#please I’d love a scene of the bakers once getting the call to craft the semi regular weird firefighter cakes

[incorrectbuckandeddie]

When (not if because I’m not putting that kind of energy into the world) everyone gets back safe from the cruise ship incident what ridiculous cake do you think Hen will get??? My personal vote is either a half sunken boat with “This Honeymoon is giving me a sinking feeling” or the cruise with two firefighters *cough* Buddie *cough* at the front doing the “I’m King of the World!” pose.

[scone-lover]

Happy Birthday to Holding Out For a Hero!!! ❤️

art by @subparselkie

I published the first chapter of my longest and most popular fic just about a year ago! And I bet you always wanted to see some shitty outlines. Right? Just giving the people what they want. My brain is chaos and now you all have to be subject to it. Strap in, boys. 😂 Everything’s below the cut!

Read Holding Out for a Hero on AO3

This fic was born because I saw a tumblr post about a hero and villain who are roommates and I just had to Snowbazzify it. I had so many random ideas in my brain, and I’d been engaging with fan content for the CO fandom for a few months now.

So I started off by opening a blank document and writing the Prologue, featuring Shep. I had a few basic facts in mind: Shepard’s a reporter, Simon’s a hero, Baz is a villain, Mage is an evil mayor. And that’s. Literally it. I made it up as I went along. I actually still do that with fics, even though I do try to outline in more detail now—I have to write a scene or two that’s been bouncing around in my head to get a feel for the story, then I can give it a direction.

The document is 337 pages on google docs, LOL. 

Here’s the first ever set of notes I had. I wrote this on March 29, 2020, directly after typing out the Prologue! 

Like I said, absolute chaos. The third Simon bullet point originally said something like “also I’m a superhero and only Penny knows,” then the following day I changed it to “but he’s so handsome? what do???” 

I didn’t publish the prologue until writing 5-6 additional chapters, but I think the only major change was going from Baz being “The Vampire” to just “Vampire.”

Chapter 1 was originally called “not a bloody avenger” before I decided to do the rhyming thing. I actually decided that because I wrote “counter spray and earl grey” down for chapter 2, unintentionally rhyming it, and then @ashspren-writes was like, “you should make them all rhyme”... so I did. 😂 For 25 more chapters.

I have a section labeled “quickie backgrounds” in which I finally sat down halfway through writing Chapter 2 (the blade/vamp fight) and said to myself, okay, maybe they should have backstories or something. Or like, reasons for being the hero and villain. Right, yeah, those would be good to make this into a coherent story. In the first version of that, Simon was a sports coach on the side, not a baker, and Baz was an English teacher. LOL. 

Once I had all that, I literally just wrote for four days. There’s a weird kind of magic to your first-ever fic for a fandom. All your ideas and thoughts and wishes for these characters comes to a head as you suddenly have an outlet for the first time. It’s why I think people’s first works are often their best or most creative or most profound. The first couple chapters took some time and a couple 1am epiphanies, but once I got into a rhythm it was quick going. I wrote a lot of it in a linear manner, but after writing the first Simon/Baz scene (watching the news together in the flat), I doubled back and added Simon going to Penny’s house after meeting the Mage so that I could work her in as a character earlier.

Fast forward to April 5, I had 5-ish chapters written? I thought this fic would have like... 10 total. And be less than 20k. Haha. Ha. I asked @ashspren-writes to beta read for me - I’d been bouncing ideas off her since the beginning - and then I started brainstorming titles. 

The list actually started with that second one. It took a whole 24 hours to decide on the final title. 😂 I thought it might be too cheesy. But hey, it worked out -- now I can’t open AO3 without the damn song getting stuck in my head. 

I worked a LOT with my friend @ashspren-writes on this fic - we were friends long before fandom, and she was the only person I knew at the time who had read CO and was involved in the fandom. I didn’t even have a tumblr at this point, I interacted mostly through Instagram and AO3!

On April 6, right before I posted, I realized that if I was going to actually put this on AO3 I should probably know where the story was going. So I made sure Chapters 1-6 were complete, then I wrote one bullet point per chapter up until 12 or so -- you can read those below.

Then I texted ashspren THIS mess:

Some silly notes:

Then I have a section that says “Why do they even have roommates?” because it was a few chapters in and I hadn’t justified richboy Baz and superhero Simon... living together. Cool cool cool

I also did this cool little writing experiment I want to share. Remember that line in Fangirl that’s like—“Once Cath wrote what she thought was a swordfight, and Wren turned it into a love scene.” (Or maybe it was the other way around? LOL.) Anyway, there’s swordfights in this, AND love scenes, so I wanted to do a play on that for two alternate ways Simon might figure it out.

I have a huge Deleted Section in which I wrote an alternate version of Simon and Baz finding out about their secret identities. I have one version where Baz figures it out first—it’s a very tropey yet angsty scene where Simon comes home totally wrecked from a fight, and Baz realizes as he’s helping with the wounds that he caused them. I actually like it a lot, but it ended up not quite fitting with the vibe of the fic (and I rather like them finding out through kissing better). :) I also had an idea where Simon figures it out because Vampire smells like cedar and bergamot, but it really just wasn’t interesting enough. 😂

Now onto... Outlines. 

I say that hesitantly because I think these are literally a disgrace to outlines everywhere. These are the baby ones I wrote on April 6 right before posting. Some are more detailed than others, clearly...

Gotta live up to my username somehow. 

We do love to see it. ​

I love this next one: 😂 CHAOS, SCONEY.

THEN, I wrote this as a very long text to ashspren, when I realized no sconey, this is not going to be under 20k words. LOL. 

And then I did A Dumb Thing and I put it on AO3, having absolutely NO CLUE WHERE THE STORY WAS GOING. 😂 

This is my favorite heading on the document.

Another one of my favorite notes in there.

This next part wasn’t even divided into chapters yet, it’s just a word vomit. I’m so sorry you have to read this mess.

Hahaha, once upon a time there was angst in this story. 😂 

And then I realized my true calling: bakery fluff.

Then and only then, I actually decided to divide into those things called Chapters. This is the point where I made the admission to mr scone (boyfriend, not husband lol, we just call him that) that I write gay fanfiction, whoops, and can he please help me because he’s a HUGE DC comics fan and knows everything. And of course, he was super chill about it, and he did. He really did. He’s the genius behind Egghead!!! And also the entire Mage-Humdrum-Supercomputer/Politics plot. I’m serious. I did none of that.

I can’t even say I’m trying anymore. “Flort”??? I AM LITERALLY NOT TRYING.

Why yes sconey, so very specific. 😂 

This is what qualifies as a “good” outline for me, that heading was just for my betas. Isn’t it fabulous to see that some of this actually made it in and I’m capable of planning in advance? 😂 

Get ready for the shock of your life, though -- I actually have a SUUUUPER detailed outline for the two finale chapters. Because, well, it’s the finale. Wrapping up loose ends does actually require planning, WHO KNEW. Also I’d been writing and posting for a couple months at this point and it had been several more weeks in quarantine so maybe I’d regained some sense of reality? It’s like two pages but still shittily written, so I’ll just share a couple tidibits.

That bullet point is extraordinarily cracky BUT actually, Baz shooting up from the cloud like an awesome fucking hot dramatic person was one of the very first scenes I envisioned for this fic :D 

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into my writing brain! It’s a terrifying place. I love all of you that say Holding Out For a Hero is a well-crafted masterpiece, but respectfully, no ❤️ 

(Though I swear I AM super, super happy with how it turned out - it’s still my favorite thing I’ve ever written. Read it here!!!)

[loudlightnews]

Lost Art, “Secrets”and life experiences. Check out the new interview with In Urgency

Alternative/ Post-Hardcore band, In Urgency took the time to talk to us about some details about their upcoming album, "Painting Parallels" out May 23rd. 

With a challenging recording process, the difficulty of expressing themselves, their favorite places and In-n-Out.

Click below to read the full interview!

First, please tell us your name and your favorite fast food.

Chris (Vocals & Guitar) -  My favorite fast food is Baker’s for sure. In recent years I’ve made a pretty important, personal lifestyle change as to take better care of myself so I don’t frequent the establishment much anymore. But in my hayday, if you knew anything about anything, it was that Baker’s puts anywhere that sells burgers with a drive through to shame. Yes, including In-n-Out.

Sam (Vocals & Guitar) - Definitely have to say In-n-Out. The classic Californian answer. Haha.

Javier (Drums) - I'd have to say In-N-Out

Michael (Bass) - As far as fast food goes I'd have to go with taco trucks in LA or pizza in general. Both are terrible for you but delicious!

• You’ve been working on this album for quite a while, How has it been for you to record it?

Chris - The actual recording of the album went by faster than all of the other ‘behind the scenes’ motions that come along with a full-length record.  It’s unfortunate because this process, above all else, is the time when I feel closest to home, within myself.  It reminds me that creation is a limitless craft, full of experimenting, hypothesizing, failing, re-arranging, so on and so forth.  It was a rejuvenating and re-inspiring learning experience but sadly, it was over before we knew it.  If I had it my way, I’d really only write and record music.

Sam - Recording the album was great for a number of reasons. This album was the first opportunity we’ve had to work with a producer who was solely focused on us and our project. On our EP and with former bands we’ve always worked with producers that would have multiple clients and multiple projects at the same time. While most of them still did a great job on whatever recording it was, it definitely distracted from the idea of capturing that “moment in time”. We were lucky enough to accomplish that on this record with the schedule being much more succinct. We we’re at the studio 3-4 days in a row all in successive weeks, so the process really felt together. These recording sessions were also special to me because we recorded in a small desert town called Wildomar that borders a town I spent a couple years in as a kid called Murrieta. For a general idea their both near Temecula. It was fun to be back in old stomping grounds and go eat at places I haven’t been for a long time.

Javier - It was the most surreal, dream-like state for me. It could've been the desert heat at the studio near Lake Elsinore... but seriously, the drum tracking blew by in two days. Sometimes it felt like forever while the songs that were so fun and satisfying to execute blinked by the fastest.

Michael - Recording was a pretty humbling experience. Working with the Daniel Wonacott (Finch, Speak The Truth) was a dream come true. To have our producer also handling tracking was a really special way to record. The fewer ears and hands between producer and musician was nice. It helped keep the record more personal and less of a job for the people involved. Daniel gave us plenty of time to develop the songs even in the studio which was a luxury we absolutely appreciated. We were very lucky to have Don of DML Studios allowing us to use his space to really craft something we can be proud of. The actual recording process went pretty well. It was a lot of fun to see the songs come together throughout the sessions. We got to use a lot incredible outboard gear we would not have had access to if Daniel didn't care about this record. Honestly it was what I had dreamed about ever since I was kid watching videos of my favorite bands in the studio. It was surreal.

• What’s the main theme for it?

Chris - Part of me would tell you it’s a 27-year personal experience called ‘Life’ that’s reduced to 10 measly songs. The other, more realistic, side of me would say that if boiled down to one theme, it would be self-discovery.

• Do you discuss certain topics in particular?

Chris - Absolutely. Writing this record got very difficult at times for me. Not because of a shortage of things to say or a lack of direction, but moreso because I kept finding myself visiting less-frequented corners of my mind, confronting things I’ve done my best to let go of, for one reason or another. My sister’s heartbreaking persistence on building a relationship with her abusive, pathetic-excuse for a father, purely for the sake of saying she’s got one is visited in the song “Secrets”.  The song “What’s Left of Me” was originally titled “This house is not a home” implicitly referring to me watching someone I love very dearly get driven to addiction to cope with an overwhelmingly consistent lifetime of abandonment.  It took a lot for me to keep my feet on the ground while repeatedly visiting the most traumatic parts of my life (in fear of not doing them justice) and making sense of it all.  But I made sure to give every contribution I had for the record an honest dosage of myself and I’m comfortable in saying that I’m content with the content.

Sam - Chris handled most of the lyrics on this album, but the few I wrote and contributed to definitely broached specific topics. For example “Angel” really focuses on that feeling some people get when a relationship or even just a crush doesn’t really work out. You feel lonely and you start to question “Is there anyone out there for me?”. I think the “believe me I’m still here, in a state of hope and fear” line really sums it up. Your always hoping someone great comes along, but there’s always a fear that no one will or that if they do, it will fall apart like past situations.

• What was the biggest challenge while recording “Painting Parallels”?

Chris - For myself, it was wanting to not let anyone down.  The process of recording music revolves around a loosely based recipe on how to achieve a decent sounding, finished product.  Knowing that our production team had that base covered and that I had a band who would deliver on performance and creativity, I couldn’t shake the ever-looming thought of ‘Fuck. I hope it means as much to everyone else as it does to me’.

Sam - Expressing myself lyrically was definitely a challenge on this record. When we started writing I continually found myself putting words to paper that weren’t what I was hoping for and it got pretty discouraging for a while. Luckily the right inspiration eventually came along and got my creative mind rolling a little better. Having another vocalist / lyricist in Chris was also helpful as we continued to collaborate on lyrics like we did on the EP.

Javier - Keeping the feel consistent with our fans in mind. I'm a huge fan of groove, it's almost a lost art and one that I could've paid more attention to on our first EP. It doesn't matter how complex your sick fills are, if your audience can't hold a solid headbang.

Michael - The biggest challenge for me personally was having it all feel so official and important. Haha. We took the writing of this album very seriously as we want it to be a career step for us. In the past a lot of my musical projects have been solely for our own creative intent. As this band grows we realize there is a lot more at stake now than when we were kids playing in the garage. Our songs actually have an emotional effect on people. Having that on the back of your mind when writing is heavy. The pressure to create something career moving while staying true to the songs I wanted to write was the biggest challenge in my mind.

• How was it to work with Daniel Wonacott as the producer?

Chris - Without Daniel, this record might have been left unfinished. I don’t know why he chose us, but he did… and I’m forever grateful.  Daniel was a monumental part of me wanting to continue songwriting.  He’s truly the kind of human being in whom you recognize a love of what he does. I recall one night, after him kicking everyone out of the studio, having a pretty emotionally heavy story swapping session regarding the title track of the record just so he could get a grip on the gravity and meaning behind the song. He didn’t hesitate to give a shit either. He was involved in everything 100% of the time from square one.

Sam - Working with Daniel was the best and most professional experience we’ve ever had. His whole process was so much more involved in such a good way. It really felt like this record meant just as much to him as it did to us and it showed in his work ethic. Daniel spent countless hours in our rehearsal space with us during writing sessions, focusing on pre-production and nailing down arrangements while still giving us total creative freedom. Once we were in the studio he had so many cool little ideas to add to the songs and when vocals began he really pushed me to be my best. His advice definitely brought out a raw intensity with my voice that I didn’t know I had. Once tracking was done and Kyle Black started mixing Daniel and I were constantly on the phone and meeting up to listen to and go over every note each one of us had so we’d get it exactly right. It definitely paid off. When things were uneasy Daniel was also the voice of reason and it really helped us workout whatever little issues any of us had while in the studio. I’m really glad at this point to not just call Daniel a colleague, but a good friend as well.

Michael - Daniel was the best producer we could have ever asked for. Without his guidance, patience, and honest care for the songs this album would have been much different. Of course it goes without saying that his level of production and professionalism was out of this world, but the thing that really struck me was his dedication to recording this record the way records should be. These days a lot of people record in a bedroom into a computer and call it a day. Daniel went to bat for us in securing the best gear and studios to work in. Another major thing I appreciated with Daniel that I find hard to come across these days is the dedication to pre production. We spent a lot of time together in our rehearsal space playing all these songs live over and over again so by the time we stepped into the studio we were ready to crush. Daniel's dedication and honesty really made this record incredible. He could have just taken the gig, done the work and bailed but he went above and beyond for us. The fact that we can call him a friend is the shit dreams are made of. Call him to produce your next record!

• Are you guys planning to do a tour in the near future?

Javier - Heading out with your best friends to play your brand new record is the dream, but it becomes easy to bleed money without the proper support, line-up, and production. We'd like to focus on bringing our lovely following to major tours in California and win over their crowd, one by one.

Michael - Nope I don't think so, as you all know life can get very busy. We think the best course of action this year is to really build up our home town family. We played out a lot last year and we have really been feeling the love at home so I think we are going to stick around the California scene and see what we can build on with the new record.

• Any particular place that you want to visit?

Chris - Westeros

Sam - England and Australia

Javier - The Pacific Northwest, for sure. Portland, Seattle, you name it. I can't get enough gloomy weather.

Michael - I have a real soft spot for Santa Cruz, CA. We have played up there before but I always miss that forest and beach, would love to go back. I can find a way to appreciate pretty much anywhere we end up, but my favorite spots have to be large open landscapes. Living in LA  for a lot of my life I really enjoy getting to see open country without all the rat race of the cities.

• What else can we expect from your album?

Chris - Incredible artwork.  Our dude Eric Everett really brings his A-game in making a vision a reality.

Michael - You can expect a lot more music and a bit of a different sound. I am not really sure how to describe it but Daniel said a few times throughout recording this monster that we had created something really special in this moment of time in music. That is something i took to heart. I guess go in expecting nothing, listen closely to the songs if you want to really hear what we have to say.

• Anything else that you want to add?

Javier - We're extremely happy to announce our CD Release Show at Slidebar on June 2nd. We'll be playing our favorite songs from Painting Parallels, and showing off Chris's dance moves he's been working so hard on.

Michael - Music is a pretty universally powerful experience and I would like to thank every single person that took the time to listen to the record, go to a show, buy a shirt, read this article, and support their local scene. It is easy to get lost in the rat race of all this and I think it is very important to focus on the music and people that it effects. I feel lucky to have a platform such as In Urgency to help bring people together. A lot of our fans come from a hard life and seeing everybody together feeling comfortable and like themselves at the shows is the most rewarding part of this. I remember when I was a kid I would to go shows because it was the only place I felt like i belonged, to be a part of that now is a good feeling. Stay true, stay you.

Get in touch with the band:

http://www.inurgencyofficial.com

https://www.facebook.com/inurgencyofficial/