Huinesoron

Beren: "You know what happens to my projects."

Finrod: "-- Expansion of scope far beyond any reasonable assessment, followed by utter chaos, culminating in divine intervention? -- I'm counting on it."

~The Leithian Script, Act IV, Scene III.ii

I suffer from this. I once drew a faux papyrus which expanded into a project to create fake artefacts from every known culture in the 1680 BC Mediterranean. I'm increasingly convinced that I'm going to have to expand my last NaNo (an alternate history novel) into a series of 3-6 books. I'm deep, deep, deep in a two-person project to translate, record, and animate a Russian Silmarillion rock-opera. At any time, if someone offers interest, suggestions, or - Valar help us - assistance, my projects can spiral out into massive undertakings.

The most recent example: on a whim, I decided to sketch out the plot of a few movies in a hypothetical MCU-style movie universe based on the PPC. I posted it, and the responses offered enough new ideas that I wound up making a second set...

Fast forward ten days, and I have a 13,000 word document outlining in detail 20 movies across four phases, with TV shows, posters, and even honest-to-goodness fanart. I just... why? A month from now probably nobody will ever read it again, so why did I put in so much work on a wobbly tower of hypotheticals?

Answer: it was engaging, it distracted me from 2021 for a while, and I just can't let some things end unfinished.

Right at the tail end of last night, I dreamt that my comments in the PPC Board discussion about usernames had led 3 or 4 people to just up and quit. I felt terrible. Except, um... that's not even a discussion we're /having/. So I dunno where that came from.

Earlier, I dreamt the story of how during the space-war, one battlegroup was wargaming. They kept pushing their comms to higher and higher levels, and when they reached Fleet comm levels, they caught the edge of a major engagement by a full Fleet. They used their knowledge to sneak in and turn the tide (helped by realising that the enemy was speaking in Passan, a descendent of Hebrew).

Which is an interesting concept, at least. I'm not sure there's any way to use it in a story, but it's interesting.