#the unpublished L&E prequel

[dredshirtroberts]

okay so! in doing the WIP word finder things (super fun btw i should do that more) I acquired the wherewithal to finish the L&E prequel i may or may not have mentioned in doing that (because for some reason NONE of the words came up in it which was wild to me) because i was like "Well it might not have those words, but I could add some more" and then all of the sudden it was done?

Anyway I'm only mentioning this because i'm really proud of myself for Finishing Part of a Project and any time i do this i need to Make A Note so I Feel Good About Myself and also hopefully don't forget that it's finished. Admittedly it's Draft Numero Uno (that's number one but i'm using Spanish cause i'm fancy) (i don't know a lot more spanish than this i keep trying but i end up using a french accent 90% of the time anyway so i'm just gonna keep it to a minimum for now lol) but it's something.

OH also probably a good time to let you all know (or remind you if I've said it already it) that I'm Rewriting Lia & Em's Adventure in Thedas. You will not see it until it's done. You are likely NEVER going to see this prequel because it's primarily for my own personal use as a reference in later L&E-related storytelling. That said, just know it's Pretty Damn Good for a first draft and also I've Broken My Own Heart Already so expect more angst and shit in L&E the updated version (which will also hopefully be getting a different title).

(Do not fret, I will be leaving what I have of L&E up on AO3 for your perusal, and I will be likely drawing heavily from my favorite parts in the updated version. I think it's important to acknowledge what i've already written that people have enjoyed and keep it up, while also working to make it something I can be even more proud of in the future!)

So! If you would like to see more L&E-redux-related posting, please let me know. It's Slow Going (as I'm sure you were able to tell i have a LOT of WIPs currently running at the same time, seeing as how i had to narrow it down to the two y'all kept seeing bits of earlier today) and probably I'll mostly only have Plot Points I'm comfortable sharing as well as Vibes and potentially like. First runs of scenes that may or may not be in the final product.

[aroaessidhe]

Hi!

I just read archivist wasp and loved it! but apparently there are a bunch of other books in the same universe and I was wondering what reading order you'd recommend :)

Also I love your blog and art!

-E

very comedic timing, I literally just started a reread yesterday lmao. Also, thank you!

OK so the main things are three books + a novella + a vaguely connected middle grade, and some extra stuff online (which I'll get to after these). Here’s publishing order for the books, which is a good reading order:

Archivist Wasp

Latchkey - book 2 in the (unfinished) wasp trilogy, following her & the Upstarts & our ghosts (and more about their backstory)

Firebreak is a standalone narratively, but has some significant connections. It’s set in a dystopian city before the apocalypse that happened long before Wasp’s time.

Jillian Vs Parasite Planet is a middle grade space adventure set before Firebreak (the closest to recognisably our present), and is the least connected to everything else (tonally and literally)- but it has a character/piece of technology that is significant in:

Flight & Anchor, a novella prequel to Firebreak (you would understand this if you read it before JvPP & maybe F, but would miss small details/references)

I would consider Archivist Wasp > Latchkey > Firebreak, or Archivist Wasp > Firebreak > Latchkey, then everything else more or less in whichever order you want?

I haven't tried reading Firebreak inbetween (until right now - I was just gonna read AW&L but decided to slip it in there too after I saw this ask lol, just started Firebreak) so I can't vouch for whether it'd be more rewarding to read F or L first, but I like the idea of that. If Firebreak is more accessible to you (likely, as it's better distributed) then I think go for it.

---

The short fiction which is all online, mostly came out just before or after Firebreak, and will make sense if you’ve read at least Archivist Wasp & Firebreak!

Pathfinding - short story about our supersoldiers (free)

Last Chance - set in a different town a little before Archivist Wasp, following a side character in AW/L (free)

Archivist Wasp Myths: Ember Girl at the Crossroads , The Story of the Harvesting-Knife and How It Came to Us Out of the Before-Time Into Now, Catchkeep's Favourite Children, Carrion Boy and the Crow, The Story of Why Catchkeep and the Chooser Hate Each Other In the First Place, Ember Girl & Carrion Boy Fight the Metal Men - essentially the full versions of some of the mythological stories in Archivist Wasp. You’d get the most out of these reading them after the main 3 books. (all on patreon)

FAQ - this is like. a separate short story that you could argue is set in the Firebreak era lol (patreon)

Catchkeep - this is the draft version of the third book in the Archivist Wasp trilogy, currently being posted on patreon, though it’s only a few chapters in and it’s been radio silence for a while. (When (🤞) this is finished I guess I’d say you could choose to read the trilogy first then everything else)

and also:

Archivist Wasp deleted scenes and commentary (patreon)

Latchkey deleted scenes and commentary (patreon)

unpublished short story that inspired AW (patreon)

This post outlining connections between the first 4 books and some of the short stories (free)

the patreon is just $1 for access to everything! There's a couple other unrelated stories there too. Hope this makes sense!!!

[shenanigumi]

Tagged!!

…by the lovely and talented @hakuyamazakisensei​! Thank you!! ^w^

Current word count for the year: Uhhhh,,, is that counting things I haven’t posted, or not? Because that number’s gonna be a lot bigger if it counts all my unpublished work. Which is a lot harder to track down. Published work alone—and this is definitely an incomplete list—it’s somewhere around 93,200 so far. And counting.

Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: I just started using AO3 this year, so I only have 17 works there. Not counting the ones I’ve cross-posted, my total on FanFiction.net is 128, but it’s worth noting that most of them aren’t up to my current standards, hence why I only bothered cross-posting a few. So that’s a total of 145 stories since the start of 2010. And one of them is an ongoing amalgamation of unrelated drabbles and ficlets currently totaling 70.

Pairings I have written for: Oh my God. Especially considering Hakuōki, it might be easier to ask what pairings I haven’t written for?? Also, I barely even ship half the things I used to write. So for each fandom I’m still invested in, I’ll go with the one I’ve written for most (or, failing that, the one I like most):

Kazama/Sen [Hakuōki]

Zelos/Sheena [Tales of Symphonia]

Sync/Arietta [Tales of the Abyss]

Gaius/Milla [Tales of Xillia]

Eizen/Zaveid [Tales of Berseria]

Dezel/Rose [Tales of Zestiria]

Yuri/Judith [Tales of Vesperia]

Richard/Sophie [Tales of Graces]

Ardyn/Luna [Final Fantasy XV]

Vincent/Yuffie [Final Fantasy VII]

N/Hilda [Pokémon]

Fandoms I have written for: Fuckin,,,

…But that’s a list stretching all the way back to 2010. The only new fandom I’ve added to that list this year has been FFXV, and last year, it was Berseria. The year before that was Hakuōki and Code: Realize. So the fandoms I have written for isn’t a category I use to measure my current interests.

Story with the most kudos: “Cataclysm”, a Final Fantasy XV x VII crossover. On FanFiction.net, the story with the most favorites is… for whatever reason… “Another Day at Beacon”, a RWBY story I’m not even going to bother linking since it’s so far below my current standards. Second place, and perhaps more understandable, is “Tales of Zestiria: Ring of Fate”.

Story with the most bookmarks/story with the most subscriptions: Same as above for subscriptions, since it is very much a work in progress. You really don’t wanna know which one has the most bookmarks, I promise. The follow ranking on FanFiction.net is the same as the favs, first and second.

Story I’m most proud of: Mmm,,, well. That changes a lot?? Often I’m much prouder of my ideas than my execution. Pretty sure “nature/nurture” still wins the prize overall for sheer ambition, though. …Unless we’re talking about being proud of living through something, in which case the heavily-based-on-true-stories collection of related ficlets “Δ” takes the cake.

What’s ahead: Holy shit, is there even a more difficult question out there??? I HAVE SO MANY PROJECTS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I’m not even going to count the little oneshot ideas I have, but my bigger projects include (in no particular order, excluding all the shit I have to finish – and I’m sure I’m still missing a few):

five branches’ worth of that dual-self-insert I keep mentioning [Hakuōki]

hey so what if,,, the Pokémon games were like,,, dark and gritty and medieval??? because I have an entire goddamn AU world lined up for whenever I can finally straighten out the plot [Pokémon]

a Hakuōki prequel based on Samurai Warriors’s interpretation of the Sengoku period instead of Demons’ Bond, which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately [Samurai Warriors x Hakuōki]

a Sephiroth/Aerith allies-to-friends-to-enemies??-to-friends-to-lovers?? (but also Zack/Aerith so???) AU I’ve had on the back burner for four years [Final Fantasy VII]

a two-part 50+ chapter Ardyn/Lunafreya AU epic, complete with dossier text and a side of alternate-perspective ficlets [Final Fantasy XV]

Thank you so so much for tagging me!! I’m afraid I don’t know who has and has not been tagged, and my mental faculties are beginning to slip, but if you write and you wanna do this, p l e a s e do it and tag me!!! I always wanna talk about writing stuff and never know where to start anyway…

[hirokiyuu]

L E & O for fanfic qs ;)

Legs Exist OnBirds

L: What’s the weirdest AU you’ve ever come up with?

THIS IS............ SUCH A HARD QUESTION LEO IM. IM. do u kno how many aus i hold. theres a reason my old twit had “opens trenchcoat to reveal 50000 aus” in teh desc.

uh out of published stuff. shnz zombie kisses was weird. natsuba 3sen where natsume was ursula instead of the prince was weird. cannibal eichi is weird but that one im pinning on genna

out of unpublished stuff proooobably bioweapon au? tfw human experimentation

E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what would it be about?

[i asked leo what fic and they said whichever one u most want to write a sequel to so]

i actually have like a solid 2/3rds of a prequel to band au written out abt ren adn ryuji’s first meeting??? maybe one day i’ll finish it. it’d also be nice to go back to twewy au and finally write the “mr h meets ftb @ the cafe” fic ive sort of thought of for a long while

aaaaaaaaaand i already did o!!!