#timecircuitsseries

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@melonseed11

Yesterday, August 9, was Emma’s birthday! And to celebrate my OC’s birthday, I thought I’d share all of the wonderful art people have made to celebrate her and The Time Circuits Series!

Emma’s birthday was chosen semi-at-random; I wanted her to make the joke after being stuck in 1885 for eight months that she was now older than Marty, so she had to be younger than him at first (btw, the joke never got made lol).

The date had no significance, but a few years after I chose it, the DeLorean Manual had the day of Erhardt’s death as August 9, and if you’re into Doc’s Manhattan Project lore, we can all assume he was having some feelings when Nagasaki happened.

That said, here are cool people’s art of her!

@bttf-dork

@itsthemorph

@fiddlstyx

Izzy-19

@pine-killer55

@back-ted-the-future

@whosmurphy

@daryfromthefuture

Happy belated birthday, Emma! Let's hang out soon. I miss writing you. ❤️

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Still need to get them all printed up, but there is going to be an Emma wall of all the art people have made of her as tangible proof I've inspired people I've never met with my writing. :)

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding

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A year ago today, I finally got to mark The Time Circuits Series complete on Ao3 after years of never believing I would. And that moment was only going to happen once, so I was a nerd about it and recorded it, just in case I ever forgot what a moment it was for me. 🙃

And now I know I can do anything.

Finish your stories, people! You can do it!

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Did another moodboard exchange with @daryfromthefuture ! I hooked her up with a 40s Marty aesthetic for her Trinity Trilogy:

And she did one for Outlaw Marty, soon-to-be-featured in Once Upon a Time in the North!

Also, because I’m slow as Moses choosing my photos, Dary had enough time to spoil me with a bonus moodboard for Emma from Time Circuits!

These are always so fun! Thank you!! 😁😁

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can I have ⭐⭐⭐ for 3 different things u wanna talk about?? 🥺👀

Yay! THREE stars for Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut?? Eeeee

November 16th will be the one-year anniversary of the completion of my Marty X OC trilogy rewrite, The Time Circuits Series. With five works and 274K words written over nine years, it will always be one of my greatest writing accomplishments. I thought I would write it and be done in the BttF fanfic fandom, but lo, since I finished this series last year, I graduated to writing canon fics and have since added 30 more BttF fics to Ao3!

So I want to use these three stars to highlight the first scenes I wrote for each of the three main trilogy stories. I wrote the series totally out of order, as the scenes came to me. I had three chapters of Part III before I started Part II!

So, without further ado, the first scenes!

(There will be spoilers, ye be warned!)

⭐️ Where You're Going (Time Circuits Series #1) ⭐️

The first scene I wrote for this series was in Spring 2006, and it was the scene at the end when Doc reveals his bulletproof vest and the letter. Because that's what this whole story builds up to when it's said and done. This is the end product:

Emma clambered on behind Marty, catching herself on his shoulder when he dropped to the ground. As Marty pulled Doc over onto his back, Emma sank to her knees, staring at the holes on her father's chest and his unblinking eyes. Her body seized up, a crippling numbness seeping through her resolve with gradual, irreversible panic. What does she do? What does she do now? Even as Marty had to turn away, she held vigil over her father as she tried to digest this reality. This is real. This is your reality. It's real. He's — Emma wouldn't think it, not until she knew. Not until she knew. Hand trembling, she slowly reached out over the entry holes in the radiation suit for the side of his neck to feel for a pulse – definitive, tangible evidence she could tether to her hypothesis. As her hand passed over his heart, her own nearly gave out, and she froze. He blinked. Emma's eyes grew, and before she could more than blink herself, her father was sitting up. In her dumbfounded silence, his chest met her paralyzed hand as he rose. A watery smile wrinkled Emma's lip when she flattened her palm and felt him breathe. Emmett smiled. As expected, life pieced together every question he had suppressed that week, and realizing some time after sending Emma Klein back to the future that she was indeed Emma Brown filled him with insatiable anticipation for the moment on the other end of that lightning strike. And through the continuity of time, confirmation of the success of his greatest invention finally arrived by means of Emma throwing her arms around him in a parking lot. He could feel her holding her breath to refuse the sobs trying to surface, but when he wrapped an arm around her, she exhaled audibly and clutched the back of his neck. "You're alive." Emmett let his daughter fall away at Marty's voice, seeing her eye something she couldn't quite place about his torso as Marty turned around. He revealed the vest, amused at their predictable awe. He watched their eyes dance over each spent round plastered harmlessly to his person, Marty steadying himself at Emma's low back as he leaned in. "How did you know?" he asked, a question Emma hadn't even considered until that moment. "We never got the chance to tell you." Marty felt Emma draw a sudden, silent breath, further peering around her as Doc retrieved their preserved, yellowed letter from between the bulletproof vest and the radiation suit. They had been his first defense against this horrible fate in more ways than one, and Emmett had waited a long time to deliver this apology. Part of him was relieved to finally have the freedom to acknowledge them as he had first known them: the kid in the life preserver and the girl who spouted brainwave stuff. As Marty folded the letter over in confusion, Emma had already beat him to the punch with a soft, wry smile, eyes locked on her father. With that look, Emmett plainly heard her berating him in his mind: you damned hypocrite, quickly followed by thank God. "What about all that talk?" Marty asked, still trying to work the adrenaline out of his voice and gulp air at the same time. "About screwing up future events? The spacetime continuum?" Emmett dared a smug grin. For these two kids, he was all in. "Well, I figured, what the hell?"

⭐️ Where You Are (Time Circuits Series #2) ⭐️

The first scene I sketched out for Part II was dated May 17, 2013 in my notes. It is a scene in 1955 where Marty has been trapped in Biff's garage, and Emma, while trying to free him, is caught by Biff. I didn't just want Emma to be that OC that was constantly attached to Marty's hip, and the likelihood of both of them being caught in Biff's back seat was too high. I liked using Emma to see what Marty didn't — and push her out of her comfort zone when put on the spot.

Emma quickly scanned the outskirts of the driveway for something to bludgeon the lock with. There was a metal watering can and a few flimsy lawn ornaments with the structural integrity of a coat hanger, but nothing substantial that would free Marty with one hit. Maybe something lay between the side of the garage and the hedges – "Hey!" Emma spun around at the vicious bark. A small jolt of terror hit her to see that it was Biff himself staring her down, and she quickly resorted to a nervous laugh and bright greeting. Her voice cracked. "Hi!" His mouth hung open in confusion, utterly dumbfounded at the presence of this somewhat familiar girl. He tossed the red ball that had rolled in front of the house at the same group of kids from earlier, sending them the other way with a glare that indicated this was a one-time kindness. He redirected his narrowing eyes to the intruder. "What do you think you're doing?" Emma plastered a smile on her face. "I came looking for you," she said quickly, keeping his attention on her. "I thought I'd check the garage first since I know how much you like your car." "Yeah, well, what do you want?" he asked tersely. What do I want? That's a fantastic question. And the answer her mind came up with made her grimace inwardly, but Biff wasn't a bottomless well of patience. […] "Well, I heard you didn't have a date for tonight," she said clasping her hands with a dainty shrug. "That Lorraine was stupid enough to turn you down. And while it might seem terrible of me, I don't want to miss out on the opportunity she passed up."

⭐️ Where You Were (Time Circuits Series #3) ⭐️

So, looking back at my notes, I was WRONG about what I remember being my first scene for this story (by one day; my first notes for Part 3 were dated March 18, 2013)! I thought it was the scene in the blacksmith shop where Marty shows Doc the tombstone photograph, but it turns out it was the one scene I always wished had played out a bit differently: Doc and Marty at the silver mine unloading the DeLorean the night before they go back to 1985. The issue with this scene if you're giving Doc Brown a daughter: he's not going to tell her and Marty that he's staying in 1885 with a woman he met two days ago. So this scene became a huge deal because I couldn't omit it and I needed it to have the same emotional impact as the original.

In this version, Doc knows he can't stay with Clara despite Emma encouraging him to find a way to be with her. She ultimately fails, storms off, and spurs Marty into action. I always wanted a more sympathetic Marty in this scene, too, so I took the opportunity.

Marty went after his mentor. "You should say goodbye to her." Emmett looked up from the wrinkles in his bedroll. An inkling of intrigue passed over his face as Marty sat down, grimacing with a hand pressed to his side. Seeing the tranquil rise and fall of Emma's back, Marty lowered his voice, motioning to the fire as he spoke. "You guys just disappeared, Doc. Right in front of me." The Lyon Estates pennants fell at his feet over and over in his mind's eye. "Right out of the middle of the sky. And for the two minutes I had to wonder if I would ever see Emma again, it was hell." Marty glanced at the lock of hair snaking out from Emma's cocoon. He took a deep breath and held it, refusing to let the knot in his chest become a lump in his throat. "I couldn't imagine having to live through eight months of that, let alone the rest of my life." Marty hunted for Doc's eyes until he found them under the brim of the Stetson, unhappy with the resistance. Marty took off his hat and ruffled his matted hair, gesturing to the DeLorean next. "I mean, come on, Doc," he said, arm dropping soundly. "Is it fair that you'll go home and look Clara up in the City Archives, and she'll just have to wonder?" Doc sighed through his nose. He twirled Clara's stem of lupine in thought. "None of it is fair, Marty." Doc leaned closer to the fire, orange flickers strobing on his sleeves and nose. "What am I going to say? 'I have to go back to the future'?" Marty shrugged, moving his gun belt to the far end of his bedroll. "I don't know, Doc. If you tell her the truth, she'll think you're lying. And if you lie to her…" Marty whipped a stick into the fire. "Hell, I'm in it with you, and I don't even understand it." Doc looked over his shoulder at the fuzzy moonlight pooled on the body of the DeLorean. He imagined Clara caressing it in awe, captivated by the possibilities and envisioning countless worlds waiting to be explored. Only he could put that enraptured smile on her face – and take it away. "Clara would understand it," Emmett murmured. He slipped Clara's favor into his pocket, a blip of vigor returning to his flat voice. "She loves Jules Verne, Marty. She has all his books! And she knows that through the pursuits of science, the incredible feats of man in those books could be a reality. She has the ability to believe, and so, too, I believe, to understand." Marty raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Doc lured a half-smile out of him when he finally stood. "What she won't understand," Doc said, shaking out his duster, "is why I can't take her with us. But I shall strive to find a way to do so before I get there." "You'll think of something, Doc. Just… go easy on the details, huh?"

And there you have it! The first scenes I wrote for each of the three main stories in my Time Circuits Series! Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to spotlight these! :D

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Don’t get me started on the OCs.

anyway,. back to your usual queue'd posts.

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A moodboard for 1955 Emma Brown in Where You’re Going (Time Circuits Series #1).

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I am so excited to finally share the beautiful artwork of @melonseed11 of my OC, Emma Brown, from The Time Circuits Series! She has worked so hard this year on bringing Emma to life in her vision, and I love every single rendition of her! She's pulled out the stops for the whole series!

First, a callback to the lovely image of Marty and Emma that kickstarted this amazing project:

And now! We've got Emma's "default" at the DeLorean reveal and her Enchantment Under the Sea dress from Where You're Going (#1):

Her fabulous 1955 attire around school and around the mansion, also in Where You're Going (#1):

All of those hoppin' Part 2 outfits in Where You Are (#2) from 2015, 1985A, and 1955:

And of course the incredible work on the 1885 wardrobe featured in There Are No Roads (#2.5) and Where You Were (#3):

Lady, I am impressed to heck and back and will love you forever for giving me the gift of seeing my girl brought to life like this. I adore your art style, your dedication, and your kindness in spending so much time on this. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️

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3, 31, 33 for the fanfic writer asks!

For the 35 Questions for Fanfiction Writers Ask Game

3. What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

You got me with this one. I've never really thought about this, and I'm sure at this point some of my readers could answer this better than I could. I think a reader can tell I'm an experienced fanfic author by my formatting and grammar, and that holds appeal to a lot of readers so that the story can be easily digested and enjoyed. I also put in a lot of time researching and understanding the smallest details I include for the sake of an immersive experience.

31. Do you have any OCs? Tell us about them!

(Now you've done it)

I do have OCs! My whole schtick is built around creating believable OCs because they were so heavily frowned upon when I got into fanfic (tbf, most were Mary Sues, and it has been my mission since 2004 to create OCs people liked).

My nearest, dearest, and most widely known OC would be Emma Brown. In my BttF trilogy rewrite, the Time Circuits Series, she is Doc's 17-year-old daughter. Emma came to me in 2005 and was first published in a one-shot on FFN in January 2006. At this point, yes, she was such a Mary Sue I can't read that one-shot in one sitting anymore lol. But she evolved over the years, and in 2013, I officially sat down to insert her in the trilogy (and finally finished last November)!

A bit about her:

She is smart, sarcastic, and a lover of peanut butter and old sitcoms.

Whereas Marty loves rock n' roll, she likes Beethoven.

I didn't realize this until after I finished the series, but she tends to be painting after an argument/ when she's angry. She is condescending, blunt, and dominant in an argument, a skill inherited from her mother.

Her mother was a nurse at Hill Valley University that belittled Doc while patching him up after a failed experiment sent him to the infirmary in the early 1950s, and they were a classic enemies-to-lovers situation for a decade. Her parents were married for five years before Emma came along, but her mother sadly died in childbirth.

She's always been under Doc's feet, certainly not as smart as him but on her way.

She tutors her peers in the library after school.

She and Marty were aware of each other growing up, but once they were paired up for a History project in 9th grade and Marty started working for Doc, they were in each other's circles and became friends. They are also embroiled in a years-long rubber band war.

I decided her birthday was August 9th a few years ago, and you should have seen the look on my face when I read in the DeLorean Manual that August 9th was the day Doc's father passed away. Also, I had Emma applying to Stanford for college, and wouldn't you know it - Grandpa Erhardt went to law school at Stanford! So those were some fun, unintentional ties I LOVED.

Emma has literally been in my brain for 18 years now, and she's grown so much in that time. I'm so proud of who she is in my series, and I've been having the itch to write her again soon! She has consistently been praised for her seamless insertion into canon AND adding to the story we all know and love, and that was what I was always after. I know a lot of BttF people aren't fans of MartyOC rewrites, but I promise you if you take a chance on her, Emma's the real deal, and I will so toot my own horn about it. :)

Another OC I've had gain some popularity lately would be Ann Gardner from my Once Upon A Time in the West Series. I don't want to give away much about her because that's a pretty big plot point. She meets Marty in 1888 when she arrives in Hill Valley as a mail-order bride. Marty meets her at the train station; he's become the guy you go to for odd jobs, and he's delivered a few mail-order brides from the train station over the years. But Ann's intended husband died before she got there, so Marty had to deliver her to the Palace Saloon so she could rent a room. Over the next year, she gets an apartment above Mrs. Keen's dressmaking shop and is an apprentice there. There is an unspoken, mutual pining between Ann and Marty, but Marty's so depressed at this point and upset that his relationship with Jennifer is unsalvageable after all this time that he's keeping Ann at arm's length. (I'm sorry that turned into an essay, but you asked lol)

33. Is there anything you wish your audience knew about your writing or writing process?

While I've been implementing outlines and word count goals to get stuff done, I write a lot based on feel. Sometimes, I choreograph and act out scenes with a lot of moving parts so I can hear the dialogue, see where someone's eyes go after a certain line, and take notes on physical and physiological aspects. It helps me get better details into a scene. Sometimes, once I hear a line of dialogue said out loud, or hear it in a different tone, it totally changes the direction of the scene - or the story! I love stumbling upon stuff like this in my process.

Thanks so much for the ask! Send more! :)

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Two years ago today, I completed the first story in the Time Circuits Series, Where You’re Going! It was so freeing and reaffirming that writing wasn’t something in my past anymore. I will always celebrate this milestone!

A little excerpt from the epilogue to celebrate 🥳 :

When Emma woke up, she could feel the sun on her aching shoulder and the tulle bunched beneath the sheets. The side of the wardrobe glowed in the morning light, and her eyes drifted to the white pumps discarded against the wall. Emma stared at the shoes as she sat up. Her throat went dry.

Of course it all happened. The shoes were proof, lying there on her bedroom floor. The most mundane and singularly exquisite proof that she had lived through possibly the most significant, successful science experiment ever conducted. She went to 1955. She went to 1955 and brought back a pair of shoes. And a dress.

And her father.

Emma ripped aside her quilt and leapt up.

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🥊🍀 💎 For Emma! oc ask

OC Ask Game for Emma! Woo!

🥊 What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

Emma is her father's daughter and loves her science, especially if it involves playing with electricity. But she has other, less-sciencey things she loves to do, like watching old sitcoms, woodworking, and tutoring her peers after school in the library.

Emma hates putting away laundry. She has a sea-green chaise lounge chair in her bedroom that few people even know exists because it is always buried under clean laundry.

🍀 What originally inspired the OC?

I grew up watching BttF in bits and pieces when it aired on television with my dad in the early 90s. It wasn't until junior high I think that I got to see the whole series linearly. So, four-year-old Erica is watching Doc and Marty go on all these crazy adventures and initially thinks they are grandfather and grandson. My dad corrects me, and because this was a big trend in the media/ fairytales I had digested at the time, I assumed, "Oh, then Doc must have a daughter that marries Marty someday." Again, I was wrong, but I couldn't shake the idea.

By high school, when I finally knew the series front-and-back, I revisted this silly, fleeting thought from my childhood and was like, "Yeah, what would Doc having a daughter look like?" So I tried writing Emma for the first time. And she was a total disaster of a Mary Sue.

Then it was 2013 and I'm like "2015 is coming soon; how cool would it be to write that 'Doc has a daughter' fanfic for the big anniversary?" Having a few OC inserts under my belt at the time, I decided to really rework Emma and committed to the Time Circuits Series. Only it took me a lot longer to finish it that I thought it would!

💎 Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

I have killed her off a few times (oh, the joys of time travel fics), but in their final timeline, post-series, I don't see that being a thing. The closest I got to killing her off for real was in There Are No Roads (Time Circuits #2.5), where I wrote the September 1885B timeline (where Marty doesn't show up and Doc gets shot at the festival by Tannen and dies). She had quite a dramatic end, and I've no real desire to one-up it. :)

Thank you so much for the ask! :D

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Fanfic asks 1, 2, 3?

(I'm so sorry! I saw this and forgot until I did the most recent ask game and saw my inbox again! Thank you for the ask!!)

From Fanfic Writer Ask Game! Huzzah! :D

1. What is your most popular fic?

I will stick to my BttF fics for this as that's the majority of my writing. And I suppose the fic's popularity would depend on what stat you're looking at!

Currently, the fic with the most hits (2,956) and kudos (95) would be Where You Were (Time Circuits #3) -- AKA BttF: Part III in my MartyOC trilogy rewrite. It was completed one year ago this week! I'm very emotional about it. :)

The fic with the most bookmarks (24) is A Fracture in the Space-time Continuum, in which Biff breaks Marty's leg at the end of Part II and Marty has to spend another 6-8 weeks in 1955 with Doc while he heals up. Bookmarks, to me, are "I loved this so much I don't want to lose it/ I want to reread this", and that's a big, big honor. It carries a lot more weight if we're talking about how popular a fic is.

The fic with the most comments (191) would be the absolutely absurd The Doom of Marty McFly that I did for June of Doom 2023. It is a silly meta parody of me brainstorming story ideas at Marty, and I enjoy the escape it provides so much that I'm on my third installment right now! Lots of fun. The best kind of self-insert. High recommend you try it with your own blorbos!

2. What fanfic do you wish you got more response on?

I say this at the beginning and end of every fic, and it is that I welcome and appreciate any and all feedback I get! It truly helps me to better myself as a writer. Even a quick "Great job!" is a huge confidence boost, and I really need that sometimes.

As of right now, I'd say Once Upon a Time in the East (OUAT #2). This story felt like such a niche deviation from Back to the Future in general, but I also feel like it was one of my strongest works this year. It was unexpectedly built off a plot twist in Once Upon a Time in the West, it is filled with historical details I loved researching and implementing, and I really pushed myself out of my comfort zone by writing more mature content. I also feel like it's the rare sequel that surpasses the original, so I'm very proud of it. Which means I want all the feedback I can get on it!

3. What's a fic idea that you have but haven't written yet?

I'm about to break ground on it: Once Upon a Time in the North (OUAT #4). I wrote some scenes for it but then totally changed the direction of the fic last week, so my outline is in shambles. But! It's a stronger story already! In this fourth and final installment of the Once Upon a Time series, the year is 1906. Marty is a full-blown outlaw with Buford at this point when the law finally catches up to them -- along with their children.

In this story, I'm excited to get the opportunity to expand on Buford's son, who we saw for a hot second in a comic book in the 90s named "Mugsy" Tannen. That's it. That's all we get canon-wise for Buford's son/ Kid's father. Not so much as a first name! So I've made him a whole freaking backstory, including how he ends up working for Arnie Benedict's mob in Chicago, and I'm really itching to cement that lore in this story.

Thank you again for the ask!!

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She is lovely!! 😍😍 Thank you so much, Roy! She’s going on The Wall of Emmas I’m planning next to my desk of the art people have made of her! Thanks again! ❤️❤️❤️

JanAUry Day 20 - Time Circuits

AU belongs to @bg-sparrow!

I hope I captured Emma’s likeness okay, she seems like a very cool character!

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BttF JanAUry

Day 10: Time Circuits Series! 👩🏼

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BttF JanAUry 2023 is Complete! ❄️

I have had lots of fun sharing my terrible little doodles with you all and hope they make you smile/ appreciate the better art around you!

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I'm just so proud of my OC, okay? This is exactly what she would do. XD