#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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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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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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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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🥊🍀 💎 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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Six Sentences from the next chapter of Where You Were (TCS #3):

“Doc, what is wrong with my future?”

Emmett sighed. “Marty, we all have to make decisions that affect the course of our lives –”

“And you decided,” Emma spat, appearing between them in an angry cloud of dirt, “to remove me from this accident but not Marty, didn’t you?”

“Emma –”

“Didn’t you?”

Catch up here!

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Hi! I’m a big fan of your Back to the Future fics. If you don’t take requests, that’s okay. I was wondering if you could make a one shot with Doc taking care of/bonding with Emma when she’s little?

Thank you so much, my friend! I'm a big fan of writing them, so I'm glad to know you're out there enjoying them! Thank you for reading! I have a handful of ideas for one-shots in the Time Circuits universe, but most of them are admittedly post-canon!

Did you have an age in mind for Tiny Emma? :)

(Because I think I came up with an idea last night after I got this message, and I'm going to outline it as soon as I finish the next chapter of Once Upon a Time in the South!)

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I'm having lots of feels about Not Emma lately, and this picrew was used to bring her to life for the first time! I keep going back to notes about her and Not Marty's 1985A story, and maybe later this year, I'll look at making it happen!

The height and silhouette were right, but her run-of-the-mill khakis and shirt had been replaced with a sleeveless turtleneck dress, fishnet running the length of her arms. An emerald pendant winked at him from the short, black ensemble, a swath of purple eyeshadow hooded each heavily lined eye, and her hair was up, a voluminous layer of long bangs haphazardly hairsprayed out of her face. She belonged in a music video.

From Where You Are (Time Circuits Series #2)

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Thank you for your reply! I was thinking Emma could be around 7 or 8?

Can’t wait to read more!

Great minds think alike! This is about what I was thinking, too! I'll be sure to post it here once it's written! :D

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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 ❤️❤️❤️