#also this only my second time putting captions on gifs so if its shitty... I'm sorry lol

[coveredinbites]

FRIENDS 2.19 | ‘The one where Eddie won’t go’

[citylighten]

Hello! I've been reading Sink or Swim, and I am absolutely enthralled in the depth of your writing. Which brings me to my first of several questions... How long have you been writing? I find Pietro's backstory personality very complex. How he presents himself... Handles obstacles... It's intriguing. How long did it take to create Pietro's... well... life? Did you have to do a considerable amount of research? And for my last question, how long does it take you to caption a scene? Are you editing the dialogue right until you post?

HELLO~!

First off thank you for this message! I'm very happy you're enjoying the story!

In regard to your first question: I began writing at a young age. So young, that my earliest memory of writing is sitting on my grandmother's lap and telling her exactly what to write down in Microsoft Word. (I figure these were probably stories about Simba the Lion) Eventually, I told her I wanted to figure out how to use Word on my own and the rest is history. But yeah, I've always been big on writing and reading, there was always a story of some kind in my head. By the time I was ten, I was on FF.Net posting very shitty fanfics. But that's the thing about writing, you know? The more you do it, the more you read, the more you even do something like observe films and shows for the narrative value rather than strictly looking at it as entertainment the better of a writer you become. I also made the decision back in high school to become a journalist (something I don't think I want to be anymore, but I digress) still, having the responsibility of writing about real events, or about real people, definitely influenced my writing, as well. Especially when it comes to the way people speak or may explain something.

Admittedly, writing a story in the mafia genre isn't easy. A lot of research is involved (ranging from reading biographies to just watching films, but I also love the video game Mafia because their worldbuilding is pretty good😂) and I often take mental notes of things so I can understand/apply similar topics with my characters.

In regard to your second question: We've hardly scratched the surface of who Pietro is as a person! I planned to do a few edits of him as a kid as well as a "mini-story" of how he ran away from home at sixteen but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Pietro is a very new oc - he was made this year, so understanding him/developing him has been a push-and-pull process. Before Sink or Swim started, he was originally meant to be way more antagonistic, but then I found myself liking him. I thought of Pietro and Rosie hooking up and the drama that could entail of, but then I thought, "what if this guy cared about her?" And boom, I found myself jotting out a bunch of outlines and concepts.

However, because Pietro isn't born in America...er, Simerica, I've found myself reading about Sicily a lot. Since I view that as the real-world counterpart to Tartosa. The norms, the lives of farmers, the way organized crime functions there because Pietro's family suffered greatly due to the local mob. But that's all I'm saying about that!

In regard to your third question: Captioning a scene can take forever. I'm not sure why because all I do is copy-paste pre-written text. But the time it takes to write out a scene can vary depending on its length, relevancy, and tone. Small talk is horrible to write, just plain horrible. Banter is usually quick. But when you have scenes like Rosie reading Pietro's email - that took forever because not only am I writing out Sheila and Pietro having a serious conversation, I had to write out the details of the email. Similarly, in my last post, when Pietro more or less confesses that he's an affiliate of the mob: that conversation took three rewrites before I felt it was good enough to put on caps. The first conversation draft was rough, I kept zoning out. The second was a little easier, but I found myself rearranging the conversation to better flow. And the third edit was the easiest because it was like I was 'smoothing' things over and ensuring the flow was decent. Sometimes though, once I paste dialogue onto a cap I do slightly tweak it to correspond with the expression the sim has. But again, thank you for all these questions! I enjoyed answering them!