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This is a concept that mulled around in my head for a bit, but then I finally got some free time to put it together. It'll be a series of Wayne-and-Steris vignettes. Enjoy. Frigid, Part I: Masque Wayne swung open the old oak doors and stepped into Wax's study. Lingering for a moment in the doorway, the scent of dust, metal shavings, book-cover leather, and single-malt whiskey made its way to his usually unhelpful nose. He inhaled and savored in the familiar aroma, closing his eyes and smiling to himself. It was a smell of friendship, kinship, and the shared bond of people who had gone through everything together. And of Wax's odd habits. He opened his eyes and stepped into the room. The usual surroundings unfolded in the lantern light. Wax had said something about not wanting to install electrics, the reason for which had shifted from "They're so unreliable" to "Maybe some other time" to "After the wedding" to "There's no point, they're already installed in the tower." Wayne did a circuit around the room to turn off the lights, walking from the bookshelf to the liquor cabinet. He turned to the desk, and saw in the faint light a figure in a mask, an apron, and some very threatening leather gloves, holding a test tube in some clamps over a small burner plate. Wayne cursed softly and reached for his duelling canes, but then paused and blinked at the figure. It didn't seem to notice him. Shuffling towards the figure, He began to fill his goldminds. He coughed softly. The figure did not respond. "Ruination," he said aloud. The figure looked up and tilted its head. "Wayne?" A familiar, if muffled voice came from behind the mask. Wayne thought he knew the voice faintly, and then it struck him. "'Ello, Crazy." "Hello, Idiot." "Loving the new look. I've heard the 'husband's welding mask' thing is all the rage in Bilming. Or did you and Allik go down the prom on a day out?" "I don't have time for your... usual nonsense today, Wayne. As you can see, Lord Waxillium has tasked me with-" Wayne stopped listening. He didn't even have to do the usual responses of "mhm" and "yup", or even nod, as she wouldn't notice anyhow. He glanced towards the burner plate. How, he wondered, is she not melting? He chided himself. Even though she was who she was, Wax loved her. And, being the best friend that git Wax ever had, Wayne figured he should respect his choices. No matter how... frigid. He began wandering around the room. He was in the middle of fairly swapping a few pens from the cabinet for a string of pink ribbon and some crackers from his pocket when a thunderous cracking noise came from across the room. Wayne threw a speed bubble up, reflexively flaring his bendalloy. After looking around and seeing no gun-toting bandits or insufferable brown-suited shapeshifters, he dropped the bubble. He always got a bit jumpy when storing health. "Preservation's Wings, woman!" "What?!" A soft but frantic voice piped up. "Wayne, what is it?!" "What is it? You just scared me 'alf to death with your gunshot allergies!" "Oh, dear. It must be the dust in this mask. I'm sorry for startling you." Wayne recoiled. Sorry? "It's, ah... it's fine. I'm 'boutta run down to the kitchens, see what I can nab, er, find." He paused, then spoke again. "You, uh, want anything?" "I could do with a baywrap, if there are any left over from tea. Thank you, Wayne." He managed a soft "Yeah," then slowly walked out of the room and down the stairs. Thank you? This was new for Steris. Probably the wedding, he thought, putting her in a better mood for a while. She'd be back to normal in... a few days, at most. As he was making his way down the stairs, Wayne realized: Steris hadn't even told him, in that pedantic and killjoy voice, not to steal anything. And for once, he didn't feel like it, anyhow

I thought of a brilliant new topic name, but I couldn't work out how to change my old one. Here you go. Ask thy questions and the Queen Herself shall answer. XD @Darkness Ascendant

A piece of utter insanity inspired by a private conversation and by Disney's Frozen. Major spoilers for Firefight follow. Starring Megan as the singer during the climax of the book. * opening music plays * The flames burn bright 'round my body tonight I'm being burned alive. Prof's gone way off the deep end And it's doubtful I'll survive. Regalia planned this, though I'm not sure how or why If I'd been shot instead, I wouldn't have to die... Adjust the aim, point the gun at me David's rifle will let me beat this heat I'm really glad it's remote con-trolled... Well here I gooooo! Let it go! Let it go! Not burning up in that smog! Let it go! Let it go! I'm dead but not for long! I don't care If I go insane The assassination failed... Death never stopped me long anyway. It's funny how some distance Makes everything seem small And the fear that nearly killed me Can't get to me at all! It's time I went on the attack To defeat Phaedrus and turn him back David won't get squished tonight... Time to fight! Let it go! Let it go! I am one with Time and Light! Let it go! Let it go! I rise as Firefight! Prof can't fight My time-changing light Let his force fields fall! My power twists the very laws of time and space! My soul shines outwards, lighting up the terror on Prof's face! And one thought shines through me, this one thought is clear I'm never going back; Tonight I feel no fear! Let it go! Let it go! Phaedrus lifts off and flies Let it go! Let it go! David hasn't died! Here we are Safe in Babilar I will feel no fear... Death can't stop Firefight anyway.

Major spoilers, so don't read if you haven't seen it. Here are some posts I made elsewhere showing the evolution of my thoughts on the movie, especially the snowman. January 20: Saw Frozen. I liked a ton of things about it, but that snowman made it a much worse movie. The snowman was definitely getting a lot of laughs in the kid-heavy theater crowd. But the movie could have done without it and just played up the reindeer more if they needed more comic relief. The more I think about the movie the more I like it. It does some great stuff with trope subversion. I'd love to see a version without the snowman though. The snowman was not quite as annoying as Eddie Murphy. His character was not deliberately annoying like that. It was annoying for largely meta reasons. There were actual in-world reasons for the way the snowman acted; it's not a snarky sidekick character. The snowman may not have bothered me as much if I'd seen the movie ten years ago. January 21: I saw the movie again today. (we were doing individual daddy/daughter days.) and my opinions were confirmed. And I like all the songs. I like the movie a lot. I'm just going to pretend there is no Olaf. January 23: I've been thinking about Frozen a lot, and I've decided that although the snowman Olaf does feel like a non sequitur in many scenes, he's not bolted on to the movie but was always intended to play the role he plays at the end. Some spoilers. Olaf has a reason to know things about love—he is the embodiment of Elsa & Anna's relationship that could have been. For years Anna has been begging Elsa to spend time with her, and what she always says is "Do you want to build a snowman?" And the truth is that Elsa desperately wants to. When she finally lets loose and starts using her powers, Olaf is one of the very first things she makes. She unconsciously imbues her love for Anna into his personality, in the first moment she stops repressing her feelings. So I have to accept Olaf, though I do think he could have been done a bit differently. I also really like how the movie doesn't go and say outright that Elsa is really the one whose heart has been frozen for years. She was doing what she was doing out of her love for Anna—but it was the wrong thing to do, and it turned to fear, which made everything worse. There's not much from the Hans Christian Anderson story the Snow Queen in the movie, but one sibling teaching the other not to repress feelings is the important thing that made the transition. January 28: I love this movie so much. I didn't see it until last week when I took my oldest daughter to it, and then the next day I took her younger sister. I'm going to have to think about it some more, but this may possibly surpass the Little Mermaid as my favorite Disney movie (I saw that 7 times in the theater when it came out, and haven't seen any other movie in a theather more than 3 times). And I'll have to watch the Hunt for Red October again to see if Frozen surpasses it as my favorite movie of all time. This is interesting to me because there are a couple of things I dislike about Frozen, whereas of recent movies I see Tangled as nearly flawless. But the emotional reaction I get to Frozen puts it so high up on my list. January 30: This is yet another post about the snowman in Frozen. It contains major spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie yet (Karen), ignore this. I've done a bit more thinking on this, trying to explain some things, and I've come to a few more insights. The more I think about this, the more I think this stuff was intentional on the part of the filmmakers. I said or implied before that Olaf is an embodiment of Elsa's subconscious, which she imbued in him in the moment of his creation. This is in more ways than the one I pointed out before, that he embodies her relationship with Anna—who always wanted to build a snowman with her, and she always wanted to say yes but held herself back. 1. Olaf's desire for summer The first major thing Olaf does is sing about what summer would be like, after saying, "I've always loved the idea of summer." Olaf has been in existence for less than a day. How could he "always" have loved the idea of summer? It's because Elsa has been freezing her emotions for years, and she unconsciously has wanted to get away from that. She desperately wants summer in her life—she wants to thaw, but is sure she never can. 2. Olaf the love expert When Olaf made the comment "You know, I consider myself to be a love expert," it seemed like a throwaway line. Far from it. Olaf represents everything that Elsa knows or thinks she knows about love. When Olaf talks to Anna about love at the end, how it's putting someone else's needs before yours, this is Elsa's understanding of love. But Olaf's (and Elsa's) understanding of love is still imperfect. When Olaf sees Kristoff coming back, he says, "Oh, I guess he doesn't love you after all." That also seemed like just a funny line, but it's much more than that. Elsa thinks that love is ALL about self-sacrifice—she's been shutting herself away for years, keeping herself apart from the people she loves. At the end when Anna sacrifices herself for Elsa and Elsa realizes that Anna loves her, she also realizes that love is not just keeping yourself from hurting the ones you love, but love is going to the one you love and being with them when they need you. And in that moment when Elsa realizes that love will thaw, summer returns to her life for the first time in forever.

Wasing the wanting of snowman building? Hurrying to coming playing, Never seeing of the you, Coming out of door Seeming going away you having Wasing buddies us, Notting now, Wishing of the telling of why Wasing the wanting of snowman building? Not having to being snowman <Away of the going Spook!> Okay, farewelling Anyone care to continue? BTW, wasn't sure if this should go here, or in the Mistborn forum, but decided the Mistborn forum was probably too serious.