and the Replicants during the Megatokyo Christamas
Concert doing "Peace On Earth" as a duet with a rockin'-grandpa Sonny Bono,
who's one of the headliners with a mostly-intact U2 to play one last show
and retire. Why he'd be impressed enough with Priss to do so is partly her
canon level of talent and partly due to a little something she's picked up
in my storyline, but otherwise unimportant at the moment... and dammit, I'm
distracting myself.

The point I'm trying to make, is can anyone PLEASE help me find a way to
walk around the edges of this thing, so that the general shape gets shown
without going into the disgusting details? Please? Or else someone with a
stronger stomach than mine write the damn thing for me, and get full credit
and copious thanks?

- ClassicDrogn, aware of his own limitations for once

--
________________  ___    ___  ________________
\_________      \ \__\__/__/ /      _________/    Our Lady of the Blessed
    \________    \__~o\/o~__/    ________/    Acceleration, guide my throttle
        \____________\  /____________/      and grant me traction, give me my
          A  A  R  D  ||  V  A  R  K     daily kick in the ass! VROOOOOOOOOM!



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