tielan, posts by tag: writing - LiveJournal

Today, I am not in the mood for humaning, let alone adulting. Just let me crawl back into bed and sleep until the thirty-third day of Never.

I offered answers for a fanfic meme back in June, and promptly forgot about it. (Sorry!)

answer post the first
answer post the second

Forthwith, the third post!

30 by sharpest_asp
30. Tooth-rotting fluff or merciless angst?

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

I like to think it's that I write different characters to the mainstream, and I write them differently to the mainstream.

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Two more to go! #19 and #5.

If you want to ask one of the questions, drop the comment in the original meme post.

Answers to the fanfic meme I posted last week.

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received? requested by beatrice_otter

I've gotten a lot of comments over the decades, and I can't actually remember which one was "the nicest". But I can tell you the ones that I love receiving and often later re-reading when I come back to a story and read the comments weeks, months, even years later.

It's always delightful to hear from people who loved the story, but particularly delightful to hear what they loved: the phrasing, the characterisation, the situation/crisis and how I resolved it.

As an example, my recent fic 'Twelve Steps' is a canon-divergence from Endgame, and quite a few of the comments mentioned that they not only loved the changes I made and the reasons I gave, but also they loved that I'd followed the logical conclusion of the events of the movie, as well as how clear it was that the characters had changed in their time apart from each other.

Those are the comments that warm my heart: where people appreciate and pick out the details that struck them, particularly when those details are ones that I took pains to include in the story.

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2. Why do you write fanfiction? requested by rmc28

Thinking all the way back to my earliest days of fanfic conceptualisation, it was usually because I wanted to see a variation on a story that wasn't contemplated in canon.

I wanted to see Leia save the galaxy and her brother. I wanted to read more about Generation X (of the X-Men comic books)'s interactions with each other and the world around them as teenagers rather than as superheroes. I wanted Sam Carter to end up with Jack O'Neill without losing her sass and her delight in technology and her duty in the military. I wanted to explore the dynamics between the characters of the Justice League cartoons both when the world's fate rested on their shoulders and when it didn't...

A lot of times, I write fanfic because I want to see a scenario about a character that I like, but who isn't well-liked by most fans, or whose fans can't write them as the character in which I see them. And yes, I have a type when it comes to fanfic characters, and yes, they're a bit like me in character (which makes it considerably easier to write tem).

And, you know, the feedback is nice. :)

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Coming up: 17, 22, 30, 3, 19, and 5.

Character Headcanon Meme

I did:

• Kara Thrace (BSG)
• Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
• Dawn Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
• Maria Hill (MCU)
• Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
• Mako Mori(Pacific Rim)

That was kind of fun.

I'm trying to finish off the next story in the Meeting Halfway series (30 Days of OTP, for Maria/Steve, which I started 8 years ago and haven't yet finished).

I'm also trying to get the next chapter up for the MCU/Psy-Changeling universe up. The scene keeps ballooning out.

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Have a snippet from the original fic I've been trying to write the last six months. I've been stuck at this segment about halfway through for, oh, around three of those six months.

"What's a callback?"

Green-flecked eyes stared at him like she'd forgotten he was even there. "It's a spell to 'remember' where everything was at a certain point in the past, in a location where magic was recently performed."

"Capturing the echo of the magic performed and how it affected the area." Cal knew the type of spell she was talking about - in Fae it was better known as 'magical memory'. "What's involved in casting a callback spell?"

"For the basic callback in the kit? The ability to cast a spell. Are you offering?"

"Yes." He held up a hand as she stood. "But only after you finish your dinner."

"The longer we wait, the less residue there'll be for performing the callback!"

"There'll be enough." He pointed at the bowl on her desk. "Eat. The faster you eat, the faster we'll get moving."

This time the look she gave him was grumpy, but she ate her meal and ten minutes later, they were walking through doors labelled Security with an additional sign beneath it that indicated, personal glamours may not hold past this point.

"Does that happen very often? The collapse of a personal glamour?"

"More often than you'd think," she said as she walked past the empty security desk towards the closed door behind it, but waved at the clearly-mounted camera in the corner before swiping her card to unlock the door. "People use personal glamours for a lot more than deception."

"Vanity is the usual cause," said the woman who swivelled her chair around from the desk where she'd been working, and rolled it over to the table nearest the door. "And I don't mean the two people with vitiligo who use a glamour; I mean the ones whose glamours are pretty much cosmetic; freckles or nicer shaped eyebrows or an entire makeup routine. Hi, I'm Ani." Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she grinned at Cal. "You really are as pretty as they said you were."

Jenna snorted. "Box kit now, flirt later."

"Work, work, work, this one," Ani grouched, still smiling, but pushed a box across the table top. "You know the deal for a callback spell; you've seen it done often enough. Although who you're going to find to do a spell at this hour, I don't know..." She trailed off as Cal raised a hand.

"He's actually not bad at magic," Jenna said. "For a Fae."

"Well, you're not all bad for Low Fae," she laughed, sliding her arm around his waist and snuggling up to him. And he was young enough and needy enough to take the affection - who'd ever shown him such regard before? - without pointing out how much it stung to be the exception.

He thought he did a better job of hiding his disquiet, but when they were in the elevator, Agent Jourdan turned to him. "I probably shouldn't have said that."

"Said what?"

"Not bad at magic for a Fae. I've gotten enough flak for being shit at magic this high up in Crossover, and you're considerably better than me."

"I..." He hesitated. "You scraped an old wound."

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Okay, going out in the blowing wind to take osme photos of spring buds and blossoms for a friend who's been stuck indoors for a while and wants some reminders that spring is coming.

Not all COVID-19 related.

But What Did Obama Ever Do For Us?

The Robby Horror Mower Show: Let's do the lawn mow again!

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Chickpea Tikka Masala (Washington Post)

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Other than that, I've been trying not to feel guilty about not writing more. I can't seem to actually finish a manuscript. I mean, yes, this is me.

Also: the short story that got in the anthology? I won't get paid for it. It's name branding only. To that end, I really need to write a few short, smutty stories under the same name. I should be able to do this. I just struggle a lot with finishing stories. I know I have good ideas, I just can't write them in a month or whatever.

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Writing links, I'm sure I've posted these before, but anyway.

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I was looking back through my 'feedback' emails, and found the point at which AO3 stopped sending individual kudos emails and started collecting them together. And then found the point at which they started sending them as HTML and not just plain text.

It's...kind of fascinating.

Also, a reminder that there was a time when I didn't get that many kudos. When a half-dozen kudos was a big thing.

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For intoabar 2018 - they're presently taking sign-ups for the 2019 round.

I got "Maria Hill meets Ares (Wonder Woman)":

The Check And The Balance Unpaid (2108 words) by tielan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Wonder Woman (2017)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Maria Hill, Patrick Morgan | Ares
Additional Tags: Community: intoabar, Power Dynamics (non-sexual)
Summary:

There was something avid about the earnestly pleasant expression on his face that was...repulsive. Some gleam in his eye, some smugness about the set of his mouth. It reminded her of Loki, back when he’d been imprisoned on the helicarrier – the sense that there was something more winding around and about and through all this. One move on a chessboard and the goal was checkmate.

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And in my Fire And Ice MCU Jaeger AU series, there's another chapter of the friendship between Maria and Pepper:

That’s What Friends Are For (6432 words) by tielan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Maria Hill & Pepper Potts, Maria Hill/Steve Rogers
Characters: Maria Hill, Pepper Potts, Steve Rogers, Brock Rumlow, Jack Rollins, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Friendship, Drama, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, In Vino Veritas, HYDRA are not nice
Series: Part 6 of Fire And Ice: MCU Jaeger AU
Summary:

Pepper doesn't like Steve Rogers much.

It's actually #6 in the series, but there are 8 stories, so far. Eventually (very eventually) I'll finish the series (at least two more to go, maybe three).

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My mcu_exchange assignment will be live this weekend, I don't know if it will be identifiable (probably) but it should be fun.

And the auexchange is coming to town again!

I am debating signing up, but...I do love AUs. Yes, I know, I need more exchange assignments like I need a hole in the head. *sigh*

And this job is going to leave me with no time to write the novel I hoped to have done by the end of August.

Got both my quilts done. Boy was that an effort! Pictures later when I have brain.

In the meantime, linkspam.

Trump Voters and what unites them.
Christian Nationalists and how to fight back: The call is coming from inside the house. Maybe it has been for a long, long time.

My Story Of Becoming Affirming:
"Even thought I've been affirming of LGBTQ+ people for a long time, this is the first time I'm sharing my process. My hope is that this (really long) essay will bring a few more chairs to the table."

When 'organic' doesn't have to mean 'there's less of it'.
Learning How The Aborigines Farmed Is Changing The Way We Look at Drought: we're not farming in England anymore. It only took us 230 years to realise that.
Natural Sequence Farming: slowing down the water as it goes through the land, giving the soil more time to soak it in.

Lamington Souffle: add some raspberries in and I Am THERE.

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Also, you remember this To Do list I wrote last week? I did almost all of it! Not the stuff with the bulbs, alas, but the rest of it? DONE AND DONE, BABY! (But a tendon in my right forearm is aching now. Gonna need some compression and salve on that one.

So, the last week was mostly quilting, a lot of moving of woodchips, and various meals with dad and stepmother. I have decided I will venture up to Queensland with them this week for two days, and maybe try to catch up with an fannish friend of old who lives up that way. Hope springs eternal, right?

Otherwise, the Endgame fixit is going nowhere (Steve is being obstreperous), I've re-written the opening scene for my manuscript about a dozen times and only just lit on how it need to go and why, and all my old AUs are calling me with a siren song...

Also, MCU Exchange. I really need to write that thing. I'm just...well, I'm cynical about MCU fandom and my place in it.

This week: Write a lot. Even while travelling. In calculation, 4-5K a day can translate to 120-150K a month in wordcount, yeah? I have done 5K days before (I've done a 10K day earlier this year and felt slightly crazy at the end of it), obviously when I'm not working and have the scene quite clearly set out in my head. (It was the Maria-Nick-Vormir scene in other side of infinity. I'm pretty sure I wrote that sucker in a day.)

Probably best to do most of the writing in the morning before 10am. After 10am, there's enough sun in the backyard for me to go out and do little touch-ups with the chooks, and check around the garden. But the sun is gone by around 3pm and at that stage I usually want a nap.

Oh, that's right. The Matildas are playing Italy this evening at 9pm. Viewable on SBS. Must tune in to that. Women's sport is always amazing, particularly the ones which are considered big when it's the men playing. Frankly, my perception of women's sport is that it tends to be fairer with less grandstanding, more thought and strategy with less muscling around.

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I tend not to post so much when I'm not working. I've got so many other things to do!

I guess the people looking for Endgame fixits are moving further afield. I got nine kudos on the other side of infinity yesterday...

Cynical T: Unless it was a guest kudosing at every chapter.
Hopeful T: But then there would have been 26 kudos!
Cynical T: Maybe they were taking it slow.
Hopeful T: *stuffs cynical T in a bag and sews it shut* SHUSH YOU.

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The sequel to the wisdom to know the difference is not going well. I'd hoped to be finished by now. Instead, I'm stuck on the damned intimacy scene.

“Will we have to worry about spillover from any of the falling empires?”

“Not according to Carol. We got a reputation in going after Thanos, so most people aren’t willing to try it.”

Steve grimaces. “The problem isn’t usually most people, the problem is the one or two who want to try themselves out against your reputation...”

“Well, most of us are still here, even if there aren’t so many of us in the game. anymore” Nat points out, leaning back in her chair and putting her feet up on the desk. “And there’s Carol.”

“Yes,” Steve echoes, “There’s Carol.”

It’s not that the guys don’t like Carol – Thor, in particular, thinks she’s great. But Steve and Rhodey are accustomed to Natasha’s more subtle, self-effacing style of competence, and Carol's in-your-face feminism straight out of the 90s is disconcerting.

Maria finds it disconcerting, too, but she also enjoys watching the guys squirm, just a little.

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The urban fantasy is going. Not sure it's going somewhere, but it's going...

Seen with flamebyrd and theladyscribe:

I have 854 works posted on AO3, and that's not actually the complete set. I have a lot of pre-2008 fic that has never made it onto AO3 (SG1, Justice League, Angel, Buffy, SGA) and which I simply don't have the time or inclination to transfer over. (Not to mention no wish to spam my poor subscribers.)

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I just want to sleep. I feel like I've been sleep deprived for weeks now. Must have gotten too accustomed to

Also, we seem to have locked someone out of their computer on their first day working here. And there's no-one else in yet, and I'm trying to work out how to unlock it...

I got back the beta for the first three parts of other side of infinity early this morning while I was still asleep and haven't looked at it. I'm always a little terrified of beta feedback, mostly because a beta some fifteen years ago basically trashed the story because I mischaracterised her favourite character. The criticism made me change the story and it was better for it, but I never forgot the way she tore me apart.

Otherwise, the other side of infinity has kind of stalled at Nick's 2nd POV.

Speaking of Nick, I wonder what time I could get a viewing of Captain Marvel this weekend. Or even if I can.

The arthritis salve that I swapped with a friend for 2 dozen eggs seems to work on the big toe. It's not nearly as bad this morning as I thought it was going to be after yesterday (hockey, then a crop swap that was mostly standing around, and then church and church dinner which was - again - mostly standing around, so that by the time I got home after church, I just wanted to sit down for a week). Guess that's going to become a regular application.

Lordy, some of these users are clueless. Lovely people, but clueless. (As my co-worker observed: "they're all jocks and beauty queens" and sadly I'm coming to discover that she's not wrong.)

Sleeeeeep.