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starry-on-ao3 · 9 days ago

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Awww oh my goodness, thank you! 🥰❤️ I'm so delighted that you enjoyed this series!! 🤗

✨personal reflection on my writing process for 'How long have you felt this way?'✨

I finished a thing!! I finally finished something!! yay 🫶

My 6-part 79,700-long series containing my first ACGAS (Farmody) fic, 3 follow-on ficlets, 1 one-shot, and 1 one-shot collection. Holy moly. Allow me to indulge for a moment in a writer's reflection on this whole process :)

My first thought when I saw 5x4 Uninvited Guests, and especially this scene, was "if they didn't want to make it gay they sure did a very bad job🤷‍♀️", and from that moment onwards I, like many others, was obsessed.

(5x4) Uninvited Guests

There's just something about these two, dude. Tristan's defensiveness, and very relatable fear of being pushed aside by a sparkling new assistant. Carmody's fear of abandonment and rejection. The fact both of them share these qualities, and they both feel like outcasts, but in a "hey, at least we got each other" sort of way. Need I say more?! I will leave it up to the following tags to say more.

I had wanted to get back into fandom for a while, after taking a long break, and I hadn't written anything that wasn't for college or work in years - so my skills definitely weren't where they could be, and initially I felt so insecure putting something out into the scary world of the internet. But I had no reason to be afraid! I found such a lovely, warm, welcoming community of people who wanted to read what I was writing, and I'm so grateful for that! ❤️

So I thought it would be cute to reflect on struggling with writer's block for so long, and just generally on what the writing process was like for this series - partly, I thought it might interest some of you who've been following this series since the start, and partly for my own sake as somebody venturing back into creative writing in a way I honestly never thought I would again!

In How long have you felt this way?, part 1 of this series, and the focal point I suppose of the whole series, I sort of fast-forwarded past their friendship-and-trust-building phase, because I honestly wanted to get to the juicy pining faster. Partly, it was also because I hadn't spent enough time with the characters to really fully imagine how their friendship might naturally develop (now obviously that I've spent a lot more time with them, I can see how their friendship would progress more naturally - which is why I'm returning back to HLHYFTW and filling in more scenes in the one-shot collection, Audrey's Memories). Additionally, chapter 1 is so dialogue-heavy because I am very much a visual thinker (although ironically can't draw to save my life lol) - but imagining dialogue comes easy to me, so the question became, "How do I get these two to talk about relationships?" which is something I couldn't picture them doing naturally.

I decided that Carmody was already developing feelings for Tristan by this stage, but Tristan hadn't fully realised his feelings yet. I think that Carmody would likely ask about Tristan and Maggie, given he was trying to test the waters. Then, it seemed natural for them to talk about their exes, and for two blokes in their mid-20s in WWII, it also seemed natural for them to talk about the future in a general sense, given the existential threat of the war (Tristan musing about settling down in chapter 1 - I borrowed this from Tristan's, imo somewhat unfinished, arc at the end of S2 where he's upset by Maggie moving on). Then Carmody comes out to him, and says settling down wouldn't be as easy for him to do. 6 chapters of pining later and they kiss :)

I do regret ending HLHYFTW so quickly after their first kiss, so in Research isn't as boring as it sounds, actually I imagined how their first conversation after their first kiss might go. That's where Carmody is very blunt with Tristan, and says that being in a same-sex relationship, in 1940s Britain, isn't going to be easy - linking to Carmody's fear of rejection. I wanted it to appear as if Carmody was almost offering Tristan an "out" out of their relationship before it had had even begun (I'm a sucker for angst, can you tell!?). This in turn triggers some anxiety in Tristan, where he's worried that Carmody is pulling away, and Tristan's shutting down makes Carmody in turn more anxious that Tristan will leave him for the same reasons his ex did (an OC named John who we universally hate). Tristan's also anxious that Carmody's already-glittering research career will make him want to stay in London, as opposed to returning to Darrowby. In short, they miscommunicate, have their first fight, (which broke my heart to write, but they needed to get past that milestone to develop their relationship), make up, and move on :)

In London Calling, I wanted it to be much more upbeat: shake off the angst and let them have some fun. I also wanted to show some more of Carmody's life in London, his friends, teachers, the RVC (this was one human error I made: I forgot that he goes to Imperial College in 5x5, not the RVC!), and of course, Hamish :)

I also wanted to show their relationship progressing emotionally (with another difficult conversation) and physically (but I off-screened that because I detest writing smut) so I focused on their emotional bond and made vague references to their sex life (I didn't want to ignore that side of their relationship either). Carmody gives Tristan a tour of the Royal Veterinary College, and Tristan begins to trust that Carmody does, actually, genuinely want to return to Darrowby and isn't sacrificing too much of himself to do that.

This is where I've brought in some of my own personal experiences and this is one way that fic is a safe space to explore some potentially difficult/challenging aspects of your own life, or of those around you, in a sandbox - and that's one of the reasons why I adore fic and fandom so much, and why I'm sure many of you do too!

When you're a researcher, it's very easy to hyperfocus and obsess over your topic (because, let's be real, it isn't just a topic, it's more like a vocation, and without your research, you wouldn't really know who you are!) - I suspect this is something I have in common with Carmody, and it was interesting to explore this characteristic but from Tristan's perspective, as opposed to Carmody. (I know what it feels like to be in my own head, but I don't know what it feels like to be in somebody else's head, observing me. I think that's why I write from Tristan's perspective so much.) Recognising this hyper-obsessive academic trait in Carmody, Tristan gets in his head worried that Carmody is sacrificing too much of himself to return to Darrowby to be with Tristan. So there's a tad of emotional hurt/comfort here, too. That was all informed by either personal experience, or stories from other people in my life where geography and love doesn't always line up (thanks, Brexit 🙄).

[stop reading here if you have not read the last chapter of 'See you at the end of the aisle'!]

See you at the end of the aisle is a sort of full-circle moment: lots of the plot lines I started in previous installments finally pay off and it was incredibly satisfying to finish this ficlet! - (Siegfried and Audrey's wedding, Tristan's recurring anxieties about "the future", and Carmody's need for a deeper commitment from Tristan). Here, again, I leaned into some personal experiences: I adore hearing other people's engagement stories, and now I have my own to tell, I adore telling my own engagement story too (DM me and I'll happily re-tell it, it never gets old!) - so the dinner scene where Siegfried and Audrey are telling their engagement story, and Tristan and Carmody are listening intently, is again directly inspired by real life. (I remember listening to other people's engagement stories, and longing for my own, and I would always picture myself in the role of the woman being proposed to.) So Tristan and Richard naturally do the same thing, and the roles they imagine themselves in foreshadow who eventually does the proposing, that being Tristan.

Here, I wrote from Carmody's perspective for a couple reasons.

Firstly, I adore romcoms and especially ones which have to do with weddings/engagements, and it's a familiar and comforting trope for me to return to!

Secondly, if I did write from Tristan's perspective, it would ruin the ending of the fic! So obviously the only way to do it was Carmody's pov :)

The sad elephant in the room is that Tristan and Richard obviously can't get married as two men in 1942. But I'm a hopeless romantic, so Tristan instead declares his forever love to Carmody, and I like to imagine they had a little spiritual ceremony anyway, with just the Skeldale family :)

To wrap up this very long post, the one-shot He's the love of my life and the (as-of-now ongoing) collection Audrey's Memories are written slightly out of context, basically in an effort to include certain scenes that didn't quite fit in the main 4 fics/ficlets, but which I wanted to write anyway, or which were inspired by conversations with friends in the Ao3 comments and I wrote them as thank yous for always encouraging me!

And I'll reiterate it now: thank you to everyone who subscribed, commented, gave kudos and read this series!! Every single notification email from Ao3 would have me smiling or giggling to myself, whether I was bored at work or on public transport or just chilling at home - I honestly can't emphasise enough how beautiful of an experience it has been to share these stories with you all 🫶 and I'd like to particularly thank @101goldenretrievers, @augurey-ray and @a-casual-egg! 🥰 Genuinely, I don't know how I could've gotten this series over the line without all of your amazing incredible wonderful love and support! 🫶

What's next?

My ongoing WIP, Close To You, is my current main focus, and I'm also working on Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, which is a fixit in which Carmody never leaves after 5x5!

I also write drabbles for these two adorable dorks, which you can find here, and I moderate the ongoing Farmody Prompt Challenge - follow @farmody-prompts to keep up to date with that 🥰

To wrap this up...

Thank you if you've read this far, and enjoy this gif of our faves as a reward 🫶💕

(also, below the gif is a deleted snippet of dialogue between Carmody and Tristan which didn't make the cut after their engagement, but which I wanted to share anyway somewhere so here you have it 🥰)

(5x5) Pair Bond

The way Tristan's smile and his eyes linger on Carmody I am WEAK do you notice how he keeps looking at Carmody even as he walks away???!! As if he's waiting for Carmody to turn around?!! oh my GOD HE'S SO IN LOVE hngnnggngng

Deleted dialogue from 'See you at the end of the aisle' chapter 5:

"How long have you felt this way- I mean... how long have you known you wanted to propose?" Carmody asked, admiring his twine ring in the gentle yellow glow of the light above. "Honestly - since Christmas," Tristan replied, leaving a gentle kiss on Carmody's temple. "Remember that conversation James and I had by the fire? When you and Helen and Audrey were doing the washing up - since then... that's when I knew." "And - how long were you planning this for?" Carmody asked. "I actually wanted to propose the day we went for the picnic at Pumphrey Manor - but I could tell you were stressed out from your research, and I didn't want to distract you - I thought it probably wasn't the right time... And I've been carrying this letter around all week, ever since you got back, and just trying to find the right moment, then... In the dance hall, when you said you wanted to dance, I just knew this was the moment - now or never - and... All I needed then was for you to say yes."

#acgas fanfic #farmody

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