The Armourer and the Living Weapon is complete.

[solarbird]

The Armourer and the Living Weapon is complete. There are several chapters left to post, and I'll fuss with them more before they go up, two a week I think, but... it's finished.

It's 56,500 words, more or less - it will grow a little as I polish, probably, but no more than 57,000. That's short, by modern novel standards, but it's still a novel, and well outside the 40,000-word upper limit of novella, at least, as recognised by various awards.

Hoo.

One of the first warnings I put up - before I even turned on archive warnings on AO3 - was "CW: this is... gonna be pretty fucked up." Believe me - that has happened. So I can say I have delievered on that, and I can also say now that I have written a novel, and I most certainly did not see that coming a year ago.

Surprising part is, there may be a sequel. It'll be simmering for a while, I think, but...

...yeah. There may be a sequel.

Comments

"CW: this is... gonna be pretty fucked up."

[kathmandu]

Boy is it. I haven't remarked all of it at the time, because I'm one of those acquainted with Overwatch only at one remove, so I'm never sure how much of the backstories is already established in canon.

Also, it took a while to be sure that this wasn't 'people have been traumatized by war to the point where their original personalities are effectively dead', it was 'people have been deliberately interfered with to the point where their original personalities are effectively dead or not in charge of the body'.

Even so, the part about 'Oh, yes, honey, I remember how happy you were that my [beloved] husband was killed; it makes me happy to remember your happiness' was really screamingly creepy-scary-alarming.

(Not criticism; you said you were setting out for that kind of effect, so I figure this is praise.)

Re: "CW: this is... gonna be pretty fucked up."

[solarbird]

Widowmaker is a created person, built out of a combination of Talon needs for an assassin and Amélie Lacroix, wife of Gerard Lacroix, Overwatch's head of anti-Talon actions, back when Overwatch was official and legal and all that sort of thing. Amélie was kidnapped, held for months, changed by Moira, allowed to be "rescued" by Overwatch, and, two weeks after recovery, killed her husband as planned and retrieved by Talon to be completed - also, by Moira. (She wasn't blue when 'rescued,' obviously. She looked - and acted - reasonably normal, for a traumatised kidnap victim. Or so they thought.)

All that's canon. Emily, in canon, we actually know very little about - she's Tracer's canon girlfriend, but she's not part of Overwatch or Talon in any incarnation. At least, as far as we know. So her reaction here is unique to this Emily, this Oilliphéist.

Moira is a terrifying character, particularly to me, in part for reasons I will not explain, in part because FUCK YOU SHE'S SO OP IN THE GAME ON CONSOLE WHAT THE FUCK. But also because of, well, what she can do.