Wattson Wraith Chapter 47

Wattson Wraith Chapter 47

It was a bit of a wait I know, but that's what happens when you write the single longest chapter in the entire fic (as in by itself it's like 7% of the fic), and then split it in half just to keep it reader-accessible lmao. Anyway, enjoy the character lore!

Fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13684330/47/Wattson-Wraith

Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26186578/chapters/137529610

Da

Lmao I think it's been long enough, time to post character drawings

WATTSON WRAITH CHAPTER 47 AND 48 SPOILERS

Behold, Her Majesty Queen Kazul! (Pictured below are her normal form and her dragon form, which respectively debut in chapters 47 and 48.)

HI!!!! I found you through ex machina!!! I would sell my bones for more of it. It is SO GOOD. i understand if you dont plan on writing more of homestead, but please, tell us what was gonna happen next !!!!! (If you had an outline already, if not its ok)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa that's a pretty huge compliment, thank you!!!

Homestead, Homestead, Homestead. It isn't that I don't want to write it, really. It's just that the tf2 fixation is dormant at the moment, and has been for a while. And at the time I didn't like writing Melissa lol. I do wanna write more of it, but the issue is that right now I have stuff I wanna do MORE, and that list is always growing. My creative process is kinda just. You know. Hoarding WIPs that I'll "work on later." 😂

I was an even less disciplined writer back then than I am now, so I kind of just had some loosely connected ideas that I would write whenever I ended up feeling like it. So, seeing as at this point the most likely way I'll get back to Homestead is after an Ex Machina rewrite (and who knows if/when I'll get to that), sure, I'll share some ideas I had for Homestead under the readmore. Hypothetical spoilers below.

For starters, Engie is sterile. He and Melissa wanted children, but didn't find out until later that Engie couldn't have kids. It's why there was a room in the house that didn't match the rest, it's why Engie immediately latched onto the idea of caring for Mal (and partially why he didn't always have the best instincts even when his intentions were good; no practice), and it's why Melissa was initially REALLY uncomfortable with the fact that he'd "built a son in all but name."

Speaking of Melissa, she definitely didn't like Mal. She's seen enough of Engie's craft to know it's sound. But this is the first time he's (as far as she knows the situation) BUILT A GUY. Inspired by a coworker or not, that's weird. That might even make it weirder. It doesn't help that she barely gets to see her husband, and now he's brought home what might as well be his artificial kid, and barely pays her any mind because he's so set on advancing the robot's AI and teaching it ABCs. Melissa wouldn't resort to outright sabotage, because she loves her husband more than life itself, but she DOES inadvertently start a petty rivalry with Mal (if a slightly lopsided one) because frankly, she WOULD prefer that darned robot gone. Even if she wouldn't overtly say so.

I was kind of hoping for her and Mal to eventually warm up to each other, but considering Melissa's visceral distrust, and Mal's tendency to be either terrified or vindictive when wronged, to this day I'm not sure what would have spurred them to make up. I think I was just gonna keep writing as I go until an idea came up that kinda felt right.

I'm pretty sure that was it for actual plot stuff. There wasn't a whole bunch, seeing as Homestead was meant as a sort of drabble collection anyway, with a string of AU canon to tie them together. But here's some other random ideas I had for themes and chapters and stuff!

Mal really would find a horse. It wouldn't be HIS horse, but it would be a big enough horse for him to hop on and then IMMEDIATELY realize he didn't know how to ride one. No horses would be harmed in the making of that chapter.

Mal learning about sign language, and wanting to learn it. It would be difficult, seeing as he has three fused fingers and a face that can't emote, but it's close enough to what he and M-146 did that he would want to try.

Engie upgrading Mal's pattern recognition software so that it could run fast enough for him to enjoyably watch cartoons, simply because it bothered Mal that he couldn't make anything out in animated material. He would immediately swear off almost all of it for a variety of reasons (he ends up not really liking slapstick or fantasy violence, for starters), but he would quickly become hooked on shows like Scooby Doo whenever his cooking show wasn't on.

Engie would also work on de-noising his speaker system because Scout would call sometimes, and talking to a robot whose voice is 80% grain is a nightmare over the phone.

Speaking of Scout calling, Engie tended to always get surprised immediately after a call because Mal would have learned like 20 new words, and would have more varied intonation for words he already had. By the time the fic ended, Mal would have been capable of nearly flawless speech, and his intonation and even accent would become startlingly different from Scout's. And no, Engie would never fully get used to it. XD

There was gonna be a chapter of July 4th. That was uhhhhhhhhh gonna be how Engie learned Mal had pretty severe PTSD. This would have led to some newfound understanding of Mal's prior behavior, and that awareness would have in turn led to better management of— and workarounds to— Mal's anxiety. Not using certain power tools in his vicinity, for example, or slowly introducing him to stimuli that he found stressful in other contexts. (I'm no expert in how PTSD is managed, and at that age I DEFINITELY wasn't, so like, I would inform readers not to take my approach as like, a PTSD tutorial fjdkdjddhdj)

Once Mal had the words for it, he would reveal his favorite colors were yellow and green. He wouldn't want to be repainted, but he WOULD start occasionally wearing clothes about it.

Mal likes watching Engie work, but should NEVER be expected to help beyond handing him tools. (Engie learns why after the July 4th incident, when Mal has the words to share some of his backstory. Which got loosely addressed in a side fic because I literally retconned his origin like halfway through Ex Machina lol whoops)

I toyed with the idea of Mal making friends so that he wasn't 100% dependent on Engie at all times forever and ever. But I never came up with anyone, nor the circumstances for how he would even meet them when he barely gets to leave the house.

Mal eventually learns he likes to draw. He's not good at it by any stretch of the word, but he likes it.

Anything else I could put here would be me coming up with modern ideas, but these were some of the thoughts and themes I had in mind when I was first writing Homestead. Or at least the ones I could remember; there's a notebook somewhere that had a few ideas listed, but I have no clue where that is lol.

Lmao it's gonna probably be eons before I finish this, if I do at all, but I absolutely need everyone to see the thing I've been working on on a sheer whim spurred on by a Youtube meme binge

back on my bs >:] @bigjbonk