#this was the passage the gc thought was funny

[separatist-apologist]

May I humbly request an emotional support snippet of one of your wips? Apologies for the presumption, I love how your writing sweeps me away and it’s been an awful (feeling nauseous and wanting to cry because of stress) work day, and it isn’t going to be any better for at least a week. 😭

How humbling to hear your writing makes someone feel better 🥺. I wish I knew what you liked. I hope this is good!

"You can read me like a book. Should I take you upstairs or would you like if I just had my way with you right here in the hall?”

Arina took a reflexive step backward. “On the floor seems like your style,” she lied. Eris seemed like the kind of man who didn’t make noise during sex. In fact, as she thought about it—simply to make fun of him, of course—she pictured him as the kind of man who thanked a woman afterward for a satisfactory time before calling her an uber and forgetting the whole thing ever happened. Sex was likely like brushing his teeth or showering for him. Something he did because he needed to, but not out of any sense of enjoyment.

Stop thinking about sex with Eris Vanserra.

Eris’s eyes flickered to the floor as if he were considering it. “Tempting,” he said in a tone that made it impossible to determine if he was being serious or not. “And Lucien?”

“Seems weird, but you’re not my brothers—”

“Where is he?” Eris interrupted, cheeks flaming all over again. “This isn’t a joke, Arina.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Arina stared him down. “Why don’t you let him have a good time for onc—”

“Our father is dead.”

Oh.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I…should I say sorry? Or congratulations?” she asked, the liquor making her tongue looser than he was. Eris’s eyes widened as though he couldn’t believe what she’d said.

Scrambling, Arina added, “It’s just, he was such a miserable bastard from the stories and I…sorry. I’m sorry. I—I’ll get him.”

Eris didn’t move as Arina turned, feeling like the biggest asshole on the planet. Who congratulated a person on their dead dad? She’d need to get black out drunk to forget she’d done that, or else she’d ruminate on it until she died.

Arina found Lucien in the backyard, leaned up against their rotting, wooden fence while he watched Elain play a rather vicious looking game of badminton.

“Your brother is here,” Arina informed him as Lucien grinned at her. That smile immediately drooped.

“He can’t take a fucking hint,” Lucien grumbled, pulling out his phone. “Tell him to get fucked.”

“I already congratulated him on your dead dad,” Arina admitted, earning a booming laugh from Lucien.

“Oh, I’ll bet he loved that,” Lucien said.

“He looks pissed,” Arina admitted glumly. “I took it too far.”

Dragging his eyes off Elain, Lucien pulled his phone out of his pocket to show a photoshopped meme sent by his brother that featured what she assumed was their fathers head slapped atop the Wicked Witch of the West.

He’s dead, read the message beneath, complete with the celebration emojis.

“Just go talk to him,” Arina said, shoving Lucien toward the house. “If you’re that interested in Elain, make her work for it a little.”

Lucien turned with interest, only to be shoved again. “What does that mean?”

“You’re making it too easy for her and you’re gonna end up as a back-up booty call. Go live your life and let her see you don’t need her so she can want you.”

“That doesn’t work,” Lucien said skeptically, though he slowed to match pace with Arina. “Does it?”

She had no idea, honestly. She’d met Elain already a year into her relationship with Graysen, and this was the first time she’d ever seen her friend single. Lucien was absurdly handsome, too, but in a way that made you want to introduce him to your mom and buy a house to raise children in. Lucien looked like he yearned for the PTO.

Lucien looked like the kind of man who raised his children and the guy Elain was currently dragging up to her bedroom each night looked like he didn’t know who his dad was.

[shoshiwrites]

DVD commentary on your History Book, please, because I love ittt 🥺💕

It’s a funny business, she’s found, grieving for someone you think in some other life you might have known. She’s stronger than almost anyone’s ever given her credit for, but the memories mix like swirling water, the flashbacks hit without warning. She’s never sure, these days, what year she’s crying for.

They had damn well tried, she knows, to get them out, the bruises and dirtied hands say as much. But only twenty feet of progress a day — that meant hope faded fast. They didn’t even know the names of those who’d died until after; the list of miners working was trapped along with those whose names were on it.

She wonders weakly, blood rushing in her ears, how many more boys they will feed to these hills.

This got so unbelievably far away from me I'm sorry.

[send me a fic snippet and I'll give you the director's commentary!]

Can I just take a minute to say how !!!!!!!! I am that you love this AU? Because I am !!!!!!! it was just hanging out in my GoogleDocs and I'm so glad I revisited it, due in no small part to yours and the GC's enthusiasm😊 Like literally would not have without u guys.

Regarding the AU in general, I didn't do a really big uh, renovation when doing the rewrite. Which I guess I say to mean, if I was doing it NOW, from total scratch, I'd probably do some things differently. Each section is referencing a specific, real historical event. This one was the Twin Shaft disaster which occurred in 1896. It took place in Pittston where certain RL people are from but. We're ignoring that, see note above. Also I regard this basically as historical fiction at this point since neither of them is actually named IN the piece but anyway.

This passage, save for these two lines, "she’s never sure, these days, what year she’s crying for" and the last sentence, are from the original writing. The rest is all facts taken from sources & Wikipedia. (I'm also !!! that you picked this part because I honestly thought it came off as a little info-dump-y?)

That being said, I really do like how this fits as a piece into the rest of the AU. It's important that there be these lifetimes where the two of them barely know each other but that the pull is so strong, and that she runs because of something inside her that she doesn't really understand (though not for lack of trying). The isolation she feels because of this is particularly strong in this section, I think, even though she's part of this larger community that's grieving.

In researching for this AU I looked at a lot of Pennsylvania Gothic Tumblr posts (lol), to try and get slightly more of a sense of ... ambiance is the wrong word. Landscape. Pennsylvania's not a place I grew up or have spent a lot of time in, though there's .. something similar there, I think, to PA and the Rust Belt sections of NY where my dad's family is from (least of all the fact that the two states are next to each other aha). The last line in this passage is directly inspired by this post (the word 'fed' specifically) and also from thoughts I was having while researching these mining disasters.

That last line wasn't meant to be something scary or creepy, though I could see how it might read that way. The use of the word boys was intentional. The word sacrifice also comes to mind (whole other ramble there about uh. Capitalism).

One thing that really struck me, back when I was researching this the first time around, was looking into places like Centralia, which is probably the most famous name out of all of this. I'll be honest, I was intrigued by it the same way as most people, like, ooh! Neverending coal fire! Abandoned! Silent Hill! But when you actually read and watch and learn more — I think there's a documentary somewhere —it's just very sad. It's a story of people being failed by government. That's manmade disasters. Mine collapses are stories of people being failed. Dam collapses are stories of people being failed. There's nothing creepy about it.

There was so much rattling around in my head for this AU — landscape, memory, markers, remembrance. Photos of old mine entrances and the remnants of stone foundations and old memorial sites documenting ghosts towns. Like. I wish I could say this with the gravity with which it's meant but. The whole state's haunted. Anywhere that's that full of industrial history, of that relationship with the land (I.. is it a relationship? We're getting even less coherent today lads) is going to.. have that.

Mine disasters continued well into the 20th century and of course still occur today. But for this AU specifically I wanted to dive into that period of time that's mostly the 19th and early 20th centuries. There's so much there I didn't know about. These tragedies that were so huge at the time, so life-changing, and what's left now is in the land, and in passed-down memories and stories.