#james's shitty fic meta

[kawaiibarty]

the phantom's game

wow okay, this fic has A LOT of lore. if you don't want to read a fic with a plot full of Plot and Slow Burn then this isn't the fic for you. alternatively, if you're looking for a fic that reads like it should be shoved in the recesses of a dingy library then this might be the fic for you?

masterlist

the fic:

the phantom's game will be incredibly slow in the beginning because it's basically remus just getting his footing in the world of literature and it's building up to the main plot.

this fic will also be written in three parts (but it will be put all together as one fic in case you want to download it or whatever, it also makes reading easier i think) or at least that's the aim. it may end up being more than three (maybe four MAYBE) and the word count aim is around 100k to 120k words. ideally the fic was to have around 40/50 chapters but as of now im really uncertain about the length (even though i know how it ends lol) because, and im such a nerd for this, but i ended up doing some math about fic chapter length compared to the original work and so far ive gathered that for every 1 chapter in the original work i have 2 chapters for my fic and an additional 1.5k words. it took me forever to work that out please clap. counting words in a book is hard.

and also

i feel like it's a testament to the dedication im putting into this fic 😔

the point of view might change from third to first person after part one, which may be a bit confusing so im putting a pin in this idea for now as im not even close to part two (let me know what you think about this!)

characters/relationships

this fic is written from the perspective of remus lupin and the main pairing is wolfstar (remus/sirius). main characters are remus, leo ferox (from the fanfiction all the young dudes), and sirius black. other characters are barty crouch jr, lily evans and her father who is an oc; maurice evans and other characters will be added as i write because i cba to actually flesh it out rn (and also i dont want to spoil). there are also minor relationships that are discussed.

trigger warnings/content warnings:

there are quite a few things that happen in this fic that id like to forewarn you of should you decide to read it. there are discussions of abusive parents, substance abuse and violence. in one of the chapters there will be some dubious consent, drugging, there will be descriptions of murder and violence as well as discussions around mental illness and homophobia. discussions/mentions of suicide!!!!

i will be adding on as the fic goes because i know there is stuff that ive missed.

why am i doing this???

i largely wrote this fic because i got high on meds and some other stuff it was wacko and i had absolutely nothing to do. id completely given up in trying to recover my old zombie apocalypse fic (it's a long story) and i really wanted something that i was familiar with not just because i liked the complex and the idea but because i knew it. iykwim?

it's based on a book i read when i was fifteen that got me out of the second largest reading slump in my life and basically catapulted me into the genre of fantasy realism and the whole dark/chaotic academia scene. i also decided that i would continue writing it after my beta @thestrawberryapologist showed interest in it.

another reason why i continued it rather than trying to piece together a nonexistent zombie apocalypse fic was because i have recommended this book COUNTLESS times but it seems no one i recommended it to seemed to like it.

so this is me saying, very passive aggressively, that the plot IS GOOD :(

i smashed the original book in like 2 days and ive been thinking about it for four years straight. i haven't even gotten to reading the other parts of the series because im still hooked on how THIS specific one was written.

its also a really fun (and for me) a new look into the characters because ive really never written anything this detailed before. the plot is a rollercoaster and you HAVE to stay on your toes with the the original work and i would really really like to reflect that onto my writing.

this is also the first time since i was 15/16 that ive properly attempted anything full length with the means to actually finish it off.

when is it going to be finished?

that's a good question. and one i don't know the answer to. it took me 2 months to get to chapter 4 so... it may take a year or two or 6 months dude but it's gonna be long and it's gonna be full

please don't be shy to ask me about it (though that doesn't mean im inclined to spoil it — which i won't!)

[catboylupin]

you have rly interesting takes abt wolfstar!! I was wondering if you had any head canons about the Prank like why Sirius did it and what Remus' reaction was?

hello and thank you and i’m So sorry that this has been sitting in my drafts for like Weeks at this point.... i’m physically incapable of doing anything intellectually demanding in a timely matter and this is such a hard topic because, like, i don’t know!! i’m not very well acquainted with the Fandom Mythology surrounding the Prank or the mainstream interpretation of events so i really don’t know what to make of it, especially in terms of sirius’s motivation. here are a few things that i referenced when typing this all out: meta meta/fic fic beautiful art 

the first thing that is interesting to me, and something to keep in the back of our minds when thinking about this, is that when discussing the prank in the shack during PoA, sirius says that “it served [snape] right.” 

also i think that the song hospital by the modern lovers possesses some outstanding post Prank vibes...

ok so re: sirius’s motivation. i don’t know. i think it was a combination of things. i don’t even think that sirius entirely knew why he did it, or what there was to gain. 

i guess the thing to sort out is to what extent sirius factored remus into the equation. was he not thinking about remus at all and how it would affect him and just wanted to hurt snape because he hated him, or was he like “this is for remus and remus will think it’s funny too”?

i think that he felt slightly goaded by snape because snape was being a massive asshole trying to get them expelled, and he also just did not like him at all. like, the most obvious motivation or end goal in sirius telling him is that he just wanted to scare snape so he would leave them alone and also it would be a little funny because hahaha he is a slimey wizard nazi (at age 15/16 do you think sirius would be politically advanced enough to have a ‘punching nazis’ outlook on snape? i don’t know)

and i don’t think that he ever seriously thought that remus would react well (like, how could he? sirius had to have known that remus’s worst fear ever was hurting someone). and he was literally risking the entire school finding out he was a werewolf. but maybe a small part of sirius was like “take that snape!! that’s what you get for bullying my beautiful mysterious friend!! remus will love this lol”

but i think the thing that makes the most sense is that he wasn’t thinking about remus that much and didn’t think he would react well.

and here i where you can start thinking about sirius’s upbringing and how that affected how he viewed werewolves/remus. 

i think that sirius was probably raised surrounded by some pretty intense anti-werewolf beliefs and he dealt with remus being a werewolf by 1. separating remus from the wolf and 2. kind of like romanticizing it. so much of sirius’s attraction to remus stemmed from this sort of fascination.. james was so similar to sirius and generally uncomplicated, but remus, even though he was kind of weird looking, always sort of elicited this morbid curiosity from him. and he saw remus’s lycanthropy as something he could fix, or at least help (see: the animagus thing, my personal headcanon that he was very into taking care of remus during their relationship). remus was his tragic werewolf friend. but remus never thought that sirius understood his lycanthropy the way remus wanted him to, that there was always this sort of tension, a lingering sense of “you think you’re so different from your family, but you’re not really.”  

sirius could have thought that snape actually knew about remus and wanted to make him prove that he knew, like: “sirius, i know what remus’s secret is, hint hint wink wink” “okay, if you really know then go to the shrieking shack,” like snape kind of goaded sirius into telling him, and sirius thought that he would know better. but that is just such a profoundly stupid thing for sirius to do, and i feel like putting too much blame on snape is being too generous to sirius.

leescoresbies has an interesting headcanon that the prank happened around the time sirius ran away from home and he was thus was very emotionally volatile. and so it was in part a result of sirius’s trauma/anger/joy, and i like that idea, those emotions had to have been a factor. and if you are someone that has a really hard time reconciling with sirius’s shitty behavior as a teen, that’s kind of an easy/ canon compliant way of saying “yeah, he was an asshole, but there was also this other thing going on...etc.” however, i don’t think that was the only reason, or even the main reason. i think that sirius is a deeply flawed person and thinking about the prank from the perspective of said flawed-ness makes his and remus’s relationship all the more complicated/interesting. 

and unfortunately a lot of this sort of boils down to whether or not sirius wanted to kill or seriously injure snape. those were the stakes he was dealing with in this situation. i don’t think that sirius wanted to kill him, just because that’s not really the sort of thing teenagers do, you know. and, as further evidenced by how he treated kreacher, sirius doesn’t always treat those he considers lesser than him with any sort of respect. maybe sirius just didn’t care that much about whether or not he died. he knew on an intellectual level that he was sending snape to his likely death, but maybe he just didn’t make that calculation in the moment? like sirius was so used to not facing consequences that maybe he thought things wouldn’t turn out that badly. 

i can understand, maybe, in sirius’s version of events, in his own reckless, teenage narrative, that he thought it would be okay to hurt snape. but remus? did he seriously fail to make the calculation that he would be turning him into a murderer? what sirius did was such a major, major trespass of trust/friendship in a way that is actually sort of unforgivable.

doesn’t sirius say in PoA “i’d rather die than betray my friends!” ? well, he did : / he betrayed remus..

and i think that remus would be massively upset and i don’t think he ever really completely forgave him.

when did this happen? 5th or 6th year? i think that by this time remus would kind of be relegated to a state of melodramatic, shame-ridden misery that came along with being sort of in love with sirius. and so the prank really tore him apart, because of course it would. remus was so used to being defined by his lycanthropy, used to facing discrimination, and his friends were his one refuge from that. but then sirius who he loved used him basically as a means to an end. what sirius did was incredibly exploitative— he exploited remus’s marginalized identity for personal gain without thinking about how it would affect him. and i think that remus really did care about him enough to want to forgive him. he probably felt like he had to forgive him (his friends were too important for him to lose, and, importantly, there was probably this feeling of “i am a werewolf and therefore i need to be extraordinarily forgiving in order to be perceived as non threatening, and this is just how the world treats people like me and i can’t and shouldn’t fight back”). and those are just such deeply fucked up feelings to feel towards a friend, especially one you admire and have a major soul crushing crush on.

i think that there was a period of time after the fact when they weren’t really talking, remus was very rightfully upset, everyone was angry at sirius... i think that sirius apologized, but sort of begrudgingly. because twenty years later he still thought that snape got what he deserved. 

at times i think that remus was someone who saw his relationships as very transactional. and initially he felt in debt to the other marauders because of the animagus thing and just because they were his friends. and, as dear @direwolf-summer said in this post, the prank changed the dynamic between remus and sirius: remus was no longer the one in debt, sirius was. and that is such an interesting point. remus starts demanding more from him and he finally feels that, even though sirius was really popular and closer to james or whatever, they were on even standing. this is how he was able to be more forward about his feelings— sirius stopped being this precious object who demanded endless patience in order to retain as a friend (or so he thought, this is remus’s insecurity showing). he stopped feeling so bad about having a crush on sirius. he’d be like “fuck you sirius. i’m in love with you. deal with it and you have to be nice about it in order to repay your debts.” like  he wouldn’t say that out loud but it would be in his internal monologue and he would kinda hint at it. 

there’s that line in eclipse and transit where remus says: “You say one thing and do another and half the time you don’t even try to say it, it’s like, I don’t know, like you’re daring me to leave. And everything—every single thing Sirius, it all comes back to January of sixth year, whether you’ll ever admit it or not. Or whether you even realize it” and i think it’s fitting. during fights remus probably would bring it up, and sirius would fail to understand why remus never got over it. like, sirius: “i apologized i was 15!!” and remus: “this is bigger than just that, what you did was emblematic of your flaws as a person and how even though you understand me more than almost anyone else you still don’t understand me completely and it frustrates me!!! and also i feel like you never fully understood that what you did was extraordinary fucked up.”

and i think that remus was so in love with sirius that he did forgive him, or otherwise allowed his love and affection to forget about it. but it was always bubbling under the surface...and that’s why their relationship was sort of volatile, that’s why he was so willing to believe that sirius was the spy (as in, “he betrayed me, why wouldn’t he have betrayed james and lily?”)

now i’m remembering when, in one of the snape’s memory /pensieve / flashback scenes in OotP, sirius says “i wish it was the full moon” and remus says, darkly, “you might.” now, we don’t know if that scene takes place before or after the Prank (before probably? idk), but i feel like it further compounds the extent to which sirius seems woefully unaware that remus is a werewolf and it’s not something he can separate from himself and that lycanthropy impacts every facet of his life. sirius came to understand it as just some fun thing to do every month. his sort of ignorance towards other people’s needs and experiences is also further evidenced by how he treated harry like he was james. sirius has a pretty good track record of taking other people’s pain and making into something for him to enjoy. and he doesn’t do so in a way that is entirely selfish either, i think he really thought he was helping harry and remus. maybe it all goes back to his family and childhood trauma or something (doesn’t everything? “it all started one afternoon in the 1960s..”)

[nautilusopus]

do you have any favorite books?

Coraline by Neil Gaiman is the obvious answer lol. Still my favourite book to this day, obviously hugely influential in my own bullshit. Seriously check it out if you can find a copy, it’s pretty short and absolutely worth your time.

The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt and its sequel (The Devil’s Other Storybook) are more of an anthology of short stories starring the Devil, who occupies every role from vague background presence to put-upon protagonist that are funny and thought-provoking and genuinely clever and that pissed enough people off that it was a banned book for a while. “The Imp in the Basket” is the kind of short story I wish more people knew about and wanted to sincerely discuss what actually happened at the end.

ugh i haven’t read a book i actually enjoyed in over ten years at this point uhhhhhh

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I think potentially the only classic I had to read in school that I genuinely liked and actually finished in one sitting on my own time. And I think the first time any themes a book had for me actually clicked and I was able to do any kind of meta analysis of it completely unprompted. Baby’s first literary comprehension. Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical piece set during the bombing of Dresden in WWII, and also some period in the “future” (the 80s lol), and ALSO on an alien planet as the protagonist is abducted and taken to a human zoo. The story is told achronologically, and I feel is hugely influential to my own shit where it skips around, building a narrative almost entirely by juxtaposing specific moments in time against one another. It's surreal and thought-provoking, and if you only ever make yourself read one classic, it should be this one. *

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien. Bear in mind this thing has fuck-all to do with the movie, and while in retrospect I now am able to enjoy the Don Bluth movie as its own thing, I remember being fucking furious when they busted out a goddamn magical amulet. It’s a different kind of story, but is more magic realism than outright fantasy, and the titular rats get a lot more backstory, as does the late Mr. Frisby iirc.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. God that book fucked me up. It is about a snotty porcelain toy rabbit that gets dropped overboard a ship into the ocean one day, and the various owners he has over the years as he changes hands, and the impacts they have on him, and it makes me fucking cry every time and is to date the only book to ever do so so fairly warned be ye. Fucking shit I wish I could dish out gut-punches half as good as that book could.

The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, which in and of itself is an angry rebuttal against everything the Chronicles of Narnia has to say, as well as Christianity in general. You’ve probably seen shit floating around about the HBO series, which I have not watched. Lyra is a horrible gremlin child running wild around a parallel universe Oxford until she accidentally stumbles onto a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Church which unofficially runs the government and eventually starts an interdimensional war against God. The first two books I think are better than the last one, which really drags in spots (and in a twist of irony had Lyra’s sexual awakening censored from the North American release which like... come on man). Absolutely worth checking out though, especially if you’re an angry pedant like I am.

Tales from the House of Bunnicula, by James Howe. Honestly the entire "Bunnicula Expanded Universe"(???) is great, but in particular I'm mentioning this sub-series because I think it actually kind of taught me to write. The framing device used is that they're being written by Howe's pet dog and sent in to him to publish by proxy. On top of having just a lot of good storytelling tips for beginners (how to create a plot! how to create character motivations! how to write female characters like actual people!), they're also fun little satire pieces of various kinds of genre fiction. Like, the third book is a riff on Harry Potter and making fun of all of JKR's worst writing tendencies, like her compulsion to phonetically write out everyone's fucking accent.

these days i'm just too picky to enjoy books anymore idfk. you have no idea how fucking disheartening it was growing up with actual taste (snooty snooty snoot) and watching everyone go nuts over stuff like divergent and eragon and maximum ride and fuckmothering twilight and shit. like, yeah misogyny absolutely played into why people shat on it because teenage girls aren't allowed to like anything, but lest we forget they were still shitty books guys. that never stopped being true or anything. and you were a social pariah if you didn't like them and that sucked. and then a couple ostensibly good series, like harry potter and artemis fowl and hunger games just dropped the fucking ball for one reason or another as they went on and never picked it back up. i think the mid 2000s almost singlehandedly just killed any real enthusiasm i had for reading altogether (this is not even getting into the fact a lot of really fucking bad "grown-up" novels came out around that period too. whole era was a baaaad time for books). so here i am writing, i guess, because i've decided you fuckers can't be trusted to make anything good yourselves. if you want something done right...

(*I like to think if Cloud wrote a book he’d write something like Slaughterhouse-Five. I think at one point I was even working on a fic along those lines -- a fictional story vaguely based off the burning of Nibelheim and the fall of Shinra that was written, in-universe, by Cloud several years later. Abandoned it just because of how fucking complicated it would be to do. Might come back to it one day.)

[coldtomyflash]

Things I would Do Different if I Re-Wrote AATJS

This is random but while getting job apps done this week I’ve been rereading AATJS (because why not - I’ve never actually read it after it was done) and thinking back on conversations I’ve had about it, reading comments on it, and I’ve come to a few conclusions.

So eh, dumping my thoughts here for any interested parties :)

(major spoilers for the end of the fic under the cut!)

Big Changes

There’s only a few broad / large scale changes I would make, I think, and they all feed into one another.

There’s some stuff with how the climax occurs that isn’t well foreshadowed within the fic. Or if it’s foreshadowed, the narrative still doesn’t build up to it properly.

A main thing I would change would be to introduce the notion of metagenes much sooner and talk about it as something Caitlin is researching actively. Bring it up early in the fic and leave it there. When Barry is searching for metas to warn about the military, maybe have them discuss using a search based on genetics but toss it aside as too much of a violation of privacy and too danger to have a list like that. Have him actually get to interact with the meta he goes searching for at the circus (when he and Len run into James Jesse in the fic) to make the theme of metas more prominent throughout. In this way, I’d also introduce the military element a little sooner / stronger, and Dr. Eilias.

Feeding into that, I have serious changes I would make to the Hartley / James storyline. Right now, it’s uncomfortable to me. I did my damn best not to make it abuse-apologist after I wrote James’ behavior as totally deplorable, but at the end of the day, the narrative still advocates: “if you think they’ve changed, take them back”. It’s not a narrative I want to advocate, regardless of how sincere James’s changes are in the fic. And there are reasons I wrote that storyline the way I did that deal with people in my life, but honestly, it’s bullshit and I kind of hate how it fell out.

What I’d do instead is make Hartley’s Soulmate someone else. Some abusive asshole who had serious internalized homophobia and never really dealt with it. And I’d have Hartley as having left him, except they’d stay separated. I would use Hartley both as a cautionary tale (”soulmates don’t always end up together”) but also give him a better ending with a more beautiful theme to it: he’d end up with James anyway, except James would be Unmarked. He’d be someone else that Hartley falls in love with, maybe someone from the circus or else an additional Rogue struggling to come to terms with his identity as he starts to fall for Hartley from the sidelines while Hartley’s busy flirting with Len. Maybe I’d make him a meta (and not use James Jesse, idk) to fit with that theme. But he wouldn’t be Hartley’s Soulmate, and the lesson would be: “you can fall in love with someone else and never see your Soulmate again and still be happy and fulfilled.” Because honestly, that to me is a much more powerful storyline.

This would also allow me to introduce the notions of NAB Blockers and Breaking Bonds much sooner and in a much bigger way. Hartley would be contemplating Breaking his Bond with his Soulmate, but he hasn’t been able to go through with it yet. Sometime in the middle of the fic’s narrative, or at least after things with him and Len shake out and after he becomes a Rogue, Hartley would Break his Bond. Then we would know it’s possible and would learn about Dr. Elias’s research here.

(For the record, all of this would up the “consequences” element for Barry and Len sorting their shit out, though that’s not the sole reason for doing it, of course).

Speaking of Barry and Len, there’s a few things I would change there. For one, I would make it clearer up front some of the extra stuff Barry is dealing with which only gets revealed later in the fic. I might drop the “there’s an alternate future / timeline where he married Iris, a la season 1 newspaper″ storyline altogether because it’s... bumpy. But I’d acknowledge that he’s still getting over his love for Iris and watching her and Eddie be together and have that life and have a kid is tough on him. I’d acknowledge up front and quick that it’s only been about a month since Len’s betrayal at Ferris Air, and that’s a huge part of why Barry is struggling to trust Len and worried at the outset. I’d make it clearer that he’s still re-grieving his mother and conflicted over how things shook out with Eobard and laboring to get his life in order.

And I’d make it clear very quickly that Barry is struggling to protect everyone. I think I would use Joe a lot more in the fic for this (a lot more in the first half in general). Have scenes after Joe’s leg got injured where Barry is wracked with guilt over how things went at the gala. Show more of Barry’s fear that he can’t protect Len from the rest of the shit in his life, including maybe a nightmare about Joe shooting Len (because if the cold field hadn’t been in place, well, that pretty much almost happened). Just... give more evidence of Barry’s motives and not play up the self-deception and repression stuff so much, or else make better use of the perspectives of those around him to showcase his conflict if he himself isn’t understanding what’s going on in his own head.

Minor Changes

Some people won’t think this is a minor change, but I think it ultimately is: I’d give Barry and Len back their bleed at the end, after a fashion.

I always intended for it to break. For Barry to tell Len he loves him only after there’s nothing in place that Len could possibly ‘blame’ for keeping Barry at his side or for distorting how Barry feels about him. I actually think that’s important, and kind of stand by that decision still. It seriously wasn’t done for shock value or to hurt the reader. Subverting the soulmate tropes? Yes. But with a lot of forethought.

But. I think I’d give it back. I’d make their Mark turn into a Widow Mark (it’s not specified in the fic currently but it never does go black, and I’d change that) but like Caitlin and Ronnie, I’d have some measure of the bleed return to them, after a bit. I’d give a bit more space at the end to flesh that out, I think, too. The end was a bit rushed. I was just so ready to be done with the long fucking thing that AATJS is and I write very quick resolutions post-climax as a general rule, but I think it needed a bit more than I gave it.

So yeah, I’d have it start to flutter and return. Maybe not as strong, maybe stunted. “A little scarred and jagged, just like us.” It would be nice, right? And I’d do it even maybe just shortly after the love confession, even. Because while it’s sort of a picture-perfect happy ending... after all the complete and utter bullshit and heaviness of the fic, they sort of deserve that? (i.e., you can tell I was pretty depressed when I first started writing this, I think....)

Another minor change I’d make is about their discussions on kids. I wouldn’t change much except to make Len’s issues on it clearer, him seriously wanting kids, always wanting kids, but not letting himself want them. I’d introduce that to his cognitions before Barry ever bringing it up, I think, but make it clear that Len’s in total denial about it.

I’d also change... something about Kane. I’m not sure what, exactly. Because there’s a serious issue in the fic with the whole “lesbians always die” trope. Because there’s Pam and Angie, who lived a long and happy life but ultimately are both dead by the end of the fic, even if they died of old age. And there’s Bette and Kane, who never even got to be together before Bette died. And that’s... so shitty I hate it. I don’t know what I’d fix about it because I love Pam and Angie so much and I like what Pam’s existence brings to the story via Mick, and I love Kane and her motivations help humanize her and what she’s been through at Eiling and Elias’s hand but... I’m still somewhat dissatisfied. So I’d fix something in there.

And the most minor of changes: I’d never in a million years include such cringe-worthy attempts to use random words from other languages from both Hartley and James’ PoVs, especially swear words. Like wtf, why. Just why. That’s a trope I learned from fic and while showcasing bilingualism is great, or having Hartley spout off random Latin phrases when appropriate is in character, I really went about it so poorly. So sorry, guys. It’s just... cringeworthy.

Conclusion

That’s all of them off the top of my head. Some of these came about just due to hindsight (the Hartley and James stuff, the making motives and mindsets clearer) and some came about because they’re Bad Tropes I became aware of either during or after writing it. Some are because I knew more or less that, for instance, the military was going to abduct Len and do something with his Bond/NAB to mess with Barry’s head and ultimately the Bond would break, but I didn’t actually have the military’s motives pinned down until right before I worked on that arc of the fic. So there’s a lot of meandering and not a lot of proper build into the specifics there, with a lot of details introduced right at that arc toward the end. That’s just something that happens that means things inherently will improve on re-writing.

Not that I ever intend to re-write that monster (omg I would never have the time or energy) but it’s always good to take an honest look at your writing, and I figured it might even help other writers out there if I candidly shared some major changes my fic could use to improve :) Because we can all always improve.

And hey, if I ever decide to take this fic and turn it into an original work (probably dropping the metahuman element but supplanting it with something else... I’ve genuinely mapped out how I’d write it as an original work), then at least I know what the structure would look like :

[savrenim]

meta of a meta of a meta: what it feels more like a memory would have looked like in an alternate timeline.

because y’all are so meta that one of you had to ask. Spoilers through ch 35.

Okay so. The third timeline ends. musical, round 3 becomes a huge hit. On October 11th, 2015, an unsuspecting math-physics major named Sidus is driving a bunch of friends to clean up a Living Legends theater event that they’d worked the prior day when one of the people in the car, who had been showed this incredible musical last night, insisted on playing Courtroom Battles 1 and 2 and a couple other songs from Burr: An American Musical, and Sidus, over the course of two months, becomes obsessed. What especially captures them is the portrayal of the friendship between James and Aaron, and the loyalty that the two show one another, as well as very specifically, the line:

And if there’s a reason I’m still alive When Aaron Burr, in my place, has died

They, of course, have finals, but the line digs at them, and they promises themself that they’ll write something once their work is done (they are, after all, writing their complex analysis essay as a rap using various songs from Burr as a base at the same time), but a thought hits them in the middle of the night that they can’t quite get rid of.

What if Aaron Burr wasn’t the Seer?

What if James Madison was?

What follows is a fic entitled “if there’s a reason”, which only has one timeline, but it is a timeline which takes the following premise: James Madison is the Seer and decides to hide it. Aaron Burr meets him in Princeton, figures it out, and attaches himself like a little duckling to James Madison because listen James is really cool and really nice and also is the only one not bullying him for being 13 at Princeton and it’s not like Aaron has that much of a family to go home to, and the two become best of friends. James is sick all the time because he’s having shitty visions, you see, and Aaron takes notes for him and reproduces lectures and makes school something James can deal with instead of being absolutely horrible.

Fast forward to the Revolutionary War, James is in the Virginia State Legislature and in a protégé of Thomas Jefferson, who nearly figures it out; Aaron Burr, meanwhile, is doing non-stop research to try to figure out anything that might help James and working with Benjamin Franklin and comes up with the genius idea of “what if I pretend to be the Seer to protect James.” Which he actually gets to do when Jefferson comes to France, still really strongly suspecting that James is the Seer, because “ooooh James wasn’t the Seer, James just had the Seer in his pocket” is something that Jefferson is perfectly willing to accept. So Aaron does it. He plays it for all it’s worth, and Jefferson falls for the lie hook, line, and sinker.

James is silently furious that Aaron would do something for him, but also silently relieved, because being found out is something that he’s feared more than anything in the world, he hated his visions, his abilities, the future that he would be forced into if anyone found out. And Aaron was perfectly willing to go through all he was going through with Jefferson, because Aaron chose this. Until the Election of 1800, where James gets sick, and Aaron panics, Jefferson panics, the trial is happening, and Aaron realizes that there’s no way for him out of this alive, and that if more evidence actually comes to the table somebody might figure out that he’s not the actual Seer and then James is going to be put through all of this and worse. But hey, if he dies, then James is free, right? And more than that, if he does it dramatically, nobody is going to question him being the Seer, they’ll be too focused on the story of it all. 

So he gets himself rat poison. He’s not being guarded that well by Major Scott, after all, he just sneaks out one night and buys it. And he kills himself. And James--James didn’t have a vision of it, James didn’t know to stop him.

I want you to be free, read all the letters that Aaron left James. I want you to be free of this all. Except it weighs on James, it weighs on him that he’s never acted on any of his own visions, that he’s never acted on seeing the 13th Amendment, or trying push abolition or even just stop the Civil War. And it weighs on him that Aaron was the one who believed in all of that happening, who respected that James never wanted to go on a limb and make that happen because James didn’t want to be the Seer, and who took the fall. Who took his lie to the very grave, to get James out of what he should have just stepped up and done in the first place. “If there’s a reason I’m still alive, when Aaron Burr, in my place, has died” indeed. And history is going to remember Aaron as a villain, as a coward, as someone self-serving enough to hold all his abilities to himself rather than try to change things for the better.

Well, not if James can do something about it.

So James begins the greatest project of his life: he starts forging hundreds of pages of documents, visions that “Aaron” had, and publishing them. Publishing them in Aaron’s name, with just his own annotations and organization. Dolley is the only one who knows. But James works tirelessly, all the way until the end of his life, to create a legacy for Aaron Burr. That if Aaron Burr is going to be remembered as the Seer, let him be remembered as America’s Seer, let him be remembered as a great man, and a good man.

When my time is up, have I done enough, will they tell *his* story, James wonders at the end of it all. Oh I can’t wait to see him again, it’s only a matter of time.

~~~

The first chapter of this work is published on December 18th, 2015. It’s only about 35,000 words, and Sidus finishes it and has posted the last chapter by the end of February. They write a couple of other works, mostly one-shots with weird science fiction premises, before drifting away from the fandom to apply for graduate school. 

[0-q-0]

1-50 please

…………….rUDE

also you didn’t think this thru

yOU PLAYED YOURSELF YOU DIDN’T SPECIFY FOR FAaC

For fic specific questions imma go for Anomalies lmao bYE

things that inspire you

Everything

things that motivate you

Nothing. lmAO

name three favorite writers

…….ER…….idk i haven’t read anything in a very long time other than textbooks kill me pls.

name three authors that were influential to your work and tell why

The Nemesis™. Because I never want to be like them lmao i live on spite.

since how long do you write?

…….huh….is it just me or is the grammar of this question off?

i’m guessing this means ‘writing fiction’? idk which counts. shitty unfinished oneshots of other fandoms a few years ago probably doesn’t. I hope it doesn’t. LMAO

how did writing change you?

ruined my life

early influences on your writing

…………..too much commas?

what time are you most productive?

past midnight

do you set yourself deadlines?

ye

does it work? no

lMAO

how do you do your researches?

extensively

do you listen to music when writing?

sometimes

favorite place to write

……..in fic? or where i write? Favourite place so far is London. Library seems to work best for me.

hardest character to write

shit. Quinlan?

easiest character to write

Hartwin

Also one of the hardest btw rip

hardest verse to write

…..FAaC+Anomalies probably because they’re all connected. i have to make sure they match up. it’s also canon craig!bond verse so ugh i don’t want to watch james bond again, especially ones without my son Q

easiest verse to write

……oneshots verse lmao

favorite AU to write

Dark(er) au

favorite pairing to write

Gay spies thanks

favorite fandom to write

……….idk

favorite character to write

………..idk

least favorite character to write

…………………idk

favorite story you’ve ever written

lmao i hate all my works

least favorite story you’ve ever written

FAaC. Anomalies. Pathways.

favorite scene you’ve ever written

haven’t written it yet

favorite line you’ve ever written

…………haven’t written it yet

story you’re most proud of

i haven’t written it yet. lMAO

best review you ever got

……….im blessed to have a lot i cant choose. I love the one that lasts 7 pages with meta analysis and feels im weak

worst review you ever got

………….tHAT ONE PERSON WHO JUST….was so impatient and tired of Harry’s dilemma that they wanted Eggsy/Cavendish

and i……..wanted to die

favorite story/poem of another author

…….lmao i haven’t read anything in a while. like…a while.

hardest part of writing

being poor and not having the luxury of focusing on writing

expectation

not knowing what the hell im doin

easiest part of writing

……………….character…feeling??

alternate title for (insert story title)

Anomalies series had the alternate title of The Distance Between Two Points

lmao kms

alternate ending for (insert story title)

……darker au

alternate pairing for (insert story title)

……….gross

single story or multi-part story?

Single

one-shot or multi-chaptered story?

Multi

canon or AU?

canon compliant au lMAO u can’t tie me down

do you reread your own stories?

unfortunately. for errors. makes me nauseous. 

do you want to be published some day?

yes please sustain my existence im just a potatoe.

which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series

the unpublished royal au in my head. both of them. lMAO

one song that captures (insert story title)

tsk………that would be spoilers

bUT FOR THE ANOMALIES SERIES IT’S THAT DUMB ‘I HATE U I LOVE U’ SONG BY GNASH. i heard it on the radio once i died and cried for quinlan.

do you plan or do you write whatever comes to your mind?

i usually plan. but then things come up and i add it to the outline. which is my downfall

would you ever write a sequel for (insert fic title here)

ugh unfortunately. i want none of it.

do you write linear or do you write future scenes if you feel like it?

I used to do linear, but scenes and dialogues come up and if i don’t write them down i forget and live a life of regret so i have to put a reminder or a drabble.

share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet

………………..dark au of FAaC, darker dark au of FAaC: where……..dark stuff happens.

share a scene of a story that you haven’t published yet

………..lmao yeah Anomalies, not that anyone cares, but erm

There will be a scene of Quinlan’s POV during Wetherby years when he finds Hartwin in the park for the 1st time

how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

………..in my head? 938742938742983

three spoilers for (insert story title)

idk if this counts as spoilers…some could be more described as trivia really…………..

Anomalies/FAaC is the (supposed) canon Craig!Bond verse because im stupid and take more work than i can handle

Quinlan and Bond will meet in the 2nd part of the series

ROXY WILL SHOW UP SOON!!!

writing advice

DONT let it take over your life. you will die

open question to the writer

……..lmao yeah you didn’t think this thru