#i have characters and themes i really like but no concrete story ideas for fic?

[antiv3nom]

3, 4, & 10 :]]]

WAUGH HELLO!!!! THANK YOU FOR THE ASK!!!!! i hope u do not mind the frequency with which i have been liking and reblogging your posts on demonzoro you simply have good taste and good ideas

3. What’s your favorite emotion to write?

ok so like how insane do i sound if i say just like. emotional breakdowns. panic. because theres something so cathartic to me about writing just...stream of consciousness runons about someone absolutely Losing It that i cannot get elsewhere. but OTHER than that probably like...distant fondness or affection? like when you look at someone and you just feel yourself melt a little because you like them so much. thats a lot of fun

4. What kind of endings do you prefer?

i like writing endings that leave some amount of room for elaboration or interpretation (mostly in case i want to revisit a fic or story and write more related to it tbh) but typically im a sucker for a happy ending, or relatively happy. as much as i enjoy putting my guys through the ringer i usually like to let them out of it at the end with a mostly positive situation lol

10. Show a piece from your current WIP/most recent story, up to 30 words.

i havent written any fic in quite a while (something i tbh DESPERATELY wanna get back to, the ideas just aint flowing) but ive been working on a LOT of personal writing!!!

the story im writing right now is told from the perspective of a sword, and the swords got shit goin on that i wont explain rn (if any of yall wanna hear it just lmk ive got all the details in me brain) but here's a bit i wrote today:

She was bright as a star, the most of my home I had ever seen. After all, the void does not have eyes until it is torn from itself.

(thanks again for the ask, i appreciate it greatly!!!)

[chantsdemarins]

😅Real Villain Training [Tom Hiddleston circa 2012 X Fem.Reader]

Chapter three of Breath of the Æsir is almost here. I’m SO sorry for the wait! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy a very brief Tom story...

Honestly, I pledged to myself, no more Tom stories just focus on Loki. But I think I just can't help it. Especially when slutty inspiration like this photo comes my way (@lokischambermaid and @lokisgoodgirl 😳)

I am humbled by this era of Tom. In 2024 he is a husband/father/seasoned iconic actor in perpetual good cheer, but in 2012, he was a bad boy. As always please reblog and comment if you feel inspired!

Summary: Tom is hanging out with some real jerks for a new role, and he runs into you, literally. Your depression has caused your life to turn a little black and white, could this handsome stranger possibly add some color back? (at least to your cheeks🥵).

Smut factor: I hope...HOT 🔥

(Authors note: I have no concrete proof he was in fact a bad boy so please don't take seriously my young Tom plot themes of drugs and sex, which once again appear here. I could be totally wrong about him. It's art! It's a fabrication! Also, this story does involve mental health!)

I also don't know who would want to be on a tag list for a Tom fic these days! These are a few people who might be interested?? @lokischambermaid @mochie85 @mischief2sarawr @lokisgoodgirl @wheredafandomat @sailorholly @mrs-illyrian-baby @superficialdomina @gigglingtiggerv2 @fictive-sl0th @muddyorbs @tbhiddlestan83 @huntress-artemiss @smolvenger @kikster606 @mjsthrillernp @hiroyukinasukawa

Los Angeles, 2012

That afternoon, the rooftop pool at the Saint Avalon was a pink swirl of bathing beauties in early spring. Tom tried to focus on his deadpan conversation with his agent, but polka dots and silly cocktails danced around him. He pushed his Ray-Bans back into place, his sweat—or perhaps nervousness—causing them to slowly slide off his nose.

"Serious British actor succumbs to being typecast as a Norse sociopath. That's where this is headed, Tom, if we don’t do something, get you something else.” “Do you really want to be known only for Marvel?” he repeated his plea. The words just weren’t sinking in.

Tom laughed and inadvertently tried to change the subject. "Have you been to the La Brea Tar Pits yet, John? It’s wild—10,000 years' worth of dire wolf bones.”

His stare remained galvanized by the poolside girls. They just didn't look like that in London. Number one, the sunshine. Number two, the tans. Number three, well, his girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend, rather—made it hard to look too long at anyone else. So had he ever found himself at a rooftop pool party, he wouldn't have had the chance he was having now.

“Tom, are you paying attention? This is important. You're only here for a week, and we need to move on this role. I need to know if you're a yes.” The truth was, Tom was suddenly filthy rich with his own money for the first time in his life. He really loved being a Norse sociopath and already had big ideas for Loki’s eventual character arc into becoming an anti-hero someday. He had filled three journals on his bedside stand with his ideas for Loki.

His agent tried again, “Just hang out with Giorgio. It’s less than a month. Then the movie should be a very easy shoot. You get to embed yourself with some real hedge fund cats.” Tom’s attention snapped back. “Wait, I like that.” “Right? It’s like if Loki worked on Wall Street.” “Well…” Tom hesitated. He didn’t think Loki would actually ever bore himself that way. Those guys were boring to Tom and to Loki.

His poor agent was right, though. He did need another role. Things had gone so well; filming for the next Avengers movie was starting this summer. If he could find another gig, a time filler, a totally different genre, it really would be the best for his career. “Then a play next,” the agent mused, taking a sip of his own cocktail. “Shakespeare, or something 70s.” “70s? As in the 1570s? Or the 1970s?” “Tom.” “How should I know?” Tom laughed to himself, eyes still canvassing the poolside display around him. His agent leaned across his lawn chair and placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder. “So, you’ll do it?”

Two Weeks Later

Deep down, he knew he didn’t have the dissociation required for the job. He was too corporeal, too embodied. Years of being a long-distance runner and a trained athlete had fastened his mind, heart, and soul firmly into his muscles. He clearly wouldn’t be able to hide his feelings in his highly emotive, sensitive body. That was the first thing he noticed about the guys he was forced to hang out with for this role. They were covered up with their suits and sexist jokes. It was like they had Hadrian’s Wall around them. Which was, in fact, what exactly led to his sudden departure from the bar at Rue 23.

He had been embedded with short and loud Glen, buzz-cut Ellis, and the tall and lanky, just like him, Brad Nelson. There were a few others, but they were too milquetoast to be memorable. Role be damned. He left so fast the thick glass door almost hit a nice young couple as he bolted into the cold Los Angeles spring night.

He wasn’t dressed right; in his haste to leave London, he didn’t remember that California got into the 40s after the sun went down. He didn’t even pack a suit coat. Thank God he remembered to grab his leather pack from under the bar. It contained exactly five cigarettes, a finicky Zippo, his aftershave, a white t-shirt, and a travel toothbrush. There might also be a rolled-up Popular Mechanics magazine from the Burbank airport, something he never would be caught dead reading at Heathrow.

He also hadn’t done so much coke since he was in college. Why was LA always so incredibly cliché? He couldn’t blame Luke. He couldn’t blame anyone but himself for this role. He said yes when he was distracted. He was in over his head. They had hired these real blokes to make sure Tom looked authentic when they started filming next month, and given his intense drive for perfection, he had agreed that it was “brilliant” of the casting director to force the eight of them to spend these weeks in Los Angeles and one week in Manhattan, in a true immersive centrifuge of shallow materiality.

The night spun around him, a neon ball of yarn, teasing open his pupils until his eyes were black and not at all blue. As he walked, he ran his large hands down the surface of his body, the material of his shirt feeling like a fancy pillowcase from a boutique hotel.

One finger lingered over his jawline, tracing it as he brought his hands back up to his face. Engrossed in the comfort of his form a moment too long, he was distracted once again. This part of LA seemed to always be full of clusters of locals and tourists, laughing and talking. He was unfortunately moving against the flow of the crowd, a wayward salmon when he almost ran straight into you.

“Watch where you're going!” you yelled, dropping your purse onto the dirty LA sidewalk. It opened enough for your things to tumble out. Tom immediately stopped and bent down to help you, but you batted his hands away. “What the hell? I can pick up my own damn Chapstick,” you scolded. “Ma’am, I am so sorry, I am obviously not from here, and I am a little overwhelmed,” he rattled off. “Why is that obvious?” “My accent, of course.” “I didn’t honestly notice,” you spoke as you inspected the tall man’s face with squinting eyes.

You, of course, did immediately notice the timbre of his voice, his height, and the buttons on his tight shirt which looked like they were in the process of unbuttoning themselves. “Would you believe I’ve been doing coke all night with a bunch of Wall Street assholes at the Rue 23, and I had to get the fuck out of there,” he continued, not sure if you were listening, but you were definitely looking at him, so he continued.

“So now I am wandering the streets of Beverly Hills, and I haven’t the foggiest how the rest of my night will go.” You shuffled your feet for a moment before speaking. You had been heading home after a long day at work. You felt genuinely unprepared for navigating a handsome foreigner in the right direction. Yet there was a certain appeal to a man suddenly without his ship or his crew, so to speak. So you didn’t immediately walk away.

He had been shuffled from the airport to the bar in a hired car, he tried to explain, and his sense of direction bordered on problematic. Further, his flip phone was really only good for texting, and that even took way too long most days. He really did seem high, overwhelmed, and a little lost. He also seemed the type unable to handle any silence in a conversation.

“Do you live far?” he said after suffering through 30 seconds of no discourse. “It’s LA, everything is far.” “Fair enough,” Tom muttered sheepishly, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt, which were still somehow unbuttoning themselves. He thought he had bought the right size shirt. Maybe not.

You realized that if you were to ask this too-high, too-hot British man back to your apartment, you would inevitably cave and end up sleeping with him just because he caught you in this particular moment of your life. It was an in-between time. You weren't quite your old self and your new self that you'd been working so hard on, hadn't emerged yet.

“Want to grab something to eat?” You finally offered a neutral segue. That seemed to be just what the man needed to hear. His demeanor calmed. “Oh sure, yes, I could go for a big American cheeseburger, honestly.” “Okay then, let’s go to Patty’s on Vine, we can walk,” you said as you pulled at his shirt to turn him toward the right direction. He bristled at the feeling of your touch.

His whole body was even more sensitive than usual. You looked like the queen of the ancient British Iceni to him. In truth, he didn’t much care for the California look. He loved that you appeared out of nowhere and you looked like Boudica, not like Gwyneth Paltrow. Even though he was sure he heard she was nice. RDJ seemed to really love her.

The diner where you were headed was the second-tier after-hours hang, so it wasn’t populated with the usual crowd, not yet at least. You had some time before you would be inundated, and perhaps before someone would recognize him, which you still did not. You could ask him, of course. Although, sometimes in Los Angeles, the worst part is knowing who someone is.

Although Tom being Tom was unable to resist personal questions. “Tell me a little bit about yourself, just a little,” he had to ask as the night air propelled him quickly down the sidewalk. You considered telling him about your job, but it was just how you paid the bills. Your passions were your passions and not for a stranger. So you decided to be a little goth. It couldn't hurt.

“I have something like anhedonia, I suppose,” you finally said. Tom seemed to know what you meant right away. “The inability to feel?” He spoke. “More classically refined, which results in numbness, making capturing interior somatic sensations nearly impossible,” you clarified. “Sounds like you are depressed,” Tom flattened out your creative retelling of your current state. “Maybe,” although you weren't sure of his simple label. "You think it will pass?" Tom continued, ever the optimist.

You considered one way to try and test if this state you'd been in could possibly change, would be to see if he could provoke feelings of passion or at least some kind of low-grade horniness. You’d been feeling functionally blank for a while now.

He was stunning, after all.

He seemed game for anything, his amphetamine grin taking up the majority of his handsome face. He looked so lovely under the hanging light in your dingy booth. You ate the two-egg special you ordered and watched him devour his American cheeseburger with genuine joy.

“So, you're here to practice for a new part?” You sincerely tried to keep the conversation flowing despite the growing desire to test your theory. “Yes, they want me to branch out. In my career, there’s the fear I am already 'type-casted,' I guess you could say.” “Type-casted? So early on?”

He looked young to you. Possibly younger than you actually. “Yes, I had a big role as a villain, it really blew up, but, he's like a mythological comic book one. I am misunderstood mostly. I mean my character, not me.” "Sure." You nodded in understanding and agreed even if you didn’t quite pick up what he was putting down. You wondered if he had ever seen 'The Last Starfighter.' A favorite movie of yours, you rarely shared with anyone else. Or had he been in that? Your mind wandered. You really didn't recognize him, but you also didn't want to offend him by this fact.

“So how would this role be redefining your abilities? If you are playing a heartless hedge fund dude, isn’t that also a kind of villain? Maybe that is why you got this part.” Tom pondered your insight. He again fell into overthinking and was only a text away from bailing on the entire endeavor. He was becoming that kind of guy, emotionally uneven under his elite veneer.

“I guess they feel like I don’t have the chops to be a 'real world' baddie.” “I needed more practice.” “You don’t?” you said very timidly, suddenly you weren’t hungry anymore. You gently pushed your plate aside so you could focus.

You realized his bromance compadres would find him eventually. Another LA truth: it was hard to get truly lost for long. You had been studying his face during the conversation. His pale complexion was slowly becoming flushed in small increments. Was it shyness or a hidden boldness he was bursting to demonstrate, you couldn't tell.

You had worn your espadrilles today, maybe it wasn’t the right season yet, but they always went so well with your outfit-a flowery dress from H&M. Gently and playfully, you kicked one of them off your foot, making a soft thud. Tom dipped his eyes beneath the table for only a moment and brought them back to you, a new flash of crimson emerging. Why were you taking off your shoes? Maybe your feet hurt from the walk?

He picked up his water and chugged almost all of it.

Your right leg lifted up and found purchase exactly between his, landing on the soft seat. Tom chuckled nervously and grabbed your foot. “Just what are you doing?” “I thought you were in training to be a real villain. Or did I misunderstand that?” You teased. Tom’s sincerity and earnestness were effulgent. “Oh no, I am, I really want the part, I need this role.” Suddenly when the idea of something illicit going on beneath the table loomed, he was not reticent about this new role. “Then you better continue to practice.” You laughed, your own smile forming across your face. “How long do we have until they find you?” You inched your foot closer to his crotch.

Tom took a deep breath in and pulled out his flip phone eyes squinting, trying to see the rectangle text banner across the tiny screen. He held the phone up to you. “Can you read this at all?” You grabbed it from him, feeling his hand shaking a little. It was charming. He was nervous.

You read the tiny screen aloud, “Not really, something about where are you at…you wanker, we are about to call your agent." It did say exactly that, and you wondered if possibly Tom was throwing away this role. Were you watching him collapse his career before your eyes? “Are you one for self-sabotage Tom?” The question seemed to catch him off guard. Maybe no one had asked him so bluntly. “Maybe,” he said after a long minute of typing something on the seemingly minute phone with his long fingers and even larger hands. “Just like I am possibly depressed," you offered. He looked up and sat his phone down. “Yes, I think so. Just like that.”

Incoming

Just then the waitress came by filled your water glasses and gave you another quick refill of coffee. Your chosen sobriety was a strange foil to Tom’s imbibed stimulant cocktail which showed no sign of waning. “So, are we on?” He finally said after biting his bottom lip, for what seemed like a year, until it was slightly puffy.

“For what? A staring contest?” You offered, laughing nervously too, your foot still stationed between his thighs. You wondered what you could accomplish at this hour with the looming threat of an incursion at any moment.

The glimmer in his dilated orbs registered that Tom was now aligned in a mission of testing the perpetuity of your anhedonic state. Suddenly under the table, you felt his long legs spread yours apart, like opening a long-closed window that had been painted over.

You gasped but didn’t say anything. He laughed and widened his legs further. You moved your eyes to watch him under the table, his hand reaching down to adjust his cock, which was obviously becoming hard.

At that moment you wanted to jump over to his side of the booth, you wanted to concede and take him to your far away apartment in embarrassing Marina Del Rey.

Tom went silent and finally let go of your bare foot, he had been holding it so hard with his other hand, that you were sure it would be bruised. You immediately placed it on his now impossibly hard cock, tenting his pants obscenely. Honestly, you’d never given a “foot job” before and only seen something like this in a French film once. You had no idea what you were doing.

You slowly began to move your foot up and down his length, which was quite impressive and required more force than you had anticipated. You curled your toes around him to try and create more friction, dragging your heel just at the base.

You placed your hands on the edge of the diner seat so you could put some real weight into getting him off. That seemed to work, and Tom let out a guttural moan. He quickly grabbed your water glass and drank it in addition to his own.

“Should I stop?” You let yourself wonder out loud. “Are you crazy? No.” Was Tom’s quick reply. “Does this feel good?” “Fuck yes.” His voice was breathy, and he shifted in his seat, daring to look around at the customers, but none showed any sign of noticing anything other than themselves. “But this isn’t fair,” he spoke again softly, panting. “How so?” “Because I am um, I am receiving.” “Aren’t you supposed to be a selfish cold surface-level junior business asshole?” “Yes.” “Then this is what they do, they get foot jobs in diners, amongst other perks of course,” you laughed. “Shit, you’re right,” Tom barely squeaked out.

Just then the diner door opened, and you could see the dim faces of the guys he had been partying with. They finally found him. “Don’t look now but your Republican friends have arrived.” Tom’s flush became pale. “Should I stop?” You checked in again. “No.” His response was as clear as mid-day.

So, you increased your speed, you took a deep breath. You were so turned on at this point. You were positive there would be a wet spot on the cracked vinyl seat. You lifted your skirt up further. Tom noticed and peered beneath the table again. He saw your hand brush past your underwear and a finger curl inside the lace trim. You matched his erratic breathing to your motions as you fucked yourself intently. His eyes were glued to you, his fists almost punching into the flimsy placemats. You laughed to yourself about the chances of you both coming in public, surely, he wouldn’t, or you couldn’t.

You were about to mention that perhaps you should stop. When suddenly Tom let out a muffled cry. His breath hitched. You could feel moisture beneath the bottom of your toes as you brought your foot back to the tip of his generous cock once more. “Ah, I see,” you laughed. "Well looks like we are done here." There was no more time to discuss what just happened. The bros had spotted him and you and made their way to your back corner.

Tom closed his eyes in what looked like a silent prayer. He had just had one of the best orgasms of his life. The short blond one with cropped hair spoke up, “Hiddleston, where the fuck have you been, your agency was about to call the cops, which would have been lame.”

“Hiddleston,” you said his surname out loud. Realizing you never got his last name. Tom looked at you with both lust and remorse. Then turned back to the assholes. “You found me, good work,” he said assuredly. “Well we gotta go dick we have a strip club that closes at 3am and it’s in the contract that we take you there.”

Tom slowly got up and used one of his long fingers to expertly untuck that white button-down shirt to conceal the mess you had both made. He looked your way, the pale blue of his eyes returning.

You exchanged numbers for the pleasantry of it, as the assholes looked on impatiently, probably wondering why Tom was wasting his time on a girl who looked like Boudica, but that's just what assholes do you remembered. Although you really didn’t expect to hear from him again. To your surprise right before dawn, perhaps as he was leaving said strip club, a text came over your Blackberry.

“I hope you felt something, I know I did.” Shit.

You did feel something, a lot of things actually. Tom had brought something back to the solemnly plain bagel of your life. You quickly wrote back.

"Don't let the bros see you texting me Tom, you laughed knowing he was probably squinting and barely able to see your words. You picture all of them looking over his shoulder.

"They went home. Can I come over? I feel like we aren't done quite yet. My asshole-in-training self expires at sunrise and I turn back into the real me. Is that okay?" You blinked a few times just to make sure you saw that correctly. "So you're actually Cinderella," you laughed nervously.

You managed to type your address and push send before pulling your covers over your head and screaming quietly enough to not wake up your still-slumbering roommates. You then looked around your room in quiet delightful horror, you had about 30 minutes to hide all your dirty clothes from the past three months under your bed...

[voidshrubsquared]

Ok so Candied Circuits amirite (banger title also I am very proud of it)

(I was talking to emi about it thru tags and I felt like rambling a little about it :3)

So it would have been very much a Scrollon-centric fic, though I've thought of a few iterations that added a character or two for some extra Thought Experimenting. I had two more or less concrete iterations in mind: Either one, a smaller one-shot based completely on the hemoglobin post scene, or two, a 2-3 chapter long fic involving Cinna's story in Scrollon's POV, somewhat.

Short summary on each!

Idea one: Scroll goes out at night to catch an unsuspecting addison, drags them back to his bakery, scraps them, preps and eats them. Pretty self-explanatory, haha.

The idea here though would be that you get to hear him think, plan methodically, ramble about his addi biology knowledge and see him cook! There would have been a recipe section with a list of ingredients, and the reader would be able to follow the whole baking process! The descriptions would be really appealing :)

And when it came to finally eating his bake, the reader would also be able to catch that glimpse of feeling he's been wanting to experience this entire time. Just this super short sense of... euphoria? This THING he keeps trying to reach and can almost grasp but it disappears JUST as he thinks he's finally getting it. Oh well, there's always next time.

This fic would be very descriptive :>

Pros and cons of this idea:

Pros: Someone gets fully scrapped, death cool. Cutesy baking scene with an eerie atmosphere.

Cons: Kinda short? No Cinna :(

Idea two: This one is admittedly a bit more vague for me, but it would follow Scrollon's thoughts during Cinna's disappearance right after he thought he killed her. And some other branching-out thoughts of consecuences if his actions are brought to light, what his next move should be, etc etc. I'm a firm believer that Scrollon planned to kill two birds with one stone by killing Cinna, to both have another addison in his stash for later and also to try throw off suspicion over his department in a 'oh dear! our darling cinna has gone missing too! who could be doing this, I hope everyone gets found soon!' Kind of way, yknow? And it would be really interesting to just have him think while he idly bakes about what he should do now and how to keep things in control.

So anyways Cinna escapes, many thoughts occur, something something about keeping her missing arm as a reminder that she's out there. But then Scrollon finds out Cinna is BACK and she's ALSO eating people and she has a CREW, and so he's kind of irritated, more thoughts, tasteless simulacrum reference.

Things get more vauge as I go, but the idea is that at the end, he finds out that Cinna is out to get him, and that... makes him uneasy.

Pros: Okay so I'm gonna go on a little side-tangent here. So you know that one buks art of Scroll and Everette cuddling and Scroll wonders "Am I prey..." "No..." "I'm poison :3" (which. Btw. Super cool way to see how he interprets love. Or whatever closest he feels to love.) I love that. Because it's a little glimpse of how he sees things, and I think it applies well to the 'takes metaphors literally' thing. Well there would have been more of that in this iteration of the fic, and would have had heavier predator vs. prey theming. At the beginning there would be some stuff along the lines of "Scrollon is predator, Cinnemon is prey." And it would turn around on him in the end with something along the lines of "Cinna has a pack. Cinna hunts. Cinnemon is *predator.*" and a pause, "Scrollon is prey." And you'd just get a little dread... at the very least you'd get the sense that Scrollon has to be very cautious, and careful about what he should do next.

Side-tangent over, this whole thing is the pro. OH and Cinna. Cinna is always a pro.

Cons: Still vague imo? No real scrapping scene... no fun baking a Man scene... :(

Both ideas had stuff I wanted to incorporate, so looking back at both, I think I'd combine them, honestly. It would be something like Cinna disappears -> Scrollon kills, bakes and eats a man -> Scroll finds out about the Rainbow Café (I REMEMBERED THE NAME WOOO) and ofc in between all of that, we'd get all that juicy character exploration mainly on Scrollon :)

I hope none of that was confusing and made Complete Sense my brain is now Air

Anyways if I remember something else about this I'll rb with the additional info, but I think that's it! I wish I got to develop this a little more before the motivation went away, but ey, what can ya do!

(@emiplayzmc @jevajoy tagging ya both cause you two really like the scrollman and I thought you might like this/get something out of it, as small/vauge as it is :3)

[corellianhounds]

Would you ever write… a story about young Din? (Like as a child or teen)

Yes! So I already have a few ideas of flashbacks that get incorporated into stories that happen in the show’s ‘present’ that remind him of circumstances from his youth, but recently I came up with the idea of his first impression of/meeting with Paz Vizsla. The problem is I can’t decide if it would work well on its own or if it would work BETTER incorporated as a series of flashbacks into a story where the themes of both timelines draw parallels to each other

Bolstering his backstory in snippets doesn’t really count as its own story though 😆 What I try to adhere to when it comes to revealing those bits and pieces of Din’s past is the general rule that mysterious characters are more interesting when you DON’T know their entire history and backstory. The less concrete and detailed a character’s past is, the more room there is to play with what they do or know in the present. They can adapt to what serves the story best, and gaps can be filled in along the way as needed without the author needing to or feeling compelled to look out for contradictions or feeling constrained by rigid places in the timeline. Speculation keeps them interesting and the audience can fill in the gaps themselves and intuit how they got to the point they have in the present.

NOW. That being said. I had a fun idea for a de-aged fic with Mando and several other characters being turned back into their childhood selves (like roughly 10-12 years old) but with all of their memories intact, and the one-shot adventure that comes from it 😆 Kind of like the Fountain of Aging episode of Futurama where they have to figure out how to get back to the right ages again. Din, Grogu, Fennec, Boba, maaaaaybe Ahsoka, Cara Dune, Paz Vizsla, maybe Cobb Vanth, who knows. There’s some other characters that could be in the mix but it also depends on if it happens after my idea for TBoBF or if it’s closer to canon

The possible adult/s of the scenario would be Peli Motto and/or Toro Calican, with others dependent on what actually happens and what they get up to. Possible scenes include:

I think in my head it’s a case of the group collectively celebrating some downtime after the events of TBoBF, maybe a night similar to Samhain or Halloween or midsummer’s eve, a night when the veil between the worlds is thinner and strange magic is liable to slip through

Somebody invokes some incantation from a book or happens to bring some magical macguffin to the table or there’s a combination of Somethings™ happening while they’re drinking and telling stories long into the night. Whatever the case may be, everybody who was there wakes up the next morning changed

General panic between everybody as they contact each other to see if anybody else is hallucinating like they are, and those who were still planetside reconvene at the Palace as those who had left have to try to find their way back— Difficult to do when you’re not quite tall enough to reach all the controls of your ship, or you were en route to an important meeting that cannot be avoided.

Once they’ve convened and sort of figured out what happened they start planning a way to reverse it (all desperately hoping it’s possible)

Din is extremely conflicted about the fact his armor and especially his helmet no longer fit. He knows exactly how hard the galaxy can be towards children, and not having his primary protection and familiar fighting style available to him is going to make him incredibly vulnerable. Since the helmet no longer fits, he grabs a different mask in addition to a hood to shield himself, figuring if he still has all his memories, it’s just as well that he retains the code by which he lived as an adult. Grogu, luckily, doesn’t really seem to have changed much, and since he still has the same level of development he’s able to keep up with Din, the two of them sticking together.

Boba is incredibly frustrated at his armor no longer fitting him and has to adapt it as creatively as he can. The jetpack is unwieldy and off-balance with the missile launcher so he has to make do without it, but he layers up the breastplate, grabs the pauldrons and knee guards, and sets to work modifying the bracers amidst the other belts and trappings he’s kept ahold of.

Fennec notices Boba’s irritation at having long hair again for the first time in decades and at one point asks if he’d like her to cut it for him. Boba scowls and tells her if she even thinks of getting close to him with a razor, he’ll break her arm. Fennec, unperturbed but realizing her mistake, tells him to sit still and she’ll braid it for him so it’s at least out of his face. Boba’s silent but grudgingly accepts, and everyone else is wise enough to not bring it up

“You know at this age you kind of do look like your sister”

“My %#$?ing WHAT”

“Never mind”

Speaking of Fennec, she’s still the oldest and to her supreme satisfaction she also happens to be the tallest. Her sniper rifle is far too heavy though so she has to resort to staves, knives, and lighter guns. She’s an expert at adapting her weapons to fit as many as she can on her person. She’s really appreciating the renewed flexibility and range of movement: sayonara sore joints and slowly worsening eyesight

Peli Motto happens to drop by unannounced, dropping off some engine block or cloaking device Fett had her modify, needs a signature and payment from Fett so just moseys on down to the throne room only to be brought up short by a bunch of not-even-teenagers having a Very Serious Discussion just above the rancor pit and… Okay maybe she shouldn’t have had that experimental spice at the hookah lounge last night during the festivities because she could almost swear some of their faces look familiar—

“Peli it’s us.”

“Peli stop laughing this is serious.”

(She doesn’t)

Either that, or if it’s in the Toro Lives AU, Toro’s the one to find all of them first, and it’s still in the middle of all of them panicking so he’s doubly confused and being pulled four directions at once trying to be caught up to speed aaaaaaaand

Anyway he ends up as the de facto supervisor because they need SOMEbody who qualifies as an adult to get them into places they’ll obviously stick out like a sore thumb, and he’s just as baffled and honestly a little miffed at being ordered around by a bunch of kids but okay fine whatEVer, stop pushing

When they show up at Peli’s garage she laughs so hard she almost gives herself an asthma attack. “None of you look intimidating so stop glaring and put the gun away.” She refuses to play babysitter no matter how hard Toro begs.

[voxofthevoid]

how do you outline/plan your fics?

I don't really have a set process. I'm a mixture of a pantser and plotter these days, but for the longest time, it was just straight-up pantsing. Even now, the plotting occurs because I have too many ideas, and if I don't write them down with the details as they come to me, I'll forget everything.

Once I get an idea, it's developed in one of two ways: I rotate it in my mind till concrete scenes and dialogues emerge, or I mention it to @nearalways so that we can flesh it out together in the DMs.

The initial notes go to into a word doc. For smaller or less complex ideas, it's usually a sequence of events, with characters' thoughts and specific lines of dialogue mixed in. For longer ideas, like the kidnapping fic (which originated in the DMs), the outline tends to be divided into two sections: one for all the actual scenes, arranged in narrative sequence, and another for larger themes and meta elements.

By the time I start writing a story, I'll have a skeleton (ranging from varying degrees of bare to varying degrees of meaty), and then it'll be developed further as I write. At a rough estimate, 75% of what I actually write is made up on the spot, with the outline serving as a very flexible guide, and the rest is the outline made concrete.

None of this applies to impulsive oneshots, which are hammered out as they come to me.

Thanks for asking!

[blackkatmagic]

:3c Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

Cher how dare you make me say nice things

Since I already did this once, I'll use different fics this time. So...

1 - efface the footprints in the sands

This fic is one of the ones where I really had a firm idea of where I wanted to go right from the start, and following that all the way through let me really play around with foreshadowing and character arcs in a more concrete way than a lot of my fics. Agen's growth and slow understanding, and the shared theme between him and Anakin that violence isn't a good way to solve things, is one of the arcs I'm most satisfied with having written. (And it's complete, what a miracle asjfskjs.)

2 - on the other side of time

I think the concept of this one is the most fascinating, personally, even though I haven't gotten far enough to explore much of it yet. The idea that a time-travel fix-it that depends super heavily on the understanding of one or two characters isn't actually a fix-it for everyone, and that time, when twisted out of its set path, leaves grooves like a dry riverbed, things that exist even if they're left empty, is such a fascinating idea to me, and exploring that is incredibly fun. Particularly through the eyes of Savage, who was done so fucking dirty in canon.

3 - Time in the hourless houses

Kind of similar to the last one, I love the concept of the Force as something that isn't quite conscious in the way most of humanity thinks of consciousness, but is still alive, and it has a plan even if no one else understands what that plan is. Also, I love prophecies as like...that one quote from The Old Kingdom books: "Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?" It makes for such an interesting exploration of choice. And Xanatos is just a vicious, snarky bastard, which makes him a lot of fun to write.

4 - to the stars/to the day/to the sun

I enjoy weird writing styles, particularly when I'm the one doing them, and writing Maul when he's mildly mad is highly enjoyable. Like, he makes sense to himself, and keeping that thread even when he's sounding mad to everyone else is such an interesting challenge. It's also fun to like....imply the depth to Feemor's story without ever dipping into his POV. It's like writing his motivations into the negative space of Maul's perception of things, and what they aren't saying.

5 - Arcana

This is probably my least popular/least read long fic ever, but I honestly adore it. Dark romance is a thing I read a fair amount of, and I always love a good exploration of villains, and there's a lot that's cathartic about the clones getting to be the agents of their own destiny even when other characters (like Palpatine) least expect it. Also Fox just. deserves to be emperor of his own city-state. I think that's just fact.

[boinin]

2024 check-in

It's been a while since I talked about Cassis Orange here. For those wondering, I still don't have a concrete ETA on when I'll publish the next chapters. I'm actively writing the final chapters as of now however, after a few false starts and writers' block. All I can say from here is, I'll keep people posted 🐞

For anyone interested in behind-the-scenes rambling about my writing process, more below the cut.

What's holding things up? Well, I like to finish a full draft of a piece, allow myself some breathing space from it, before going back to review, edit and weave together the chapter's themes and ideas.

Emphasis on "finish a full draft". That's a mistake I've made with Cassis Orange. I've always had sight of the destination, and the scenes needed to get the characters there, but not always how these scenes should join up or how they ought to flow.

In addition, nailing down themes and authentic character growth has been challenging. Lastly, the gap between writing chapters 1-8 and writing 9-10 has slowed progress, as I end up needing to re-read what's already there for consistency.

None of this is to the fic's detriment (I hope), but it's knocked my own motivation at times. "Done is better than perfect" is a motto I continually remind myself of. It's taking me longer than I'd like, that's just life. But I remain excited to finish the story, which is the main metric of concern 😉

Anyway, why is finishing a full draft so important?

Well...

Here's a quick look at my old drafts folder:

Chapter 9's main difficulty, despite me knowing exactly what needs to happen, is hitting the right emotional notes and character milestones. I've already made three distinct stabs at the same scenes, none of which really achieve what I want them to.

Thankfully, these particular issues aren't on the same scale as what I faced with Chapter 7. shudders I am confident about where to go next.

If you're wondering, IMO the best solution to this issue is to just... write them anyway. See the events out, imperfect as they may be. It's more insightful to revise a dysfunctional scene from beginning to end, than a half-baked draft that tails off in author despair and confusion.

A recurring mistake, which I'll try to learn from going forward.

|| Spoilers for published chapters of Cassis Orange start here! ||

This is my note on the oldest draft (which I first started in May, apparently?? holy fuck). Because I wrote out of sequence, the Chapter 9 I'd started doesn't align with the direction Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 took. In fact, it's different enough from what I want to convey that I've considered recycling the draft into its own fic. May still do, but not before I finish CO.

The "Kunigami Sadboi" draft is exactly what it sounds like lmao. In short, I sketched out some angsty scenes in his POV that take place between chapter 7 and chapter 8. Alexa, play I'm Not Okay (I Promise).

Ultimately, I determined these don't fit the vibe of the Chapter 9 I want to publish. But they served a valuable creative purpose. Even if it's not spelled out for you (the hypothetical reader), it's important that the writer (me) and by extension, the characters, know what happened off-screen.

These drafts are imperfect. But now that I'm carving out the final Chapter 9, I can cherry-pick ideas and imagery from them. No writing goes to waste, even if it's destined to lounge in your drafts folder for all eternity.

Anyway, if you've got this far, you deserve a medal. Instead, have a snippet of how Chapter 9 could have looked, had I hit publish on that older version. Featuring out-of-character weepy Chigiri and indulgent author moralising via Kunigami!

I'm irrationally fond of this moment, though it doesn't hold up for a number of reasons. It's what the idiom kill your darlings refers to. I can like this excerpt, and it may have some merit, but it doesn't serve the narrative at large. So it dies, along with the 15,000 other words that didn't quite hit the mark 🥲

Here's another snippet, from Kunigami's sadboi days:

Again, something I personally enjoyed writing. Kunigami's dynamic with his kids is something I treasure a lot about this AU. It's simply one of those scenes that's best kept to headcanon, due to the shape I want Chapter 9 to take.

[naranjapetrificada]

Academic excerpts as a framing device

So in the ask game I've been enjoying today, @piratecaptainscaptainpirates asked an interesting bonus question about the academic blurbs I've been including at the start of each chapter of From the Firmament that I started answering on that post, but things quickly go long enough to merit their own post so here it is! The question (as such) was:

(also, I was just re-reading From the Firmament and I will never be over the academic article excerpts. They're just such a neat and fun inclusion! I'd love to hear about your process while writing them, how you go about working them in with each chapter's themes, etc.)

Whatever specific idea that spawned the fic itself is now lost to the vicissitudes of ADHD memory, but it was born in the context of a lot of Thinking About Tropes in ways that were new to me at the time. In particular I was interested in a different first meeting, specifically one that involved Stede actually visiting the Queen Anne or being taken captive by the QAR crew, and Ed having to react to Stede under those circumstances.

I started playing with a draft in that vein that I'm going to come back to at some point, but the other trope I got really interested in (both as a reader of fic and also just like, intellectually) was arranged marriage. Basically every version of that I could imagine required an entirely different world than the canon one, and once I started casting about for the right circumstances I started thinking about history a lot.

The academic blurbs started as a worldbuilding crutch when I was first trying to get the fic together at the beginning, and it was easier to gather all that kind of information in a "just the facts" format when starting out. They started taking on a more concrete form when my thoughts about history intersected with 1) stuff I'd read before, 2) stuff I was reading at the time, and 3) a joke that got out away from me.

1) Two of my favorite novelists period are K.J. Parker (who I've mentioned at least once in the fic's notes) and Guy Gavriel Kay, both of whom are obsessed in their own ways with history in a way that come through in their fantasy work in interesting ways. Kay tends to straightforwardly mention in-world history and historians, without mentioning specific works but making a point to draw attention to the fact that he's speaking from outside of the characters' perspectives. Here is an example passage from Kay's Under Heaven, which is presented in its own separate section between character pov chapters:

It was said to be the case that the emperor's favourite wife, regarded by some later historians dangerously subtle and too influential, played a role in encouraging him to keep that agreement--with a view to securing Kitai's boundaries.

Meanwhile Parker, who includes the names of specific fictional works and specific fictional historians, is more likely to bring up history in the flow of the narrative, when at any time the next sentence could discuss history and/or in-world philosophy:

Saloninus, in the Exceptional Dialogues, speculates about the end of the world. Will it be a great sundering, the sky falling on the land, or a great inundation, the sea gradually rising until the last treetop is drowned, or a great fire, or—Wrong. The end of the world is like this, and a deaf man who couldn’t lipread wouldn’t even realise what had just happened.

I enjoy both of these approaches despite (or maybe because of) their differences, and when you've read as much of either author as I have this sticks with you.

2) at some point after I started playing with the idea that would become FtF and the draft of Chapter 1 coming together, I picked up Parker's Sixteen Ways to Defend A Walled City. One thing I really appreciate about both Kay and Parker is that they almost never tell their stories from the perspectives of rulers (with the occasional exceptions of rulers who began as commoners and are usually, like canon Blackbeard, some combination of bored, overwhelmed, and made miserable by their position at the top). Kay tends to alternate between a few main characters, with individual one-off outsider POV sections, while Parker tends to have several characters whose alternating perspectives cover the whole story. In either case those characters usually span the middle 3/4 of their given society, neither prince nor pauper. People who aren't starving but aren't wealthy, mid-level bureaucrats, low-ranking government officials, generals who we met as lower officers, etc. This was true of that novel, and helped me arrive where I did with Ed and Stede in my WIP's world (yes they're both high ranking, but neither is a ruler as such because that didn't interest me). I think looking at them in the canon world and realizing where I wanted to put them in the world I was building led to point #3:

3) "Wouldn't it be funny if Stede was accidentally incredibly influential?"

In some ways that question is a central question (and joke) in the show itself. Like, this guy shows up and starts doing things differently because he can't help but be who he is, and his desire for the world to be a better place then spreads beyond anyone's wildest dreams? And yeah Stede isn't the catalyst for the end of traditional piracy in the world (that's the British Empire, their culpability as represented by the death of Izzy "The Avatar of Traditional Piracy" Hands), but he is the catalyst for it on board the Revenge. And the place he was able to influence intersects with the wider world after a series of accidents and unlikely events, and even without season 3 (😢) we can see the way the world is changing now.

And how that got out of hand was I started thinking about contexts where accidentally becoming important to history would be the most unexpected (and therefore the funniest) and ended up at republican-era Rome. Something about the pomp and circumstance and veneration of it all, and then here's my favorite little guy with his inherent kindness and autistic whimsy, ready to turn everything on its head.

And from there: the blurbs just became a means to an end and the best way to draw attention to that joke. I couldn't stop imagining people talking about Stede Bonnet the way they do about Rome and laughing about it, so here we are.

As for your process questions: I tend to write them on their own, whenever a given topic seems interesting or like something that could fit into the world. The blurb in chapter one kind of just sets the stage for things, but when I first wrote it it was significantly longer and was much more about the documents cache it mentions, because at the time I was thinking about historical document preservation. Since it needed to be much shorter and kick things off I just reshaped what I had to serve my purpose. I do still have plans to incorporate the rest of it later!

The second one came from thinking about Edward "Daddy Issues" Teach's relationship with violence and how having a father who is different from canon was still going to allow violence and daddy issues to still intersect. The idea for the arrows it describes is lovingly (if shamelessly) borrowed from the Parker book I mentioned above, in an attempt to create a situation where Ed could still have (misguided) ideas about the capacity for violence being something inherent about a person.

Lastly, I'll say that while I'm not intending the opening blurbs as obvious statements of purpose for the chapters that followed, they do fulfill a worldbuilding purpose relevant to where they show up in the story. So the first one is, by necessity, an introduction, and the second one is both meant to inform and remind everyone of the bad blood that exists between the parties trying to bridge the gap between them with the marriage. I won't say yet what the third one is but I will say that I've foundered way too long working on Chapter 3 because I didn't immediately establish which one I wanted to open the chapter with. So they're important scaffolding, important worldbuilding, and in the way of worldbuilding they'll be relevant to later things when those things come up.

Thank you so much for asking this question, it was super fun and helpful to nail all of this stuff down like this and get it out of my head!

[sergeifyodorov]

I just reread strange trails and I'd love to know your inspirations for it! Your ideas behind the worldbuilding, the genesis of the plot, all that good stuff if you'd like to share!

the backstory

im a college student and was unemployed all summer. in order to pass the time while waiting for local jobs to reject me i started a crochet project. throughout pretty much the entire month of june. and possibly also may. i would make my squares and listen to the strange trails album. straight through. every day. i may have gone a little bit insane.

but it's okay. i'm already insane.

lord huron (the band who made the album) has like. lore. am i familiar with this lore? no i am not. am i aware nonetheless that there is lore? yes absolutely. if you listen to their discography there's definitely lore -- recurring themes (resurrection, adventuring, magical seductive women, etc), motifs (depends on the album but strange trails is big on flowers, trees, snow, although there is one song that's set in the desert), characters (they keep mentioning a guy called the world ender.) anyHway the point of all of this is that the music is [solid 7.5 out of 10 but it scratches my exact brain itches] and very evocative of the imagery and idea of a deeper world. my favourite off the album (and one of my favourites in the discography) is la belle fleur sauvage, which tells the listener about a long perilous quest for some mythical thing (a flower. also a woman. metaphor), although one of the ones whose imagery i enjoyed the most is frozen pines, which is a little less concrete but invokes images of cold, the side of a mountain, strange happenings, etc.

the idea

those songs are definitely the most direct inspiration for it but unfortunately my process for developing ideas is kind of terrible because it involves less "sitting down and coming up with stuff" and more "wait for a 60% formed idea to smack you upside the head like rapunzel in tangled and her cast-iron frying pan." which quinn and his sad little corpse did.

if you go back far enough in the quinnfic tag on my blog u can see the post right after it Happened. the idea was literally "quinn hughes carries a corpse up a mountain, and horror."

so i take this little piece of grit from which my pearl of questionable moral integrity will be built and i ask it questions. first off: quinn, why are you on that mountain? who is the corpse? is anyone else with you? soon enough petey decided to join him (although quinn is and was always the protagonist/pov character). the body was The Ghost Of Vancouver before it was brock over top of that.

another inspiration, which i realize i'm leaving out, is this

this is artist grayson perry's work "hold your beliefs lightly" from tomb of the unknown craftsman, and this image of a long perilous upward journey towards some sacred place really combined together with la belle fleur sauvage to form the base idea of the world for the work.

and of course why would you carry a corpse up a mountain to some sacred place if you couldn't resurrect it at the end?

quinn

im big on metaphor. if i'm writing something long it has to have a Point to it, some larger theme than romance and stuff (this is mostly because i'm bad at writing romance)(and also big on curses and the like.) and also because quinn hughes asexual barb i never fucked/i never fucked/all my life man, fucks sake. this was also being written right before the peak of Canucks Captaincy Debate, and in our hearts didn't we all know quinn was going to be the one to wear the c?

so it became pretty clear pretty quick that as well as my attempt at writing horror that this was going to be a quinn character study -- and this is where i should talk about my other fic scheherazade.

in scheherazade, auston actually doesn't make a lot of choices -- he tags along, arguing with the narrator/bill, and only starts to take an active role in the way the story is going near the end, when he finally gets sick of it all. quinn, however, is not at all the same kind of person as auston. he's less artistic and more practical; an older brother instead of a younger one; jewish; not nearly so squeamish. he takes an active role in the story from the very beginning, showing up to the base of the mountain with his pack full, both prepared and not for what lies ahead.

the mountain

vancouver is smack in the middle of the north shore mountains, so there's a million hiking trails about, but the one i can most easily think of (as someone who hasn't been to vancouver in several years) is the grouse grind trail, a popular and fairly short trail that the canucks prospects actually do every year, so i knew quinn and petey (both vancouver draftees) would be familiar. i've never actually done the grouse grind, which was part of the reason i decided to kind of. toy with reality. you can't call me out on inaccuracy when it's Not Real On Purpose (although the sign at the 1/4 mark is copied directly from photos i've seen.)

petey and the plot

once i added petey, i knew i'd have to get rid of him -- a lot of the scene ideas were quinn-only, and petey's way too sarcastic and useless (AFFECTIONATE) to engage seriously with the ideas presented to him like quinn would and did. so i needed to divide them up.

the original plot idea from the outline is actually pretty similar up until the end of chapter 6 (the conversation w the ghost), but it differs in a few crucial ways -- one, quinn breaks down again, crying and everything, and two, he actually does go through with the resurrection instead of using his wish to get petey down the mountain safely. i realized around then that this wouldn't work with the quinn i'd created, especially after his argument with the ghost: he's far less focused on glory than stability, less interested in the cup or his contract and more interested in the safe long bet than high rolling. in a cold, wet environment like the mountain it's a lot easier to get hypothermia without noticing than it is in a dry environment, even if the dry environment is several degrees colder than the wet one. and quinn would know that, having seen petey's thin little sweater and knowing his stubborn ass is going to freeze.

so after that it became about hypothermia. i actually had a bit of a writing pause after this because i knew i was going off-outline, so i had to kind of inch ahead until i knew where i was going. but i'm happy with how it turned out!

[dndeceit]

This is just a bunch of meta for my fic “Nails in the Coffin”.

The initial idea for this story came to me years ago after my initial fic binge upon finding this fandom. Influence wormed its way in from a lot of the fics I read at the time, but the anonymously authored series "a feeling's not a thing you own" probably had more impact on it than most. Part of why I sat on posting the fic for so long was because I was of two minds linking it as “inspired by” the series. The tone, themes and plot are all very different (mine being an occasionally humorous story centered around a fantastical problem, while the other dealt with very serious topics more closely rooted in reality). Still, both focus on Thomas experiencing extreme upheaval in his life, and how this manifests in the Sides in real-time in a way I’m not sure I would have done without reading that series. And Nails echoes enough of the same story beats in places that I feel I'd be remiss in not mentioning it.

Also, AO3 doesn’t let you link a series as an influence. Linking just the first story wouldn’t make sense, as it doesn’t contain the relevant themes, which are scattered over the series as a whole.

Further, it bears significant repeating that "a feeling’s not a thing you own” is a series dealing with some very serious real life subjects. To a certain degree, citing it as an influence to my story would feel a bit like making light of those subjects. And it is very well written, but the series doesn't pull many punches. It certainly might not be for all readers, so I absolutely insist anyone interested in giving it a look make sure they take a good close read of the tags for the full series before doing so.

Moving on to other things, it might be noticed that, for a vampire AU, the word itself pops up only once, and then only in writing that Logan is crossing out in chapter 4. This is partly to highlight the themes of denial and coping with huge life changing things by not thinking about them. Even in the narration, and even after they’ve accepted that it’s happening there is a lot of effort put into talking around the issue. However, this is also just a personal writing affectation of mine. One of my favorite vampire movies is an old film called “Innocent Blood”. That movie also never used the word vampire anywhere out loud, but still managed to make it very clear that every character knew exactly what they were dealing with. That vampires are such a clear, strongly realized concept in our culture that you don’t need to say it for it to be understood, and sometimes what people don’t say does a better job of showing how scared they are. How afraid they are to believe it. It made an impression on me.

The end of chapter 5 was actually the first scene for this fic that existed as anything complete, and it was mostly born out of the image of Roman's magic girl transformation into a brooding vampiric anti-hero.

Chapter 7... This chapter gave me so much trouble. It was probably my favorite chapter to write, and one of the ones I had the strongest image for after the scene in chapter 5. But as much as I tried I could never be satisfied with the ending. I’m still really not happy with it. But if I continued to agonize it, I might never have posted the fic at all.

It has already sat basically finished for more than half a year without posting.

Early versions use a version of the mindscape that is closer to the common fanon version where all the sides share a space with a long hallway with doors to their rooms. This made it really easy to indicate what had happened in a very simple way (in that version, Patton’s door vanished and Janus’s took it’s place, while Patton’s room later reformed in the subconscious near Remus’s). Still, I was dissatisfied with that. While very simple, it’s somewhat anti-canonical (we’re shown Patton and Virgil’s rooms as expressions of Thomas’s current surroundings). I also didn’t want to support the Light/Dark side divide as anything fixed or concrete rather than a label based on how Thomas interacts with them, but that is otherwise largely arbitrary.

(Also, the basic thesis of this fic is “Everyone Gets to Be a Dark Side Because Thomas is a Friggin’ Vampire”. Everyone gets to be a little dark. As a treat.)

While it might come off as sounding somewhat jaded, Janus’s “hope is a lie about tomorrow” speech here is really not meant to be. Janus is lies, so of course something merely not being known to be true isn’t a condemnation from him. It’s meant to actually be hopeful, and I hope that comes across.

(It’s sort of my attempt at the “one atom of justice” speech from Prachett’s Hogfather or “not lies, dreams” from The Sandman. Probably with limited success.)

Fun fact: In the original notes for this story, Janus's line in the final chapter originally read "In that sense, we've always been siblings, you and I." Which drew a direct parallel between them and the twins as being two sides of the same function. But then the “Over the Garden Wall” video came out, and it was part of the push to work on this as part of my NaNo project. And...look. Look. I'm not much of a shipper, but after that scene in the video, I couldn't bring myself to use the word siblings after that, okay? Not and still take myself seriously. And then of course Patton would be flustered at the idea rather than disturbed, which was a great way of illustrating that their dynamic has changed.

Also, I just want to say, the joke about Remus trying to convince Thomas to eat the governor has been in the notes for this fic for so long. This fic has existed in my drafts folder for two years. At one point I was concerned it wouldn’t even be topical enough to be funny anymore. Joke’s on me, right? This joke is going to remain evergreen it seems. I might even make it a running gag if I ever write anything else in this universe. It’s going to become one of Remus’s favorites.

(Not to “get political”, but Florida governor Ron Desantis is a lamentable pile of festering human trash. Just. You know. In case anyone didn’t know.)

I liked the ending I wound up with. I thought that it ended on a good, hopeful note for everyone. However, there was a slightly sillier ending in my original notes, which would have involved Janus defusing Remus’s fixation on feeding by starting this exchange:

Janus: "Oh, by the way, Remus, you missed it: Patton said a swear." Remus: "What? No way. Which one?" Janus: "Your favorite." Remus gasps. Remus: "Patton said the fuck-word?" Disbelieving Princey noises. Logan narrows his eyes consideringly. Virgil: "No he didn't." Janus exaggerates his offense. Janus: "I'm offended you'd think even I would lie about at thing like that." Patton: "Wh- No I didn't!" Virgil: "See? Yeah, nice try." Patton: "I mean, c'mon guys, which of us are you gonna believe?"

While it would have highlighted more explicitly what is hinted at in the final chapter (by lying Patton hints that he is now part of a dual manifestation of Deceit in much the way that Remus is part of a dual manifestation of Creativity), it didn’t have quite the hopeful impact as Patton and Janus ending on good terms.

There’s more to say about how the sides have changed in this verse. Patton is now keeping secrets from the other sides, and there’s probably a whole sequel about Logan and the heart he’s keeping in his desk. Unfortunately, I don’t know when I’ll have the energy or focus to work on them.

[nicely-done]

kinda thinking about stuff based on a sort of weird ask an artist I follow got

The ask was basically a “how come I can’t make a fandom around this new story you did” bc the artist is selling a sort of abstraction of their own experiences as a comic using what they enjoy

don’t think I gotta explain how rude that actually is, and I’m not writing this as a “oh I’m so much better” type thought

But having been on tumblr I had interacted within fandoms, but I don’t really recall any of them, it was mainly ask blogs, and I even created a few short lived ones bc it just wasn’t interesting for me (and one case where the only other person who knew about the obscure anime went and drew cp of one of the main characters so? I was gone. Can’t enjoy that anymore, really wish I could. But I have that image burned in my mind and when I confronted them they refused by the “technically an adult” excuse even though this was a character shown at different ages, weird how they wouldn’t use the adult version but they didn’t like me saying that.)

The only real “fandom” I’ve ever actually been concretely into is Pokémon, but after I grew up more I didn’t make original characters who were Pokémon, and while I tried to rp I didn’t understand how it worked, so I mostly made up stories for myself that were just things I wanted, where Pokémon was the vehicle and medium

I enjoy creating aus for things I like if it works? But I wouldn’t say I’m a fandom person. The way tumblr(the culture of a portion of the site) looks at fandom has always been strange to me, even as I hyperfixate. I kind of thought something was wrong with me…? Like was I consuming media wrong? I don’t ship often, or think too far into headcanons, I mainly take it apart and see what info is in the media. I may draw conclusions but often this is done by myself

Often I’ll sort of enjoy something, maybe even love it, have a phase and then move on- if I talk about it w others it’s via analyzing it or just being excited about it, seeking out fanart… (blocking ppl who are Annoying or doing a They Would Not Fucking Say That or a weird version of the character that is bastardized)

If I put it in statistical terms it’s like I interpolate data (information) instead of extrapolate… like I go between points of info instead of going too far outside of the story, maybe because I’ve only ever seen one exploration of the concept that actually worked- one random disco elysium fic that essentially made its own new case for Kim and harry. Some things were a lil clumsy, but they actually were very careful w balancing characterization, themes, and ideas to create something new that wasn’t alienating. It was nice to finally understand how people talk about good fanfics. But uh, I avoided fanfic bc they usually alienated me due to inconsistencies or focused on shipping or a specific idea that didn’t really mesh

Idk, I have stories I hold dear to me, but fandom ocs usually either sorta die off or are adapted to a regular oc. I can make the number of ships I enjoy on one hand… I just like stories

[slydiddledeedee]

[GRABS YOU] FREE AND ALONE, TOGETHER — 8, 11, 23, 14 🤨🎥🎙📝

my old hanvida fic.....sooooo true

8. Would you ever write a sequel or a second chapter to the one-shot?

I don't think I would! I might return to Alvida and Hancock and whatever they have going on, but I want free and alone, together to stand on its own. Tonally I think it works better without a second part!

11. What scene was hardest to write?

The ending...I didn't know what I wanted to do with them, and as much as I love a happily ever after, it just left a bad taste in my mouth given the themes of the story. I'm really happy with Alvida and Hancock heading back out to sea both together and separately with a promise of the future but needing to find themselves a little bit more in the meantime. But boy howdy it took awhile for me to get there!

13 (I'm assuming since there is no 23). What scene were you most excited about writing?

The conversation between the two of them where Alvida is talking about how Buggy liked her freckles....I've never been a huge Buggyhead but I am also obsessed with whatever he and Alvida had going on pre-divorce arc and also post-divorce arc. I thought it was a really simple way of showing what Alvida actually values in a partner, why his betrayal hurt so much, and how Hancock is different than him--how if Hancock had met Alvida when she was fat, she wouldn't have had the same reaction at all. Idk. Characters that are complicated!!!!

14. What scene is the most different to the original plan?

You're making me go into my Jimmy Neutron mind palace bc I um. Didn't plan any of it out. I had a rough idea in my head but nothing particularly concrete...I think what I wasn't expecting was how natural it felt for them to talk when they first meet in the the beauty section. It's different than other couples who banter, because Alvida is very defensive and Hancock is having a lesbian crisis, and it was just a lot of fun to explore that dynamic! I think it made the rest of the story feel more holistic but I wasn't expecting to write so much of it.

MWAH ILY THANKS FOR THE ASK!!!!

[waywardsalt]

Holy shit I will talk about Linebeck for FREE

I did skim the PH manga to see if I could steal anything, and uhhh it certainly made some Choices. I didn't end up taking much, just a few cues for how I wanna characterize Link and a couple ideas for how I wanted to handle Linebeck's backstory.

I thought the flashback scene with Linebeck abandoning his crew to escape the ghost ship was an interesting concept. It didn't quite fit what I wanted, but it was close? I like the survivor's guilt angle, like maybe he joined up with a crew of people he admired and he let them down somehow.

It's fun to talk about Linebeck hell yeah

The ph manga does certainly make some Choices, that's for sure. The backstory they come up for Linebeck is... it's interesting, but as I'll probably go over when I actually talk about the things I disliked in it, not a great choice in the greater scheme of things.

It's a good concept though, even if it's one I don't use. One of my favorite things about Linebeck is the sheer lack of concrete information we're given about him, so his backstory can be whatever the hell you reasonably want it to be.

The survivor's guilt angle that the manga touches on is really good, though. The idea of him joining people he admires and ends up letting them down in some form is a cool concept to explore with Linebeck specifically, I think, and you can tie it back to the story of phantom hourglass decently well.

I think that with the way Linebeck is in phantom hourglass, you can do a lot of things with his backstory. I think you can whip up a lot of different interesting events that lead to Linebeck acting the way he does at the beginning of phantom hourglass.

I've pretty much got his entire backstory planned out for myself, (I'm considering writing it out as a fic but it does contain topics that I would need to be careful handling) and I don't really do anything similar to what the manga does, instead opting for a more mundane but still tumultuous backstory centering more on the ideas of social isolation and struggling with identity and stuff.

I can't tell since I know exactly what parts of my fics relate to this backstory and what part of that backstory is referenced, but I'm curious about what people might piece together just based on clues and implications I leave in my phantom hourglass oneshots.

I have a handful of backstories for him because I like to come up with aus, so he has a different backstory in every story, but it's fun to identify what parts of the backstory remain static or share the same themes despite the backstories being in genres ranging from futuristic sci-fi to modern times or even just vastly different Zelda-type settings.

The phantom hourglass manga, I think, is a questionable choice for reference on these characters, although Link is enough of a fluid character that all of his manga portrayals are fine. Manga Linebeck is not nearly as good as game Linebeck though lol. I'm still angry about losing the second half of the game. We lost his letter, which I consider to be a fantastic snippet of characterization for him.

Anyways, Linebeck backstories are interesting since there's pretty much nothing that canon suggests about him. I'm interested in whatever you decide on doing with him!

[everythingsinred]

for the writers ask- 8, 14, and 16!! :) <3

thanks so much for asking ;-; <3

8) Do you take inspiration from real life? If so how do you incorporate it into your fics? sometimes... i take my experiences of universal feelings (like the things i do when im VERY happy or VERY sad and then apply them to characters). characters like natsume (like. loners. etc.) are characters i relate to a lot so i can cherry pick little experiences ive had and fashion them to fit them. i never use the specific way i was abused (tmi) in my writing ever but the feelings that come from it are pretty common after being hurt, so i like to use those. ig long story short i keep the emotional part of my own experiences but discard the specifics.

14) What is something you wrote in a fic that you are hoping readers picked up on but you don't know if they did? And/or, what is something that you were excited that readers did pick up on? im primarily thinking abt all things rancid and delicate rn bc i think that one garnered a lot of attention compared to my other ga fics and also since it was one i put a lot of artistic effort into...

anyway i was very lucky, especially for that fic, that i had a couple of readers who would comment long reviews, discussing p much everything that stood out to them or even quoting passages they liked, so i could see what people were paying special attention to. when im writing i like to do extended metaphors or running themes that keep threads connected. in atrad specifically, there was the heart thing, though that was pretty obvious.

i think in subjectives, i want to imply that theres feelings OTHER than hatred between natsume and mikan because. well. its a romance fic. so i was happy to see comments pointing out that, even tho there was nothing specifically alluding to it, my readers were noticing that there was smth more there! lovely <3

(not in a fic but i wrote a line once that was supposed to be a metaphor i was very proud of but when my mom read it she took it seriously and was like ???? THAT REALLY HAPPENED? and idk if its bc she just didnt catch on or if the metaphor wasnt as well-written as i would have liked.)

16) Do you have a method for getting characters to sound/feel in character? i rly wish i had a more concrete way to put this...

i think its really crucial to have an understanding of the character: what they want, what they fear, their relationships with others, etc--both in the fic and in canon. try to keep the important features that stand out in the characters so they resemble the canon version. (for mikan, for example, that tends to be her optimism, friendliness, and kindness, but also her quick temper and occasionally unreasonable nature and for natsume, his impatience with most people, tendency to be curt and evasive, disillusionment with life in general, etc.)

its key not to stray from those more staple characteristics, even in au, but they can be stretched to fit a role (and this is just keeping them in character from the canon. sometimes ooc is the goal).

sometimes ill just stare at actual art from the manga, like a panel of natsume or mikan or somebody, and think abt lines of dialogue or certain actions, and i'll ask myself if i can see that character saying that or doing that. usually this method just makes me feel rly weird abt writing abt them at all, tho, so its more of a control method rather than some critical part of my process.

yeah ig its just understanding the character in canon and how those traits are reflected in ur fic and keeping those key traits consistent.

thanks so much for asking these questions <3 talking abt writing is a surreal experience for me bc it sometimes feels like very little concrete thought is put into it but its fun to remove the process from abstract ideas so thank u!!!!

send me a fic writing ask if you would like!

[moonlight-frittata]

2, 3, 13!

Fic Writer Asks

2.) Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

I very rarely start writing a story without a planned ending in mind that I'm writing towards. Everything in the middle is a lot more flexible, especially in first drafts. I don't always outline, especially if something is a one shot, I'll just go off stuff in my head but I do spend time mentally sorting it out. If something is more plot heavy, I'll usually plan out certain scenes and story beats I want to hit with a more intentional approach. I don't always stick to this though and have been getting a lot more liberal with "kill your darlings" (aka kill that paragraph or entire scene haha).

I've also been outlining and plotting more in a notebook before writing it on the computer. I feel like it helps it stay less concrete and more flexible I guess? When I type up notes on a computer, it's sometimes harder for me to deviate, but when it's on paper first, it's not "real" yet. For something I'm working on at the moment, I'm experimenting with using index cards, because the story is a mix of specific scenes but also incredibly introspective, I was losing track a bit myself of how to take the ideas and put them down, but the index cards are helping to physically shuffle around the ideas and themes. Embrace the tactile experience when you're stuck!

3.) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

It really varies! I think it always starts from some small nugget of an idea, and I think some of my more interesting stories come from really random things I pick up from everyday life. Like, I wrote this one story about grief that was centered around a bowl of porridge reminding the person about their sister, and for me the idea sparked because I was reading a recipe book (while also passively thinking about the characters). I use tons of inspiration for little things that I hear or read or experience in my life.

I'll usually have specific ideas planned, but when I actually get to writing, a lot of things come to me in the moment. You get in the character's head and the scene, and it's like "improvising" i suppose, where you embellish or make something new up on the spot. If you understand the internal consistency of your character, it works and you get a lot of really interesting things. I've mentioned this before with roleplaying, that you can do that like...just one on one with yourself haha.

I think when I'm starting to actually write a scene, there can be hesitancy if I think about it too long and I won't start. If I get too hung up on making the character voice sound a certain way or the scene sound a certain way on a first pass, I often end up either mad at everything coming out or don't start at all. So I've been trying to just jump in initially wherever feels right and not worry about what's coming out. Does it always work? No, but I'm being nicer to myself and I do get a lot more out when I tell myself, "Don't worry, you'll get to polish this up and make it really beautiful when you come back to edit." And I've really started to look forward to it way more!

So for first drafts if I get cool lines down it's great, but I don't sweat it as much. I use it for getting all the "blocking" down, starting to get the vibes and themes teased out, and leave myself tons of comments to come back to, and then when I edit (after doing my best to give a few days to up to a week), then I add a lot more texture, descriptions, character feelings, the more pretty lines. Some of my best stuff has come after a beta read and a quick update. At that point I know the whole thing and all the themes, and it's way easier I think, to zero in on specifically what I want to say because I already know everything! Vs trying to snatch gold out of thin air when I haven't spent the time immersed in the scenes/story.

13.) What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

(lol sorry not sorry I had to list a few)

Give yourself time to edit separate from your first drafts.

It really really does help to change your perspective when you have some distance to come back and look at the scenes, the sentences, the word choices with some space. It's soooo hard sometimes ahaha because you both want to just get stuff out and (hopefully) get feedback and praise, but it really really does help! Also try editing on your phone or changing the screen size (or font? haven't tried this tbh), it can also make you see things in a different way.

Try not to write in the passive voice

I'm not such a stickler for you can never use passive voice or adverbs and I don't care if you have them all over the place in a first draft, but I do think you can take a look when you are editing and find ways to be more direct and make your work sound more intentional. So I do try and if I notice spots that I'm doing these things, I try and take a closer look and figure out if i can make it sound stronger. I usually can just with this one tip.

Show don't tell (I prefer "Describe don't explain")

I think this is one of the most common adages, but also if you can really embrace what this means, it's the step from telling a story to immersing someone in your story. You don't have to describe every tree and every leaf, but focus on the things that are worth describing, aka emotions!! Don't tell me they're sad, make me feel like I just put on a depressing playlist but I'm not listening to music. Happy? Make me feel like I'm soaring through the air, like sunlight and joy have made my bones filled with so much freedom and warmth that I take flight.

I think that's it, make your reader feel something!! It also let's you get more specific. Sad can mean generally blue because someone didn't text you back, you're sad because your dog died, sad because you heard some tragic news. There's more than just "sad", and that's the fun part of writing I think, trying to get to what that sadness is for that moment, and name it in a way that really means something.

[chainofclovers]

🛒⛔🤗

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

In all my fic I think I try to get really small and zoomed-in. Like I want there to be a specific texture to the sensory experiences a character is going through, so I try to be as concrete and succinct as possible about setting descriptions and I try to make sure any physical detail is contributing to the tone in some way. Writing this out this seems very obvious and uninteresting, but it's important to me! I really admire writers who can paint this massive landscape and have a bunch of stuff going on, but I've accepted that my stories are about small things.

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

I've abandoned at least 20 things. For Ted Lasso, I have two fics that I truly abandoned (as in they died and are buried in my Abandoned folder). They were both tiny stubs, no more than a couple paragraphs, and I think I ended up capturing the tone/substance somewhere else. I have a few more TL stories that still live in my In Progress folder, and it's possible (likely) that about two of them will never become anything that gets published. One because the idea itself turned out to be the joy, and one because I got the fun of writing the tiny part I liked and sharing it in discord, but didn't feel like continuing.

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

It's okay to care about engagement, comments, and responses! Wanting to connect to a community and write for an audience is a good thing, and anyone who makes "write for yourself" a holier than thou thing is just being judgy. BUT you should not write with that end-point engagement as your sole motivation because your process will start to feel empty, and you might end up feeling disappointed. Basically just trust that your relationship to your own words and your relationship to your audience (both potential and realized) will change over time and ebb and flow and all that and that is okay and normal.

Sometimes you will work on something for a very long time and feel truly proud of it and maybe some people will read it and enjoy it but posting it will end up a bit anticlimactic. And other times you'll write for 40 minutes, post it, and the crowd will go wild. That doesn't mean one story is "better" or "more successful" than the other, and it doesn't mean your hard work was wasted. It just means it can be hard to predict how things go, so ideally you'll be happy you spent months on the one thing *and* happy you spent 40 minutes on the other thing and ended up with two stories you can get behind!

Finding a few fandom friends who are your ideal readers is priceless. These are people who might beta for you if you want to work with an editor, but even more importantly they are people who will talk about characters together, support each other's creative endeavors, challenge each other, be your friend, and cultivate the conversations that are part of what makes writing meaningful. I'm writing about this in the context of fic, but I think this is important regardless of the kind of writing you're doing.

Read novels, short stories, poems, fic, good journalism, etc. Just take in lots of kinds of words and figure out what resonates with you and what doesn't and why that is. It'll inform your own writing and you don't need to be afraid of being overly influenced by others.

Comment on other people's work. When you love something a writer or artist has done, try to find a way to tell them.

Don't apologize in your author's notes. The chef and food writer Julia Turshen says that disclaimers and apologies don't taste good, and that applies to a story as much as it applies to a meal you're serving. Personally, I find incessant apologizing before a fic annoying; I'd rather decide for myself if I like something!

(@thesumdancekid, your answer to this one is really good and I cosign it!)

From fanfic writer emoji ask.