#birl's fic roundups

[birlwrites]

2023 writing roundup!

i did this last year, so here i am attempting to make this a tradition. once again, i'm basing this on ao3 because i don't want to go through all my documents looking at timestamps of edits lol. it's been a year of a lot of changes in my life, but the one thing that always stays the same? FANFICTION

here's what i did this year:

posted the follow-up getting-together chapter of sun and shadow, my soft regulus-centric pjo au

got even more niche than rosewater with a sirius/barty ficlet in which they run into each other when they're both out after curfew

wrote a rosewater fake dating AU in a week when i definitely should have been working on a final essay

got into seer regulus for the first time with let me living die

started a messy ex-death-eater-regulus and healer!sirius first war fic featuring regulus who survives the cave and inadvertently reveals himself as a traitor in the process

brief diversion into another fandom with another installment in my 'jean and andrew are roommates, neil lives across the hall' series for AFTG

got more into seer regulus with lachrimae (5 chapters posted, 16 drafted!)

continued digging myself deeper re: niche ships with a sirius/barty 5+1 companion fic to evocatio, because why not

and finally… continued writing ttdl! i've posted a little more than 100k words on that this year, bringing the total to a little over 250k, not counting the prologue. goddamn

right now, i'm in a marathon session of 'trying to finish lachrimae,' and ttdl will probably be on a hiatus until that happens because i'm on a roll - after that, i'll start posting lachrimae updates on a weekly basis and keep chugging along with ttdl!

in 2024: keeping up with ttdl and lachrimae, perhaps finally writing that wedding fic in the promise of series, more ykiybtib when the urge strikes, and probably a return to original fiction - i have something in mind that i want to start when i finish lachrimae, as it seems that i can kind of hold 2 long stories in my mind at a time. if you like my hp stuff, and especially if you like let me living die and lachrimae, i think you'll like this story ajlgshkjdf - it'll mess around a lot with the question of 'if you love someone so much that you reset time to undo their death, what happens afterward?'

i'm sure i'll write more random ficlets as well, and we'll see where the year takes us - perhaps i'll even finish ttdl and move on to the next fic in the series!!

[birlwrites]

2022 writing roundup!

as i said a little while ago, i was genuinely surprised to discover that i posted the urge to have faith this year, so i decided to do a more comprehensive post of what i've been working on!

here's what i did this year (based on my ao3 because i have far too many documents to go through them all looking at date stamps):

posted the final ficlets in the set those ghosts alight universe: regulus's 5th year career meeting with mcgonagall, and the Geoff Deserves Better ficlet

began my grand tradition of rosewater hurt/comfort feat. bedsharing, starting with the urge to have faith (post-regulus surviving the cave)

BEGAN POSTING A TASTE FOR HARD VICTORIES!!!!!! starting with the replacement way back in february, and then continuing with to the dark lord in march (speaking of, happy almost-ten-months!)

regulus and remus teaming up to end the war in like. 4 days in an overdeveloped affinity for spite

brief diversions into other fandoms: a high school musical theater au for AFTG, and continuing my 'check please but make it pride and prejudice' fic (appropriately titled pie and prejudice)

continued the grand tradition of rosewater hurt/comfort feat. bedsharing with a proposal in someday, which i then followed up with a sequel with more hurt/comfort, this time starring barty!

wrapped up my order spy!peter series with hero

leveling up the mutual pining in a rosewater-centric PJO AU ficlet featuring sirius as well as regulus's pet hellhound

various ATFHV spinoffs: a getting-together alternate ending of ch 20 of ttdl, as well as career goals: tyrant, the somehow even more unhinged first draft!!

and my last standalone work of the year, implode—, in which sirius rescues a half-drowned regulus from the cave and i have fun with style. technically this is also rosewater hurt/comfort feat. bedsharing but it's not rosewater-centric the way the urge to have faith and someday are

ttdl is now at about 148k on ao3, and i'm working on writing as many chapters as possible now so i don't have to stress about staying on top of my update schedule during my spring semester!

in 2023: super excited to keep working on ttdl/atfhv and discover random other ficlets that will definitely occur to me, as well as potentially finishing up some that i have in progress (the sirius and barty one, an evan pov followup to sun and shadow, a wedding fic in the promise of series, MANY MORE......... oh god afjskghsdkf)

[birlwrites]

hey there!

first of all, happy new year!! hope it’s a lovely one for you <3

your 2022 fic roundup post reminded me of that barty and sirius wip you’ve mentioned, and how curious i am about their dynamic because, like, it’s barty crouch jr. and sirius black. i think everyone in wizarding britain expects something to blow up if they ever find themselves alone in the same room.

sooo, yeah, for your next rambling session, if there’s anything you feel like sharing about this one, i’d love to hear !!

��� 💌

HELLOOOOOOO happy new year! (a bit belated, since i sometimes save asks for later - now that my semester's started again, i imagine i won't be saving asks for very long anymore since Motivation)

ok so the first thing you need to know is that while i have always thought barty and sirius are similar, and that crops up in a lot of my fics, and barty even declares his love for sirius in career goals: tyrant, i did not actually get the *idea* for this fic until i was writing implode--.

barty and sirius are both stubborn, rather confrontational, and loyal (verging on possessive in their less healthy iterations). they have complicated relationships with their families and, in the birl cinematic universe, are basically mirror images of each other. they kind of do the same thing, but to put it the same way that barty does in this untitled wip, barty is running towards the exact thing sirius is running from. (sort of.)

in the barty and sirius wip, much like in implode--, they start off on the wrong foot immediately. given their positioning on opposite sides (although the barty and sirius one might be a no war au, i haven't decided, but there are still very much Sides b/c regulus), and their wholehearted commitment to those aforementioned sides, i don't know if there's really any way they could get along right away

at the same time, though, over the course of that obligatory initial fight, they match each other step for step. it's a 'whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same (derogatory?)' situation, where they see themselves in each other and then are immediately trapped in a fairly small space hiding from filch together and therefore MUST stop fighting.

when they can't fight with each other, they keep slipping into banter - they can't really help themselves. and of course it has an edge to it, because they *were* just fighting, but if they're not careful, they might forget to be enemies

they won't be careful

excerpt under the cut!

"I should've hit you," Crouch muses softly, without looking at him. "More cathartic. Fewer teachers after me."

Sirius can't help scoffing. Crouch may be tall, but that's about the only thing he has going for him. Sirius played Beater for Gryffindor for years and goes head-to-head with a fully grown werewolf once a month. "I'd snap you like a twig."

"Hm." Crouch glances his way, presumably so Sirius can see him smirking. "I'd like to see you try." He reaches up one sleeve and takes out something that gleams in the faint golden light.

Sirius doesn't need good lighting to know what that is. He grew up surrounded by those things. "Does Regulus know you carry around a ritual knife in public?"

"Who said this was a ritual knife?" Crouch flips his grip and puts the knife back up his sleeve. "Did get it in Knockturn Alley, but nobody in Diagon Alley sells weapons."

"And you need a weapon, do you?"

"Nah." Crouch grins. "I just like sharp things."