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[ten-cent-sleuth]

Now that anonymity has been lifted from the Austen Exchange, I can share my @fairytalebingo card fills! Since I, uh, ended up doing all nine in one fic…

Rating: Teen

Warnings: brief and non-graphic violence

In which Catherine Morland is one of very few people in all the land who, despite her love for the traders’ stories of sleeping beauties and pumpkin carriages in neighbouring fiefs and her eagerness for her friends’ whispers of local thieving goblins and trolls under bridges, cannot see magic.

(11k of a Northanger Abbey fairy tale AU, which was really, really fun to write)

Thank you to the moderator of this gift exchange for matching me with this prompt, to the moderator of this bingo event for a genuinely life-saving card, and to @queen-vessaraia-ashlynne for saving me from a surfeit of treacle.

[ten-cent-sleuth]

4, 10, 15 and 16 for the writer asks please! :)

Coming right up! :)

4. A story idea you haven’t written yet?

I answered this here as well, but I’m happy to trot out another one. It’s not like I’ll be running out of unwritten ideas any time soon. xD

Since you’re like my Hotchniss mutual (😜), here’s the entirety of a plot bunny I jotted down in a Doc literally just titled “Hotchniss Idea”—

Prentiss is always joining groups. Growing up and moving around, she was categorically, methodically The New Girl. When she joined the FBI, her colleagues frequently iced her out because of her mother and she had to wriggle her way into their dynamics. She often (or at least twice: Doyle and Hotch) dated men who had already experienced marriage and fatherhood. One day, an unsub somehow picks up on this (or he’s been stalking her? or she tells him all this by herself to build rapport?) and—in front of the whole team, naturally—urges her to pick him instead and for once to get to build something. “You’ve always had to fight for approval and justify the space you take up. Affection from your mother, friendship during your youth, trust from your team—it’s never been free, has it? With me, it would be, I swear to you. My love would be unconditional.”

This would, of course, lead to some fluffy team reassurances aaand Aaron getting to comfort Emily about any legitimate lingering insecurities. Welp, it’s not the most fleshed-out idea, and I don’t know that I’d ever get around to writing it, but there we go. :3

10. What is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

Ooh, I’m glad you asked this one because interestingly, my answer changed a couple of months ago!

The oldest WIP that I still haven’t shelved as “probably not going to finish this” is an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Secret Service AU, which I started in like 2020 and which I still consider my baby, my pride and joy, my pet project. However, I suppose the question is more about a draft that has by now been completed, so I will instead say—

—this sucker ☝🏽☝🏽 sat in my drafts from June 12, 2023 (or, uh, June 13 at 04h00 😅) to September 30, 2024. Less than a year and a half might not be too long a wait for a multichap, but this was a 2k-word one-shot! For me, short stories get written within a week or not at all: those tend to be spun out of a whirlwind of feels rather than forged out of conscious outlining, so the heart of the story will decay after too long. Not in quality necessarily, but in vitality—in what it means to me, you know? So I was astonished and thrilled with my muse for making an exception here (and must once again thank @queen-vessaraia-ashlynne for giving that muse its direction again). ;P

15. Favourite weather for writing?

I had never given this thought before! During the summer, I seize the opportunity to write outside, so I suppose perfect walking weather would be perfect writing weather. If I’m indoors and comfortable though, I don’t really notice! In general, I love cloudless sunny skies and a good snowstorm, so maybe those can also be my favourite weather(s?) for writing in particular. ;D

16. Favourite place to write?

Idk if I have one! I’ve written in the bathtub, on the bus, during class, at the hospital, underneath my desk (floor time for those who like to hide and vanish 👍🏽), literally inside the closet, on hills and beaches……and honestly, I’ve found that as long as I am writing, I’m incomparably happy.

Maybe my old dormitory though? I felt very alive and productive there in general, thanks to my first contact with the beautiful intersection between convenience and independence. I’ll probably never see it again though, lol!

Click on the link to send more fic writer asks! 👻

Thank you so much for the questions. <3

[ten-cent-sleuth]

4, 5, and 30? For the fic writers ask?

Yayay, thank you so much for the ask!

4. A story idea you haven’t written yet?

Well. Most of them. xD But I’ll talk about the third WIP on my roster: my post-“Grace” angsty fic, as I call it in my pinned post. (The first and second WIPs in line I’ve technically started writing for!)

I don’t want to go into specifics since I am really excited to hear people’s reactions to The Reveal, but basically the story will explore my take on who the little girl is / what she symbolises to Carter in “Grace”. Because of course I’ve read the common perspective that Grace represents Carter’s wish for a child and stands in for her future daughter with Jack—but it’s never sit perfectly right with me, so this fic will be my alternative two cents.

And also an excuse to have Sam and Jack meet another mirror version of themselves! (This is what I was referring to in my tags on this post, actually!)

Ngl, this just might be the WIP I’m most excited about right now. But ah! I have my “48 Hours” fic and my “Moebius” fic to finish first. xD

5. First sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP?

This is from Old Thorns, a canon divergence AU for Sense and Sensibility that I will never give up on.

Major General Ashby subscribed to that rare but forcible conviction that all good things are worth not waiting for.

I cheated—this isn’t quiiiiiite the fifth paragraph—but oh well, the real fifth paragraph’s first sentence was not very intriguing. Ashby is an OC who is a friend of Colonel Brandon’s. He facilitates Brandon’s spending time with the Dashwood sisters while they’re all in Town, a plan by Marianne to surreptitiously console Elinor.

Because the canon divergence I mentioned? Yeah, it’s that Marianne finds out about Edward’s engagement much earlier but believes Elinor is unaware and thus takes it upon herself to protect and prepare her. If this sounds convoluted and contrived, trust me, my outline Doc is way worse.

But I love this WIP. I love it so, so much, and I really hope it won’t be an “unpublished” one next year.

30. Share a fic you’re especially proud of.

Sometimes I feel like “Inextricably” is when I peaked and everything I write from now on will pale and tremble in comparison, but I’m not going to share that one here. (Although you’re free to check it out on my AO3, ofc. xD) Instead, here is my one and only—as of now—X-Files fanfic since @agent-troi recently made me think about it so I just reread it last night.

I am proud of how many threads I pulled through various episodes, scenes, and themes to weave together this fic. And still there was one major parallel I didn’t get to include because it didn’t end up fitting into the flow of Mulder and Scully’s conversation. (It was about Scully’s grief about her father.) I also didn’t get to include several scenes near the start because they were dragging me down while the deadline was approaching, but I’m proud of all the now-unused research I made into cross-species influenza and immunisation science for those scenes, lol.

Some of the emotionally wrought lines (in particular I think of “See? You knew what to say to her after all” and “like he was holding his own beating, bleeding heart” – quoted from memory so might not be exact) took me by surprise. Like they came out of me without planning, without preconception, and whenever I revisit the fic, I genuinely still cannot believe I came up with them. In general I just think this is one of my most emotionally charged fics, and I’m proud to know I’m capable of it!

And of course, I am forever proud of my courage in signing up for my first gift exchange and in vanquishing my anxiety about a) posting in such an intimidatingly big fandom as TXF and b) writing for one of my favourite authors in the fandom who also happened to be quite well known?? Ig ultimately “Nature’s Impossibilities” is just very special to me, although I definitely don’t think it’s perfect. (Some of the aforementioned weaving is kind of forced-sounding in the text, agh!) But yeah, quite proud of it. :P

Keep the fic writer asks a-comin’! 👻

Thank you again for the questions. :)