#a fic with no real purpose or plot written at 2 AM
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almost uploaded a picture of my bank statement instead of this header! happy days!
thanks for the tags @hippolotamus @kiwiana-writes @happiness-of-the-pursuit @rmd-writes
@nancygillianmvp @terramous @tellmegoodbye @freneticfloetry @beautifulhigh
@orchidscript @myheartalivewrites and @strandnreyes (don't think that was a real tag but i'm taking it anyway to force you to love me).
1. How many works do you have on Ao3?
49 (last time it was 46 but i feel like that isn't enough of a difference? disappointed in myself dfhskjh)
2. What's your Ao3 bodycount word count?
1,119,086 which does include some co-writes, but I also have around 200k of unposted WIP in my google docs so i'm counting it (including a fully written fic - someone put their hands around my neck and force me to edit it PLEASE).
3. Which fandoms do you write for?
red white and royal blue, 911 lone star, top gun maverick (flirting with winter's orbit always)
4. Top 5 fics by kudos?
the order of these has changed but not the identity:
Speak for Yourself (RWRB) (you know when eminem said he'd never be able to top My Name Is? this is my version of that)
Fifty First Dates (RWRB) (oodie agenda reigns supreme)
The RIng-In (Lone Star) (otherwise, lone star is in danger of being eviscerated from this top 5 lmao)
(Not) A Cinderella Story (RWRB) (NDAs are hot, apparently)
Cursed is a State of Mind (RWRB) (cursed caffeine is the main drawcard let's not lie)
5. Do you respond to comments?
i try my absolute best to. i am currently really behind and i apologise for that (the problem is, i reply to comments before i post anything and i haven't posted anything in ages).
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
serious answer - Contaminated
my answer - oh baby i'm a fool for you because we never find out if they actually watch twilight and that's a damn shame
7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
literally everything else - i don't really do open endings or sad endings! in the words of the great philosopher, skepta: "nah, that's not me."
8. Do you get hate on fics?
i used to, but i haven't in ages! thank god for that.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
yes, although i have to say i've been moving away from pwp lately. i feel my best smut is written into longer fics where the sex serves a plot or characterisation purpose within the frame of the overarching narrative.
10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
yes, a RWRB/LS but i never finished it. ALTA is a veronica mars inspired tarlos fic which kind of feels like a crossover at times.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
not to my knowledge :)
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
yes! Phonography (Lone Star) has been translated, as has Baby, Make Your Move (Lone Star) and Warm Whispers (Lone Star). I'm very grateful to the incredible people who have made these translations happen - you are so talented.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic?
yes, many with @dustratcentral. I also wrote a chapter of a co-written fic with a whole bunch of incredible RWRB authors called never the same twice.
@rmd-writes and I have created (Un)Professional Services and (upcoming) Call Me (By Your Name).
The Rainbow Fish was co-written with @strandnreyes.
I love co-writing so much and I am always open to anyone who wants to give it a go!
14. What's your all time favourite ship?
me + my unposted wips.
15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
probably the aforementioned crossover which was apparently also my answer last time.
16. What are your writing strengths?
i'm allergic to giving myself compliments but i would say maybe dialogue/banter and worldbuilding.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
keeping things short. also, exposition.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
kinda scared to because i don't speak any other languages and i'm so hesitant to annoy my very talented multi-lingual friends with my annoying questions.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
we don't talk about that.
20. Favourite fic you've written?
probably still Love Game because the experience was just so amazing and i never wanted to stop writing it.
heaps of people have already done this so leaving an open tag and also a couple of suggestions under the cut but apologies if you've already participated or been tagged 7 million times:
@bonheur-cafe @theghostofashton @thebumblecee @indomitable-love @eclectic-sassycoweyes
@tailoredshirt @vineofroses @liminalmemories21 @mikibwrites @birdclowns
@ladytessa74 @basilsunrise @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @rosedavid @sanjuwrites
@alrightbuckaroo @three-drink-amy @marjansmarwani @dumbpeachjuice @doublel27
@lemonlyman-dotcom @blueink3 @ambiguouspenny @clottedcreamfudge @emmalostinwonderland
@sail-not-drift @inexplicablymine @celeritas2997 @cricketnationrise @reyesstrand
@goodways @carlos-in-glasses @heartstringsduet @sunshinestrand @sherryvalli
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20 Questions for Writers
Thank you so much for the tag @wendingways I'm FINALLY getting around to it. :D
How many works do you have on AO3?
132
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
2, 962, 169
3. What fandoms do you write for?
Star Wars, Hornblower, Narnia [just one]
4. What are your top five fics by kudos?
Mirjahaal
Bajur
He Who Sheds His Blood With Me
Forging Ahead
I Felt You In My Bones
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I do as much as possible. I appreciate my readers making time to say something. It takes effort on their part and I want them to know I am grateful. Equally, I get lots of fun thoughts from my readers and it's delightful to interact with people. :D
6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Oh definitely the fic I could never write. ;D By which I mean---there was a prompt somewhere that said 'the aftermath of a scene you'll never write'. So I knew immediately what that was and ripped my own heart out to write "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night". Literally, I was ugly crying the whole time. And it convinced me that nope, I can never do this in my 'real' fics if you will. xD
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Hmmm. I am a girl who likes a happy ending. Granted, it's after kark tons of pain and suffering usually xD, but...
I think I'll land on the Dragon Speaker. I could name quite a few others, but I spent more time developing the happy aftermath so that's why I choose it.
8. Do you get hate on your fic?
I've said it before---I have some of the BEST readers. And I've had folks who've disagreed with some of my takes on character or plot, but they are welcome to do so if they are respectful and they are. It produces good conversation and perspective. I can think of one time I had someone actively unpleasant, but let's hear it for delete and block! :D
9. Do you write smut?
Nope.
10. Do you write crossovers?
No. It's just not my cup of tea.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of and I hope not. Obviously, a lot of us have similar ideas----writing is just like that. But I don't think anyone has taken my work directly. That kind of thing does get me riled up because I know the work all of us creators have done to make these stories. Don't do it, kids.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes I have and it's very fun! I have a very industrious and delightful reader who has translated a lot of my work into Russian. :D
13. Have you ever co-written a fic?
I have a few times. :D
14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?
Depends on context here. I don't read or write fics for just romance. I need purpose beyond the couple if you will. If we're talking within Star Wars then canonically it's Han and Leia. If we're going with my own fanfics it's a toss up between Mara and Max Veers and Firmus Piett and Sola Naberrie. ;D If we're talking broad literary ship Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing.
15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
WIP I will never finish? What are you talking about?
Genuinely, I hate the idea of abandoning my fics. Just can't. Some of them are taking longer than I had thought, but that's ok. Life happens. I will finish. ;D
16. What’s your writing strengths?
I think I develop character fairly well. I like to have a plot mapped out before I start writing, so I think I do all right with story cohesion and flow. I am a firm believe that you need to care about the characters more than anything else. World building and correct editing are good things, but if no one cares about your characters, it can get boring and readers lose interest.
17. What’s your writing weaknesses?
A good balance of action, description, and dialogue. Dialogue is easy for me and I like the characters interacting. But action and description are very important as well to SEE the scene and I need to work on my descriptive choices. I'm also ridiculously impatient. I want to publish NOW. And this means that perhaps some needed editing or more polish/depth is overlooked. I'm working on that.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
Absolutely. I've used mando'a a lot now in Star Wars. In history AUs I've dabbled a smidge in French and Latin to set the tone a bit. Definitely do your homework whether using a real or fictional language. People notice!! :D
19. First fandom you wrote for?
Haha. So in terms of more serious writing like I'm doing now, it's Star Wars.
But.
I wrote by hand in notebooks during high school for the original Star Trek. Had all kinds of crush on Pavel Chekov. xD We watched the re runs of it and I liked the movies as a kid so....
20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?
Oh goodness. Can that really be answered? I like them all for vastly different reasons. If we're going for world building then likely Dragon Speaker. If we're going for in depth history fun, then The War in the Shadows. If we're going for fic I saw most clearly in my brain as I wrote and LIVED it, then Showdown at Alliance Ranch. Within the ER verse, quite possibly Fidelity because writing all that courtroom drama and the intense brotherhood of Firmus and Max going through that was just so satisfying.
But over all story? Honestly can't pick just one. Sorry!
Gently tagging @hollers-and-holmes @winterinhimring @kraytwriter @kanerallels
#questions for writers#writers#writing#fan fic#authors#my writing#creative process#characters#plot#good questions#writing process
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A03 Questions Tag Game
I got tagged by: @coffincrows
I tag: @ventela1 @autumn2may @farshootingstar
1 – How many works do you have on AO3?
70
2 – What's your total AO3 word count?
552,955
3 – What fandoms do you write for?
In no particular order: Cult of the Lamb, Welcome to Night Vale, Disco Elysium, Good Omens, Overwatch and a bunch of series I've only written one fic in
4 – What are your top five fics by kudos?
Points on a Circle (Overwatch, lots of ships, mainly Yeehan)
Now Streaming: Love! (Overwatch, lots of ships, D.va POV)
White is Not the New Black (Good Omens, Ineffable Husbands)
Fusion is Just a Cheap Tactic to Make Weak Angels Stronger (Good Omens, Ineffable Husbands)
Welcome to Cyber Vale (Welcome to Night Vale, Cecilos)
5 – Do you respond to comments?
I may accidentally skip a few (sorry) but I try to respond to everyone!
6 – What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Another Pyramid, although I'm not sure I would call it angsty. The fic is about two robots (omnics) discussion an opera and the play based on it, and it ends with one of the robots wondering if the more opened-ended play could possibly be about the endless cycle of tragedy and romance, and how that's very fitting in the current war for robot rights.
7 – What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Probably To Forgive is Divine since it ends with the Bishop family back together AND Narinder and Lamb as a couple AND other happy spoilers
8 – Do you get hate on fics?
Okay so I wouldn't call it hate but I will take a moment to talk about the weirdest comment I ever got on a fic: Someone once posted in the third chapter of a fic that they hadn't read the first two chapters (on purpose) and they were only going to read every-other chapter from then on. And then every other chapter they kept posting about how the fic made no sense and kept asking questions that were answered in the parts they skipped.
Yeah I ended up blocking them and deleting the comments. Like, the fuck?
9 – Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I have written smut. I would describe it as "bad".
10 – Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
Probably the Good Omens/Pokemon crossover fic The Evils of Truth and Love. Sadly I couldn't figure out anything to do with it plot-wise so it's only just three chapters of silliness.
11 – Have you ever had a fic stolen?
No idea. Imagine someone stealing my work. It'd be like someone stealing my twelve year old hyundai. Like, why?
12 – Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes! I know Cyber Vale got partially translated, and one of my Disco Elysium fics was translated into Russian!
13 – Have you ever co-written a fic?
No, I'm not into co-writing.
14 – What's your all-time favorite ship?
Probably X/Zero. Which is funny considering I've never written a ship about them.
15 – What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Dear Notes in a Line and Five Shalle Ryde fans:
I swear I'll come back one day to finish these. Pinky-swear.
16 – What are your writing strengths?
Apparently I have a real knack for writing immortal God/God-like beings/Immortal Robots and I don't know what to do with this power besides writing fanfic.
17 – What are your writing weaknesses?
I am so, so bad at smut. I've tried, you guys. I've really tried. But writing it feels like someone is sandpapering my brain. In another timeline where I can write smut I'm probably making bank on a terrible amazon published erotica series.
18 – Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
I try to avoid it myself because I can barely handle English most days. Never mind other languages Do you know how many times I've failed French 1? Six. SIX TIMES.
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I've written multiple characters in multiple stories that use ASL. I am not a clever person.
19 – First fandom you wrote for?
NiGHTS Into Dreams! It's called TWiNS and I actually dug it up from the depths of FF.net to post on Ao3 because I'm so proud of my teen self for writing it.
20 – Favorite fic you've written?
Probably As Mayflies, which I wrote one beautiful summer morning while I was feeling very emotional over Sir Terry Pratchett's passing and wrote a little story about how the humans Crowley and Aziraphale meet live forever in their hearts.
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20 Questions - Fanfic Writer Edition
I was tagged by both @writer-or-whatever and @jmrothwell so I suppose I better do it 😅 Thanks guys!
1. How many works do you have on AO3? 42 (*gasp* am I Miles Morales?)
2. What's your total AO3 word count? 1,265,660 lol
3. What fandoms do you write for? currently just Spider-Man but I used to write for Supernatural and before that Harry Potter. I'm a one obsession at a time kinda girl.
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) - 72k spideypool soulmates au
Don't Freak Out - 136k parkner rivals to lovers speedrun
A Peach Like You - 73k parkner featuring autistic!peter, loveatfirstsight!harley, and a cringe self insert as the villain of the week lmao
The Distance Between (You and Me) - 29k parkner bodyguard au
You're Freaking Out - 166k sequel to DFO featuring plot (wow!) and Miles (yay!)
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
My dudes I try. I know I'm not very consistent and I have a tendency to disappear for months at a time, but I read and cherish each one.
6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
I don't really do angsty endings lol I think the closest I've gotten is Lay Me Down - 8k destiel major character death--lowest kudosed fic out of all 42 lmao
7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
This is an impossible question. I am like the queen of happy endings? You want me to rank them??? Fine, it's You're Freaking Out. Best 10k epilogue in the land. Oh hey also I just noticed it has 997 kudos. May I humbly request 3 more pretty please?
8. Do you get hate on fics?
No. Closest was when someone complained on one of my destiel fics about the grocery store not having plastic bags and needing a quarter in order to obtain a cart. I specifically remember they said, "I hate when writers do this," and went on to complain about us making up obviously fake stuff that pulls them out of the story. Like, first of all you're complaining about storytellers making stuff up ??? okay. And second, it was an Aldi. A real grocery store. That I didn't make up.
I had to take a day to cool off before I responded and then they were like oh yeah, my roommate told me when I complained to them, you responded to this really nicely though! WHICH folks LET ME TELL YOU made me angrier lol Like you found out you were wrong and didn't even come back to edit/delete/apologize for your comment???
Anyway after that I internalized that you don't know what kind of lived experience your commenters have so some comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Which is a double-edged sword bc sometimes I get really nice enthusiastic comments and read it like, okay but what if this person is 12 and read it at 2am in a fit of delirium and this is their first fic ever and it's actually not as good as they think haha
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I doooo. I haven't published any since I wrote for spn but I have a parkner pwp ready to go as soon as I muster up the nerve.
I have no idea how to interpret the question "what kind" lol uhhh the hot kind? pffft
10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
I have but I never published them. Again, these were for spn which is hella fun to play with merging into other canon. I started but never finished spn crossovers with Firefly, The 100, The Hunger Games, Criminal Minds, Agents of Shield, and Teen Wolf. I think that's all of them. I've been thinking about putting all of my abandoned wips on AO3 for archive purposes, but idk still noodling on it. I wish there way a way I could elect to post without notifying my subscribers :/ Or at least send them a message warning them that I'm about to be incredibly annoying
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of 🙃
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Yes!! A few now! The ultimate kudo in my opinion, and one I never expected <3
The wonderful @bluettspetal has translated An Insignificant Problem, Undercover? I thought you said under covers..., and Completely and utterly devoid of sex appeal into Russian with plans to translate more.
And Faaayeee42 on AO3 translated Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) to Mandarin Chinese.
I'm forever blown away by this.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Nope! Done some brainstorming a few times but nothing that has evolved into actually writing out a shared thing. Not sure I'd be any good at it tbh. I'd probably be a very frustrating writing partner.
14. What's your all-time favorite ship?
Peter Parker/Harley Keener. They're good boys.
15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?
My Infinity War time travel fix it (make it worse) fic 😔 It's got so much potential but it is perpetually at the bottom of the to-do list.
16. What are your writing strengths?
Dialogue and developing relationships
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
mother fucking action sequences and like, coming up with The Plan (the evil kind and the ones to take down the evil kind)
This silly little graphic I made for You're Freaking Out where Harley mocks The Plan made by the spider dumplin gang was initially one half of my brain negging the other half about being shit at making Plans and I decided that it might as well manifest as the characters lmao
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
Eh. It's fanfiction, you know? Do what you want. Experiment. Try your best to do it justice. Accept that some people are going to let their eyes blur and skim over it while others will pick it apart but most will exist somewhere in the middle. Just write what you want to write, how you want to write it.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
*sigh* Harry Potter. Looking forward to my own post getting gobbled up by my block list lmao
20. Favorite fic you've written?
Goodness gracious how do I even decide? I think Peaches Ain't Pretty is my favorite. It's the fic that showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can step outside of fanfiction and write whatever I want and be just as satisfied, if not more.
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hi! i really like surrender so i'm excited to see you're planning a second chapter! could you tell us more about it please? 😊
hi!!! 🥺 i'm glad u liked surrender 🥺💞 and absolutely i can!
this is a really funny story actually
so i wrote surrender (and am planning to write the rest of the series it is a part of) bc me and boots thought that there simply is not enough orange overall porn in this fandom. and i thought u know what yeah this fic is just pwp we don't need to think abt the consequences and the implications of the actions in this fic
cue not long after this chapter the people were like soooo chapter 2 ? we need to know what happens now. we need to know abt the consequences and the implications.
and after some convincing (and since im famously very easily convinced to write smthg) i agreed to write a chapter 2
so chapter 2 is gonna continue on where surrender left off and explore vegas and pete navigating the changes in their relationship and the consequences of the blowjob and it is about halfway written !
here's a little snippet for u!
He remembers that the sweet kisses and shared breaths filling his lungs with something sweeter than life — relief for an insatiable hunger — are just a façade, a plot to get him to relinquish control, to betray his own loyalties.
And under that warm hand that inflicted pain and pleasure alike onto him, he tenses.
And he waits with bated breath.
He waits for Vegas' next move, for Vegas to tell him he's no longer interesting, no longer useful, that he has served his purpose, that now, he has to die. He waits for a blade at his throat, a gun to his head, a rope around his neck.
But nothing happens.
Vegas just frowns.
"Pete", he calls out again. His voice sounds weird. Devoid of any of the usual sharpness. "Pete, I'm–"
He takes his hand off, almost flinching back a little, looking entirely too clumsy to be the same Vegas who just pried him open with clinical precision. When he places his hand back on Pete's chest, it's without any pressure at all. It's gentle, the way Vegas knows how to be too, but his expression indicates no real danger and his hand lacks purpose, simply lying there, unmoving.
"Pete, I'm not going to hurt you."
ask me about my wips !
#i just need to sit down and finish it#which is a little more difficult bc it requires a specific tone that i cant always hit#but i promise u ill finish it#i'm very excited abt it !#thanks for the ask !!!!#asks#ask game answers
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Writing Program?
Question from locked friend on twitter: I've been curious what program(s) you write with and how you manage the organizational part of writing such long works.
tl;dr I currently write in a free word processor called OpenOffice. I use Headings to generate an index and use that to navigate around a single document. I have multiple documents that each serve a different purpose- at the minimum, there's a doc for the story, Notes, and Graveyard.
I recently purchased Scrivener but I'm scared to put The Echo Garden into it at this stage [what if something goes horribly wrong? what is the learning curve? ahhhh]. I will definitely try it out for whatever my next project is, though.
For a deep dive into my organizational method...
I'll use two fics as examples.
"The Angel Breaker" is what I'd call a medium-long fic, at about 62,000 words. Around 2020? 2021? I jotted down a few ideas, scenes, and brainstorming into a single document. I really liked the idea but didn't know what the plot was. I kept poking at it until there were enough scenes that I found it easier to navigate everything if I pulled them out into their own document.
I sat on this idea for a long time, until the 2022 Big Bang came up and I decided to use Angel Breaker for it. One thing to know about me: I write scenes out of order. So the first thing I did was make a new doc and put the already written scenes into it in order. It's pretty rare that I plan out a long fic, but for this one, as I went along, I found myself knowing approximately what needed to happen. I was able to jot down a lot of placeholder chapter titles for the parts that weren't written yet.
I ended up with a doc for the ongoing story, a doc for Notes (world building, character info, etc), and a doc for Graveyard (instead of deleting scenes & notes I don't use, I put them here. Highly recommend you to keep a Graveyard!).
I didn't number the chapters until the very end, since I didn't know exactly how many chapters total there would be. I knew that images were going to comprise their own chapters, and that I can't change AO3's default numbering in the Chapter Index pull down, so I numbered each chapter twice in my Headings index: one number represents the chapter number as displayed on AO3, the other is the actual chapter in the story.
What the hell am I talking about? Let me explain my Headings navigation thing real quick.
Your word processor probably has the capability to change selected text into different formatting. If you change a single line of text to Headings, it will generate a little index you can navigate. This is what it looks like in OpenOffice.
To change a line of text to Headings, select the text and then change from Default to Headings in this drop down:
This is the "generated index" for Angel Breaker. Each of these lines can be clicked on and then the page will jump to that part of the fic. To get a heading to be a 'subset' of the heading above it, use Heading 1 for the 'main' chapter, and Heading 2 for the chapters 'inside it.' In this example, "CH5 PART 1..." is formatted as Heading 1 and "CH6 1 -1" is Heading 2:
Side notes: I jotted chapter titles for myself to remember what each chapter was about, but didn't put them in the final on AO3. The "CH#" correlates to the actual Chapter number on AO3's chapter index, and the all-caps chapter names or the "1 - 1" style labels are what I named the chapters. Here is a screenshot of the AO3 chapter index so you can see what I mean:
So yeah. You can survive writing an absolutely enormous fic with just this tool alone! Google docs has this capability and I'm certain other word processors do, too.
But what happens when I write something really fucking long?
"The Echo Garden" is a very long fic, currently 206,000 words on AO3 and has hundreds of pages of future scenes, world building notes, character arc info, research, and more scattered across four documents, plus I have one huge doc of the entire story as it's been uploaded so far:
"RodimusSoundwave" is the 'working doc,' where I work on the next chapter to be uploaded. It's usually a horrible mishmash of scenes, notes, reminders of what the chapter is going to accomplish, characterization notes, and despair. (Sidenote: it's titled "RodimusSoundwave" because I wrote a bunch of scenes before I thought of the title.)
"Rodimus Soundwave notes" is a huge file of worldbuilding, character notes, etc. This doc also contains my attempt to write an outline. As I use chunks of info, I highlight them in different colors as a reminder to myself that I've already covered that material.
"Future chapters Echo Garden" is where I put all the chapters that are written out, but we haven't reached them yet (remember: I write things out of order. why? I have no idea). This can be entirely finished chapters or just little scenes. If I use the scene, I put a // before the Heading so I can glance at my generated index and know what I've already used.
"Used or NA notes" is the graveyard. Unused notes, scenes, chapters, even individual lines that weren't used go here. idk why but sometimes chapters in the "Future chapters" doc get moved here instead of //'d. This doc is a messy and terrible place. Things deposited here but might never be found again xD
And "The Echo Garden" is everything that's on AO3. It's very handy to have this for referencing back to earlier chapters. Each chapter title is formatted Headings so I have a nice big navigable index.
So inside of each of these monster docs is an index, just like you see above, and I jump between and among them as necessary.
There is one function that I lack using this software, however, and that is something like "index cards." I've used photoshop, as well as actual index cards, to write out scene descriptions and then try to figure out what freaking order to put them in. I've had such a hard time recently figuring out how to puzzle the next part of the fic that I made a RTF file and just... tried to put all the things I have to remember to address in there. It lives on my desktop like this lol:
To be really honest with you, I enjoy this system because it keeps things broadly organized, but within the docs there is a lot of messy stuff happening. I think of things, jot them down. Forget them. Rethink of them again later, jot them down. Now I have 2 scattered, slightly differently phrased similar ideas. If I think of things while at work, I scribble them madly onto scraps of paper and take them home, then try to fit them into the Notes somewhere. (Then I tape all the little papers into a notebook like a weirdo, lol, but I can't let them go!) I also have a ton of notes in my phone for when I think of stuff while in bed. I move it into Notes or write it into scenes as needed.
All that said, as I understand it, Scrivener will allow me to put ALL of this stuff into one file, and it also has an index card thingy, and a lot more. I am looking forward to using it if Echo Garden ever ends xD [it will end. the ending is written. we just gotta get there]
Thanks for reading and if you have any questions about this method, feel free to ask =)
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@charlotterhea and @asphodelandabsinthe, thank you for asking me! Both of y'all asked for 6 and 11 so I thought I'd put them together.
6. Which yet-to-be-started fic is first on your list for this year?
Ahhh, yeah. I was talking to @renee561 (I don't know why I can't tag them??? ) and figured out some of my issues. I have invisible rules for myself.
A. I need to finish 🎭 Fic. I need to finish 🦕 fic. I need to finish 🐺 fic. All are 'late'. From 2 weeks to over a year. I feel guilty for not finishing them, and won't let me work on other things until I finish those first. Those feelings aren't fun. The guilt, the shame for not finishing the thing, I am really mean to myself (which I don't realize until I start to write about it on Tumblr 😅) I need to give myself grace and tell myself it's okay to purposely put them aside for a while.
I want to work on a Fairytale. Probably my Twelve Dancing Princesses AU. That's my favorite fairytale. I haven't worked on it since August 2022. I was looking up the caduceus (The medical symbol with the snakes twining around a rod) and having that be the "Dark Mark" in this AU because it's a symbol of Hermes and the dark followers are going to be Voldies messengers in this fic. I'm quite proud of that detail.
8. Is there a story idea in your mental vault that you've never been brave enough to try writing? Is this the year? Can you tell us about it?
My secret fic! It's less of a secret the more I talk about it, 😅 It's an Alice in Wonderland AU for Harry Potter. The idea came to me last year (spring ish 2022?). There's no real writing work on it yet. I have a playlist for it. I have snippets of it. I've done lots of thinking on roses and decks of cards and the different suites and which HP characters fit which Wonderland characters. I know that I want to make a flowing paint art to make the map of wonderland. I know the Forrest and mushrooms will be important.
I know I'm not as strong enough writer right now to write it the way I want to. I feel so strongly about this idea and I'm worried about doing it justice. Yet I also relate to the advice that says don't hold anything in reserve. Write all the ideas now. More ideas will come. I need to start writing it and not worry about whether I am "good enough" to write it (because I will never judge myself "good enough".) The requirements should be
1. Do I know English enough to write? ✅ Yes I do
2. Do I have a story to tell? ✅ Yes I have a story.
The end of requirements.
I think this will be the year to get on paper the parts that I do know. I'm still missing chunks of plot, so it will be a while before it's released. I'm still excited about it.
11. Would you like to try any new fanfic tropes or genres or tropes this year?
I dunno. I like the soulmates trope and read pretty much everything I can get my hands on for it. I've never written any (I think?) So maybe I'll get around to writing some myself. Maybe even for my second favorite pairing, Charlie Weasley x Draco Malfoy.
13. Aside from fanfic, are there any other fan works you'd like to try creating? Fanart, or fan vids? Giftsets or podfic?
Yes! I loved one of my oneshot last year and I did actually record my rendition of it. And I immediately appreciated audiobooks and folks who do podfics more. The audio isn't the best, and I need more practice. (And to figure out some mitigation plans for background noise)
My goal for this year is to do at least one fan bookbinding. I love that idea and would enjoy a physical copy of some of my favorite comfort fics.
Thank you so much for the asks! It makes me so warm and happy inside to get the requests. You gave me a gift and I am grateful ❤️❤️❤️
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first you wanna complain about how only your smut fics blow up and normal fics don't get recognition. about how tumblr audience is one track minded. as if you're entitled to people liking all the shit you put out.
and now you want validation for your fic which has underage heeseung smut???
yk what? fuck you. you're a horrible, horrible, disgusting human being. to even think of an actual human being like this. and pair it with your mental breakdown about some random as fic of yours not getting enough notes. kys. pls im begging you.
1) NO you absolutely cannot write about underage heeseung having sex with a much older woman. it is disgusting, perverse and paedophilic.
2) people didn't like that fic of yours because your writing is shit.
Trigger warning proceed with caution⛔️
I’m going to address everything cause I will not have you coming on here and accuse me of such nasty things
First I never said I was entitled to people liking my fics I just made it clear that there’s a huge difference between nsfw and sfw and that it would be nice if everyone got the same recognition for putting in the same amount of work also I don’t know what you mean by “normal” fics
Never even once said I wanted validation I asked for opinions on the topic because I want to avoid making anyone uncomfortable I want to get this very clear so I’m not looked at in any different type of light
And incase no one saw it that particular idea about the underage fic is absolutely 100% true but it was for plot purposes only and I never intended to go in to detail about it furthermore I don’t even have anything written yet and upon seeking other opinions I decided to change it
I’m just Gonna say I have no idea what mental breakdown you’re even talking about at this point so I’ll move on from that quickly
It was never about notes to begin with it’s about people not getting recognition that they deserve for putting in hard work into everything they write writers have actually left because of this topic alone but I’m not going to get into all that right now cause it will be hard for you to understand
I’m not writing about underage heeseung nor am I posting anything like that to my page
Once again I have no idea what fic you’re even talking about
All that aside if I offended you I apologize greatly I have a tendency to joke around about things in a harsh manner but in the end I wouldn’t even be able to have a voice or opinion if it wasn’t for all my lovely beautiful followers I love you all for sticking with me and I hope none of this change’s your perception of me
Whoever you are once again I do sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding I might have caused between us thank you for your opinion and I’ll be careful with my words from now on so this doesn’t happen again
I’d strongly advise you to not go around spreading hate messages or slandering other peoples blogs with such things i understand you’re upset with the things I did but that is definitely not warrant for you to tell me to commit the s word nothing is and these types of asks could be really harmful to others personally I’m not bothered by them but others could be so please be careful
I think I addressed everything so if anyone else has questions for me please just shoot an ask my way without all the hate I never wanted my blog to be muddy up the way it is but I’m partly responsible for it so it is what it is I’m not looking for sympathy if I did something wrong lay it on me but all I ask is for you to use logic
So I think that’s all once again thanks to all my followers I love you all you’ve been real I’ll do my best not to cause anymore unnecessary drama I just want my blog to be a safe place for everyone to simp over hee
Anonymous whoever you are I’m sorry you feel this way towards me but I hope we can get past this now stay safe and I love you❤️
Ps if anyone thinks I’m not being sincere I could have just deleted this ask but I’m addressing this cause I want to grow and learn from MY mistakes and spread awareness
Thanks for taking time to read I hope everyone has a good day/night
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do you have any other unpublished fics or wips? i'm curious as i'm also a writer but i have all these fics that i never post LOL what do you do with them when you're done!
I actually have a few WIPs! Its definitely a writer thing, I think we just can’t turn our brains off and it keeps imagining new ideas for how these two blorbos can fall in love and then you have to sit down with it and be like ‘we don’t have time for this, you’re already dedicated to [insert published wip fic here]’ and your brain just laughs and comes up with another coffee shop AU because it’s a bitch like that
That said, I’ve been meaning to make a list of my other fics I’ve been slowly working on (OEL takes up a lot of brainspace and time for me), so here’s my 3 most developed ideas (as in, I’ve actually written scenes/a good chunk of the fic)
1. [nameless fic 1]: I’m calling it the Uni AU in my docs, but it’s a modern day AU bdk friends-with-benefits break-up/make-up fic and it’s my favourite of the wips I’m working on. it’s very angsty. VERY angsty. I mean, I hoping to also make it quite lighthearted... until it isn’t.
Basically, bkdk are friends of friends. Katsuki’s a bit of a fuckboy, whereas Izuku is hung-up on someone. they have a one-off fling, which then continues into fwb, which low-key turns into dating just neither one of them want to admit it. Fed up of wondering if Katsuki is seeing other people, Izuku asks Katsuki to go steady and Katsuki says no. Heartbroken, Izuku breaks off their relationship and Katsuki spirals...
anyway, I really wanna talk about this one so have a snippet
“Deku, I don’t want to lose you.”
“You haven’t lost me. We agreed to stay friends,” Izuku reminds him. His eyes tell a different story though, sad and downcast. He doesn’t even believe his own words.
“That’s bullshit,” Katsuki says, and it’s only half on purpose. Izuku’s head snaps up to look at him and Katsuki makes the snap decision of committing to his word vomit. “That’s such bullshit. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Don’t give me that crap.”
“What do you want me to say? I was heartbroken!” Izuku says with such force that Katsuki feels momentarily blown away. “I-” his strength leaves him, and Izuku’s chin ducks back towards his chest. “I am heartbroken, Kacchan. Present tense. And it - it hurts to see you.”
Katsuki doesn’t know what to say.
‘How long do you think it’ll take until that’s no longer the case?‘ Is insensitive at best, downright selfish at worst. ‘Your absence is upsetting me. Stop it. Come back.’
Selfish. Always so fucking selfish. He’s never really learnt how to stop, has he?
“We will still be friends?” Katsuki asks. “After … after it stops hurting so much?” There’s something obstructing his airways, and he swallows it down. His vision wavers. “We’ll still be friends.” He says it less like a question and more like a statement, like by saying it he can make it be true.
Deku isn’t looking at him; he’s staring out the window out on the parking lot, seemingly entranced by someone doing a shit job of parallel parking. Internally, Katsuki screams at him to just look at me. He’s right here, why isn’t Izuku looking at him?
Izuku doesn’t reply.
2. Well-Intended Love AU: this is inspired by a cDrama of the same name and plot, which I would diverge from after the initial set up.
Katsuki is a ridiculously rich and powerful CEO, while Izuku is a graduating student who has just found out he has leukaemia. To survive, Izuku needs a spinal fluid transplant, and he has one match in the system; however, that person has refused to be a donor to anyone (guess who it is). Izuku sneaks a look at his donors details while the doctor isn’t looking and basically bugs Katsuki until he gives in to be his donor in exchange for Izuku marrying him for 2 years to get his mother off his back. queue classic fake-relationship turns to real relationship montage (with sugar baby vibes). only, a few months later, Izuku starts feeling the same symptoms he had when he was diagnosed. He goes to his doctor who can find no record of his surgery on file, so Izuku starts looking around the house for his medical record. Opens the safe that Katsuki has never let him near and inside finds an initial blood report from when he first got hospitalised, which basically says he just had bad anaemia. In the same file are bunches of photos of him that he knows are from before he and Katsuki met, taken from a distance. it turns out Katsuki owns the hospital he was diagnosed at, and faked Izuku’s illness (it’s semi-yandere/obsessed Katsuki yall)
And this leads into wip 3, which I’m considering combining with number 2
3. Things Better Left Unsaid: A mostly written E-rated oneshot (it’s filthy). Following sugar baby omega Izuku and CEO alpha Katsuki (I am a woman of simple tastes okay?). I ... cannot say much about this one without the hand of god (tumblr moderators) coming down on me, killing me instantly, so I’m just going to put down a snippet to set the mood
“I’m taking you to the company dinner in two weeks time. You’ll need a new dress, at least.” Katsuki finally says, impatient. “Don’t argue with me on this.”
He’s sitting like a king on the sofa in the main boudoir of the fitting rooms. All black suit and dangerous elegance. One leg up with his calf on his other knee, and arm spreading across the back of the couch, taking up space in the dominating way he likes to do.
Izuku is standing on a pedestal set before the mirrors, but he still feels very small under Katsuki’s eyes. The room matches those eyes, red red red. Warm but ample lighting makes the room feel intimate and expensive. Katsuki’s eyes make Izuku feel even more so.
Izuku nods, and he takes on the dress the attendant hands to him. The last thing he sees before the dressing room door closes is Katsuki languidly watching him from the sofa as a bowing beta offers him refreshments. The girls shirt slips down her shoulder, seemingly on accident if her eyes hadn’t been so carefully watching for Katsuki’s reaction.
It doesn’t matter though. Katsuki had never looked away from Izuku; he didn’t see her.
Smirking, Izuku closes the curtain to the dressing room, tries on the dress, and gapes.
There’s no way this is right.
This is way too revealing for such a formal event. Katsuki doesn’t normally dress him like this.
He goes out, intending to make Katsuki get him the proper dress, but is stunned into silence by the way Katsuki’s entire body language turns predatory upon seeing him.
“Perfect. On the pedestal,” he orders, eyes dark. He takes a sip out of a crystal tumbler of whiskey, never looking away, before placing the glass down.
Legs feeling like jelly, he takes careful steps up onto the platform. Katsuki clicks for a male attendant, who comes running. The previous girl is nowhere to be seen. “The shoes.”
The attendant comes back with the shoes, and kneels at Izuku’s feet to help him into them. They’re high, and Izuku wobbles on one as he slips into the second one. The beta below him looking up at him, cheeks pink, as he holds out a hand for Izuku to hold as he catches his balance.
Thankful, Izuku takes it, ignoring Katsuki's warning growl as they work together to get him secure on both feet.
Izuku can feel Katsuki’s angry eyes burning a hole right through his back. Burning hotter when the attendant doesn’t leave once the shoes on, staying to work the clasps around Izuku’s ankle. He lingers a little longer than necessary, fingers whispering around the small clasp.
Katsuki snarls, threatening, and the attendant springs away from Izuku.
"I- I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean- I'll excuse myself."
"Wait," Katsuki says before the attendant can leave, black-smoke voice smooth. Izuku suddenly feels too warm, fever hot and rubbing his thighs together, feeling so empty.
Katsuki sounds dangerous, and Izuku knows what that means.
Flushed and embarrassed, the attendant ducks his head as he turns to wait for his instructions from Katsuki.
“Go and get the diamond decagon necklace and the matching earrings from the vaults,” Katsuki orders, a growl still in his voice. “Quickly.”
The attendant all but runs from the room. Izuku doesn’t notice, too busy staring down Katsuki in the mirrors.
“Deku, come here.”
I hope that answers your ask! tbh, I have a lot of little ideas that I write down but they don’t often develop into anything structured. there’s a few docs in my folder that could potentially be published as little drabbles... but idk, I write them and then I forget about them because they don’t feel finished but I’m also not that keen on working on them more. what about you?
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💭: fairytales and demons
one of my goals when writing long live the long life was to incorporate a fairy tale-like writing style. specifically, I wanted to write the plot as if it's a fairy tale happening in present time. the goal is to have a story happen such that, thousands of years from the present, people will talk about the events as if they happened in a legend or a fairy tale. the characters and stories will be remembered, though the details might be distorted in favor of fiction.
to do this, I've decided three things to do for my fic.
⚠️ I'm writing this while I'm in the middle of planning/writing the first interlude, but this will have major spoilers for the whole fic
#1: create an artifact set
writing a fairy tale ties in with the way genshin writes itself as well. so to double down on this, I wanted to write a fic such that you can summarize the events of it in an artifact set. I even have ideas of whose stories fit into each artifact, which the devs themselves mentioned are based on the tarot.
flower (wands / life): lumine, symbolized by her inteyvat flower
plume (swords / death): aether, symbolized by his feather earring
sands (pentacles / time or eon): venti, already associated with wind and time
goblet (cup / space or eonothem): scaramouche, who later in act iii will gain dominion over teyvat. so I think he fits eonothem the most. in act iii, once the purpose of celestia in the fic is revealed, I plan on using an hourglass to symbolize the looping system. if you cut an hourglass in half, you would have two cups. :)
crown (dealer / reason or logos): albedo. still thinking of his "item" but he fits logos the best because he's the character who "sees" the truth by the end of act ii (albeit incompletely). chronologically, he and dorian will become sort of "guardians" for the new age so it's reasonable to end the story of the artifact set with them
side note i: interestingly, the lost offerings of the chasm follow the same pattern of an artifact set
so yes, I'm planning to write my own artifact set for the epilogue! I think it'll be fun to do. I'm actually using this artifact set as a guide to tie all the main characters together and give each of them an important role in the fairy tale that I am weaving.
when I first conceived the idea for long live the long life, I was only planning to write three chapters (lol). one chapter focused on lumine, one on albedo, and a final chapter that will now serve as the fic's epilogue. in the epilogue, I wanted to evoke the fairy tale writing and the passage of time as much as I can. our main characters are gods and their stories will become legends, even if for most of the fic we see them act the same as humans regardless of their godhood status
side note ii: although this won't be written into the story explicitly, I noticed that as I'm writing, I might be creating a pattern where the side characters are becoming thematic parallels of our main characters. in my eyes, what I see is:
lumine / klee
aether / cyno?
venti / xingqiu
scaramouche / dorian
albedo / mona
#2: reference real world myths
I wanted to use real world fairy tales and myths as parallels to the events that happen in the plot. I ended up referencing common greek myths since these stories are most likely already familiar to readers while also regarded as fictional enough that it wouldn't step on anyone's toes when it comes to religious beliefs.
this serves two reasons: to build on the theme of stories as guidance (since these stories will guide the characters in the plot), and to circle back to it by having the characters star in their own fairy tale in the epilogue.
we see this in action first thing in the prologue when alice tells venti about wishing on shooting stars so the gods can perceive his desires. inspired by this, venti makes a wish himself and that is how lumine finds him.
in act i, I mentioned the story of pandora to illustrate the nuances of the value of hope. my guiding theme for act i was essentially the question of the freedom and hopelessness of hope (venti) vs the burden and empowerment of duty (lumine), and how both can be chains or keys to personal freedom.
this also foreshadows future events as well. heru is the story's pandora, whose curiosity triggers the chain of events that we see in act ii. albedo is also another pandora. from the story that lumine provided, the moral that albedo walks away with is that, "pandora looked into the box twice." so even if curiosity leads to bad things (such as when pandora released evil into the world by opening the box), one must continue on beyond that, because there at the end lies hope. or, as another saying puts it: curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. albedo was gambling on satisfaction to save himself.
in act ii, we also see xingqiu reading about the story of icarus, whose ambitions led to his downfall. this is, again, a parallel to albedo's story in act ii with his ambition to pursue the truth and his own "wings" (eye and arm) clipped off as a result. this can also apply to aether in act iii if you squint
for scaramouche, I plan on using the myth of sisyphus to illustrate his character. when I was first brainstorming this fic, I wanted to make scaramouche an absurdist hero. tbh he was supposed to be a side character and there wasn't supposed to be an act iii, but uh. obviously that's not happening anymore lol. anyway, the myth of sisyphus (the essay) is albert camus's whole thesis for absurdism.
the secret of teyvat is that it's a puppet world built as an eternal recurrence machine (referencing nietzsche's thought experiment) with celestia as its little palace. everyone is sisyphus rolling the boulder upwards until it rolls back down. the world resets over and over. scaramouche's search for a subjective meaning in a world that doesn't provide an answer is exactly the point of absurdism as written by camus.
with act iii and aether, I will be using the myth of prometheus. I've characterized aether as a "cheerful scholar" who genuinely wants the progression of humanity through knowledge and technology. in the play prometheus bound, prometheus's two great gifts to humanity are hope (helps us in our struggle for a better future) and fire (the source of technology that makes our hopes a reality).
#3: reference scientific demons
this is an idea that I only started considering literally today, and is the whole reason I'm writing this post lmao. so this section will be more rambly and less definite than the previous two, with a lot of me throwing ideas around. but I really love this idea so much and I think it will fit with act iii and aether. it's also my way of doing a callback to how genshin names its archons with the names of ars goetia demons. in this fic, however, scaraventher in act iii will try to overcome the demons named after the thought experiments of our real world scientists.
⚠️ disclaimer: I'm not a scientist nor am I a philosopher (obviously). since this is something that I just started ideating on literally a few hours ago, I haven't done the deep work of checking if I understood all the scientific/philosophical principles here correctly. so uh, if there's a correction to be made here re: science demons, let me know!
okay so act iii is about determining your reality and your future. aether's little palace holds knowledge systems, in contrast to lumine's little palace which holds memories. to tie with the prometheus myth mentioned above: lumine already covers the gift of "hope" so I want aether to cover the gift of "technology" and what better way to illustrate this in a fairy tale fic than by overcoming "science" demons?
so far, I have four demons in mind that are relevant to the themes of act iii.
the first is descarte's demon, the trickster of reality. descarte's demon can install an alternate reality to fool you into thinking that it's real. this is basically the same as the matrix, or the brain in a vat. how do you know if you live in a fake world made to fool your senses? how do you know if you're real? descarte's answer to this is to think of things that the demon couldn't touch a.k.a. logic or axioms that must be true in any reality. the only thing descartes cannot doubt is that he is a thinking being i.e. cogito ergo sum. in the fic, the dream world in act iii (not in act ii; yes, there will be two dream worlds and yes, they are separate. bear with me!) is an illustration of this demon, which venti must confront and wake up from in order to return to reality.
the second and third demons are laplace's demon and nietzsche's demon, the gods of determinism. I already touched upon nietzsche's demon in the previous section. the demon is the one that reveals to you that you live in an eternal recurrence, a life that loops where you will do the same things and meet the same fate over and over in every iteration. this is what leads nietzche to his amor fati idea. we already know teyvat works as a loop, though we (or at least I, seeing as I haven't done the sumeru quests yet) don't know the details yet in-game. but in this fic, teyvat is a literal eternal recurrence machine. it's like that machine wilhelm controls in the the end of xenosaga iii that allows him to reset the universe over and over. scaramouche will find this very absurd.
laplace's demon is an argument for causal determinism. a demon who knows the current precise state of the universe, and has perfect knowledge of all laws of the universe, must be able to calculate all known future states of the universe. whether or not causal determinism is true in the real world is, of course, irrelevant to the fic. I want to use laplace's demon as an allegory for the those who can become the master of the ley lines. in the fic, we have three candidates: aether, heru, and albedo. all of them fail, of course, but aether is probably the closest to succeeding into becoming such a demon. heru dies in her attempt, albedo loses an eye and an arm, while aether basically survives through his journey in the ley lines and tries (fails) to exhibit control by taking over celestia.
side note iii: originally, I wanted to reference the akasha records for the ley lines. the leylines are like teyvat's database, a storage of energy, memories, and information. I wanted albedo to go to a domain alone and try to access the truth by accessing the ley lines in its most pure form, and have that experience be similar to how one reads the akasha records. HOWEVER when 3.0 came out and I saw that hoyoverse already used that idea for sumeru's akasha system, I basically had to remove this idea altogether lol. so now I'm replacing my inspiration from the akasha records with laplace's demon instead.
the last demon is maxwell's demon, the infinite brain. the demon can hypothetically violate the second law of thermodynamics, which demands that, statistically, entropy of a system cannot decrease. I won't go through the specifics of the thought experiment here, although it's very important to understand and it's probably the most technical thought experiment of the four I've mentioned (the other three being more philosophical in nature). if you're interested, the first half of this video has a good explanation. anyway, the important thing to note is that for maxwell's demon to exist, it must be able to store infinite information. (fun fact: in the real world, AFAIK, the densest storage of information known to man is a black hole)
maxwell's demon has a similar starting point to laplace's demon. both are infinite beings with perfect knowledge of a given system. the difference is what they do with it. whereas laplace's demon is concerned with the predictability of the system, maxwell's demon is concerned with the transformation of a system without expending energy.
as I was making this observation, I realize that teyvat in this fic, as a puppet world, is an entirely closed system with a near-infinite information database system (the leylines). every time it "loops" teyvat, it brings it to a state of seemingly less entropy, a state where civilizations die and start over, and where human progress is reset. although technically landauer's principle still follows since the decrease in information in teyvat just means that information is stored back in the leylines; entropy is therefore conserved. so I guess celestia is not a true maxwell demon, but it is an attempt at one.
I think I can probably tie all of these together with the twins' backstory. the twins were an attempt to create laplace's demon, while celestia was an attempt at creating maxwell's. if you can perfectly create both (for the record, all attempts to make either have failes), what would stop you from becoming a truly omniscient and omnipotent god over the world you have dominion over? (assuming that such a world is a closed system)
anyway, I'm not completely sure how much I'll sprinkle this into the fic since I don't want it to become too reliant on people knowing what the heck these science demons are about, and I still want "fairy tales" to be the main inspiration of the fic. and especially since I'm already working on another fic (time is a vinyl record) that has scifi elements where this kind of inspiration is called for (albedo is literally a rocket scientist there and is thinking about the EPR paradox day and night and I'm planning to drop the line "plays dice with the cosmos" in the summary... like that fic is just literally me writing fiction about the random science stuff I like to search about). but they're useful for ideating and fleshing out the story for myself as I continue to write, so they're still useful nonetheless. and they're just plain fun to think about lol.
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Memories
Castiel and Dean used to be inseparable, before Cas had to move away. He clung to the memories of their time together, hoarding them like gold.
And now, he's here.
But will Dean remember him?
Read it on AO3!
When they moved, Naomi told him to forget.
Outwardly, he did. He stopped talking about it, carefully minding his words and actions.
He kept the memories buried in the back of his mind, treasured and secret.
Castiel wouldn’t forget the crooked smiles and the sweaty hands. He held onto the emerald eyes and chocolate-smeared cheeks. The smothered giggles as they snuck chocolate milk from the kitchen, so certain they had escaped unnoticed. The way freckles looked when they were stretched wide in a gap-toothed grin.
Castiel refused to let the memories go.
And now, as he stood sweating on an old, familiar doorstep, he refused to let his fears take over.
He had moved out as soon as he could, choosing a college near where he had grown up as a child. His mother had refused to speak with him after their last fight, and he tried not to mind. It was hard, even after everything she had done. Naomi had caused him so much pain, so much hurt, but she was still his mother. It hurt so, so much to let go of the hope that one day he’d make her proud.
He had moved into the dorms of the University of Kansas on a Tuesday, carefully tucking away the clothes and few belongings he had managed to take with him. It had taken him an hour to find the house. A full day to find the courage to walk up the path. He tried to work up his nerve by wearing the nicest clothes he had, a rumpled white dress shirt and an old blue tie. His old trench coat, the one fight he had managed to win as a teenager, a security blanket purchased with saved-up birthday money.
It was Thursday, and his hands shook as he stared at the white door. He didn’t even know if they lived here anymore. He didn’t know what he would do if they didn’t.
Castiel took a deep breath and knocked. He tried not to hyperventilate as he listened to the footsteps approach.
The door swung open, and his breath caught.
“Hello.” Mary Winchester said, smiling politely. Her blonde hair was short now, not the long, soft curls he remembered. She had more wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, soft lines that showed her kindness.
Castiel felt his eyes tear up.
“Can I help you?” She looked confused, but she kept smiling.
“Um,” Castiel wiped his eyes with his sleeve, laughing quietly in a mixture of embarrassment and relief. “Hi, sorry.” He smiled at the woman, eyes still shining. “My name is Castiel. I don’t know if you remember me, but I used to live next door. I, um,” He trailed off, suddenly realizing he didn’t have an excuse for being here.
Thankfully, Mary didn’t seem to need one, her face lighting up in recognition. “Castiel! Of course I remember you, I could never get you and Dean apart! Come in!” She waved him in, closing the door softly behind him and continuing to talk over her shoulder as she led him to the kitchen.
Castiel smiled softly to himself as he realized he knew the way.
“How are you doing? I haven’t heard from you or your mom since you moved.”
“I’m doing well,” he slowly sat in the edge of the chair she indicated. “I, ah,” he tried to find something to say that didn’t involve his mother, “I’m going to KU this semester.”
“That’s good,” she smiled at him. “Would you like some water? Coffee? Tea?”
“Um,” Castiel hesitated, unused to this level of hospitality, “Water is fine, thank you.”
“Not a problem,” she filled a glass of water and set it in front of him, settling herself in the chair opposite. “How’s your mom doing?”
“Um,” Castiel hesitated again, trying to find a delicate way to phrase it. “I’m not entirely sure. We’ve had a bit of a… falling-out, recently.”
Mary sighed, but her small frown was understanding. “I hope this isn’t rude, Castiel, but I have to say I’m not entirely surprised. Your mother was a very difficult woman to get along with.”
Castiel remained silent, internally battling himself on whether to defend his mother or agree.
“Oh,” Mary exclaimed, as if realizing something. “I should tell Dean you’re here! You know, he was so sad when you left, I couldn’t get him to smile at me for the longest time. I’m sure he’ll be ecstatic to see you.”
“Oh,” Castiel’s heart beat double time, nerves returning with a vengeance. This is why he came here, why was he so afraid? “Are you sure?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking quietly. What if Dean… didn’t want to see him? What if Dean had forgotten him?
Which one would be worse?
Mary’s eyes softened. “Of course I’m sure, sweetheart.” She stood, patting his shoulder as she passed. “I’ll send him down. I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”
He managed to nod as she left. He stared at the tabletop, trying to calm himself down. Mary was nice. She wouldn’t lie to him, right? She wouldn’t trick him like that, right? That would be too mean, right? His thoughts became increasingly hysterical, trying to convince himself of things he wasn’t sure of.
He took shuddering deep breaths, counting 2 in… 1 hold… 4 out… 1 hold…
He remembered the laughter they had shared, the bright smiles. What chocolate chip cookies tasted like when they were eaten underneath tablecloths, falling apart because they were still a little too hot. He took a final deep breath and let it out, smiling softly to himself. It would be okay.
Castiel’s head jerked up at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He shot to his feet and turned to face the door as a figure walked through it.
Castiel stared at Dean, trying to memorize this new person, just in case he did kick Cas out. He had a look of confusion on his face. Mary must not have told him who he was meeting. His eyes were greener than he remembered. He was tall, taller than Castiel now. His hair was a very light brown, almost blonde, no doubt lightened by the summer sun.
He… Castiel’s eyes filled with tears again. He had So. Many. Freckles.
“Hello, Dean.” Castiel managed, voice watery. He shook his head at himself, wiping his eyes.
Dean’s eyes widened as he took a halting step forward. “Cas?” His voice was so low it was almost a whisper.
Castiel couldn’t stop the giant smile that broke across his face. “You remembered me.” Dean remembered him. He laughed wetly.
“You’re here,” Dean said, stepping forward again. He still looked a little shell-shocked.
“I am,” Castiel agreed, staring again. He couldn’t stop himself.
Dean rewarded him with a brilliant smile. His eyes looked like they were shining, too. He walked forward and wrapped Castiel in a tight hug. “Hey, Cas.” He said softly.
Castiel buried his face in Dean’s shoulder. “Hello, Dean.” He said again, just because he could.
“I missed you so much, man.” Dean’s arms tightened around him.
“I missed you, too.” Castiel couldn’t stop himself from laughing softly.
“What?” Dean pulled back but kept his hands on Cas’ shoulders, still smiling hugely. “What’s so funny?”
Castiel shook his head, wiping his eyes with his sleeve again. “I just… I thought you would’ve forgotten me.” He leaned forward and rested his head on Dean’s shoulder again. “I’m so glad you didn’t.” He said quietly.
There was a pause, a breath a time where each just soaked the other in.
“I could never forget you, Castiel.” Dean said softly.
#fanfiction#fanfic#supernatural#Destiel#fluff#reunions#no monsters AU#AU#college AU#Mary is OOC but i like her that way#sappy#i wrote this in a couple hours#a fic with no real purpose or plot written at 2 AM#i don't really know why i wrote it tbh i just felt like it i guess#im bad at endings#whelvenwings
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WHEN are you posting the next installment I am ready to DIE
Quick answer: When I finish.
Slightly longer answer: When I finish, don’t hate it, and I’ve caught about 75% of the typos.
Longer answer (Slight spoilers ahead): When I finish, don’t hate it, feel like I’ve struck the proper balance between the crack, smut, & humor, and manage to pull off the jokes I unintentionally set up in the first 2 parts and have intentionally set up in this part. As of now there are 4 outlined smut scenes. The 2nd and 3rd smut scenes are very clear in my mind. I don’t anticipate struggling to write them. The 4th scene is sorta crucial to the flimsy thing I’m considering the ‘plot’ of this fic. Right now that’s just *fart noise* in my head. The first scene is started. It’s A LOT. There are way too many places I can take it. I’m a little overwhelmed by it right now. So I’m going to pop an edible, try to relax, and see where it goes. I anticipate writing multiple versions of the scene and then stitching together bits and pieces into something that works. I don’t know how long this will take. I’m hopeful that I can knock it out tomorrow and that writing the 2nd and 3rd scenes will naturally lead into the 4th. Can I do that by Sunday? Maybe. Once everything is written I’ll need to typo hunt for a good while. I’m absolutely shit at finding them. Word’s grammar check isn’t very helpful because I fuck around with commas, semicolons, periods, and sentence fragments on purpose. That’s me wanting you to read certain bits fast or slow or take a longer pause to sit with the words. If I can get through that before 8pm PT on Sunday, I’ll post it then. If not, Tuesday will be the next earliest day. I don’t want to release a fic when we have real life Kacy to enjoy. But Sunday/Tuesday is a best case scenario. There’s no guarantee that I will find the words or that I will even have time to write this weekend. If someone texts me with a better offer, then I’m out the door.
#asks#slow verse#my writing#please do not die#and if you do then it's not my fault#don't sue me#i have 6 figures of student loan debt#your estate will be wasting its time
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Writing Ask Game (except I answer them all)
💜- top 3 favorite lines:
“I’ve got you.” Evelyn mutters, risking the sound, because she needs him to know that she’s here. (ttfattf ch. 17) (evelyn x emmett)
There’s an echo of her pain in his face.(ttfattf ch 5)
He said her name as if it were meant to be written on tapestries and hung in gilded temples. He said her name as if it was a whisper to the stars, a promise to the cosmos, a prayer to the Gods. (opposites on the color wheel) (caleb widogast x jester lavore)
☕️- favorite passage
Emmett gives her lustrous and humid summers on baseball fields and campgrounds and swimming in creeks. He tells her about outdoor concerts and games he’s seen and which were the best. She gives him candied and vivacious autumns with apple picking and homemade costumes and movie marathons. She tells him about surviving nursing school and becoming a role model for her younger sisters.
He gives her pollen-soaked spring, building blanket forts with his brother and learning to drive stick-shift with his father. He tells her about his mother who passed away when he was in his early twenties. She gives him frigid, white-out winters cooped up in a skiing lodge with her college friends and her first and only trip into Manhattan to see the ball drop. She tells him about her childhood dream to be a fashion designer and how that dream ended when her father had a heart scare (“Nothing serious.” She says with a grimace, “But, when you’re seventeen everything feels like life or death.”)
(ttattf ch 13)
👻- 2 or 3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet
(already posted this one. thank u to the anon who sent it!)
😅- a line that made you feel second hand embarrassment
i am gonna be real with u....i don’t think i have any LMAO
👁- series or oneshots?
series, because i’m INSANE.
💍- your most underrated story
The ONLY ever community fic I wrote !! I didn’t even finish the show, lmao. But, it’s Jeff x Britta featuring “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
☺️- a line that made you feel a fluffy happiness
Emmett shook his head faintly, a fond smile tugging at his lips, “You’re a gift to me every single day.” (12 heartbeats ch. 10)
😳- your scariest line
i don’t write SCARY things. I don’t think so anyway.
😏- your most risky line
baby. i’ve written smut. they’re ALL risky.
💁♀️- reader insert or OC?
as a main character for shippy purposes, reader insert.
but OC’s are good for like side-characters/supporting cast. I think all my fandom focused fics feature at least one or two OC’s.
👶- advice for new writers
be cringe. it’s fine. write silly stuff, write the goddamn story of your dreams with a 100 plot holes.
👀- favorite response to one of your works
i love them all tbh. but this one made me laugh/is one of my favorites:
“Crazy story, I shipped this pairing since the first AQP2 trailer came out a YEAR ago. The prospect of two steely survivors with heavy backstories and two different ways of surviving the death angels and the possibilities that could happen when they both worked together was SO appealing to me, BUT I also knew the ship wouldn’t work without tremendous amounts of slow burn to work through the ptsd endured by both characters and a lengthy plot to get them there. I go on ao3 just to try out my luck and LO AND BEHOLD YOU HAVE MADE MY DREAMS LITERALLY COME TRUE. WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE YOU. “(TTFATTF Chapter 16 Comment)
⭐️- how do you get your inspiration?
reading & music, mostly! Lots of times I’ll start reading a story (not fanfic, but like a book on my kindle) and then fully zone-out and think about my own story sdfjkslfjdskl
🎲- your favorite chapter/part from a multiparty series
Chapter six of wildfire because it’s filled with SO MUCH romantic/sexual tension lmao.
💻- three works of yours that are must reads
If you like Reader Inserts, I wrote a Clyde Logan (From Logan Lucky), that I think is pretty good. (Take Me Home)
If you like Sansa/Tyrion Canon-Divergence & slow-burns & long-fics, then this one is for you. ( To Tame a Lion, to Tame a Wolf).
If you like fluffy, light, easy-reads, then this 12-chapter one-shot collection of Evelyn/Emmett - (In the Span of 12 Heartbeats).
💊- what is something that you wish you knew before you started writing?
It’s okay to not finish stuff. Don’t beat yourself up over it if you lose inspiration and yes--you can always come back to a work even if it’s months later.
🎈- what’s a spoiler for a wip or series?
:) Sanctuary doesn’t last forever.
😂- a line that made you laugh out loud
Lmao. This one.
“FLUFFERNUTTER!” Veth screams out, swiftly followed by a squishy, wet BANG! Large chunks of chocolate, frosting, and cake explode outward and Jester cries out in surprise as they land in her hair and on her dress. (i’ll fetch you the moon).
🎀- favorite story
right now, I really love my “through the flood & through the fear.” but, asking me to pick a favorite is like selecting a favorite child.
👎- if you could change something in one of your works, what would you change and why?
more kissing.
😢- a line that made you cry
“I tried to save him—” Emmett chokes out, trying to talk around the lump in his throat, and the fear growing rapidly in his chest, “I tried to save you.”
“It wasn’t enough.” She draws her hands to her chest, squeezing them together into a fist, “It wasn’t enough.” (ttfattf ch 4)
💬- describe one of your completed works in three words
slow burn, canon? what canon?, and angst
💭- any ideas for a possible wip?
I’m working on a sheriff hassan x reader where the reader is a descendent of van helsing lmao
I’ve also noodled around with a fake engagement/co-workers/enemies-to-lovers au with evelyn/emmett but i don’t think i’ll write it lol
💕- opinion on AUs?
yes :D love them
💘- what’s your favorite AU? Least favorite?
Fav AU: fake dating/fake relationship because YEARNING!
Least Fav: I never really vibed with like billionare au or coffee shop. i write to escape capitalism lmao
🔍- does anyone in your personal life know that you write on tumblr?
no.
✏️- favorite part about writing
re-reading what i wrote and being like “yeah this shit rocks.” LMAO
#LMAO#listen we play by like old school facebook and live journal days now#my writing#my fics#long post#widojest#evemett#logan lucky fic#fic: ttfattf#fic: wildfire
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so i never do this but i put a lot of thought into really specific details about the structure and scene layout of (the three-part folding mirror) and i really really really want to talk about it so here are some of my notes and some general commentary
-the crux of the fic, at least the way i had envisioned it, is what vfd does to family, how it becomes biological family vs the family created by vfd
-what vfd did to specific families:
-physically separated the calibans
-morally separated the denouements and the snickets
-somehow brought the anwhistles closer together
-in terms of ramona and olaf, ramona was there to stress the distinction of biological family vs. vfd family but also how they’re so inextricably intertwined with each other, and olaf, this is harder to tell bc he doesn’t have a point of view here, but olaf is scoping out potential candidates for his personal group of firestarters – his own sort of “family” (ramona bc she’s a duchess, ernest because he has a similar line of thought, josephine because her husband is working with the mushrooms, the white-faced women because, well they wind up in his troupe and I have very vague headcanons about how that happens)
-related; the reason frank asks olivia about miranda at the end is because, at that point in the fic, frank feels so terrible about what he said to ernest that he’s trying to reassure himself that his family is still okay because (dewey’s right) at least they’re together, compared to the calibans, who haven’t seen each other in years. it was one of the first ideas I had when I was jotting ideas down in april and it stuck with me the whole way through. I really wanted it in there. I went back and forth before I got to this plot, though, on whether or not frank or ernest would be the one asking it. but I think it fits frank.
-(ahahahahahaha the kicker being that miranda really was at the party the whole time and olivia didn’t recognize her)
-anyway
-the parallels in the fic were:
-the denouements start the fic together, and end the fic alone (by being honest about how they feel about each other)
-the snickets start the fic relatively separated, and end the fic together (by being dishonest about what happened during the party)
-the denouements start the fic by playing their game, and the snickets end the fic with theirs
-frank is mistaken for ernest, ernest is mistaken for frank
-frank pretends to be ernest on accident, ernest pretends to be frank on purpose
-dewey has never slammed a door in his life; towards the end of the fic he slams the tray
-i….think that’s all of them. I think
-character-wise, jacques and frank both see themselves as the people holding their families together; when in fact for the denouements, it’s dewey, which I think is clear in this, and for the snickets it’s lemony, which is less clear here? but definitely something I agree with
-dewey and kit see themselves as the most ‘normal’, and they both have relatively solitary positions of acquiring information
-ernest and lemony clearly both vibe on a ‘question vfd’ wavelength
-i was also interested in kit and ernest, as siblings who feel stifled by an older/perceived older sibling, and dewey and lemony, who are sometimes unnecessarily protected by their siblings because they are the youngest/perceived youngest
-this doesn’t show up in the fic bc olaf’s parents are still alive, but I thought ramona and olaf were also interesting foils re: reacting to their parent’s deaths
-some narration notes:
-frank never refers to ernest and dewey as his brothers, except in the scene where he argues with ernest. because frank doesn’t necessarily see the split of biological family vs vfd family but has definitely swayed more to vfd family
-ernest and dewey always refer to each other as brothers.
-similarly, frank refers to the members of vfd as associates, most everyone else refers to them as friends.
-ernest refers to vfd as strictly VFD because he’s distanced himself from it, while everyone else calls it ‘the organization’
-frank doesn’t swear even in his narration when he’s thinking them and not saying them because it’s, still his narration. he still wouldn’t quite completely say the words. (oh, he’s like gansey, like that. the raven cycle is still on my brain. i had so many scene sketches where ernest and frank were way too callous to each other bc they kept coming out like ronan and declan.)
-kit’s line at the beginning is “someone in this very room has betrayed us” which is jacques’s line from the building committee meeting in unauto. the clock saying wrong afterwards is because the someone who really betrayed them (lemony) isn’t in the room.
-the costumes, which i did decide very arbitrarily:
monty: clearly a snake.
olaf: sigh. wolf
ramona and olivia: oh, there was actually a slight distinction that just no one notices because none of them have looked at an insect (and also because describing clothes properly but succinctly is the hardest thing. i've written fic for a long time!!!!! i did my time in block paragraph clothing description hell!!! it haunts me!!!!!!!!!!), but ramona was the butterfly and olivia was actually a dragonfly. their masks are roses because, well 1) I thought that would be cool 2) butterflies and dragonflies land on flowers….
jacques: the boxwood, but a lion otherwise.
josephine: ocean
widdershins: the octopus with the pirate hat
jacquelyn: the gold star suit (because gustav said she should do it for a play on. star. like. actress star.)
miranda: uranus’s moon named miranda. it was very vague and I put that in the fic before I decided to have her in the little scene with esme. and then i thought i would put her in that scene too.
gustav: phantom of the opera.
haruki: tree frog
hector: tree (not because of haruki’s costume but because i literally could not think of a damn thing for hector to be)
lemony: uhhhhhh I had vague ideas he was. a cloud or something. like a stormcloud???? couldn’t pan out though. I like him in grey anyway.
kit: I really just wanted her in red. with a big cape. and i spent so much time mentally deciding if i wanted her to have glasses or not in the archives that i forgot to mention her mask. everyone has one i swear to god
white faced women: did anyone recognize that was them? :) it’s not mentioned in any way at all but in my head they were all dressed identically as flappers
esme actually doesn’t have one, because I, forgot, to give her one. I’m taking suggestions.
-references to lyeekha’s fics:
-“that which is essential is invisible to the eye” is what frank says to jacques at the end of edge, and also the title of their snicket/denouement series
-it initially wasn’t in there, because I was worried it wasn’t, like, in the right tone, re: what happens in edge vs how I was interpreting jacques and frank? but i liked it a lot. so i put it back in.
-“frank quit smoking, but you didn’t” is a reference to frank smoking at the end of rigged
-guess the guest and the clock alcove are from the end of fragments, with dewey and ernest watching hotel guests. this is my favorite thing in the whole world and something i actually keep forgetting is not canon because it is SUCH the perfect beethoven parallel
-kit’s tattoo, which I was specifically imagining as the giant bombinating beast tattoo from ink on her back, which is definitely not around her neck but that was the only spot of skin she was showing so it was available and my thought was, it was kind of a low-cut in the back dress, and she was wearing the cape to cover up the giant tattoo on her back because beatrice was not there to cover it up with makeup (also bea picked out the dress.) (bea: if I can’t be there you have to make a statement) (kit: I have to what)
-lemony being a “powerful, mythical figure” to the sugar bowl gen was actually something I wrote a long time ago, back in 2013, and I put it in the fic because I thought it fit, and then happened to reread double edged VERY late into the rewriting, literally THE DAY after I wrote that line in, and i saw a similar line of thought, and I was like “*cooper voice* sometimes you just get lucky ~ ”
-jacques being in a lion costume, from the masquerade outfit sketches
additionally –
-yes I am still cackling about ‘angel of my apple’
-angel of my apple
-ANGEL OF MY APPLE
-writing olaf is constantly like, he can say the funniest fucking things. and then turn around and say the absolute cruelest shit and the balance can be difficult.
-but, angel of my a p p l e
-i can’t believe that out of all the people here, frank and jacques are the ones having the most semi-successful romantic relationship. well, ramona and olivia, too, but frank and jacques actually kiss so good for them
-i know it was very vague and it’s because writing romance is physically embarrassing, but yes that last line was supposed to be them kissing, i’m so sorry
-undercover underwater was a last-minute addition because I didn’t want to take the time to try and google something real and good because I didn’t have the time. my guilty pleasure is super shitty hallmark murder mystery movies (I like good murder mysteries as well, thank you.) and my mom’s been reading terrible murder mysteries during lunch (where I was sitting across from her, also eating lunch, but also hiding behind my laptop and writing the fic) so I just came up with undercover underwater on the spot, but my mom came up with the tagline. it was originally ‘sleeps with the fishes’ (especially because i love the godfather movies which also, clearly has a very big stress on family vs The Family) but I thought ‘diving for the truth’ was funnier.
-my mom and my brother (who has no interest in shitty murder mysteries, but loves to verbally smack them down with me re: their predictable tropes) and I decided that the plotline was something like, single woman scuba dives and keeps running into stuff (you know, hidden treasure, dead bodies, the like); her love interest drives the boat; her overbearing family member is an aunt; this is definitely like, book four in the series. there’s probably twelve books or something. (she goes on vacation on like book six and still finds a dead body, come on it practically writes itself.) (she probably owns a little fish tank......it’s a small sunny beach town.........etc etc.........) (it’s so easy to do this.)
-oh, fixer upper is the worst hallmark murder mystery series, murder she baked is the best. in my opinion.
-dewey and lemony were supposed to have an actual conversation at the hors d’oeuvres table but every time I tried to put lemony in earlier he just wouldn’t work. it didn’t feel right. so he got saved for the reveal.
-but i’m still delighted by the idea of lemony literally doing the shot of gazpacho.
-dewey uses a spoon because he doesn’t have the composure or the guts to do a shot of cold soup
-lemony was also supposed to have a scene with kit and one with jacques, i’m pretty sure, to lead up to the gazpacho conversation and the commiserating re: siblings. but again, didn’t work out. so then dewey had to fare alone in the scene.
-oh!! the line about how lemony hides, in the least likely places, was actually something that was in my initial write of lemony’s scrapped pov of my ellington fic. jacques being responsible for sending olivia to the hinterlands was from a scrapped jacques fic.
-steal from your unused fic.
-because I had to take scenes with lemony out, I had some, gaps in the night that I had to fill in (especially because this is a party more people are there than the snickets and the denouements), so that was how esme, the herpetology squad, and olaf and josephine came to be. (also olaf needed to show up again somewhere else otherwise he kind of, disappeared awkwardly, I thought?)
-also because initially there was going to be a scene of bea and bertrand, elsewhere, but I wanted to keep the fic contained to the hotel, because one of the ideas I wasn’t able to put into the fic all that much was the sense of the hotel being its own world
-oh, bea and bertrand don’t know that lemony used them as cover. the assignment they were working on instead of being at the party? planning the opera. the scene would’ve come right after ramona and olaf’s conversation.
-the herpetology squad not only serves to highlight that people can’t tell the denouements apart (part of the foreshadowing that ernest would pretend to be frank), but was also me roasting myself because writing like a million different characters I had never written like this before had me very concerned about if their characterization was consistent, specifically for kit. (specifically, her with dewey.) also defining a character down to one base trait can be helpful when writing and creating characters, but for people no it’s not ideal.
-haruki’s estimation of the denouement’s traits were not how i was mentally keeping track of them, because i definitely do do the ‘one base trait’ sometimes, but i had a lot more going on when i was thinking of them
-but yes dewey is kind. in the way that bertrand is kind, but bertrand’s like, way more smooth about it.
-lemony does not have his own pov because, for me personally, I can’t fathom writing him in any other way besides first person, and it just would not do to have one scene out of the whole fic not in third person. unless he was secretly narrating each scene, which, he clearly was not. i would’ve had to do it in a whole different style.
-i love that dewey and kit are like ‘ahaha we’re the normal ones though’ and their normal conversation is them literally going ‘hey these creepy fish are AWESOME THOUGH’
-i looked at so many fish. for hours.
-ALL BECAUSE I came up with the phrase ‘oceanic intrigue’ as a fun phrase and decided I had to commit my soul to it and never look back.
-oh, the fairy shrimp are really very cute though. and i think the cookiecutter shark is, fucked up but a neat little guy.
-i’m eternally going to be laughing about this too
kit: where the fuck is frank
frank: /three floors down, making out with jacques
-oh!! 40-49 is unassigned in the dewey decimal system (which I googled. many, many times.), and was previously biographies. there’s another section for biographies now, but because biography was the closest I could come to like, some sort of, identity category, I thought it was more fitting if it was the section that used to be biography but was now as blank as frank felt.
-dewey is the one responsible for the clock sounding like it does. he just thinks ‘wrong’ is a fun word. that, and frank recognizing jacques by sound, were from my earlier scene sketches for this when i thought this fic was going to be much, much shorter.
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my thoughts on the crank palace
i touched about this a bit on twitter (@newtedison_) but i figured i would Try and touch on my points more here (spoilers obv) again, its sort of lengthy
1. im gonna start with talking about the ending because i need to get it out of the way. either i havent read the books in a while and i forgot some canon (which could very well be true, i literally forgot that Bliss was a thing) or this ending makes no sense and is (somehow) setting up for a tdc sequel? so first off, newt was shot in the Head with a Bullet and somehow didnt immediately die? i know that that can happen in real life but it just seems so unlikely that not only would he not die, but he would survive long enough for someone from WCKD to transport him back to their labs and try to revive him. and who the fuck was he talking to? did thomas get newt’s journal at some point and i just dont remember? like i said, either im forgetting stuff or this ending doesnt make sense and is setting up a sequel which...i’ll get to later
2. why was this written? like, what was the point? i understand that this wasnt going to be all sunshine and rainbows but i feel like i was reading torture porn. like, literally all that happens is newt gets tortured (which is described in detail) by WCKD soldiers, has bouts of insane-fueled rage where he KILLS MULTIPLE PEOPLE, and then he dies. ??? what did this contribute to the canon? what was this trying to accomplish? truthfully, i never really wanted a newt-POV...well, anything except for maybe those little nuggets he wrote some time ago. but even if i HAD wanted a newt-POV novella, this is not what i would have wanted. he KNOWS that newt is almost universally the most loved character in this franchise. you can tell because he constantly uses him as a way to get fans in his good graces again. so why on earth would he take that character that so many people love and write a novella where its torture porn and a descent into madness before death? i am not interested in that At All. i’ve read fics (and even written a drabble) where newt is a Crank, and those were more respectful and easier to read than tcp. the parts where newt is having bouts of the Flare were literally exhausting to read; it was described in such vivid and torturous detail that it made me sick reading it. and it didnt help that newt is a character i care a lot about. i didn’t need to know what becoming a Crank felt like. the way it was described in the other books (and even the movies) told me everything i needed to know. the way thomas and everyone found newt at the crank palace in tdc and hes described as obviously not well, but not knowing what exactly happened to him...thats good enough on its own. the mystery of what exactly newt had to endure is part of what gives his journey more emotional depth. not everything needs to be written out and explained. not every gap needs to be filled in.
3. me saying “the characterization felt off” is going to make some people roll their eyes because ‘duh, sami, the characterization will be off because he’s going insane’ to which i say...exactly. we weren’t really reading a newt-POV novella, were we? even if he isn’t past the Gone in the beginning, hes clearly not the same person we knew him as. the whole novella felt like an uncanny valley situation; i knew i was supposed to be reading about newt, but it felt like i was reading about someone else who looked like him. and that is part of what made this such a disconnect and made me lose interest at parts. not only that, but the world building and lore is inconsistent. newt makes a comment about how it used to rain in the glade, and apparently (as ive been told) that is simply not true. keisha having somehow working cell phone that magically connects her to her family also doesnt make sense. how would they have each others’ numbers? what are the odds that they BOTH found working cell phones in an apocalypse? i get that its a novella but you cant just throw something that crazy in there as a plot convenience. actually work on your plot and world building in a cohesive way, please. and another thing that doesnt make sense...
4. ...is newt finding out that sonya is his sister. if there was anything i would have wanted from a newt-pov novella, it would have been this. him finding out that not only is sonya his sister, but he already knows her post-WCKD. something that would have made this novella actually captivating, contributing something worthwhile to the canon that i would actually want to read, is if newt found out while in the crank palace that sonya was his sister; the Flare would remove that part of the Slice in his brain, and he would realize it was her. then, knowing that he couldnt go past the Gone before seeing her, he would try to find a way to get back to her. he could learn this after thomas and everyone originally see him, so it could match up with the canon. and then, by the time 250 comes along, hes lost all hope of that actually happening, and lashes out to thomas in a fit of rage. the journey of him trying to find his ACTUAL sister would have meant more to me than the story of keisha and dante. trust me, i love a found family trope as much as the next girl. but this series is FULL of the found family trope. it pretty much is the backbone of the franchise. so to see a blood family dynamic would have been a refreshing change of pace that i actually would have been interested in reading. also, the way that newt DOES find out about sonya is...underwhelming. he just randomly says “you remind me of my sister, sonya” to keisha in the WCKD truck. first of all, sonya is not the name you would actually know her by. you would know her by her birth name (which is lizzy? elizabeth?). second, why does he act like he didnt already meet her in the series? when the WCKD doctor tells him sonya is his sister and is alive, hes so surprised. wouldn’t he have known that already? why is there not more emphasis on the fact he already met her? that would have been a really interesting dynamic to explore, and im sad they didnt
5. the pacing and dialogue of tcp is so dragged out. i remember specifically there was a section where newt goes to talk to keisha after she starts abandoning dante, and i swear to god there was a page and a half of text before anything ACTUALLY happened or anyone ACTUALLY said anything. dashner described a launcher at one point as “the energy dependent electric firing projectile device.” that’s SIX words to describe a stun gun. a fucking stun gun! we know what it is! why did you have to use six words??? it just felt like everything was dragged and stretched to the longest it could possibly be and it added to the exhaustion i felt while reading it
6. okay i cant end it without talking about newtmas. its very obvious by now that newtmas is a VERY large part of this fanbase. its clearly the most popular ship and what keeps a lot of people interested in this series. even the marketing team for the MOVIES used newtmas as a advertising tactic (i.e.; using thomas and newt standing face to face as a thumbnail for the trailer, emphasizing newtmas based questions in interviews, even making a fucking facebook memories video for them. yes that last one is real). not only does dashner use newt as a way to lure fans in; he also uses newtmas. the parts that were sprinkled into this were so obvious that it didnt feel authentic. i cant speak for the original trilogy; i dont know the culture around ships back then, and i dont know how much it influenced his writing at the time. but the scenes in those books felt more genuine than tcp. by genuine i mean; he wrote scenes without a relationship in mind, but the chemistry had noticeable subtext that, while unintentional, was largely agreed upon by the larger audience. the parts of newtmas he added into tcp felt artificial and forced, likely as a way for people to take snippets of and use as a free marketing tool for him. one example you might have already seen; “he had already gotten used to his post-thomas, post-WCKD life.” the fact that dashner SPECIFICALLY used the phrase “post-thomas” rather than “post-his friends” or something similar shows that he is using newtmas as a hook on purpose. not only that, but to make newt’s last thoughts as he died “tommy. tommy will understand...” is...wow. first of all, i never wanted to know what newt’s dying thoughts were, but thanks, i guess? and second, when we all initially thought newt died underneath thomas with a gun to his head, i was pretty much inferred that newts last thoughts would probably be about thomas; they would sort of have to be, given the circumstances. so adding that in gives me the same feeling that “i’m coming for you, newt” at the end of the fever code gave me. not as offensive, but written very much on purpose. and the ending is implying that there will somehow be a sequel where thomas gets newt’s journal from...someone. at this point, i can only think that this sequel will retroactively make newtmas canon somehow. now that newt has been confirmed as gay, it could happen. which brings me to my last point...
7. hearing dashner confirm newt is gay was already mind-boggling before. now that i’ve read the crank palace...im angry. im very angry. i think its safe to say that newt is the character that suffers the most in this series. you can argue with me but hes definitely high on the list, if not #1. so; you take this character. you give him a horribly sad arc in the original trilogy, then decide to expand upon it and tell us, your largely QUEER fanbase, exactly how painful and torturous his last days were, in detail. and then you tell us he’s gay. something that is never mentioned in the canon, only in an offhanded reply to a tweet of someone calling you out. on a base level, i can understand why people would be happy. representation (i guess), seeing themselves in the character, having their headcanons be confirmed. great. but what i see is you telling your largely queer fanbase “hey, you see the only confirmed gay character? im going to literally write torture porn about him before killing him off and offer it to you like im providing a service to your community.” how fucked up is that? “hey, kids, if youre gay, you WILL be violently tortured and become violent and a danger to the ones you love. then you will die and your love will never be reciprocated.” what a message! and if he DOES end up retroactively making newtmas “canon” in some weird sequel...i will start foaming at the mouth. THIS is an example of how not all queer representation is good or genuine.
i’ve definitely forgotten some points but this is long enough already. let me know if you agree or if theres anything else you want to add! im interested in what you guys think
(8. I JUST REMEMBERED!!! if WCKD needed to study newt so bad bc sonya is his sister and is immune while he isnt, why did they let him run around the crank palace in the first place??? you cant test his vitals or anything you’re literally just watching him. what is the point????)
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AO3 Stats Tag
Thanks @jmilzwrites for the tag!
How many works do you have on AO3?
I have 26 published works.
What's your total AO3 word count?
I have apparently published 162,757 words in total.
How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
I am strictly a Harry Potter author. Maybe some day I'll add something else to my collection haha. Probably Dragon Age, if I'm going to be perfectly honest with myself.
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
1) When the Moon Rises to Meet the Stars (hard 18+!!!!)
2) for him.
3) Louder Than Love
4) A Matter of Interpretation
5) The Great Biscuit Calamity of 1978, and Other Such Disasters
Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I respond to everyone that comments (except for like... one comment I got on Moon, but it was only because I was very unsure of the spirit in which the comment was meant and I overthought it and proceeded to push it under the metaphorical rug to not address ever lol.) But aside from that, I just like reaching out to people and letting them know that I do see their comments and it really means a lot to me to read their thoughts. :) I also like making friends, and if I can make friends in the comments, then that's all the better!
What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?
Red, probably haha. I mean I've written a lot of angst, but that one is... it's just whump.
Have you ever received hate on a fic?
I had someone yell at me for taking the Marauders' side in A Matter of Interpretation, which led me to believe that they didn't actually read the fic, because the literal entire point was that the actual "bad guy" for The Prank changes depending on who is telling the story. But hey.
Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
(eyes Moon) yeah... so apparently my brand is safe, sane, and consensual kink in which I talk around the bits more than I refer to them directly, and more headspace and emotions than mechanics. I will say that if you like the tags in Moon, I think I'm handling some of those things a bit more effectively in the few scenes in LTL where this has come up (such as the most unintentionally erotic language lesson) so if you're not completely put off by the relationship tags, I do highly recommend it! Especially since Moon was literally the first smut I have ever written... ever.... and part of me wants to bury it in the sand. XD
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I'm aware of!
Have you ever had a fic translated?
Nope!
What's your all time favorite ship?
I have a WEAKNESS for Wolfstar. They're super versatile in terms of writing subject. (I do like Hinny for fluff pieces though.)
What's a WIP that you want to finish, but don't think that you ever will?
Honest answer: No Code (I'm not even going to link it.) I made the mistake of posting the sequel to Louder Than Love at the same time that I was working on Louder Than Love, and I hadn't actually mapped anything out correctly at all. A lot of the overarching plot points are still going to be the same, in terms of what the end game is, but I really am not happy with how it gets there, and some major beats have moved away from the way that I have them written there. So I think it's less that I'm not going to finish it, and more that I'm going to rewrite the whole bloody thing, and probably put it all in order to boot.
What are your writing strengths?
Dialogue for sure, particularly banter. Remus Lupin. Just... Remus. XD And probably also writing train of thought.
What are your writing weaknesses?
Telling, repetition, letting the wheels fall off the banter bus (ie: the feedback loop of snark that is Remus and Sirius), plotting in general (working on it!!), and tagging dialogue. I've got weird dialogue tags I've discovered, and I've got a thing about leading directly into dialogue with a tag first, so I have to put it on a separate line, and it's just... ugh. I can't explain why I can't lead with the tag on the same line, because I have no issues when others do it, but when I do it, it's WRONG. It feels wrong, it looks wrong, and the whole universe is going to die if I keep it. So I don't.
What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?
Well I'm just gonna point at myself here... use it sparingly. I had to go back and edit a buttload of stuff in Moon and No Code because I had too much fucking Welsh and I was nowhere near proficient enough in it to be able to write it as confidently as I was. It can also make things very difficult for readers and pull them out of your scene if you go too hard. Now on the flip side, there's a scene I have in LTL where Remus is falling asleep and his inner monologue switches from English to Wenglish to straight up Welsh as he falls deeper asleep, and it gets more and more disjointed and associative. This is purposeful: it's not supposed to make sense to the reader. So to that end, it's like... if it makes sense narratively and isn't going to trip your readers up too much, then go for it.
What was the first fandom you wrote for?
The first fandom I published for is Harry Potter... but the first I wrote anything for was... probably Dragonball Z.
What is your favorite fic that you've written?
This is a very hard question. I like Red a lot because I literally wrote that as if I had been suddenly possessed, and it shows. I like Louder Than Love a lot because I've put so much work into it and it's really coming along beautifully (I'm just perpetually annoyed by the first few chapters lol.) And I really, really enjoy Lost Dogs because it was such a challenge to write, and I think that the images I managed to pull out in such small word counts were more powerful for it. But if I had to go with a favorite... Numb (Phobos I) from my Satellites series, which was originally published here. I love Peter in it. I love the way that he and Remus talk to each other. I love the palpable spite in the air. I love the fact that there's a real past between them, that the hurt is still so raw. I so rarely get to see people in the fandom explore Peter at all, ESPECIALLY Wolfstar folks, because most prefer to not address him at all. But he's a constant specter in the background of LTL as well, and Numb is a sort of "What if" taken from that Universe. It may not be my cleanest or most cohesive work, but it's the one that keeps me awake at night.
That was fun!! Tagging in @impishtubist @wanderingbandurria @allalrightagain and anyone else who would like to play! <3
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