#director’s cut ask game | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

not-freyja · 2 months ago

Note

For the director's cut, I would love to hear more about Legend's thought process and motivations once he met Hyrule in Adjuration! 🥰

Thank you for an actual scene selection everyone else had me pulling out a random number generator. Fucks sake. Love you guys. Also sorry this took like… a month, writing is hard.

This is going to be long. And though it might be analysis for chapter two, it will contain spoilers for the whole story.

Key: [quoted text in brackets] my analysis out if brackets.

[Time to deal with the strange Hylian. The same strange Hylian who came out of a now-vanished portal that also spat out a monster.

Link did not get this far in life by being the trusting sort.] Okay this sets the tone. Legend is immediately suspicious. He knows something fucky just happened, and that this person is involved.

[“So…” he says to the figure now sitting up on the ground. “Who the hell are you?”

There’s a faint mumble from the Hylain shaped pile of dirt at his feet.

Link sighs. “You need to speak up a bit.”

“I’m…” the kid's voice is raspy, as if he hasn’t used it in a while. He coughs, trying again. It’s a bit better this time.] Crying in Rulie-loving sorrow. This boy has such a hard life. I wanted to make sure the readers understood that without rubbing it in. I also wanted to make it clear that Legend was noticing these things. [“I’m no one. Just a traveler.”] Nick name establishment. Also secret world-building. I have so many thoughts about the world-building of each of their eras. And I was holding myself back chomping at the bit not to pull a Tolkien and overshare.

[“Bullshit.”

The kid’s eyes go wide. “No, really!” There’s an almost raw edge of panic to his voice now, and Link almost feels bad. “I’m not anybody important, I’m just passing through. I’ll be on my way now, thank you for the help.] They have known each other for about two minutes and Legend is already aware of a few things. This kid is involved with some kind of Dark Magic, he’s on the run, and he does not want to reveal his identity. This is ringing some trauma bells for Leggy. He is seeing himself, and he is getting sympathetic.

[And before Link can so much as laugh at such a pathetic attempt at a lie (and it is a lie, he’s been on enough quests to be able to tell a nobody from a somebody) the traveler scrambles to his feet.] Little meta joke here. We the player, we the reader can tell an NPC from a main character. Legend, who thinks in meta terms, can too.

[The thing is, Link is retired. He’s put in the work, done his time. He’s spilled enough blood and lost enough of his life to goddesses and princesses and lost wayward souls that this is the point in the story where he wants to take the guy at his word.] So… Link. Not Legend. Link. He is so tired, and so done. Its been four lifetimes of misery and he is done, thank you. [Link wants to shrug, turn around, and continue on his way home. He wants to turn and run through the woods, back to his house and slide the bolt in the door and have Ravio tell anyone who comes calling that the hero] This is the only time that Legend thinks of “hero” in the general lowercase noun and not “Hero” as a proper noun. Why? Well because a hero would do such a thing as to hide from a quest. A Hero would not. [is not home because he is not going to be answering any more calls to greatness. There will not be one more quest.] oh buddy. *sobs* Rulie’s “got one more in me” later down the road as the direct foil to this thought. Rulie’s death is the catalyst for the rest of Legend’s character arc, like his entrance into Legend’s life is the catalyst for the plot.

[He’s retired, by the Three.] Yeah man keep telling yourself that.

[But right before he can do just what it is he wants, the stranger goes to leave first. And the poor thing takes one step, yelps like a kicked dog, and crumples back to the forest floor.

“Fuck.” Link can’t help the curse] The sympathy is now at a boiling point. Legend cannot help but care. Cannot help but try to help. [and he strides forward, towards the kid, away from home.] OKAY so the “away from home” bit is both directionally in the scene and narratively in the plot. [It’s only a few steps, but it’s the wrong way, and Link has done this enough times by now to know that it really is those first few steps that count.

Those are the ones that you can’t take back. The ones that all the rest come after.

Link takes them anyway.] I can’t even start with this part. The repeated theme of Legend “going the wrong way” of him doing the dangerothing anyway, despite his well-earned survival instincts. I… listen, Legend was suicidal. From day one. He knows he can’t undo this. He knows that another quest will probably get him killed. He does it anyway.

[“Hey, easy there,” he all but whispers, dropping to his knees next to the filthy kid. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay, Traveler?”

Big eyes stare up at him. They are full of fear and distrust, and a painful glint of hope. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Link sighs, takes another deep breath. “Is it your leg?”

That gets a weird combination of a nod and a shrug. “Ankle, actually.” The kid smiles at him. And it really is a nice smile, soft, and a bit shy. “I got my foot twisted under a tree root.”

He can’t help but wince because, yeah, been there. “Well that’s not too bad then.” Link grins. “A brace, a red potion, and a few days rest, and you’ll be good as new.”

The traveler nods, some of the stress seeming to bleed out of his shoulders. “That’s what I thought too. Thanks.” He pauses, gulps before continuing. “Thank you for handling the moblin for me. I… I’m not at my best right now.”] This whole section is about deepening the sympathy. He is looking at Rulie amd seeing his younger self (I have Rulie at 16 and Legend at 20) and he just wants to help. (Time: “Let me help.”)

[“No need to thank me.” Link’s smile, previously genuine, turns bitter. “That’s what heroes do.”

Just as he was starting to loosen up, the stranger tenses again, every muscle going taut as a bowstring.] So they have different reasons for the same action (getting tense). Legend is a ball of angst. Hyrule is afraid if being recognized.

[“You alright?”

“...What do you mean ‘hero?’”

And that tone of voice right there? Suspicious and untrusting? Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Link knows that tone of voice. He uses that tone of voice on the daily. He loves that tone of voice. But only when it’s coming from him. Out of another mouth, it just sounds sad.] Here Legend is an inch away from self awareness. So close. But more importantly, his recognition if the self in Rulie is getting even stronger. Every moment is another moment that they are more alike in Legend’s eyes.

[But hey, in for a green rupee, in for a gold.] LOL.

[“That would be me,” he says with his most winning smile. “Link, Hero of Legend, savior of Hyrule, chosen by the Goddess… you get the gist.”] Here I have Legend give the titles of three out of five Heroes that Link will be. Chosen, Legend, and Hyrule. This was foreshadowing no one noticed because why the fuck would you? What I did to this boy was unhinged no one saw that coming.

[And the kid just stares.

And stares.

And stares some more.] Me too buddy. Legend is so pretty.

[This is getting ridiculous. Link shakes his head. “Listen, I’m not really in the market for any missions, or quests, divine or otherwise. Firmly out of the whole kingdom-saving business. And the princess-saving gig as well. So why don’t you just tell me where you’re heading, and I’ll make sure you get to the nearest town in the right direction in one piece and we’ll call it even?”] Last attempt to avoid the situation, and he is still trying to help. What a dumb bitch.

[Those deep green eyes staring up at him suddenly roll back, and the boy goes limp.] Baby boy! Also the green here. Yes it is Rulie’s eye color. But it os also Ravio’s eye color, and every single detail Legend notices about this kid gets him more attached.

[“Well, shit.” Link grumbles, running a hand through his hair. What could have been an hour-long detour on his day is now a problem with a capital P. Because as much as he might want to, Link isn’t actually capable of abandoning some poor homeless-looking teenager in the middle of the woods. Especially not one who fainted at the sound of Link’s name.

That thought makes Link pause. Did he faint? A monster was chasing him, it could be blood loss. It could be more than just his ankle.] Standard worrying here. He feels responsible for this kid now.

[He reaches out tentatively with a small brush of magic and almost sighs in relief.] OKAY BIG MISTAKE. Rulie is the Triforce. Legend loves the Triforce. And the Triforce loves Legend. They magically harmonized here. Imprinted. Zinged. From this moment on they were both attached. [The issue is clear now. There’s an empty well where the kid’s natural magic should be, almost drained but nowhere near dangerously so. The fainting wasn’t about Link at all, it was the adrenaline fading off and the strain the poor kid’s body was under finally catching him.

The memory of that strange portal flares in his mind. That incident coupled with this guy being certifiably drained of magic after falling through makes Link realize a couple of things real quick.] Smart Leggy. Good Leggy.

[First, this kid probably made that portal. Second, he came through it as a last-ditch resort. He was running from something, or someone. Third, this poor Hylian has a lot of magic at his disposal (not only did he make a stable portal but he and a moblin went through it before it collapsed), magic that still pushes out in a wave, nauseatingly strong despite its low levels.] Bitch that’s the fucking Triforce.

[Link is almost afraid to learn how much the kid will have after he recharges.] Again, the Triforce.

Now to fast forward about three paragraphs, because while I like those paragraphs very much they can be entirely summarized as: Legend is so suicidal. How did none of you notice?

[One arm slides under bony knees, the other behind the prone Hylian’s back. Nayru’s tears, he won’t even need a power bracelet for this, he’s so thin.] So… I’m not crying, you’re crying. Their first moment together perfectly mirrors their last, and that is fine, that is so fine. Nothing is wrong here, I am okay.

[The Hero rises, an unconscious stranger held delicately in his arms.] Here we go. The pivot to Hero as a proper noun. The acceptance of the call. The attachment is personal and magical, and our journey begins with Legend carrying Rulie to safety, when he knows it will kill him. (And kind of hoping that it does.)

…this is a loop. The beginning is the end.

#freyja writes fic #this is an adjuration #ask game #director’s cut #freyja answers #hi gia!

22 notes · View notes

chaotic-neutral-knitter · 5 months ago

Note

hello! I’m here to humbly ask for director’s commentary on Impure Thoughts: Some

(only if you want to!)

I'd love to! Thank you for sending in this ask 😊 Here's the ask game for anyone else who's interested!

I remember exactly what made me want to write Impure Thoughts: Some. It was this gif and the tags I saw someone leave on the original post.

I did a few writing warm-ups that were just Ed thinking about Stede with this vibe in mind. I was really struggling with finishing another fic (Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise, still unfinished but I got some weirdly accurate s2 vibes in there so that's neat) at the time so I was just trying to get myself to write anything.

It turned out to be really fun, just letting myself write something lighthearted and self-indulgent, and all those writing warm-ups fit together pretty well, so I decided to write a final chapter with the duel as the end. The goal was to have it pretty much follow canon, with another scene of Ed realizing the depth of his feelings for Stede.

And then I saw this gif:

And I figured Ed just had to kiss Stede at the end because LOOK at him he wants to kiss Stede so bad holy shit.

#the tl;dr is 1) taika has stupidly powerful eyes and 2) blessed are the gifmakers #asks #our flag means death #ask games #fanfic writers director's cut #impure thoughts: some #my fic #ofmd fic

31 notes · View notes

jessicas-pi · 5 months ago

Note

is it possible for the ask game, if you could do either starbirds and wolves or a guide to the mythical and mysterious (the sabezra mythical creatures au) with directors commentary?

OOOOOH MYTHICAL & MYSTERIOUS DIRECTOR'S CUT ok buckle up I think you've unleashed a ramble monster because this AU has SO MUCH WORLDBUILDING that I haven't got to yet, and I might go off on some tangents. I'll try to restrain myself but I make no promises.

Soooo, I'm just gonna kinda read through it and talk about things as I come to them!

Okay, right off the bat, there's the framing of the fic. It's basically one long scene of Sabine & Ezra hanging out and reading each other's diaries for fun, with a ton of flashbacks. But in the first draft, the framing of the story was completely different! Instead of Sabine & Ezra reading the diaries, it was Rune (their adopted daughter) and Jacen who stole the diaries and were reading them! It had a lot of funny lines, so when I changed it, I saved all the old scenes to be reworked/rewritten into a companion fic.

Oh, another thing! So, Hera is a siren in this AU. Something I learned while researching mythical creatures is that there's basically two types of siren in mythology: the ones that are the same as mermaids, and then there's bird-women with singing powers. She's the bird-woman kind of siren because she flies! (Also, I made her a siren because the first thing Kanan noticed about her was her voice. In the very first draft, she was a selkie, and she and kanan had a meet cute where he very innocently picked up her coat that she'd dropped to return it to her and she thought he was stealing it and tackled him.)

And on the topic of selkies, Zeb's a selkie! He's purple because of a prank gone wrong. (Sabine thought the dye would wash right out of his coat! Honest!)

OOH, so, I just got to the part where Sabine's diary entry is about Ezra joining the crew, and that reminded me! One flashback scene that I wrote and ended up cutting was how Sabine and Ezra met. It was very little-mermaid-esque, but with a lot more confused screaming.

Hmmm, not much I can think of in the next few sections...

AH WAIT OK SO THERE'S THIS BIT!!

It had been rough at the beginning, but ever since he got rid of that red crystal pendant he brought up from the trenches of Malachor, he’d been much easier to get along with.

So, in case context doesn't give it away, the crystal he took from the trenches of Malachor is basically the Sith holocron. Dark side planets/places in general (Malachor, Dathomir, etc.) are various trenches and such in this---the deeper in the sea, the Darker the place. And Malachor itself...

Well, lets just say, I may have been slightly (incredibly) obsessed by the deep sea as a kid, so Malachor is my JAM.

Instead of a Sith temple, that giant pyramidal structure is replaced by an underwater volcano. The various pillars and columns scattered across the surface of Malachor are now hydrothermal vents (my beloveds). There's also a lot of bleached bones---whale falls, and (more creepily) merfolk skeletons.

OHH AND THAT BRINGS ME TO VARIOUS DARKSIDERS.

So, Force-sensitives are all merfolk in this AU (but not all merfolk are force-sensitive). But Dark-side merfolk look much different than regular mer. I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from creepy deep sea animals (also my beloveds). All merfolk have bioluminescent patterns that shift colors, but Dark-siders have theirs permanently turned red. partly because of the red lightsaber thing, but also because no red light reaches the deep sea, so a lot of animals are red because they're essentially invisible, UNLESS they're seen by an animal that emits red light and can therefore see/hunt/kill the red animals, so emitting red light symbolizes how the Dark mer have become exclusively predatory and destructive.

uhhh I got kinda distracted there. ANYWAY,

Oh, there's that line about how Ezra has a habit of curling his tailfin around people's legs so he doesn't float away mid-conversation! So, there's lore to that. Basically, it's a mer-child thing. Little Mer don't have enough control of their body in the water to stay in one place. Kanan doesn't do it, because he grew up with the merfolk and in this AU he was an adult by the time they were wiped out, so he learned to adjust himself in the water with little movements. Ezra was a child when the merfolk were killed, so he never learned that and the habit of holding onto people with his tail has carried over, which is why he still does it as an older teenager.

Pff oh yeah also. that "this is... detailed" thing. I know the details. I know all the details. I will not be elaborating. Some things must remain unknown.

Oh! And the scene where they're talking up in the crow's nest of the ship and it's mentioned that Sabine spends time up there! That was a reference to Krownest! Get it? Crow's nest? Krownest? hehehe i'm so funny

OH OH OH SABINE'S BACKSTORY!! This wasn't elaborated much in the first draft but with the rewrite it got more attention. Although the circumstances are different than in canon, I tried to keep a lot of it the same---Sabine goes into a situation willingly trusting someone who doesn't have her best interests at heart and gets blindsided by their betrayal. ALSO ANOTHER FUN FACT!! In the original version she was an Amazon and not a Valkyrie!! But then I changed it up so she only joined the Amazons for a time after leaving her old life behind. She was determined to join their ranks and fit in, despite all the culture clashes, but when her Amazonian battle-sister left her for dead after she was injured in a skirmish, Sabine cut all her ties with them and left.

Ahh yeah this bit never fails to make me giggle.

“All right, all right,” she laughed. “Maybe I was a little slow in admitting my feelings for you.” “Aha! So you do have feelings for me!” He pointed a victorious finger at her.

At first glance, it's cute banter that hints that their friendship has started developing into a romance. Gains a new level of comedy when you reread it knowing that by this point, they're married.

Heheh the boat ride to krownest scene. Kanan's blind and he still knows they're silently flirting with each other.

OOH! JET! K I'm gonna probably go on a ramble now, anyway: Jet was Sabine's pegasus since she was a child. She left Jet behind when she ran away. During this AU's version of "Imperial Supercommandoes," they're confronted by Gar Saxon and his cronies on pegasi. He tells Sabine that after her mother became the leader of the Valkyries, she "generously gave us access to her stables." In reality, Ursa's hand was forced and the pegasi were taken from her. Sabine recognizes one of the horses there as Jet, and he recognized her. During the fight that followed, Jet's rider was shot, and Sabine grabbed his reins and she and Ezra made their getaway with him.

(In Heroes of Mandalore, instead of being bad at flying a jetpack, Ezra got stuck with a pegasus who hated him and kept trying to buck him off in midair lol)

Hmmm going on...

Oh! Ezra is an ocean Merfolk, and like saltwater (ocean) fish, he can't survive (shapeshifted into his mer-form) in freshwater. That's why it was so dangerous for him to jump in after Sabine fell through the ice---it was a freshwater lake.

Also, the scene where he deliriously asks her to take him to Valhalla if he dies, because "merfolk don't have anywhere to go," is a reference to the original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, where mermaids turn to seafoam when they die.

Ahhhh yes, the necklace! I think I said this before in the tags of one of my merfolk art posts, but, so, for merfolk, giving handmade shell-jewelry is usually a marriage proposal, but it's not, like, automatically legally binding or anything. So basically, when 15-year-old Ezra gave Sabine her shell necklace, it was the equivalent of if you jokingly got down on one knee and offered your unrequited crush a cheap plastic ring from a cereal box or something, expecting her to roll her eyes, but instead she's like "Aw thanks! A ring!" and she starts unironically wearing the cheap plastic ring all the time and now you realize that she doesn't know it was a joke proposal because apparently rings don't go with proposals in her culture and you can't explain the joke now, it's way too late, and you want to die of embarrassment.

Oh yeah also Ezra found a pair of elaborate jewel-encrusted daggers in a shipwreck and gave them to Sabine. This is a reverse necklace situation--to reuse the metaphor, it's like if your best friend got down on one knee, pulled out a gorgeous diamond ring, and said "I found this in a gravel pit! It's for you cause I know you like cool rings bestiegirl!! :D" and you're like "...uh... thanks!" and you take the ring because it is a cool ring and you do love cool rings and you don't tell him that he basically proposed because apparently rings don't go with proposals in his culture.

mmmm yeah the love's lights scene. ahhh so much I could say. I guess, it was really fun in this part (and throughout the whole fic) to explore how Ezra wasn't entirely human, and how his merfolk instincts would affect him, especially regarding the way merfolk fall in love and the once-a-year merfolk festival. I actually have an outlined idea for a fic in the series that's about weird merfolk quirks and different traditions they have, so I might explore things more in that one.

ah man I am never gonna get tired of writing Sabine deciding to do random impromptu flirting and Ezra bluescreening over it.

oh yeah shoutout to Robert Louis Stevenson by the way, I stole a plot device from him (character hides in an apple barrel and overhears Important Things)

And then Rune and Jacen come in at the end! This was an adaptation of one of the original scenes of the fic that I mentioned at the beginning of this.

One other thing, I guess--the character named Koti is an orphaned mermaid girl that Kanan and Hera took in, so she's Jacen's little sister. the "guppies," as Rune calls them, are her three merfolk siblings--two of them are adopted and one is a sabezra kid. (said adopted children may or may not be rey and finn.) (Oh, and the guy Rune has a crush on? Poe Dameron. Obviously.)

Hmmm I think that's about it for this director's cut! Which is probably good considering I just dumped slightly under 2k words of ramble on ya

Thank you for the ask!! :D

#ask game #directors cut game #mythical creatures au #sabezra

17 notes · View notes

1425fivefive · 19 days ago

Note

Would love a director's cut on sexy to someone!!! The carcar dynamics are just *chef's kiss*

Sexy to Someone!! My very first completed fanfic (we shan't speak of my unfinished Maxiel fic). Thank you so much for this ask from the director's cut prompt!

This idea popped into my head essentially fully formed while I was on a bus in nyc. I don't really read traditional a/b/o because a lot of it has pregnancy which is not my thing (iykyk) and I don't personally love reading mindless rut/heat sex. I want my characters to always have to actively "choose" the sex they're having, just because I think it lets characters grapple with the fact that they want something, and aren't being compelled to do something by factors outside of their control. Like even in Feline Fever and Everybody Wants to Love You, I explicitly state that the characters don't have to have sex to get their normal bodies back.

So, I wanted to write an a/b/o fic where (1) heats and ruts don't need to be spent with a partner and (2) sexual preferences can differ from the "norm," in the same way sexual orientations or kinks exist in our world.

I loved the idea of Oscar as an alpha who doesn't want to knot or fuck people, and the shame that would come with that. It's clear in the fic that that preference exists, albeit rarely:

Oscar had seen almost every video in the (admittedly tiny) section of PornHub that featured alphas getting fucked.

Oscar has a lot of shame built up around that at the start of the fic. He's afraid of the press finding out, no one in his family knows that he has trouble knotting, and he's resigned himself to not having sex.

Enter Carlos, who (1) is an omega who likes to top and (2) feels absolutely no shame about it. I think this feels in character to me because of how Carlos acts around men (Charles, Lando, Max), where he's never afraid of being touchy and also likes to manhandle people (pushing Lando around, hand in Charles's hair).

With this fic, I wanted to explore the intersection of shame and desire, something that's very personal to me as someone who grew up devoutly Catholic and eventually left the Church after coming out. I genuinely did not know women masturbated until I was eighteen lmao, and literally would confess to my priest whenever I thought about kissing women.

Anyway, the narrative arc of this fic is all about Oscar letting himself want something fully, without the voice in his head telling him he's bad for wanting it. He constantly talks about how it's not "normal" to want to be fucked, but by the end he's begging for it and explicitly asking Carlos to fuck him.

The final thing, for me, is that I liked the idea of people in the omegaverse having "kinks" around certain designations. So, for example, Oscar begs Carlos to knot him at the end and calls Carlos alpha. They both get off on playing these roles, with Carlos the dominant alpha and Oscar the submissive omega, even though society would expect those roles to be reversed given their designations.

I also think they're quite clearly obsessed with each other by the end of the fic. It's the truest example of "matching each other's freaks" I've ever written.

#asks #sexy to someone #director's cut #ask games #carcar

14 notes · View notes

inkedroplets · 6 months ago

Note

⭐️🌟💫

I went back and forth on so many different sections to talk about in depth. I finally settled on this one.

I'd rather not dream at all, Lena thought, thinking of how often even her most pleasant dreams so often turned to nightmares, hoping that the sheer exhaustion she felt would be enough to keep them away. She watched Kara go as she waited for the light to change, too tired to work through everything that had happened, what still had to happen but unable to stop herself from trying. She watched the crosswalk light tick down and got ready to shuffle across when she felt a very light tap on her arm. Expecting Kara, Lena turned around and was more than a little surprised to not see anybody, until she felt another tap on her arm and saw that the culprit was just short enough to limbo underneath her eye line. A young girl with a bright yellow bow stuck in her hair that for some reason looked awfully familiar. "Hi!" the girl said, beaming up at Lena. Lena could only stare as she tried to figure out just why the girl looked so familiar, urging her incredibly sluggish brain to cough up the right memory when it came rushing back a few moments later. You were crying because you ran away from home... The confusion on Lena's face fell away and she smiled warmly at the girl. "Hello, Kara." Hello, Kara. Kara was already half a block away when the sound of Lena's voice stopped her in her tracks. She came to such a sudden stop that the man walking a few steps behind her had to very hastily sidestep around her, muttering darkly as he found his footing and began to walk faster in a bid to put some distance between the both of them, glowering at her, although Kara didn't notice. She was too busy trying to figure out if she had really heard what she thought she did or just imagined it. She stepped a bit off the sidewalk so as not to make other people have to walk around her and listened more intently and picked up the sound of Lena's voice, still standing out front near the coffee shop. How have you been? Kara's brow furrowed and she took a few steps back in the direction she had just come from. Are you talking to me? Kara mused, not sure what to think. She stopped when she heard a child's voice answer Lena's question. I'm good. So is my mommy. Thanks to you. She has a new job. She's inside now getting coffee and hot chocolate for me! I'm glad to hear that and I just had coffee too. With a friend. But it's Superman that helped. "Superman?" Kara said aloud, more confused than ever, eyes wide and her heart pounding. You walked me home. Well... Superman did too. Your mom will be worried if she sees you're outside talking to a stranger, you should go back inside. Promise again that you won't run away ever again? I won't. I promise. Thank you again. You're very welcome. I hope you had a good birthday too. I did! Oh, I wanted to tell you that I really like your helmet. I thought it was scary at first but now I think it's really pretty. I wanna dress up like you for Halloween. Kara swayed where she stood, like a boxer at the end of a very long round. She could feel her stomach twisting in on itself, while the same solitary thought pounded in time with her rapidly beating heart. It can't be true... It can't be true... It can't be true...

I had many, many ideas about how Kara would find out that Lena was the vigilante. And none of them involved Lena getting the chance to tell Kara the truth because where's the fun in that? I think initially I was leaning towards a big dramatic reveal. One during the penultimate chapter would have fit the bill but to drag that secret all the way to the finish line never seemed all that appealing. Kara managing to overhear Lena talking about her double life seemed plausible but the ethics of Kara always listening in never sat right with me. And as far as Kara figuring it out herself... I quite like the notion that for Kara and Lena that they are each other's blind spots. For as smart as they are or the clues that should seem obvious they just don't see them either by accident or design. When Lena ended up helping out the young girl who had run away from home, I had the epiphany to name her Kara. Something that seemed like a throwaway line at the time. Fun foreshadowing to stumble into as a writer. And it fit thematically since Lena unmasked to put her mind at ease and that's how Clark ends up finding out that it's Lena that's been prowling Metropolis and much (much) later how Kara found out as well. Kara hearing Lena call her name from far away seemed like something she would be actively listening for and while she did eavesdrop it was never malicious. I wanted there to be a lot less baggage. With how carefully Lena and Kara had begun to heal their relationship, I didn't want it to be something that could endanger that. They'd come to far for that. It might not seem all that important of a passage but I'm quite happy with how it came out and that Lena's first "fan" just happened to be a girl named Kara.

#ask game #fic director's cut #this was so fun #I already talk your ear off about everything already sideguitars

14 notes · View notes

bluecatwriter · 5 months ago

Note

⭐

Thank you, dear anon! I decided on "Angels Unawares" because I want to gush about my OCs. ;) "Five times people helped Jonathan Harker reach safety between Castle Dracula and Buda-Pesth."

(Major spoilers, discussion of Christianity)

-I was inspired to write this fic based on the gigantic gap between Jonathan lizard-fashioning down Castle Dracula's walls and showing up in Buda-Pesth, and began to think about who might have encountered him along the way. From my days backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail, I am very aware of how difficult it is to travel large distances without good supplies (just finding enough water is a huge headache!), and I kept thinking that he had to have people helping him along the way.

-This fic was very inspired by my solo travels around the U.S. (and a bit in Europe) when I was in my early 20s— I was never in dire circumstances, but the way that people went far out of their way to help me made a huge impact on me. I wanted to explore the themes of the kindness of strangers, and how doing one little useful thing can help set things in motion for bigger good to be done.

-The title is a reference to a verse in the New Testament book of Hebrews, which one of the characters quotes in the first chapter: "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." This verse was used in my immediate and extended family quite often, to encourage us to be kind to strangers and do what we could to help (my paternal grandmother swore that her family gave food and shelter to a pair of angels who showed up at their farm in Iowa when she was a kid). Someone in the comments show that in some sense Jonathan is an angel— an avenging angel who will return to destroy the foe who is haunting this part of the world.

-In each of the chapters, Jonathan encounters a different person or group of people who help him get a little closer to his destination, told from the outsider's perspective. I didn't have any strong themes or motifs in mind when I started out, but after a couple chapters, I noticed some running threads emerging: 1) Jonathan receiving a gift from each of the strangers, such as shoes or a handkerchief, and 2) the viewpoint characters helping him because they were able to see someone they already knew/loved in Jonathan. After I noticed it emerging I emphasized it intentionally, and I think it gives the story a good kind of structure.

-Chapter 1, set in Romania fairly close to Castle Dracula, is told from the viewpoint of Pavel, who lives with his son and his grandma and is grieving the death of his wife from a vampire. This one was one of the most difficult to write, because of a language barrier (it didn't make sense for them to speak English, and I decided that Jonathan was in no state to remember much of the German he knows) and because of the overwhelming fear that the characters are facing: at first thinking Jonathan is a vampire, then learning he's a victim instead.

-This chapter features some herbal remedies that I pulled from a book my brother got for me called "Russian Folk Remedies." Grandma uses herbs for dressing wounds and treating rabies (and in a rare burst of doing actual research, I made sure the herbs would be able to grow that far south).

-Jonathan reminds Pavel of the wife he lost, and Jonathan is sent on his way with shoes, a pack, and food.

-In Chapter 2, we meet Cristian, an old man with an estranged son. I actually made myself pretty emotional writing this chapter, drawing from my parents' stories about how difficult it is to let go of the childhood stage and accept your children as adults.

-It was important to me that Cristian is kind of a grumpy guy, and was initially going to chase Jonathan away. I didn't want everyone to be sunshine and rainbows— just ordinary people of various personality types who learn to have empathy, anyway.

-Jonathan reminds Cristian of his son, and is given Cristian's coat.

-Chapter 3 introduces Nicolae, the station-master at Klausenburg. I decided to make him young for some contrast to Cristian, and eager to do his job correctly. Meanwhile, I had to figure out how to show Jonathan's "violent demeanor" in a believable way.

-I decided to give Nicolae a seizure disorder to make him sympathetic to Jonathan having a meltdown in public. One of my family members has seizures, and even in the modern day, handling people's reactions when a seizure happens in a crowd is… not fun. There would have been even more social stigma back then, so I thought it was a good way to show that Nicolae is more open to Jonathan than other people might be because he knows what it's like to have people be afraid of him.

-I looked up some pictures of the Klausenburg station, but few of those details made it into the story.

-Nicolae gives Jonathan a sandwich with pickled garlic paste on it (yum!) and Jonathan can barely eat it; at this point it becomes a bit clearer that Jonathan is just a lil vamped right now.

-Jonathan reminds Nicolae of himself, and takes Nicolae's handkerchief with him.

-Chapter 4 introduces a retired nurse from the Romanian War of Independence, Maria. She's my favorite character! I based her no-nonsense personality on one of my sibling's in-laws, who was an ICU nurse for many years.

-Originally Maria was traveling with her niece, who translated for her, but the logistics got ridiculously complicated, so I left out the niece and just made Maria fluent in English.

-This is definitely the most gory chapter as we see the full extent of Jonathan's wounds. Fortunately he has someone to patch him up…

-Jonathan reminds Maria of the soldiers she tended during the war, and she gives him one of her spare shirts to replace his raggedy one.

-In Chapter 5 we finally get to Sister Agatha! I decided to make her one of the younger nuns working at the hospital, thinking that she probably wrote the letter not because she was the person in charge but because she was the one who spoke/wrote English most fluently.

-At the time I wrote this, my spouse and I were watching the show Call the Midwife, and that vibe informed the way I wrote the nuns.

-Once I figured out that each viewpoint character would see someone they loved/knew in Jonathan, I was champing at the bit to get to this chapter, because I knew Sister Agatha would looked at bedraggled Jonathan and be like, "Yeah, that's Jesus." She also gives him a rosary, which burns his hand, but he doesn't want to relinquish.

-I liked the little epilogue with Jonathan, still disoriented, waking up and taking stock of all the gifts he's been given along his journey, even if he can't really remember what is happening. Although the story doesn't necessarily "resolve" in that he hasn't found Mina yet, he's left with a feeling that people will continue to help him along his journey… and they do!

Well, this got a bit rambly, but thanks for the opportunity to gush. :D

(Ask game here)

#ask games #answered #director's cut game #dracula daily #dracula daily spoilers #my writing #jonathan harker #sister agatha

12 notes · View notes

antspaul · 12 days ago

Note

end to end for director's cut

end to end, post canon kaneson, 5.8k, rated T

As the sun sets on the last day of Heungmin’s career, the sky over Tottenham Hotspur Stadium turns a deep shade of navy blue.

OMG okay so firstly this fic was written specifically for my beloved @roykentalwaysremains , whose fresh tottenham hotspur fixation i capitalized on to drag him into the pits of rpf hell with me.

In a lot of ways end to end is a love letter to max and you elle and everyone else we spent last season watching footy with. It’s definitely wish fulfillment!! But also me putting the hope out into the universe that a time and place that brought me a lot of joy stays whole & important in some way.

Commentary on specifics below the cut!

When it came to choosing which players would come back for Sonny’s testimonial, I struggled with imposter syndrome in a real way LOL. Obviously, I did not follow spurs at the time (or at this time currently. Or really in any other way than through my pocket of friends who are spurs fans) and don’t have a great grasp of those guys, their talent level & potential longevity, their narratives, etc etc. Future fics will never be evergreen but you never want something you’ve put effort into to be completely obsolete, like, three months later. Eventually, I leaned into the wish fulfillment of it all and decided to be vague about the specific roster of guys on Sonny’s testimonial team (as well as any details about their opposition)

I mean, testimonials are barely even done anymore LOL and I can’t imagine the trend will reverse in the handful of years until Sonny retires.

More than any of them, Heungmin knows Harry’s rough edges. There used to be nothing left of Harry to discover. Then Harry went to Germany. Six years later, Heungmin feels a bit like Brennan, wide-eyed and amazed, not sure what to expect.

This line, as well as a few others from later sections of the fic, is essentially all that remains of the first fic I had vaguely planned to write for Max’s birthday. That fic, discussed in length BEFORE spurs and bayern did NOT play into the kaneson narrative with their friendly in Korea this summer, would have followed their meeting there. messages i sent to Max when we were discussing it:

so much potential here tbh…. kaneson meeting again on the field after h left but in son’s home country….. something something home something strangers something something….. sonny had lived a full life in korea that h would never know, and until a year before son had known h in the only place he’d ever called home, but maybe in five, ten years h would be as strange to son as son’s life before tottenham was to h…..

i’m envisioning them meeting up after the game and son takes him to his favorite place back home and they catch up and realize like. there’s no separate harry or son pre or post spurs. they’re both complete people and always have been and the best thing about loving someone else is spending your whole life getting to know them because no one is ever truly entirely Knowable and spurs is not the end all be all of Harry and Son, it’s just the place where for a while they were able to exist together. and they’ll always love it for that….

spurs is a place and spurs is a time but more importantly spurs was something they chose to be together. and bitch guess what….. NOTHING CAN TAKE THAT AWAY FROM THEM

and then Harry Kane decided he wasn’t a team player and WASNT AT THE KOREA FRIENDLY 👎👎👎👎👎

anyways

I really debated where I wanted H to end up in his retirement MLS career. He WILL be going in MLS I have no doubts about this, but idk for some reason I couldn’t imagine him on the west coast, but I also couldn’t imagine him specifically at one of the two evil New York teams with their multi club owners LOL. For a minute I was like …Boston??? New England Rev?? But then I decided fuck it, if Lamps went into the City system so can Harry. to NYCFC it is

When Heungmin came to Tottenham the new grounds were nothing but an abstract promise, loose dirt and construction vehicles and scaffolding. Months often went by with little to no visible progress. Many times Heungmin wondered if Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would ever be more than a half-constructed pile of steel beams and rubble. Yet despite everything, in front of them shines this glittering, otherworldly stadium that Harry and Heungmin get to call home before anyone else. The gradual transformation makes Heungmin believe that what they’re building, he and Harry and all the other lads on the team, will grow to become what it was always meant to be.

It’s not the grounds, Harry insists. It’s them. Heungmin doesn’t see the difference.

A thread that runs throughout most of my writing is the way that memory dwells in place. This fic is certainly an example of that! My academic research has a lot to do with the way that people construct identities based on place and space, and that comes through in how I connect setting to character.

Taking Harry seriously as a competitor adds a touch of normalcy to their relationship that Son hasn’t felt for a long time. Their friendship is not a sacred, delicate flame to hold close to his chest. It does not need protection from the wind.

This is another remnant of the previously mentioned AU. It’s also one of my favorite lines in the fic.

“It was kind of nice, actually,” Dele says. “Made the rest of us look better for once. I swear, bro, I nutmegged you at least eight times that day.”

I’ve heard that Dele was notorious for nutmegging his teammates relentlessly back in the day.

“Really? All that for fucking Bloodborne?” says Brennan, looking at Heungmin, as Harry walks off.

Heungmin laughs. “Don’t look at me! I still don’t remember. I don’t think I would stay up late for two weeks.”

This moment is a really important one for Sonny, just as important as his and Harry’s kiss a few scenes earlier. When he doesn’t remember a pretty small detail that doesn’t quite match up with how he thinks about himself from back then, he’s prompted to reflect on how much he’s changed since then. In this fic, Sonny sort of lives in the past, especially in the moments of his past where he felt the potential for things that never truly materialized. On a small scale, he’s forced to reckon with the fact that no matter what, he is a fundamentally different person than he was during the period of his life that will forever define his career. I think Tottenham as a club — and Sonny here in this fic, representing them — has a tendency to self-mythologize. And when buy into your own narrative, it can be too easy to overlook the messier parts of your past that don’t fit so well into that narrative.

Anyways those are most of the thoughts I have on that fic!! Thank you for the ask elle ILY!!!

#my fic #rpf #end to end #ask game #directors cut

6 notes · View notes

ink-and-dagger · 1 year ago

Note

In DWM, you had Silco and Astrid's first kiss during the sensual smoking scene, but you've also stated elsewhere that you were very tempted to make it during the blackout. What were the main reasons for you delaying their first kiss and how do you think the story would have changed if they had kissed sooner in the basement hallway?

*holds microphone up to your face expectantly*

*enthusiastically grabs your hand instead of the actual microphone handle so that you're forced to stand awkwardly holding the mic up to my face and unable to withdraw your hand whilst I blabber on with absolutely zero social awareness of how uncomfortable everyone is*

WOW THAT'S A GREAT QUESTION COI AND LET ME GIVE YOU AN ANSWER.

At this point in story Silco and Astrid are only just beginning to recognise the tension between them for what it really is, and I wanted them to sit with those thoughts and feelings for longer before anything happened between them. Essentially, there hadn't been anywhere near enough pining for my tastes. I'm a true slow-burn advocate, and I like to put my money where my mouth is.

The temptation to have them kiss during the blackout wasn't coming from Inky the Author™️. It was coming from Inky the Old Man Fucker™️. Ultimately, I had to give myself a bonk on the head and spend some time in horny jail.

Hypothetically, if they had kissed during the blackout, they would have dismissed it as an 'adrenaline-fuelled mistake'. These things happen right? Emotions were running high, it was simply a natural response to the situation. Silco would be cool and courteous, Astrid would laugh it off, and they'd mutually agree to not let it affect their friendship. After all, it doesn’t mean anything… does it?

The world beyond your closed lids illuminates, and Silco breaks from your lips with a pained hiss, raising a hand to shield his left eye against the sudden brightness. "Club's Cleared." You both whip your heads towards Sevika, who stands a little way down the corridor, glancing between your tangled forms with a small, shit-eating smirk. She jerks her chin at Silco. “Nice shade. Suits you.” Silco’s jaw tightens, tugging at his swollen, lipstick stained mouth. There’s no point denying anything; you’ve been caught red-handed. Or purple-lipped, as it were.

In terms of how it would potentially alter the story moving forward? It would definitely hang over them. I imagine it would pop up in their internal dialogues often, and they'd be hyper aware of one another. Overthinking interactions, contemplating potential hidden meanings behind words, unconsciously searching for signs of... they don't even know what. And they don't even know if they're searching in hope of finding whatever it is they're looking for, or fear of finding it.

And we all know that once that barrier has been breached once, it's all too easy to stumble across the line again. So, that being said, there's no way in hell that their drunken night wouldn't have ended in a snog at the very least.

"And it was nice, wasn't it? In the dark." Your nose is barely a few inches from his, and his right eye is just as heavily lidded as both of yours currently are. The alcohol on his breath might be making you even more drunk. "It was nice. Just the two of us. I liked the way you touched me. I like the way you kissed me. Mmmn you'sa good kisser—" Silco grabs the backs of your thighs, and sweeps your knees out from underneath you. Your head swims as you land heavily on your back, then blurs beyond all reason and sense when the heat of his mouth crashes against yours.

I don't think they would have gone all the way that night. But I could absolutely see a bit of messy hanky-panky on the sofa. Y'know. Hands shoved down the front of pants, fumbling around with zero finesse or technique. Very much r/Advice: I got drunk with my hot boss and we jerked each other off, what should I do?

It would definitely be a bit awkward between them after that. Astrid's cigar gift to him will have been more of a 'Hey thanks for looking after me last night and I'm sorry if I made things weird.'

The story would probably continue on as is from there. We'd get to the cigar smoking scene and it would be like 'okay so clearly it's pointless attempting to restrain ourselves so let's just bone already'.

Thank you for the question Coi my darling, I had a lot of fun imagining this little AU 🤭

#inky answers #director's cut ask game #drink with me #DWM AU #Silco x Astrid #Astro #Silco x Reader #Silco x OC #Silco #Astrid

46 notes · View notes

teejaystumbles · 7 months ago

Note

⭐ give us the bonus features/making of for your big bang fic!

Ooooh! OK!

For "Hell or High Water" it all started with a poll I made in May 2023 to decide which kind of fish half to give merman Hob. The British or Common Skate won and my merman Hob was born. The rest is kinda history lol.

For months I drew sketches and came up with a few scenes, like Morpheus being a freediver and dropping the ruby for Hob to find. I watched a documentary on freediving ("The Deepest Breath"), and skates of course. I talked a lot to mutuals like @amielot who helped me come up with some ideas for the story and whose drawings of Hob and Johanna shaped the way I wrote their relationship a lot.

Thinking about mermaids and movies with mermaids made me remember "Dagon", which has an ending scene that has very much made a lasting impression on me (and made me realise that I am quite a bit thalassophobic), and so I thought - "let's make it a bit creepy, a bit Lovecraftian."

I listened to "The Shadow over Innsmouth" and a lot of other Lovecraft over the next months, put together a playlist for writing and got to work on gathering more information to build my world. I decided to go with Lovecraft's love for ancient cultures as the cradle of weird/inhuman cults and made Hob's ancestors be descendents of Tiamat, originally living in the Mediterranean and Red Sea, using Accadian and Cuneiform writing as their form of communication. I have a whole Gdoc dedicated to notes for the fic, and another one for the story outline. I really put in a lot of effort but it was worth it. I love research and world building, I loved learning about freediving and revisiting my knowledge about Accadian language (I did two semesters of "Oriental studies" at the beginning of my time as a university student). At that point I don't think that I had decided to write the fic for the Big Bang, but then I thought, "why not? The pressure will help me actually write it." And it worked!

While writing I think I changed a few ideas of the story. For example, I had debated to let Thessaly try and romance Morpheus and make Hob even more jealous, but I decided to cut that short and let her focus on the ruby. I also needed a lot of time to figure out what to do about Johanna's selkie skin, there were different ideas, like have Morpheus stumble upon it where Jo had simply forgotten it. I think the final solution came to me fairly late into writing, but I'm very glad I thought of Rachel. It was my first time taking part in a Big Bang and I hope to take part in the next. There's nothing better for me than a project deadline actually forcing me to focus on one thing, as I tend to let my creativity wander and drop things halfway if I don't have to finish something.

Thank you for asking, I hope this was a bit interesting. 🥰

#asks #director's cut tag game #teejay writes #hell or high water

12 notes · View notes

tokuvivor · 2 years ago

Note

⭐️ Bridging the Gap

Ooh!

When I initially came up with some ideas of stuff to write back when I was starting out, a piece revolving around Gandra and Huey was one of them. The relationship between them had some potential, especially given their mutual connection to Fenton.

Without a doubt, the scene in this story that I had fleshed out the most in my mind was their heart-to-heart talk where she apologizes to him for everything. That was really kind of the meat of the story for me, even though it came right towards the end. I can absolutely see Gandra still taking all that she had done in the past really hard, regardless of why she was doing them. And Huey would understand and try to put things into perspective for her.

Plus, there’s the “older sister” bit. I can 100% see Huey viewing both Fenton and Gandra as somewhat of older siblings to him. Possibly because as the oldest of the Duck brothers, he still wants someone to look up to himself. We clearly got that in the show with Fenton. And I’d like to think it would happen with Gandra, too. My idea was that, in one way or another, Gandra didn’t always have the easiest time when it came to really having a family, siblings included. So she just gets really kind of emotional when Huey calls her that.

And the hug. In the show, I think the closest we got to something like that was them hugging Fenton simultaneously in Beaks in the Shell! I just wanted something super raw conveyed by the two of them hugging.

Overall, I would say I really enjoyed writing that part of Bridging the Gap. Just something that conveyed Gandra’s feelings really well, and Huey’s overall response to that.

#director’s cut ask game

6 notes · View notes

goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 4 months ago

Note

directors commentary on ever ancient ever new :)

Ooh okay! So that is the Mercymorn Came Back Wrong fic.

First of all, writing for TLT is so hard because I will agonize over the voice. It’s so specific, and not how I normally write lol. But it’s a very fun challenge. I just would never write it on my own if there weren’t exchanges to force me to do things on a deadline.

And as you know, I did crowdsource ideas a little on what to write, and how to go about it.

I don’t always write chronologically but this was the first piece I wrote for this fic! This is obviously the main/first diverging point from canon, because Augustine does immediately just try to kill John and everyone else there by throwing them into hell.

I just liked the idea of Augustine just saying something, in shock, out of pragmatism, thinking he’s selling out and finding that selling out. And then taking a minute to sit with it and realizing that he actually can stay loyal to John despite everything. It’s this moment where he thinks he’s reached a new low in how he’s sacrificing his principals then realizes he doesn’t much have any principals left.

LOL Pyrrha just quietly trying to not be clocked by any of these freaks.

Playing up the “nothing matters” angle. Grief and the way all his carefully set plans culminated into exactly nothing just hollowed him out. Cut him down at the knees.

There’s definitely a Gender Roles aspect in how Mercy comes back, how John treats her, and how Augustine himself thinks about her.

In canon, Mercy already feels like she’s caged in certain gender roles already. The way she’s reduced to like the unreasonable nag that no one else quite respects. And idk there’s something so bleak about the throw away line in NTN where John kind of laughs off her caring about reproductive equality in the cryo program, next to the entire dios apate plot revolving around her attempting to weaponize her reproductive system to kill him. There’s a strong feeling of her being the odd woman in a boy’s club and that shaping her in particular ways.

And there’s certainly an objectifying element in how she’s resurrected here, stripped of her memories and identity (again) and through that pushed into more traditional feminine softness and pliancy. It’s kind of the Alecto vs Annabel Lee thing.

The paragraph about Augustine fixating on them kissing was one of the last things I wrote in the fic actually. And reading over it now, I’d forgotten I actually had included that. Basically this entire segment was meant to read as having psychosexual #vibes but I wasn’t sure it was clear enough, so I added in a more overt connection. But even him waxing poetic about how loathsome and annoying she used to be is meant to be an expression of thinly veiled longing/lust.

Also side note, of course John did not actually use her funeral plans for her funeral lol

I can’t say how well it comes across, but I wanted a vibe of them fighting over her without much consideration for her. Similarly Augustine obsesses over her, who she was, and how she fails to be that now, with little consideration for who she currently is and how she may be feeling.

He has very little empathy for her current state, or consideration that like. this is a version of Mercymorn, and something horrible has been done to her. He’s refusing to think of her as like a person as opposed to like John’s creepy fembot.

Anyway I tried to have details sprinkled in like this to be like. there is stuff going on with her! She has her own thoughts! We just have no idea what they are because this is filtered through Augustine’s perspective.

Between this where there’s the vibe that she might be playing John a little, and the subsequent chapel scene where she’s like “I really don’t care about whatever happened before.”

Oh also Augustine says the old her would have unequivocally wanted to remember Cristabel but like. would she? She does ask John to wipe her memories in HTN, that itself, I interpret as a ploy. But Harrow is in many ways a foil to Mercy, and she has her entire plotline about forgetting Gideon. Idk like I don’t think it would be an easy answer one way or the other, but I think Augustine being so certain is more a projection of his own feelings/just wanting the old Mercy back.

This bit ports over an idea I’d been toying around with for that other TLT exchange if I’d written dios apate, but then I ended up writing Cytheon. The idea was just that either Mercy or Augustine get a glimpse of their old lives, one accidentally speaks the other’s old name, and it just evokes a visceral reaction.

It ended up feeling more natural here as a power play by John. But he is also just simultaneously lonely. He misses the people they were. In a way, putting Augustine through a similar thing now with a resurrected Mercy is him being like “See what I go through? It sucks, doesn’t it?”

And Augustine decides that… yeah it does suck. Perhaps it is better to simply forget.

#directors cut asks #the locked tomb #tlt #dios apate #mercystine #fic meta #i ramble sometimes #a string of words #all the bendy punctuations #ask games

10 notes · View notes