oswaldthatendswald

[oswaldthatendswald]

[oswaldthatendswald]

Corazon day 🔥🚬❤️‍🔥

Shares are appreciated 💖

[oswaldthatendswald]

And the fic is posted!

"Light a Votive, Light a Candle"

The question is: how does one protect a kid hated by the whole world? And the answer? Find someone who won't hate him. As many someones as possible. The world ends. Garp continues. Inexplicably sent back in time, Garp decides to take back the lives lost last time around. What's the point of Justice if it kills your family?

Last week's realization that I can write whatever the hell I want for Cora's birthday fic has spun wildly out of control. This fic isn't even about Cora. It's about Garp. And also time travel. Frankly, this is only remotely recognizable as being "birthday" themed in any way but as I said-- I can write whatever I want. I'm committing now.

[oswaldthatendswald]

Last week's realization that I can write whatever the hell I want for Cora's birthday fic has spun wildly out of control. This fic isn't even about Cora. It's about Garp. And also time travel. Frankly, this is only remotely recognizable as being "birthday" themed in any way but as I said-- I can write whatever I want. I'm committing now.

[oswaldthatendswald]

em dash = AI is so crazy to me. the em dash is my best friend. i couldn’t stop using her if i tried — and i would never try because i love her.

[oswaldthatendswald]

Uhhh non-writers/non-artists don’t interact

[oswaldthatendswald]

Every unhinged fic writer needs an equally unhinged friend who "yes ands" their ideas and encourages them to write all their most far fetched and insane stories.

[oswaldthatendswald]

It really is crazy how if you mention you write fanfiction with people outside fandom, they're always like "you should change the names and try to sell it." It misses the point (fun), but more importantly to me, I get slightly (and I know irrationally) insulted on a craft level. Excuse me, my fanfic is entwined with the canon, thank you very much. I wish sometimes less entwined. You wouldn't believe the stupid bullshit some of my fics have to include because of canon.

[oswaldthatendswald]

"I want him" not sexually not romantically but a secret third way (squeaky toy)

[oswaldthatendswald]

The best advice i can give any creator is do it before you're good at it, do it BEFORE you're happy, do it while you suck, do it while you're doubting yourself and get stuck the fuck in, because waiting around to be "good enough" is a motherfucking trap of the highest degree. You'll get good along the way and better after every project is complete. Remember, this is the greatest thing you've ever created, and then you'll do something else. You're only ever gonna get better, but not if you stand still.

[oswaldthatendswald]

writing is 5% typing and 95% lying on the floor whispering “why would they do that” like a conspiracy theorist with red yarn

[oswaldthatendswald]

6

7, 26 for No Other Life but to Sail the Salt Sea

(Here's the relevant post, for those who haven't seen it!)

6. What do you need to write? Is there anything special you need to do/have to help your creative flow?

The only thing I really need when I want to write is time. I like having some structure to my writing (going to the same coffeeshop every Monday to write, using my laptop to write, maintaining certain playlists for writing), but I can do it anywhere as long as I have some time. I don't want to admit how much of my work has actually been written by hand during university lectures (this is not a recommendation. do not do this.) (but it really is remarkable how much you can get away with if you sit in the front row, do all the readings, and at least keep half an ear on what the prof is saying). I've written in the drafts of my email on buses during commutes, I've scrawled drafts in the margins of a sudoku puzzle on an airplane-- hell, I've stopped in the middle of a museum to scribble down a line that suddenly occurs to me, and then been quite annoyed when I realized I've accidentally obscured part of the map on the museum brochure!

My only problem is that if I'm sitting down intentionally to write, the amount of time I have before I have to move on to the next task tends to loom over me as a terrible distraction. It's damn near impossible to start writing if I know I have to do something in an hour. I tend to feel like there's no point in starting to write if I have to stop as soon as I'm warmed up!

7. What inspired the idea for the plot [of No Other Life but to Sail the Salt Sea]?

I think it was less Inspiration in the romantic sense, and more a matter of what the characters needed to do in order to move the story forward. The purpose of No Other Life was to bridge the gap between Somewhere to be Safe and First Bounty, as well as continuing the overall character arcs in such a way that they could lead into Cry Havoc. I did very much want to write about the beginning of the Hearts pirate careers, but I also needed to write about it in order to prepare the right framework for the overall story. At the time, I thought that No Other Life would be the hardest part of the story to write, because the whole time I was working on it, I really just wanted to be writing Cry Havoc but I knew I needed to put it in as a building block for the story to work. (Then life kicked me in the teeth while I was writing Cry Havoc, but that's another story.)

26. Wild Card! I'll tell you a fun fact about this fic!

Because the process of writing it was quite rough, I have this persistent belief that I don't like No Other Life and that it's some of my worst writing, so every time I pick it up again I go Hey Wait This Is Good Actually??? I don't actually hate it at all!

Also, all my long-form stories have a one-word guiding theme, which shapes the overall narrative and the character arcs. For No Other Life, that theme was Acceptance.

[oswaldthatendswald]

Will there be more in the Then Somebody Out There Loves You series? I love love your work and you are my favorite Cora author :) Thank you so much for writing such a masterpiece.

No worries! I always welcome polite questions!

Since I think more than a few people are curious about continuations of the story, I'll explain a little more about what my current plans are here-- with the major caveat that none of this counts as a promise and inspiration is always a fickle thing.

At the moment, I'm taking a break from posting. Deadlines can get pretty tiring (even when they're self-imposed) and I have some shit going down in my personal life at the moment that means I'm not really up to committing to anything. (Sort of a shame that Corazon week is happening right now, but that is very much an On A Deadline event.)

In the longer term, I am working on a couple projects at the moment, but I don't know when they'll be posted, and they're not from the Somebody Loves You series. There are also a couple of oneshots in the Loves 'Verse that I'm working on-- but again, I doubt they'll actually go up anytime soon. (As an aside: I'd recommend subscribing to the Side Stories series if you want to be notified when the oneshots are posted, as they'll probably be going in there.)

I am considering whether anyone might be interested in seeing some of the fics I started, but never finished-- but my perfectionist side hates the idea of deliberately sharing unfinished work. (My perfectionist side also hates the idea of not posting anything for an extended period of time. Presumably you can see my dilemma here.)

The thing you're actually interested in, though, a long-form sequel to Cry Havoc-- that's a little more up in the air. I do like the idea of a sequel, and I've certainly left a number of plot elements intentionally unresolved in the hopes of writing another "arc" of the story, but at the moment, I don't have a clear story to tell. This is mostly because, in canon, Law's story is (vague spoiler warning) sort of unresolved at the moment. Until I know where his story is going, I can't really decide how it would go in the AU, so that's the major stumbling block in the way of any continuation from here.

TLDR: A sequel to Cry Havoc is possible, but won't happen any time in the near future, and I am not sure when any new projects will be started, or what they will be!

[oswaldthatendswald]

I really loved Cry Havoc (and the Then Somebody Out There Loves You series). Thank you for sharing your writing with us!!

I'm curious, with the Heart Pirates going and exploring more of Paradise, what sort of islands do you think would give them training that would prepare them for the new world? Similar to the Straw Hats ending up in places that really helped them grow eg. Penguin and Shachi's underwater combat, upgrades to the Polar Tang, etc.

Really interesting question. This sort of immediately spiraled out into a fic concept that I don't think entirely answers your question but delights me nonetheless.

One thing that comes to mind immediately is that they almost certainly end up on Drum. They wouldn't have been able to, their first time through, because of Wapol, but with the king overthrown I can imagine Law would be a little more interested in seeing whether the island still deserved its reputation for medicine. And I expect the Hearts would get an unexpectedly warm welcome; Kureha isn't exactly nice, but she'd probably be surprisingly willing to talk with Law. Maybe she'd mention that her apprentice sails with Strawhat Luffy-- but probably not.

If they're upgrading the Tang, there's probably no better place to do that than Water 7. I can imagine Ikkaku immediately befriending Paulie and the other shipwrights-- hell, they'd probably be electing her their new queen. The mechanic in charge of a submarine, repairing experimental technology on the fly with no former training? They'd definitely have plenty to teach each other. Once again, the Hearts would probably be treated far better than any other pirate could expect. Iceberg might even pay them a visit to thank them for what they did to save Luffy.

Neither the Strawhats nor the Hearts took normal routes through Paradise (the Strawhats because of their various shenanigans; the Hearts because they use Eternal Poses to avoid any possibility of pursuit) (citation: ch 6 of Cry Havoc), but I can imagine the Hearts would run into quite a few people who'd met the Strawhats. Luffy helps people, everywhere he goes. People might not always be happy that Law saved his life-- but those who are happy will be very, very grateful.

[oswaldthatendswald]

i hear a good lyric and start mentally holding up blorbos like im in the home depot paint aisle comparing swatches

[oswaldthatendswald]

Apologies to those who've sent asks that I haven't answered yet. I promise they'll be answered! Life is just a bit hectic at the moment.

[oswaldthatendswald]

16, 17 for cry havoc

16. What was the easiest scene to write?

Definitely the whole of chapter 13: Rocinante's confrontation with Akainu and the escape from Marineford. By the time I wrote it, I'd planned it out so thoroughly in my head so many times that it didn't even feel like I was writing it for the first time. I wrote that whole chapter (and the ending of chapter 12, actually) all in one sitting.

17. What was the hardest scene to write?

Hm. Harder question. Maybe the first scene of chapter 7, where Boa lets Ace know that Luffy is coming for him? Or maybe the Rocinante section of chapter 9, where they're trying to figure out how to get out of Impel Down and Bon Clay decides to sacrifice himself. That scene was kind of a counterpoint to the themes of the whole fic, so I really needed to do it right. But I had Bon Clay on my side: in all my time in the OP fandom, I've never met anyone who didn't love Bon Clay.