Fic Update Thread 62: the Chapter Missing Crisis

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And now Bee knows who's on Earth with him and he doesn't know how to deal with it. Meanwhile, Loid's got feelings he doesn't know how to deal with, Yor's got angst she doesn't know how to deal with, and Yuri's got a mystery he doesn't know how to deal with.

But yeah, Loid may be following Bumblebee, but thankfully, he hasn't seen him in robot mode yet. Gotta keep the mystery for the Forgers intact for a decent long while. Kinda like how Yor lying about where she was going would normally be a red flag... but Loid's so in love with Yor and so in denial that he actively tries to justify it.

Speaking of Yor, I'm kinda trying to portray her as believing that Barricade is an actual demon entity from Hell itself, hence why she keeps calling him as such. And to be fair, he certainly acts demonic enough, plus we did previously establish during her initial kidnapping that she also believes in ghosts.

It's something she and Yuri have in common, and I had a bit of fun giving him some expertise in the occult because he wanted to use that knowledge to help protect Yor. To be fair, you never know when you'll need an exorcist or some flavor of ghost buster, and the Transformers series has magic and the occult baked into it in certain areas. So that may end up proving useful, even if human occultism and giant robot occultism are entirely different beasts.

And yes, Stephanie Queen is a Stephen King reference. Kinda obvious, but I figured I'd clarify.

Now, originally while writing, I was going to have Chloe fully believe Yuri's original explanations about their State Security Service killer, but in the middle of that, I realized I was making her too passive and too much of a sounding board. In short, less of a character and more of a prop, so I reworked things to have her provide her own, more reasonable hypothesis on what they're dealing with and the two discuss the possibilities from there. Something to help them feel more like equals in solving a mystery and less like Yuri and his sidekick.

It was also while reworking that where I kinda felt like what I wrote was sorta Deconstructing Chloe's canon role as the Only Sane Woman to Yuri.

Basically, her usual role is to keep Yuri grounded in reality so he doesn't go off the rails in either his odd ball thought process or his actions (like not caring for his physical safety due to his own awareness to his durability). This isn't a bad thing, but when dealing with a very unrealistic and treating it realistically... it causes problems since she veers Yuri away from his more outlandish assumptions, regardless of his presented evidence, in favor of much more rational conclusions. While Yuri's proposals aren't exactly correct either, they're closer to the reality of their situation than anything "realistic" like Chloe's proposals, which to be fair are understandable and things we know for certain do exist in their world.

Again, none of this is Chloe's fault, or anyone else's for that matter. They're just dealing with something so out of the norm from what they know and can only filter it through familiar lenses.

Lastly, wanted to showcase how badly Yor's taking her loss to Barricade and the threat he poses both mentally and physically. She's spiraling and her reflexes/strength are pretty heavily shot due to the physical damage and stress/trauma/fatigue the whole fight gave her. It also let me showcase how her teacher, the Shopkeeper, is in a league of his own.

And because Yor's POV doesn't convey it very well, Shopkeeper isn't disappointed in her at all. He's completely, sincerely worried for her. It's just that her lack of self-confidence, made worse by what happened, is causing her to see his worry as such.

Anyway, I'll be getting to work on the next chapter for this story. Wish me luck and I'll see you all when I'm done!