CALDERA (VOL. 1 & VOL. 2)

I had an ask from someone who wants a post that recaps my IWTV stories to date; given that I wrote the existing pieces so quickly, that’s a fair request.

This project is not complete; it is still in progress. It has had a few extremely brief hiatuses while I wrote this stand-alone, this stand-alone, this stand-alone, and started this 1973 AU series. I also wrote this untitled personal essay about a piece of storytelling from my past that is related to all of this (“The Odyssey of Recollection Can Bite Me” feels apt, sorry not sorry for the pun.)

Above is the AO3 link for my Devil’s Minion project, Caldera. The following links are the individual stories to date, plus ratings, word counts, and numbers of chapters:

Caldera: Mise-en-Abîme (Vol. 1)

1. Not the Good Guys (Rating: E; 20,000 words; 7 chapters; can be read as a stand-alone, but all stories beyond this one begin to serve a much farther-reaching plot)
2. Maker, Martyr, Mirror (Rating: M; 2,100 words; 1 chapter)
3. Still Life With Sunken Treasure (Rating: E; 2,400 words; 1 chapter)
4. It’s Not the Louvre, But It’ll Do (Rating: E; 2,600 words; 1 chapter)
5. Time Has Opened Back Up to Us (Rating: E; 3,000 words; 1 chapter)
6. Gold and Tempera on Panel (Rating: E; 20,000 words; 7 chapters)
7. Calamity Comes to Your Door (Rating: E; 3,200 words; 1 chapter)
8. We Need Not Be a Tragedy (Rating: E; 3,900 words; 1 chapter)
9. Death to Welcome With Open Arms (Rating: E; 11,600 words; 3 chapters)
10. The Responsible Ones (Rating: E; 11,000 words; 4 chapters)
11. It’s a Goddamn Trip (Rating: E; 20,000 words; 7 chapters)
12. The Walls of This Villa Remember (Rating: E; 4,000 words; 2 chapters)
13. As Only My Hands Can Deliver (Rating: E; 10,000 words; 5 chapters)
14. Vampire Family, Human Family (Rating: M; 11,000 words; 4 chapters)
15. Full House, But It Could Be Fun (Rating: E; 9,600 words; 4 chapters)
16. Just Watch the Stars (Rating: E; 20,000 words; 7 chapters)
17. It’s a Slippery Slope to Stand-Up Comedy (Rating: M; 1,400 words; 1 chapter)
18. Difficult All the Way Down (Rating: E; 4,000 words; 3 chapters)
19. Don’t Include This in Your Next Backup (Rating: E; 10,000 words; 5 chapters)
20. From This World into Another (Rating: E; 14,000 words; 6 chapters)
21. Nobody Asked to See This (Rating: M; 1,200 words; 2 chapters)
22. The Quick Ones (Rating: E; 51,400 words; 22 chapters; can be read as a stand-alone, and it’s a flashback story that’s actually set before “Not the Good Guys,” so you can also start Vol. 1 by reading this one if you like)

Caldera: Mise-en-Scène (Vol. 2)

1. Bizarre and Breathless Pause (Rating: E; 20,000 words; 9 chapters)
2. Avant-Garde and Unsustainable (Rating: M; 2,000 words; 1 chapter)
3. Cross-Genre Awareness (Rating: M; 2,000 words; 1 chapter)
4. Fucking Professionals (Rating: E; 20,000 words; 9 chapters)
5. Fractured and Flickering Gold (Rating: M; 2,000 words; 1 chapter)

Fucking Professionals

This story is now complete.

I’ve started the second volume of CALDERA slightly earlier than I’d planned, but that’s fine given I’ll have a busy semester. The first volume, complete at 22 stories, is here.

“Fucking Professionals,” the new story linked above, is now the 4th story in the second volume. 9 out of 9 chapters have been posted, at a total of 20,000 words (and the very brief piece that immediately follows this longer one has also been posted; this 9th chapter is kind of a backtracking, surprise addition on my part).

CHAPTERS:

1. Flowers in the Green Room (2025-02-16)
2. Lay a Few Things to Rest (2025-02-17)
3. Particularly Picturesque (2025-02-20)
4. Willing to Look the Part (2025-03-13)
5. What’s Taken Is Returned (2025-03-17)
6. Always Want Too Much (2025-03-21)
7. It’s Not Just a Coven (2025-03-24)
8. Resolve to See It Through (2025-03-25)
9. Be Happy Here Again (NEW, 2025-04-25)

TEASER:

“If you’re having second thoughts,” Rashid says patiently, squeezing Sam’s hand as he keeps pace, “we don’t have to go there tonight.”

“I promised,” Sam replies, determined. “No sense in running any longer. I’m here, and it’ll be easier to face it with you than without.”

“You haven’t been anywhere near the site since the fire,” Rashid realizes abruptly.

“I’ve been nowhere near it in decades,” Sam confirms, nodding his head in defeat.

cant–pin–me–down:

jewishlivesmatter:

Someone on Reddit updated the map to include denominators, which I find helpful. Regardless, when people tell us to “Go back to Poland,” their meaning is clear.

It’s seriously lovely and reminds me a lot of the art style of someone I knew when I was younger. They did linocuts and woodblock prints, usually. The drawing is stylized in such a way that it looks like one of those (in addition to looking eerily like Armand). Your mother had a distinctive sketching style 💙

str-dusts:

As an homage to my mom, a talented artist with the most meticulous hands, who passed away on April 10th, 2025, I scanned and cleaned this drawing she made a few years ago. It reminded me of Armand, so now I love it more than ever and wanted to share it with the world.

irisbleufic:

Fractured and Flickering Gold

The second volume of CALDERA has been underway since January 2025. The first volume, complete at 22 stories, is here.

The above-linked piece, “Fractured and Flickering Gold,” is the 5th installment of Volume 2. It’s complete at 2,000 words; I’m in the habit of interspersing shorter interludes between longer stories.

TEASER:

Hesitantly, Lestat inclines his head and admits, “I want to postpone it.”

Louis frowns at him, squeezing his hand tighter. “Which part, exactly?”

“Every part,” Lestat says, flipping his phone face-down. “The single, the album, the documentary, the tour. I shouldn’t do this when…”

“When what?” Louis asks, his frown deepening in concern. There’s no sign of anger in his expression, which is a relief. Just consternation.

“There’s a shitshow on my doorstep,” Lestat says punchily, pointing toward the open doors leading into a wide, drafty hall that echoes with Gabrielle’s and Jesse’s voices. “One that I agreed to, for all my sins,” he continues, “and that you agreed to as well, God knows why.”

“Marius hasn’t been holding up his end of the bargain with the kid, has he,” Louis says under his breath, his eyes darkening as he casts his gaze askance. “Hasn’t done a damned thing in three weeks except work on the mural. Why do you think he’s stalling? Suspicious?”

“Jesse’s going to have to take some renewed initiative, I think,” Lestat replies, put-upon, “or I could march back there and take away his brushes.”

battlecrazed-axe-mage:

There are few color palettes my eyes love more than the original Gilbert Baker pride flag

Like dang, nailed it the first time, A+++ 0 notes

Fractured and Flickering Gold

The second volume of CALDERA has been underway since January 2025. The first volume, complete at 22 stories, is here.

The above-linked piece, “Fractured and Flickering Gold,” is the 5th installment of Volume 2. It’s complete at 2,000 words; I’m in the habit of interspersing shorter interludes between longer stories.

TEASER:

Hesitantly, Lestat inclines his head and admits, “I want to postpone it.”

Louis frowns at him, squeezing his hand tighter. “Which part, exactly?”

“Every part,” Lestat says, flipping his phone face-down. “The single, the album, the documentary, the tour. I shouldn’t do this when…”

“When what?” Louis asks, his frown deepening in concern. There’s no sign of anger in his expression, which is a relief. Just consternation.

“There’s a shitshow on my doorstep,” Lestat says punchily, pointing toward the open doors leading into a wide, drafty hall that echoes with Gabrielle’s and Jesse’s voices. “One that I agreed to, for all my sins,” he continues, “and that you agreed to as well, God knows why.”

“Marius hasn’t been holding up his end of the bargain with the kid, has he,” Louis says under his breath, his eyes darkening as he casts his gaze askance. “Hasn’t done a damned thing in three weeks except work on the mural. Why do you think he’s stalling? Suspicious?”

“Jesse’s going to have to take some renewed initiative, I think,” Lestat replies, put-upon, “or I could march back there and take away his brushes.”

defilerwyrm:

shout out to all the christians on radio stations who are going to play a very jewish song about kinky breakup sex as a misguided homage to the now-dead pope today. leonard cohen’s ghost is shaking his head at you and so am i

sapphic-luthor:

i’m going to hold your hands when i say this and i am only going to be kind about it once: ai does not belong in fandom spaces, ever. not in writing, not in art, not in video, not at all. it does not matter how bad you want to see your favourite characters kiss, or how much you need a bit of help finishing a chapter, or whatever.

make friends with artists. commission somebody. learn to draw yourself. ask for a beta read. try a writing partnership. fandom spaces are communities, so engage with them! it is about the journey and the fact that we all love something enough to create and build together about that thing.

spending 30 seconds to kill a tree and get an AI to push out some soulless empty piece of “content” is antithetical to the entire point of being engaged with fandom, and if you’ve taken to doing this you should really reconsider if you belong in these spaces with the rest of us.

irisbleufic:

Solace and Spoils of War

COMPLETE. This is the fourth story in Fables to Explain Time’s Passing, a.k.a. my 1973 AU (now January 1974 in-story); 6 chapters of 6 are now posted at 10,000 words.

CHAPTERS:

1. Breathless Punch to the Chest (2025-02-12)
2. That’s the Tequila Talking (2025-02-14)
3. So Much Unspooled Tape (2025-02-18)
4. Drag You Back to Daylight (2025-04-17)
5. Worse Than a Soap Opera (2025-04-18)
6. Don’t Hide From Me Anymore (NEW, 2025-04-19)

TEASER:

Dearest Danny,

It’s Christmas Eve again, and Hanukkah is ending. I tried to find the courage to call on you at about this time last year. Should say, I suggested it to your father—stubborn son of a bitch that he is, you know how that went. So, I let the matter drop. We didn’t come.

It’s strange that I can sit here and say the only reason I know you’re alive is through the lives of others. Friday mornings, like clockwork, I have a ritual. Drive the hour and a half from Modesto to San Francisco. Sometimes, it takes longer. Parking isn’t easy to find, but if I have to walk a mile on Telegraph to get to Caffe Med, I do. Some weeks, that little paper is sold out, and I don’t get my hands on a copy. But most weeks, I do.

Two years you’ve been gone from my life. That’s what you tell some of the people whose lives you tease from their lips like so much unspooled tape. I try to imagine the hours you must spend in dirty bars, on ill-lit street corners, in strangers’ rented rooms. And from the way they speak, defenseless, open, I imagine you as so much light in all that dark. I remember teaching you compassion, but not this unflinching clarity.

irisbleufic:

Not a full new story, exactly, but an addition to an existing one:

The Quick Ones (Real Rashid/Sam Barclay + Ensemble Cast; Rating: E; 51,400 words; can be read as a stand-alone, also part of a longer series) has a new scene of 1,400 words right in the middle of Chapter 4: Digital Regrets and about 600 new words in the middle of Chapter 5: Clear a Path. It’s smut, but also adds some dimension to several early emotional plot threads.

As of yesterday, I’ve finished the 3 active WIPs I had in play between February and the first half of April, so I’m kind of at a loose end and might be doing some odds-and-ends upkeep like this for a week. Prompts, requests? Now might be the time to hit me up.

(I’m at the stage I hit about a year into writing for a fandom when I revisit stories and realize I have a better handle on this character or that character than when I first wrote their POV. It results in slipping new material into existing stories. Readers new to those pieces won’t know the difference, but I alert existing readers so they don’t lose their minds when they reread and find a passage they swear wasn’t there before. It probably wasn’t!)

blaithnne:

I like that Vic Michealis is very private about their personal life because it means that we get the joyous experience of having them slowly reveal more and more siblings that are all just them in a different font.

mooned-knights:

the year is 2158. what remains of the united states of america is a blasted wasteland. you are a scavenger going through one of the only places for hundreds of miles that hasn’t been picked clean, an abandoned mining town in the middle of the california desert. you enter the mines looking for tools and maybe some forgotten valuables. a cardboard cutout of a small man in a pinstripe suit greets you as you descend. he’s been here the whole time.

That’s a neat prompt. I’ll think about it for a while, as I have two options; I can either displace Rashid again in time and have him be born around the time Daniel is actually born in the early 1950s, or I can displace Daniel and have him born around the time Rashid is actually born in the early 1990s. Rashid being the movable piece was extremely fun (born ca. 1916) in “Heretics and Lawbreakers,” although it could be extremely fun to displace Daniel, who knows. I’m almost more interested in the kind of friendship dynamic you’d get if Rashid and Daniel meet when they’re the same age, like do they rub each other the wrong way at first even lacking the weird circumstances/age difference in Dubai, or do they actually hit it off? Fascinating considerations from all angles.

The Quick Ones (Real Rashid/Sam Barclay + Ensemble Cast; Rating: E; 51,400 words; can be read as a stand-alone, also part of a longer series) has a new scene of 1,400 words right in the middle of Chapter 4: Digital Regrets and about 600 new words in the middle of Chapter 5: Clear a Path. It’s smut, but also adds some dimension to several early emotional plot threads.

As of yesterday, I’ve finished the 3 active WIPs I had in play between February and the first half of April, so I’m kind of at a loose end and might be doing some odds-and-ends upkeep like this for a week. Prompts, requests? Now might be the time to hit me up.

(I’m at the stage I hit about a year into writing for a fandom when I revisit stories and realize I have a better handle on this character or that character than when I first wrote their POV. It results in slipping new material into existing stories. Readers new to those pieces won’t know the difference, but I alert existing readers so they don’t lose their minds when they reread and find a passage they swear wasn’t there before. It probably wasn’t!)