#「 crossing off the names from the list ( v: main; vaguely canon ) 」

[fedoraxcrowned]

@svnbleach ( Elizabeth Keen ) asked: ❛ what are you doing out here by yourself? ❜

“ Lizzy! ”

Delighted smile stretching his lips, greenish eyes softened by affection yet hiding mischief within, as if he is playing around and reveling in it, Red offered his hand to the young woman to help her descend the last couple of steps of the derelict staircase that led from one of the Post Office's inconspicuous exits to the ground level, e v e r t h e g e n t l e m a n , seemingly oblivious to her apparent confusion.

“ Oh, I simply thought it would be a pity to waste such a pleasant day on being cooped up in a stuffy office, so why don't we have a little lunch while we take a walk through the park, ” he raised his other hand to indicate the cupholder with two cups of coffee in it, offering one to her, and the paper bag hanging from his elbow that had some of his & hers ( how did he know is just another one of his little secrets to keep ) favorite pastry in it, freshly baked, “ and discuss our latest Blacklister... or something else that might be on your mind. ”

Expression innocent and sympathetic, the meaning behind his words was quite clear nevertheless.

You’ve discovered something curious about your husband, haven’t you, Lizzie?

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: Criss-Crossed

This week, @soundofez​ dropped by to chat about her 2016 Resbang, Criss-Crossed! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: What was your favorite scene to write?

fez: Fave scene hands down was the opening scene, it was one of the first I wrote. I had a lot of fun with Spirit's texts though. x)

Q: Did you always plan for two pairings to be developed simultaneously or did it pop up in the middle of planning?

fez: Deffo planned for the two pairings and it was HARD AS BALLS.

Q: How did you decide which characters would be temporary villians?

fez: I just wanted the villains to be recognizable characters with significant ties to either Soul or Maka? There's actually a pretty neat split: Tsubaki and B*S are the friends, Wes and Spirit are the family units, Tsubaki and Wes are Soul's, and B*S and Spirit are Maka's. Stein and Marie, of course, were there to be relevant to their plotline, and Crona is the forever villain. Arachne used to be Medusa until... um... canon parallels + plot relevance. In terms of who tf knows what's going on between her and Lord Death? Certainly not me. Medusa was going to have a creepy fixation on Stein.

Q: Did you secretly plan to make people fall in like with ML? *eyebrow waggle*

fez: Yes. Unequivocally. Ngl I want it to be an ML gateway fic. :^)))))

Q: ACTION SCENES. HOW DID YOU APPROACH THEM?

fez: ACTION SCENES WERE #STRUGGLES. I just sat down and like, forced myself through them. Like, k. Where are they? What are weird things that lucky charm can take advantage of? I freaking h8 lucky charm fjadsklfjasklfjka. A goddamn DIY PROJECTOR IS A CANON THING LADYBUG DID AND I SALT 5EVER.

Q: My question is why did you make Maka Chat and Soul Ladybug instead of vice versa?

fez: Uhhhhh 95% aesthetics, but tbh Maka's approach to fights is really a lot more like canon Cat Noir/Adrien, and Soul has more than enough self esteem issues to parallel canon Ladybug/Marinette. I h8 h8 h8 red-eyed cat, and I might be like wayyyyyy too attached to green-eyed cat Maka. You don't understand, I drew cat Maka and bug soul [in] like... October 2015. I have been on the cat Maka/bug Soul train for eternity.

Q: So, sequel??

fez: MAYBE SEQUEL BUT ONLY WHEN ML GIVES ME MORE CANON THINGS TO WORK WITH, AND NOT A MOMENT BEFORE.

Q: Why'd you decide to go for "they're superhero friends and irl enemies" instead of the love squad?

fez: Superhero friends + irl enemies was 100% a product of ml origins episodes. And to be fair, Soul didn't really hate her. Maka just... Maka.

Q: Did your plot outline always stay the same?

fez: NO, MY PLOT FREAKING BOUNCED ALL OVER THE FREAKING PLACE. I mean, the big overarching plot was the same b/c ch8 was like... the second chapter I finished writing? But. Man. Kid used to be like an actual student. He got lost. Crona was supposed to be more... present ahaha. Everyone started as freshman (w/ upperclassman b*s) but then like... idk I kept writing soul and I just... "bb u r not a freshman. 2 mature." Medusa, ofc, used to be the main antagonist in the way early drafts. TWO CHAPTERS SWAPPED PLACES ON ME LIKE TWO WEEKS BEFORE POST DAY. Franken used to be a doctor instead of a grad student struggling to publish. There used to be a Rachel/Arachne/Excalibur mashup villain in the works That one made it into my claims summary lmao.

Q: Omfg. What would have been their supervillain name?

fez: Idk but the chapter title would've been "The Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Q: Do you have deleted scenes? :)

fez: YOU KNOW I HAVE DELETED SCENES, I CRIED TO YOU OVER MY TOO MANY DELETED WORDS. I THINK I HAVE LIKE 50 DELETED SCENES. 7K. 7K DELETED WORDS.

Q: How do you have a villain mashup of Excalibur and Arachne? I NEED TO KNOW.

fez: I don't even remember how this Rachel/Arachne/Excalibur villain was supposed to go, I never got farther than just "this villain exists I guess." This was before i like.... logicked out that the villains should be tied to Maka and Soul somehow. 

fez: Also for cat Maka and bug Soul: look just loOK AT HOW PRECIOUS THEY ARE: http://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/132631437973/its-a-love-square-between-two-people-x-the. 

fez: I already knew that Blair would be Maka's kwami. I have Kwami Headcanons and this fic was the perf time to Indulge. Part of those headcanons dictate that cat Soul would never be able to have a kwami like Blair. And like... what a waste man. That's more ML territory so idk if I wanna go into em here? But yo, dm me and I will give you All The Things.

Q: What kinda music, if any, did you listen to while writing this?

fez: I'll have a more complete list in a moment but the big one was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdQpngguJpM 

fez: maka// this is halloween, marilyn manson  soul// l'autre valse d'amélie, yann tierson stein// fairy blue, ama lo & dj lee (i think?) marie// fuck you, lily allen tsubaki// cosmic love, florence + the machine sebastian// immortals, fall out boy spirit// take a break, phillipa soo wes// fragments of memories, ffviii crona// demons, imagine dragon arachne// come little children, erutan more songs: everytime we touch, cascada thinking out loud, ed sheeran E18, detektivbyran grey, project ml

Q: The antibug and catastrophe scenes were some of my fave scenes, did you draw from the Envy chapter for that scene? Bc it seemed that way to me, esp with Maka's breakdown, but I wanted to check and also just hear you talk about your thought process for those scenes.

fez: OH YES DEFFO. My notes have "see Eibon chapters" lmao. Like... man Maka has Issues. So many issues. And I wanted to address them. Maka is not an angel, ok? She petty and she has to Learn. She does not forgive, and that's why her arc is so focused on forgiveness. Like... one of the first lines I wrote was "cat, you are just not nice" b/c I Knew I had to. OH. LEMME SEE IF I CAN DIG UP MY SHITPOST. fez: http://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/153369132853/me-needs-maka-to-come-up-with-her-alternate 

fez : DESTRUCT-O-CAT. I DIED LAUGHING, I THINK I TOLD LIKE EVERYONE I COULD. INCLUDING ML FRIENDS LMAO. Originally Soul was gonna be lucky bug, then I realized no. He derp. And [I needed to] give Maka a reason to love him... accidentally? I need the crushing. And Maka was gonna be black cat b/c she is not French, no sirree. And then, well... Destruct-O-Cat. I almost squeezed that into a scene. Originally B*S and Maka were the ones who were gonna get littled.

Q: How'd you come up with Soul's kwami?

fez: Oooooh. I struggled? B/c I didn't want him to be an OC but he... definitely wound up being an OC. I considered using Wes but... you know... actual brother lmao. [He was] strongly inspired by Tikki for sure.

Q: Kid being Death's kwami was one of my favorite lil gems. At what point in planning did you come up with that?

fez: KIDDO HAPPENED ALMOST BY ACCIDENT. I was just trying to wrap up ch 8 and I realized Kiddo exactly follows the kwami name scheme. It was a Moment.

Q: How did you work out Soul's mom as a character? Did anything influence how you portrayed her?

fez: Ahhhhhh I never liked Mama Evans? Something about her feels like the Smother, in my head I mean. And like... man idk. Been dealing with Unpleasant Feelings at the state of the world, partly directed at oblivious rich people who just... don't get it. They think they're the sun, moon and stars but they really really aren't. I do think she came out flatter/more stereotypical than I would've liked but I also wrote her like... the week of posting rip. I vaguely wanted her to run into Shibusen and be like, ridiculously charmed. Enough to resolve her wanting Wes to Do Better For Himself, but it didn't happen :') I wish I had time to like... make her not so shallow, but I'm also not sure how I would've pulled that off. I mean she's intuitive she just... happened to be wrong about the maid lmao. I enjoyed writing that immensely, ngl. Random humor in the middle of this lady is nuts. She sees what she wants to I guess? Or she assumes. She thinks Wes likes the xxx so she... yeah. There's probably history involving bad first times and short ex relationships in there.

Q: Ahahaha omg which reminds me, that was such a different portrayal of Wes. Most people do write him as into xxx, how did you come to it?

fez: Ahhhhh man i just... I like uncommon interpretations of characters, and I like playing with Wes's character b/c he doesn't have a canon one, and I just thought... everyone makes him super different from Soul but what if he's really not? He's just a grown Soul who Soul thought had his shit together b/c he was so much older. He'd Learned how to be Perfect for his parents but like.... that doesn't mean he liked it. The thing about Soul and Wes going to separate colleges was deffo lifted directly from my college experience. I applied to my brother's uni but I didn't gun it b/c I knew my mom would move down with us if i got accepted and... I love my mom, she is much better than this version of Mama Evans, but No. Nooooo no no no no.

Q: Was there a scene you super struggled with writing or found easier than you thought??

fez: Uhhhh, I thought Soul and Maka would fight more in the library in ch 6, but they settled down pretty quick ahah. Almost too quick?? I was Nervous like... what? Is this okay? Are they being too logical? What's going on? I thought it would be +500 words of Whispered Library Fighting. Most of the action scenes slid past once I sat down to write them? I just didn't like writing them. 

fez: Deleted scenes: so many reveal iterations, so many cat confesses iterations.

Q: Omg pls feed them to me, I loved the reveal.

fez: "'I’m in love with you, dummy,' Maka snaps, feeling her face burn." There's [also] a Soul POV ladybug-reveal iteration. It's... kinda long tho. Do you just.... want the doc? lmao: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11DbejHYa3Cow5frrf2yhO9zHRPac5Zqkv-gvuVD2BJM. [fez would like everyone to know that the doc is, in her opinion, messy ;D]

Q: You did multiple resbangs, how did you manage balancing art and writing?

fez: It helps to like... not have a job or school or anything. When crunch time came I just kinda gunned it. I got lucky that all my resbangs posted so late too, b/c it gave me more time to finish. [For] Dolly's I probably could've uploaded the sketches for all the pages, b/c those were done Super Early. Lining comics takes so long orz. I really love Anne's, we just had so many headcanons in common. Her Resbang was actually the easiest for me to work on. Whenever I worked on it I was like... dang I already have this bit done???? :thumbsup: Julie's I honestly wish I spent more time on b/c her resbang is gorgeous and emotional and mkaldsjfklsadf. I wanted to collab with amanda and do a song mv with her song like I did for Anne but n o p e. And then ofc I just buried myself in ML AU.

Q: I liked that Soul was ladybug.

fez: Ladybug Soul is my beb.

Q: That decision kinda bugs me. (I say it solely for the pun, it is a wonderful decision.)

fez: In hindsight I know it defeats the idea of female protag that ML has? Oh good, I was actually worried. But I just... ladybug Soul.

Q: I semi-wish Arachne would have used spiders.

fez: Haaaah yeah. I didn't want to diverge that much from ML canon, and I tried to nod to the spidery thing with her scene? I think I tried for web imagery there. I don't remember if i succeeded rip. 

fez: Have some of my posting day struggles lmao:

fez: I am... a Mess™.

---

Thanks so much for swingin’ by, fez! Stay tuned for more transcripts!

[fedoraxcrowned]

「 the star rising above the sea ( v: young Red ) 」

「 a good man goes to war ( v: 23 years on the run ) 」

「 crossing off the names from the list ( v: main; vaguely canon ) 」

「 on the way to the top ( v: canon-compliant 5th season ) 」

「 too empathetic for my own good ( v: superpowered ) 」