#some of it is planning and a passage i have copied onto the doc but still

[waywardsalt]

surprise surprise this new bellum x linebeck fic is definitely going to be long as fuck

[summerroseart]

Do you have any ideas about sonic boom childhood?

Okay, sO

I ABSOLUTLY do. I'm incredibly unwell about them. I'm like this constantly ⬇

I'm SO sorry this took so long for me to answer. My brain is a nightmare land, where there is no passage of time, and consistency and organization are nonexistent; but I finally got something that makes a bit of narrative sense down in docs.

I'm gonna put it under a cut, though, because it's pretty long. Enjoy my over 2k words of vaguely plot-shaped ramblings <3

Now, first off... You probably had something specific in mind when you asked, but I wasn't entirely sure if you meant backstories in my Paradise Lost AU, or just in Boom.

I'm gonna go with the latter, (the characters' childhoods in Sonic Boom) because it's… A bit simpler.

I pretty much have two parallel AUs: my general 'Boom is the Sequel to Underground' worldbuilding, which has backstories for the main Boom timeline, (what I'll be going into here); and PL, which takes place after the events of Sonic Boom, but in which most of Sonic Underground is not canon. The plot of Paradise Lost is based on Aleena not listening to the prophecy, and so the forewarned 'deadly fate' comes to fruition. (A lot of things are consistent across both stories, though, so Paradise Lost is… An AU of this AU. Sorta.)

Now, For Sonic Boom as it's own thing, I do think it's fine to leave it ambiguous, and consistent with what's established in the general Sonic canon, and to think of it as taking place a few years after the mainline games, or just letting it be what it is, because it's Very hard to tie it to anything else.

But! There's also a lot of really weird one-liners and episodes that made me think WAY too hard about the possible world building; and somehow, Sonic Underground fits really well into the vague narrative that exists in Boom. And so that's where my AU headcanons come in. :D

Anyway.

In this one, the events of Sonic Underground are pretty much all still canon. There are a few things I'd retcon (mostly just Angel Island lore– see Knuckles' section), but for the most part, it would stay as-is. Tragic Character Backstories™ for the triplets, as explained in Origins episodes, are also still the same.

After the single season of Underground that we got, I'd like to think there would still be a lot of wild-goose-chase scenarios, but a few plot-heavy ones as well.

Early on, I have the (altered) SA2 storyline. Sonic, Sonia, and Manic are all still somewhat inexperienced heroes (in comparison to Sonic in-game). There are no active Chaos Emeralds, so the crystal they're trying to prevent Robotnik from using to power the ARK, is a shard of the Master Emerald. The triplets use their music to inspire Shadow to help them redirect the ARK's crash-course for the planet, and then things go wrong, with Shadow plummeting to earth and losing his memories, while the triplets think he dies. None of them are really sure they consider it a win.

They meet Tails not too long after that, on a routine mission to Westside Island. He had been abandoned as a baby and was raised by flickies in the woods. Sonic rescued him from some bullies, and he helped Manic to fix their van after it had broken down. After growing attached, the boys convinced Sonia to let him tag along, (she gave in because he was adorable and she didn't want him to be left alone out in the forest anymore).

Even though he's brilliant, and they love having him around, they get worried about his safety after getting caught up in a few battles with SWATbots and Sleet and Dingo, (especially after what happened on the ARK) and soon decide to bring him to Sanctuary.

Tails decides he's going to prove that he can keep up with them, and ditches Sanctuary to try and infiltrate a Robotnik base. He gets caught, and the triplets have to go and save him, but he still manages to copy a bunch of plans and files onto a hard drive, and bring it back to the Resistance. The triplets reassure him that they were just trying to look out for him, and keep him safe, but ultimately they cave and let him stick with them.

As far as Eggman goes, he's a modified clone of Robotnik; created to act as an heir to his empire (in the same vein as Robotnik Jr. from AoSTH). He briefly teams up with the Freedom Fighters and helps take down Robotnik.

I'm bad at conceptualizing battles RIP but after all's said and done, Aleena reclaims the throne; Sonic, Sonia, and Manic are declared her heirs; Tails and Knuckles are honorarily knighted for their efforts, and things are on their way to officiate the Council of Four.

After all that, Knuckles returns to Angel Island, and Tails was offered a place in the palace, helping with tech and security and such.

Unfortunately for Sonic, he quickly begins to realize that this Council of Four "destiny" really isn't what he wants in life, and he doesn't think he's suited to run a kingdom. In the spur-of-the-moment decision after an argument with Sonia and Manic, he chooses to leave. Tails offers to go with him, and they steal a small fighter jet from the palace hangar and take off, with the intent to have as many adventures as possible, and learn about all that the world has to offer, before Sonic's family inevitably drags him back to Mobodoon. (They have to catch him first).

They eventually find out Eggman (who doesn't really know what to do with himself anymore because his whole purpose was to take over Robotnik's empire) is beginning to walk in Robotnik’s footsteps… Sorta. The siblings had encouraged him to follow his dreams, and make his own path in life. So, Eggman decided that what he really wanted was to build a theme park in his own image, but he goes about it in like,,, the worst way possible (If he somehow achieves world domination along the way then it's a win-win). So Sonic shows up whenever he starts wreaking complete havoc. (Which happens regularly.)

Sonic also eventually finds out Shadow is alive, but doesn't remember who he is, and he once again finds Sonic completely insufferable. So, thanks to Shadow's very thin patience, they tend to either beat each other up, or ignore each other. Sonic sort of tries to be his friend, since he knows Shadow has the potential for good, but they don't resolve their issues before the events of Boom.

Knuckles' backstory is pretty standard. He still grew up alone on Angel Island, but the differences lie in the lore of the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald.

The Chaos Emeralds are in stasis– think the Special Zones in the early games or like… smth like how they were kept on the Starfall Islands in Frontiers. None of the characters have access to them (yet)

The Master Emerald was shattered by the Guardian Priestess in order to keep it out of Robotnik’s hands, leaving Angel Island to fall into the ocean. The pieces were scattered, but the shards still hold a lot of power. However, because they're broken, they're incredibly unstable. Knuckles only ever found a few pieces, and just thought they were the Chaos Emeralds.

He has an extremely poor memory thanks to a head injury he received during the fight for the master emerald (he was only like 4 or smth), paired with the trauma of losing his entire tribe. He hardly remembers any of it by the time he meets the triplets. What he does know, is that he's the guardian of the island, and that he's supposed to protect the 'chaos emerald', and outsiders are bad news.

He mostly stayed away from the temples, after everyone had been killed, preferring to keep to the older city ruins, taking care of chao and his pet salamander*, and sticking to his routines, when he hasn't been called on to help the triplets.

*I've decided that Chomps, his "dinosaur" (salamander) is actually the same species as the one used to create the Bio Lizard

I'm retconning Althair being a living character because I said so. He should've been a spirit– or even better, Tikal.

Amy, I headcanon as Knuckles' sister. (I don't think it'll ever be canon, but I like having fun with the concept). They were separated as children, with Amy being taken to Mobius as a baby in order to protect her, and they don't know they're related.

- Amy is a hybrid, while Knuckles is fully Echidna. She was documented as a hedgehog because those traits were a lot more prominent when she was a baby. (General hc that mobian children tend to take after one parent species or the other, and hybrids are comparatively rare. They're often still documented as one species or the other because it's not always obvious at first or it's 'easier.' Blended species families tend to have actual last names instead of their species for consistency*.)

*I have more headcanons about naming conventions, too, but this is getting tangential <3

Their mom was a Priestess for the Master Emerald, similar to Tikal. Both Amy and Knuckles inherited her strength, though Amy's clairvoyance would end up being stronger. She was blessed by the Fates of Chaos (thing I made up) as an infant, and gifted her hammer for protection and deliverance of justice, and her fortune cards to help guide her. When the war started, Robotnik aimed to go after anyone with oracular abilities, in order to absolve himself of any possible "fated" loss. (He was unsuccessful in defeating the Oracle of Delphius).

In order to protect her, Amy's mother had her father take her back to Mobius, where she could be hidden from Robotnik under the guise of being a hedgehog.

Her father was never super hands-on, tending to leave her alone for long periods of time as he went out to aid the Freedom Fighters. Amy started visiting Vanilla when she was six, not too long after Cream was born, because she needed to borrow some vegetables, and the nice-looking lady down the road had a pretty garden.

Her dad stopped coming back when she was eight (he was caught by Robotnik and roboticized). She knew that he would stop coming home eventually– her cards had told her as much– but it was still hard to understand. She spent a lot more time with Vanilla after that, but still grew to be extremely independent.

After the war ended, Amy began helping Vanilla's friend, Vector, and his detective agency with finding people's missing family members. She would sometimes use her cards on particularly difficult cases, and in her off time, would regularly play matchmaker for Vector and Vanilla.

On her thirteenth birthday, she went to Little Planet, following her cards in search of her own destiny. Unfortunately, this was at the same time that Eggman decided it would be the perfect place to put a theme park, and so she got caught up in the crossfire of his and Sonic's ensuing battle.

She fell for Sonic pretty much immediately. He was cute, and witty, and strong, and basically the epitome of a teen hero. But he was also extremely arrogant and egotistical. Tails, she found, was pretty much Sonic's yes-man. Sonic never put him down, or anything, and obviously loved the kid a lot; but he tended to follow Sonic's lead, and both of them were fairly brash and dismissive towards her– Something she really wasn't a fan of. She still flirted with Sonic quite a bit, but her short temper meant that they end up butting heads even more.

They ultimately parted ways, though she still felt somewhat drawn to Sonic; and she was still hopeful that they could become friends. They bumped into each other a few more times after that, but they didn't stick together as an official team, until the Rise of Lyric incident.

Craving adventure, and fascinated by Little Planet and the ruins that were there before Eggman got to it, is what inspired her to pursue archeology, and anthropology.

Amy and Knuckles officially met each other for the first time on Angel Island. Amy was there on an archeological expedition, interning with Cliff, and they were exploring the ruins there. Knuckles decided to follow them around to prevent them from causing any trouble, or disturbing any remains. They spent the entire time squabbling over the 'correct' way to do things, until Cliff reassured them both that they would respect Knuckles' culture and wishes, even if that meant leaving the island altogether.

While they were there, Eggman targeted Angel Island as another Potential Theme Park Location, and Amy and Knuckles had to team up to stop him. At the end of it all, Amy invites Knuckles to go back to Seaside with her. He accepts, ultimately tired of the isolation, and figures he can be a treasure hunter like her. (The explanation that treasure hunting was a completely different thing went right over his head.)

Sticks was raised by her great aunt, who took her in after her parents died. (Mentioned offhandedly in Closed Door Policy as the one who gave her the beehive. I've decided her name was Honey, because puns.)

Honey had gone completely off-grid during the war, and taught Sticks most of her survival skills. She kept up with what was going on via newspaper, and didn't throw much of anything away because it could be useful. The paranoia, delusions, and auditory hallucinations were genetic, which contributed to both Sticks' and Honey's isolation.

Honey died of an illness when Sticks was about seven, and she was on her own after that. She rarely went into the village during the day unless it was for something she needed, or if she got lonely, but she still never really interacted with anyone. It was the villagers that regularly called her a feral, and most of them went out of their way to avoid her.

So, she had a lot of time to herself, and mostly spent it making complex traps and defense systems, or wandering around the island; having to figure out how to get herself out of countless dangerous situations on her own.

She was twelve when the others arrived on the island, and Knuckles got caught in one of her traps while exploring the jungle, and when she finally let him down, he brought her back to officially meet the others. They thought she was a little strange, but so were the rest of them. She was nice enough. She joined their team after an Eggman attack where they found she could hold her own really well against his bots, while keeping up with the rest of them.

A few other little things:

The brown scarf Sonic wears was a gift from Tails, as an easy way to hide his medallion, so they wouldn't get caught. The only reason it's brown, is because Tails is colorblind and thought it matched Sonic's red shoes. (Sonic didn't correct him.)

---

Tails' goggles in Boom are made from polarized red glass, because the tint helps to enhance the differences between red and green. He wears them when flying his plane, or engineering, in order to quickly read light signals and differentiate wiring colors.

---

Amy's bengals are also inhibitor rings, designed specifically to temper her clairvoyance, but also put a cap on her chaos energy. She can use Chaos Control to summon her hammer, and put it away, but only if she knows its exact location (which is why she keeps it on a hook near her door, and why she freaks out if she loses it). Without her inhibitors, her powers become stronger, but less stable.

---

The necklace Sticks wears is made from her mom's old wedding ring. When she was five, she turned it into a necklace with a few random beads and shells she had collected from the beach. She never takes it off, but she's had to repair and replace the cord a couple of times.

She really does keep the burrow spotless– old food draws in pests, and she doesn't actually have much trash, as most items in her home are made of natural materials. When something breaks, she either repairs it or throws it out without issue.

She's really good at spear fishing, which is the main reason she can hold her breath for so long, and dive so deep without any gear.

Idk what else to add, so I'm gonna leave it here for now. Thanks for the ask :D

[sennalily]

Reflections from a NaNoWriMo veteran

So I’ve done NaNoWriMo since 2008, and I've won every year. Hilariously, my cumulative word-count from 10 years is 503,605, meaning I've won by an average of 360 words each year - if that isn't precision, I don't know what is.

I thought newer NaNoers might find it interesting to hear my reflections on how to get to 50,000 year after year. It is up to you to decide whether or not 50,000 is your goal, whether it's a sensible goal, and whether it's how you want to write. Ultimately, a NaNo where there are more words on the page at the end of the month than the beginning is a successful NaNo.

Be determined

NaNoWriMo is a huge thing to undertake, and there are times when it just isn't going to feel worth it (somewhere around Day 25). At those times, you just need to feel, through gritted teeth, that you want to see that 'Winner' page and get that purple badge on your profile more than you want...

... sleep.

...to be an interesting conversationalist. (Your brain will be so fried you won't be.)

... to be a good friend. (You will have to decline social events to drag yourself home and write. You will become extremely self-absorbed.)

... to write something good, or even usable. (Seriously, the first year I did NaNo I realised 30,000 words in that my story wasn't really viable, so most of the rest of what I wrote was the MC learning how to do random crap like play the harp, do square dancing, and run a farm. It wasn't good, it wasn't useful, but dangit it got me to 50,360 words.)

Seriously, getting to 50,000 words is an exercise in sheer bloody-mindedness for most of us. Embrace it! Mind over matter/common sense/sleep!

Life will happen

Ultimately, there are some things that trump getting your novel written. One year, my grandfather went into hospital on the 25th of November; the only reason I hit 50,000 that year was because I'd been writing 2,000 words a day so I was already basically there. I certainly wasn't sneaking off from his bedside to get my words done.

There are other things that will make it more difficult, and that you will just have to choose what you want more (see above about determination): 50,000 words or sleep/friends/a life/overtime at work. I've done NaNo when I was unemployed and bored and had nothing else to do. I've done NaNo around university study. I've done NaNo around three different jobs that were different levels of demanding and took up different amounts of my time. Interestingly, the easiest years for NaNo were the ones when I was early in my career, working an office job that wasn't too mentally challenging. NaNo while studying was a bugger, and NaNo while unemployed and broke was surprisingly tough - a certain amount of time constraint forces you to prioritise.

Understand your rhythm

Depending on what's going on in your life, and the kind of writer you are, different things will work for you.

Most years, I've gone with the approach of sitting down every day and writing 1,667 words and not getting up until they're done.  One thing I've noticed is that 1,667 is actually a bit of an awkward number of words to write; the first 1,000 words each day are the hardest, while you get back into the mindset. Then you have 700ish fairly fluid words, and then it's done. 

Actually, writing on to 2,000 words is often not that much more difficult, and will give you a nice buffer for dramas later in the month. When I was early in my career, I used to write 2,000 words a day, with the goal of getting to 60k over the month (as my lifetime total demonstrates, actually what happened was I hit 50k on the 25th and then clocked off...!) As I've needed more of my mental bandwidth at work, I've moved to an approach of writing 1,000 words a day during the week and catching up on weekends. One year I got two days behind early on and that year was such a grind that I literally had to make that up 100 words at a time over the whole rest of the month. Not a good year.

Speaking of catching up, know how much you can realistically catch up. My wordiest day ever was 6,200 words so I'm not the kind of person who could sprint out 10,000 words in a day to catch up if I got a long way behind. In fact, in general 5,000 is pretty much my max in a day. So if you're like me, you need to be disciplined and not get too far behind; whereas if you can bang out 10,000 words in a day then you can be a bit more relaxed about that.

Planning out your story does make life easier and results in more usable stuff.

Planning during NaNo is hard because you're tired and you always feel like you should be writing. If you can force yourself to, plan out (or at least have a sketch in your head) the plot you need for all 50,000 words before you go in.

... That said, I usually don't do that. Because I am not a planner.

Don't expect to (always) write something good

Look, at some point you're going to get home late from work, bang out 1666 words that are crap and you know they are. It's going to happen. Make peace with it. (I've often gone back much later and found passages I wrote in the depths of NaNo that were surprisingly non-terrible - so maybe it's more accurate to say you should suspend judgement about whether it's good.) 

If you do Word Sprints, then you're going to find yourself writing 600 word blocks that are detailed descriptions of buildings, or long musings from your character, that stop the action completely and will bore readers. 

Sometimes you're going to write off the end of your plot and not have enough energy to figure out exactly what should happen next, but it's 10pm and you've only written 500 words and you need to go to bed, so just make some crap up and accept that it might get deleted in the next edit.

If you decide to write historical fiction or something else that requires a lot of research... come to terms with the fact that things are going to be wrong. That is what editing is for. If you're the kind of person who needs to get things right, let yourself research (it'll just drive you crazy if you don't), but know when to call time, leave yourself a **CHECK** flag, and move on.

Edit if you must... but don't delete ANYTHING

It's good advice to 'fire your inner editor' for NaNo, but if your inner editor is like mine, that little bugger has tenure, and she's not going to be quiet. So if you have to edit, let yourself edit! I hate the feeling of leaving bits behind me I know are wrong because the direction of the plot has changed, or I need to introduce something sooner, etc. So I let myself edit.

BUT. First, accept that time spent editing is time you're not churning out words. Everything has a price! So edit enough to scratch that itch, then get back to writing.

AND. Create a separate folder in your project, or word doc, or chapter at the end, and copy/paste everything you delete into there. Those are still words that you wrote in November - you earned those words! Sometimes I've got to the point around the 28th of November where I am literally copy/pasting single words I've deleted from the main text into my 'deleted stuff' document.

Be a rebel

The traditional NaNoWriMo is to attempt to write a fresh, 50,000 original novel from beginning to end in a month. I've literally never done that. I've done a few years where I wrote the first 50,000 words of a longer novel, one year where I wrote the second 50,000 words of a novel, one year where I wrote a 30,000 word novella and then 20,000 words on a different project, one year when I took a second run at a NaNovel from a previous year (this is not as easy as it sounds), several years where I interleaved working on existing projects with writing my main NaNo story, etc.

If the traditional approach works for you, great! But if you're 25,000 words in and your story is just sort of over, wrap it up and start something new. Or if you're getting sick of the thought of your MCs, take a few days on something else.

Be social

The years when I've had the most fun doing NaNo (and the writing has felt easiest) have been the years when I've got into the community, going to Write-Ins, socials, etc. You can get a surprising amount of writing done sitting in a cafe, and wanting to be able to tell people at the TGIO that you got your 50k is a powerful motivator to keep going. The years where I haven't got so into the social aspect because I've been busy or just haven't clicked with the crowd, have been less enjoyable on many levels.

Have fun

Seriously. Write something you'd enjoy reading. Don't go in thinking you're going to write the Great [Nationality] Novel. You might end up doing that! But what's going to get you through the month is writing something you enjoy because it's silly, funny, dramatic, dark, romantic, etc, or write the thing you've been wanting to write for years. My two best NaNos were the year I wrote the story that had been in my head since I was ten years old... and the year I wrote a silly romance novel structured around my favourite Gilbert and Sullivan songs. 

For me, doing NaNo has given my 50365 words I wouldn’t have had otherwise, wonderful friendships, a sense of myself as a writer, and stories I’ve been able to share and that have found an audience: Philomena, The Crown’s Price, The Forest’s Heart, The Time-Traveller’s Choice and In spite of all temptation were all at least part-written during NaNoWriMo, along with many other stories that have yet to (and may never) see the light of day.

Ultimately, the 50,000 is a target. If you get there, great! If you don't, oh well, at least you have more words! If getting that purple badge is your goal, I hope the above is helpful. Other veteran NaNoers, what are your tips for getting onto the Winner's page by 30 November?