#anyways decided i'm including about half of the fics on my list in this post

[loumandiel]

How the fuck is making one compilation post literally harder than writing my thesis was

[nati-jade]

Can u share your list with us so we can know what to expect

Always happy to talk about my writing! 😁

So this is the list I'm working on atm. I have no idea what order they will come in as I just work on whatever takes my fancy and sometimes a new idea comes in and takes over - which is what happened with Treacherous and Is It Over Now? As I've said before, I get very little time for writing, sometimes as little as 2 hours a week, so I do what I can. Luckily, I have the amazingly supportive @emmainldn cheering me on constantly, otherwise I'd probably never get anything written!

Haylor fics currently in the pipeline:

The Very First Night - about the first time they got together in March/April 2012. I started this before Treacherous but it's got similar vibes, so might end up taking a backseat for a while as I used a lot of my ideas for it in Treacherous. I do have other ideas for it though so it will probably happen eventually. It's a bit more angsty than Treacherous as it goes a bit "rust that grew between telephones-y" later on.

Just A Little Bit of Your Heart - Sequel to Midnight, late 2014ish. Harry wants to be with Taylor properly but she's keeping him at arms length and he's not very good at communicating. Angst and possibly no/little smut which is weird for me! This is almost complete and will probably be posted first.

Cruel Summer (working title) - Summer 2016 (possibly, not 100% decided on the timeline). This one will be open/ongoing episodes/hook ups and is literally just an excuse to write smut whenever I want without having to think of a proper storyline.

A Million Little Times - this is the big boy. Long series fic where Taylor is with John when they meet but Harry falls for her anyway. Over the years they hurt each other a million little times but they can't seem to stay away from each other. This will be split into two halves and I'm not posting until the first half is nearly done, so don't expect it any time soon, but if I go quiet, I'm probably working on this. I'm pretty sure it will be worth the wait.

Passports in Footwells - Break up fic Dec 2012/Jan 2013 - Chronicals the little mistakes and misunderstandings that leads to them breaking up even though they still love each other. Heated arguments, full angst, almost definitely some smut too. This one is only a couple of sentences long atm but I can see it zooming past the others cuz I'm really excited for it. I like writing pain.

Vigilante Shit - Current Harry watching a TikTok of Taylor performing Vigilante Shit at Eras. Very short but about finished, I've only not posted this because it's so short and I'm wondering if I need to add something else or make it part of a series or something.

5 Reasons Matty Healy Hates Harry Styles and 1 Reason He Doesn't - haylor from an outsiders perspective looking in. A very jealous outsiders perspective. Inspired by an incredibly interesting 1 hour video essay I watched about Matty having one-sided beef with Harry Styles. And Robbers by The 1975. I'm well aware noone asked for this fic but the idea came to me practically half-formed one day. 😂

I Can See You - Vmas hook up! - Someone suggested this the other day, but there is a scene in A Million Little Times which I think is set at the vmas so might include it in that...if not though I will write this at some point because 🔥🔥🔥.

[gerec]

Do you have any fic recs where Charles and/or Erik are animals? Or maybe just different species? I recently read a fic where they’re birds and now I’m desperate for more haha

Hi Anon, I assume the fic you read was Little Birds by winterhill? If not you should definitely get on that right away :D

This list got much longer than I expected and there's an inordinate number of cat!Charles fics for some reason lol. Anyway, all of these fics are amazing and feature either one or both as animals (or inanimate objects, yes read the teacups it's a personal favorite of mine!). I did not include anything about werewolves or satyrs/fauns in this list because there are TONS and would easily fill their own rec lists.

Hope you enjoy!

-----

Other Crabs Cannot Be Trusted by groovyphilia

Erik is a hermit crab and proud. He is also stalking a shore crab named Charles.

In which everybody in XMFC is a crab.

As The Crow Flies by groovyphilia

Erik-the-raven has seemingly made Charles' living room his permanent residence, much to Charles' despair. A kind world would allow him a peaceful, bird-less life, he was sure.

He firmly believes this until it actually happens.

This Harbour (that we call home) by nekosmuse, verilyvexed

It's hard not to get swept away by Charles' enthusiasm. The idea of finding others like him--of belonging--is seductive, but it is the thought of spending his life at this man's side that decides it. Crane or man, Erik cannot help but fall into Charles' orbit.

An alternate meeting loosely based on the Japanese folktale, The Crane Wife.

The Marimo Prince by elbatross

There in a kingdom in the crowded little body of water called Lake Xavier, ruled by a little Prince named Charles. Prince Charles can only become King when he meets his mate, but a little mutant marimo like him can only dream to find one just as he dreams of the Dry World above his little world underwater. Then, one day, there's a bird...

Tea for Two Teacups by baehj2915

I wrote about Charles and Erik as teacups based on this image from tumblr. You should definitely take a look at that post to see what Charles and Erik look like as teacups.

Swimming with Sharks by Not_You

Erik used to be a shark. Now he's not, and has to figure out how to be a good human father to his twins. Charles is willing to help.

The Westchester Zoo Chronicles by cloudyjenn (Unfinished)

When a new penguin comes to the zoo, Charles is convinced the humans have brought him a mate.

Humane Society by smilebackwards

Once Erik finally allows himself to decide that Charles is pretty much the best thing since sliced bread, he spends the next week being incredibly bitter that he's Charles' cat and not his boyfriend.

But The Cat Came Back by twelve_pastels

“Oh, look! It’s Charles, and he’s been transformed into a cat by a malevolent government program! I wonder how I can change him back and thereby secure his love forever and ever, amen?”

The Cat's Meow by ferretbaby

Based off a prompt on kink meme: When Erik offends a potential recruit to the Brotherhood, the mutant gets back at him by turning his beloved cat into a human being. Cue Charles pouncing on Erik, waking up all over him, trying to sleep over Hank's computer cause it's warm, chasing birds, caressing himself over other people and overall bothering Erik until he gets petted and purrs happily. There is sexy time eventually. Notes/Warnings: Slight Beastiality (Charles is half cat here), sex, crack, romance.

Having Kittens by so_shhy

'My boyfriend is a pregnant female telepathic cat,' Erik said. 'I think this time I'm entitled to panic.'

Strays by Teacandles

Raven's handicapped corgi Charles has a bad habit of finding stray kittens and bringing them home with him. One day, instead of finding an adorable kitten, Charles befriends a rough-and-tumble alley cat. Hank is not amused.

the pawsitively unfurtunate tail of his royal majesty king charles the third by ikeracity 

A vicious curse transforms Charles Xavier, High King of Westchester, into a cat. This is very unfortunate for a number of reasons.

You're Not a Sarlacc by Pangea

Charles is a bounty hunter on a mission that requires him to brave the harsh, unforgiving desert of Tatooine.

Things do not exactly go as planned.

the fisher king's son by spikeface

charles is a merman. au, references to trauma.

More Things in Heaven and Earth by Alaceron

Erik doesn't believe in mermaids.

And then he meets Charles.

Sea Change by Red

The end of the semester means Charles is even more the absent-minded professor than his norm.

But he’s sure he would remember seeing someone like Erik at the laundromat, let alone stealing a pelt.

Carpe Tentaculum by issabella, traumschwinge

From the shallow depths of the sea close to the shore, Erik has watched Charles for quite some while now, deeming him finally worthy of being his human mate. However, it's not so simple to seduce a human when you're an octopus yourself...

Strange things out there in that deep blue sea by professor

The ultimate crackfic of ultimate destiny: a.k.a. the one where tentacle!Charles knocks up wereshark!Erik with sharktopus babies. Erik is less than thrilled with being Octomom.

Carcharodon (Crooked Teeth Remix) by septicwheelbarrow 

Erik is a wereshark. Charles is the human in love with him.

A Paddling Of Two by helens78 

Charles Xavier, a telepathic duck, meets Erik Lehnsherr, a metallokinetic duck.

High Tide by velvetcadence 

"Teen Charles is on holiday on a remote island his family owns and has been enjoying being on his own.

He’s having fun, reading books, playing in the sea but, more and more often, when he’s in the water, he feels touches, light strokes against his feet, his shins. And they get bolder with time, though never threatening, so Charles is intrigued, and not afraid.

One night, he can’t sleep and goes on the pier to cool off, not realizing he’s going into his first heat. Except he’s not alone, and someone intends to help him go through it. –insert tentacles porn here-. And Charles enjoys it, very much."

Plutomagneto by velvetcadence (Unfinished)

Space probe: noun. An unmanned spacecraft designed to explore the solar system and transmit data back to earth. 

RAVN embarks on a decade-long journey to uncover the mysteries of the distant planet Pluto.

'Til Spade and Hearse by velvetcadence

Charles the book and Erik the bookmark have been with their owner for as long as they can remember.

Or, a retelling of a love story from unusual narrators.

[rockinlibrarian]

Year End (okay, Beginning of Following Year) AO3 Wrapped/Fic Writing Summary Thing!

My Scrivener files are in limbo right now because I'm in the long process of transferring computers (longer because the new computer I got for Christmas turned out to have a faulty motherboard), so most of my end-of-the-year round-up drafts are having to wait. But it finally occurred to me that I CAN do some other roundups in the meantime!

Like my AO3 Wrapped For Writers!

I saw several such lists of questions this year so decided to consolidate them, and most (but not all) of the questions had been in the list I did last year anyway. But I also switched the order of questions so they flowed more logically! Without further ado...

1. How many words have you written this year? As I said, my Scrivener files are in limbo, but AO3 says I POSTED 65,857 words this year (meaning 2023. This Past Year). But this is not what I've WRITTEN, since that includes three chapters of "A Captain With Seven Children" and two of "Not Just Stupid Kids" I actually posted last year, not to mention the nearly 9,000 words of the "Pipeweed Mafia Epic" I wrote a decade ago but only POSTED in 2023. And on the other hand there's all the words I wrote and DIDN'T post, but again, can't get into Scrivener to tell you about those.

2. How many works did you publish this year? 8. Though two of those are just ones I added chapters to. And one's still anonymous, because it's too tangentially smutty to have blaring away on my main page (but you can read it here. Don't worry, it's not actually that smutty, it's just LINKED back to a smutty fic).

3. What’s your longest work of the year? "The Magic Man of Oz" at 15,004 words, which even beats out all FOUR chapters of "Captain With Seven Children" (14,754 words).

4. What’s your shortest work of the year? Posted on AO3, "In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" at 2,785 words, unless you count the rather short chapter I added to "Not Just Stupid Kids" that actually began life as a comment on someone else's fic. But I think my actual shortest fic is what I wrote for @sunnymarbles after we finished reading Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series. I had not posted it on AO3 because I thought I had to fill it out more, but now I'm thinking it's complete as it is, so here, in its entirety of 61 words, is "But Where Is the Moose?" 

The moose of the Green Mountains knew to avoid the place they called the Unstable Slope, or “oooOOOOOOoooo” in their native tongue. Ninety generations had passed since the first BoomQuakes broke the mountain, and still young moose were warned away, despite tales of a mythical lake that appeared suddenly there for several years, only to just as suddenly dry up again.

Okay, I guess that doesn't really have a beginning, middle, and end yet. But what more does it really need? It's moose folklore.

5. What work was the quickest to write? That one, probably. Or that bonus chapter of "Not Just Stupid Kids," which was, after all, drafted in someone's comments section.

6. What work took you the longest to write? Considering I did add a LITTLE bit to "The Pipeweed Mafia Epic" before I posted it this year, and I started that on March 26, 2011, I'm going with that.

7. What work of yours got the most hits this year? It SAYS "Not Just Stupid Kids" with 958, but again with the most-of-that-is-from-2022. Entirely published in this year's is the two chapters of "Morning-After Meltdowns" at 509. But I really have to give the prize to "4th Place"'s "In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" for earning all 332 hits in just the past week!

8. Top Fic by Kudos: "Not Just Stupid Kids" hit a nice round 100 after its year and a half existence; but with the same caveats as the last question, "In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" earned 87 kudos in just the past week, so can you really call that second place?

9. How many kudos in total did you get this year? Approximately 309. Counts old chapters and doesn't count old fics, so...

10. Which work has the most comments? "In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" at 26 unique comment threads, which brings us  to:

11. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? See above. Yuletide readers are the BEST commenters!

12. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? "The Magic Man of Oz" is brilliant, dangit, even if I'm the only one who can appreciate it! Do you know the thought that goes into seamlessly merging two seemingly completely different stories? Not to mention all the meta format-bending involved in this particular work?

13. Favorite work you wrote this year? Hmm, yeah, probably that one. Though all those commenters telling me I'm funny have increased my own appreciation of how well "Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" turned out.

14. Which work of yours have you reread the most? Might be that last one, on the premise that I tend to reread my fics whenever I get a new notification about them. But really that IS just the past week. I honestly don't know.

15. Most written fandom this year: Umbrella Academy at 5 out of 8

16. Most written rating this year: Teen, mostly on account of swearing and drug references I think. A surprising amount of both, coming from me.

17. What’s your most common category written this year? Gen! Beautiful gen! I have not entirely forsaken you for Fiktor! (Which is confusing enough to categorize when you keep writing scenes that take place entirely when a trans man was presenting as a girl! It reads as F/M! Unless you happen to know that in the broader context it's really M/M! Stupid romantic relationships! Gen is so much more straightforward!)

18. Pairing you wrote the most for this year/most written relationships: yeah, even IF you factor in "&" relationships (which I usually forget to mark, except this last one because "Chidi&or/Jason" was specifically what my Yuletide person asked for), no pairing dominates like my Five/Viktor Hargreeves obsesson. If you're just joining me, no I don't know where that came from either.

19. What’s your most common/favorite “Additional Tags” tag? Overall it's still "backstory," but I don't think I actually used that one THIS year. But when you filter it to just the past year, the tags are all spread out, so there are a bunch of twice-used ones and a bunch more once-used. I think we need to shout out to twice-used "pseudo-incest" though because, HAH... But my FAVORITE of the Twice Used tags has to be "crack treated seriously," because that is something I truly do endorse.

20. Your favorite character to write this year? This year I can confidently say Oliver Bird, since he narrated my longest and most experimental (completed) work. But a close runner-up is Jason Mendoza, who is so gifted in the art of the non-sequiteur! (And I would have loved to have written more Janet, but what you got was the most I could squeeze her in).

21. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? Strangely, Kerry Loudermilk. I still think she reads too young in "Magic Man of Oz," which is probably because I'm so used to writing her younger-than-canon, and the tone of the story did fit with that younger Kerry, but I'm still a little frustrated with it. I saw some Tumblr post a few months back that was like "People who are obsessed with writing a character either know the character in excruciating detail, or they're in love with a completely different headcanon character who's so far removed from the original, and if you think you're both, you're not, you're just the latter!" And I was looking at Lioness-Kerry like, no, I AM both, I swear I know who she really is, she's just coming OUT all headcanony!

22. Favorite title you used: Of whole works, "How to Catch Up with your Therapist after a Couple of...Busy Months." But last year I said my true favorite was probably chapter-in-progress title "High On a Roof Stood a Lonely Seven" and this year I actually POSTED that chapter so HEY.

23. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? Which again brings us to Rogers and Hammerstein, but that was the ONLY lyric-inspired title posted this year. I did quote a variety of song lyrics WITHIN "The Magic Man of Oz" though, which brings us to...

24. What do you listen to while writing? Besides the Instrumental playlist, I did specifically listen to Dark Side of the Moon a lot while writing "The Magic Man of Oz"

25. Fandom fic events you participated in this year: Last year I would have had none, this year I did TWO! Umbrella Academy Masked Author in May, Yuletide in December!

26. Did you do any collaborative works this year? I would count "The Magic Man of Oz," because that was the product of a Discord server brainstorming session, and a lot of ideas came from other people. But no sitting down and writing a story together sorts of collaborations.

27. Did you write any gifts this year? Yes, "In Which Jason and Chidi Rob a Bank" was my Yuletide assignment, and I'm halfway done writing an additional belated Yuletide treat as well. I also Gifted "Magic Man of Oz" to the person who suggested the AU to begin with, but I'm not sure they ever actually read it.

28. Did you receive any gifts this year? Yes, my Yuletide gift was a very Snickety All the Wrong Questions bonus scene, "miscommunications" by carterhaugh

29. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? Again, Scrivener's in limbo.

30. What WIP are you taking into next year with you? Well, last year I PROMISED I'd be posting "Child of Hypnos" and the rest of "Tesseract," and I didn't, so this year I'll try again, and hopefully also add at least one chapter to "Captain with Seven Children"

31. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? Rather than any specific pairing, I think I'll make more of an effort to mark "&" relationships. I recently was talking to a Loudermilk fan who'd never read my fics because they'd just clicked right to the Cary & Kerry tag! Whoops!

32. Favorite dialogue you wrote this year? “Nobody uses money in the Good Place! You just walk into Steak On a Stick and say, ‘Hey, I want some of that Steak on a Stick!’ and they say, ‘Here you go,’ or, if you’re thinking, you go, ‘Hey, Janet, can you bring me a grande basket of Stupid Nick’s Garlic Pepper-Spray Attack Wings,’ and she goes—”

“Fresh from the fryer!” Janet held out the basket of wings.

“Oh, dip, Stupid Nick’s! Thanks, Janet! How’d you know I wanted some?”

“You just asked me!”

“She’s so smart!”

[...and a few paragraphs later...]

“It’s like, this one time, me and Donkey Doug were gonna rob a bank for my birthday, right? We had all the tuna and stink bombs ready to go, but then a crew of rogue pirate reenactors from St. Augustine attacked Ponte Vedra so they had to close I95 for hippo infestation, and yeah, that was kind of a bummer for a ten-year-old kid, but in the end we got to go to Sea World, so—”

“You were te— actually, I’m not sure what part of that story I should question more.”

33. Favorite non-dialogue passage you wrote this year? A certain fight scene about 3/4 of the way through "Magic Man of Oz," which wouldn't work if I copied and pasted it here, so go read. Luckily, Oliver is full of delightful bits of narration (is it cheating to pick favorite "non-dialogue" passages from a work with a very strong narrative voice?) in the rest of that story, too, like

"Beneath the ice is a young boy, ostensibly, entirely in grayscale and with an overly large head— possibly papier mache. He looks very, very angry. Or perhaps, looked very, very angry, because he is also clearly very, very dead,"

"Sydney and Matilda follow the road for several days…no, seconds. No. Sydney and Matilda follow the road for several amounts of time,"

"And so, either because her understanding of scarecrows is such that standing unsupported is less surprising than talking, or simply because something inside her remembers how this story is supposed to go, Sydney sets Matilda on the ground and unties the straw man, whose long limbs slide and glide and ultimately straighten,"

"And, perhaps unwisely, as one never knows what might be powered by a mysterious plug in the woods, she pulls it,"

"They both lead to a man. A Ptin Man. The “P” is not silent, despite what your previous understanding of ancient languages might suggest,"

and "Frankly I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing now. A narrator requires something to narrate, and my characters are…just…lying there…like worms forced upward by a downpour."

And shout out to this bit, which is technically also not dialogue, but lyrics: “Ha ha here, ho ho there/

and you will quickly find/

we know exactly what you need/

it’s something for your mind!"

Which, iykyk.

34. Biggest surprise while writing this year? That I'd never actually written for any of the main Good Place characters before. It felt so natural! But I hadn't! I'd only written for Shawn and Bad Janet and Vicky in that Community crossover!

35. what you learned from writing this year: to pay better attention to Yuletide deadlines. From writing itself? Have fun trying new things! Strange formats ate fun!

[cerriddwenluna]

Good luck with the packing!

When It's Right It's Right + 1, 3, 8

Oh boy, I wish it was packing, I'm actually good at that! Sadly, unpacking after a trip is one of the worst things ever to happen to me and I HATE it :((( So far, I managed to take out my dirty laundry and shoes, and shut the suitcase again because it's all summer clothes anyway and it's cold af compared to southern Portugal lol

Aaaaanyway on to the fic ask for When It's Right, It's Right =D ♡

What inspired you to write the fic this way? The response to Swipe was more than I expected or ever had before, and some of the comments, yours included got ideas going and it just wouldn't let me go lol. As for the format of snapshots, that felt logical to me because that way I could tell much more of their story, without getting sucked into the nitty gritty that often tries to distract me. It was nearing the end of January and I had a few chapters ready, so I decided to make it a nice even 14 chapters and do a count down to valentines because why not :P

3. What's your favourite line of narration? This is a really hard question because there are a lot of them and for a lot of different reasons. I managed to pick just 4 bits that are listed below the cut because this is getting *wordy* lol

Steve gave Kurt a long once over before deciding that he looked harmless enough in his bright yellow skinny jeans and see-through lace blouse, and he waved them in without a word. I love the image sketched here of Kurt in his fashionable get up, looking so excited to meet someone he admires and looking so incredibly non threatening in his adorableness :P

She had been cooking up a storm in preparation, and it did not matter that they had just had a snack on the plane, she still insisted on feeding them a proper home-cooked meal. Filipino mums are feeders. That is a fact.

They had already figured out what they wanted out of life, and when they finally found that missing puzzle piece in each other, they did not play games or wait around. As much as I love some good pining and miscommunication in fics, I do not like to play games in my RL relationships. Communication is sexy and I feel that if something is important to you, don't fuck around and just go for it. I love it when Kurt and Blaine recognise what they have and are not afraid to be honest and vulnerable with each other.

He stood up and in one motion lifted Blaine up onto the glass surface of his desk, making him hiss at the cold temperature on his bare ass. Oooh boy this bit lol. I wrote the smutty chapter 8 up to this point and then didn't write at all for a good few days and the sadistic part of me really enjoyed freezing them in motion right there xD

8. Did any real people or events inspire any part of it? Nothing specifically, no. I did draw from my own preferences for the communication bits like I mentioned, and I suppose I did model Kurt and his way of finding a surrogate after myself in a similar situation, but no specifics lol.

Oh! I had forgotten! Some people I know through fandom had birthdays during the posting of this fic, and I used some names in the latter half of the fic as a shout out. Chapter 14 is the most obvious example of that lol ♡

Ask me something about my fics

[clotpolesonly]

wip ask game 5,6,7 <3

5.  do you listen to music while writing or no? if yes, what’s your favorite kind of music to listen to? 

i absolutely cannot listen to music while i write 😂 i am too music-oriented, if there is music playing, i can't focus on making words, i'm just transcribing the lyrics while i sing along haha. i have occasionally had success listening to classical, instrumental, or certain choral arrangements, but those were in special circumstances when it was necessary to drown out something else, like when my sister has the tv on loud and i need to meet a writing deadline. i've decided to use this song for that purpose: O Nata Lux, which is a song i did in chorus in high school.

6. write 3 sentences of any wip you’d like, post it in the answer. 

ahh son of a bitch aldkfh ok i was supposed to write something today anyway fuck. these are not consecutive sentences, but they are for the same fic: It had been a quiet, indulgent fantasy, something that he’d tucked into his back pocket a long time ago alongside all the other silly, overly-romantic things he wouldn’t admit to wanting. ... He’d half-expected it to have been a rose-tinted glasses kind of deal, aggrandized in his memory by how much he missed the people he’d experienced it with. ... His eyes were sparkling, reflecting a thousand tiny points of brilliance from all around them, and his lips were warm where they stayed, grinning, pressed against Derek's skin.

7. do you outline before writing? if so, what’s your outlining process like?

it depends heavily on the intended length of the fic and how involved it is. if it's a meet-cute oneshot, i'm not gonna bother and i don't need to. if it's a multichapter mystery plot with mistaken identity and slowburn romance, i'm probably gonna outline in detail to make sure that i know what's going on and when. my outlines tend to be pretty involved. they're just chronological bullet pointed lists, tbh, but they're broken down by scene to include what's happening, in what order, what is motivated by what, what background/contextual information needs to be included and when, and what significant information needs to be conveyed to the reader. this often includes dialogue snippets, facial expressions, and body language. if X turn in the conversation is motivated by the look in Y's eye, you can bet that's going in the outline 😂 there's a reason i don't usually start writing something until i've logged a significant number of hours daydreaming about it, lmao. i want things worked the fuck OUT before i put pen to paper. it significantly reduces the chances of me getting stuck, spinning my wheels, stalling out, and never finishing the damn thing. (see: the 28 semi-abandoned WIPs in my gdrive.....)

.

ask me about my WIPs!

[ladyaj-13]

How I Outline

@haztobegood and @lululawrence tagged me to share my outlining process - thank you! I find it so interesting seeing how other people work, but also I feel like we're all interpreting the question differently, which is funny. Or at least I am. I don't ever have just 1 WIP I'm working on, and most of the stuff I write is shorter and needs less outlining anyway, so I'm doing this more as a general writing process/planning type thing?

I don’t have a standard ‘this is how I always do it’. I prefer to ride the wave of inspiration and just start writing - get down as much as I can before that first rush of an idea ebbs away. (Also I legitimately tell myself the story, so I have actual sentences of description and dialogue, and if I don’t put them down I’ll lose them.)

If I don’t have time to write, then I’ll jot down just a brief idea or outline. That can range from literally ‘Ace Lou’ (I think that’s my shortest ‘idea’ I have on my list currently) to a short paragraph:

Fairytale Ziam - Very loosely based on Rapunzel(/Shrek), with Liam as the princess in the tower, Niall as the friendly knight rescuer, Louis as the less friendly knight rescuer, Harry as the Royal Advisor and Zayn as the King with anxiety who is never seen by his people.

(Yes I am a little annoyed that I missed the fairy tale fest sign-ups, but also, I don’t need another fic with a deadline so maybe it’s for the best)

Sometimes I’ll write a couple of paragraphs if the fic is more thought out, or sometimes I’ll include some snippets of dialogue. Very occasionally I’ll write a checklist of scenes, but I’m not often that organised, and to be honest, most of what I write is short enough that it’s not really necessary.

But guys, what I’m most proud of? This:

I have a Trello board! I’ve only been using it since October, but I find it so much easier than starting a new Google doc when the idea might be just that and not get any further (I start a doc when I actually start writing properly). Also because I always have this amount of stuff bubbling away and I can’t keep all that in my head/organise my Google docs enough for it to make sense.

Far left is what I’m meant to be working on currently (see my big bang at the top, overdue according to my own schedule), 'second tier' is stuff that’s got a fair amount written, or I’m really excited about, but isn’t a priority or close to being completed, 'backburner' is stuff that may never happen (it makes me sad, and I might have to rescue those bottom two) and fourth is where all the ideas and prompts that I haven’t started writing go (25 things on that list at the moment..! Hit me up if you ever need a prompt, lol). Far right (not pictured) is where I move stuff across to when I’ve posted it.

Each project has:

the title/name it’s currently known by

pairing(s) (all the pretty colours! key below)

estimated length (always wrong and constantly increased as I go along)

current length

I can add due dates if anything has a deadline and easily see at a glance what I’m meant to be working on. Revolutionary. I love it. I only have a 1D board set up at the moment but I fully intend to use this process to sort out my thicket bush of half-finished WIPs in the Endeavour and Merlin fandoms at some point.

(If you decide to copy me, just make sure you mark your board private so it doesn’t show up in Google searches.)

Who else wants to share? @londonfoginacup ? @neondiamond ?

[hollandorks]

Hey Shelby!! So I just saw your post asking for romance book recommendations and since you’ve help me endure exam season with your absolutely amazing Middle of the Night fic, I thought I’d return the favour!

A darker shade of magic, V.E. Schwab: Okay so, it does center around romance but the romance in it is really sweet and has got a pretty natural flow. The basic concept of the series is that there are four different worlds in which four London cities exist in superposition. There’s black London which has been consumed and burnt out by magic, white London in which magic is scarce and every one fight for the slightest scraps of power, red London which is the capital of an empire in which magic flourishes and grey London aka Victorian London with no magic. Kell, is from red London and is a very powerful type of magician called an antari who can travel through world using blood magic and tokens to deliver messages from his king and queen to the other world’s sovereigns. Lila is a thief with dreams of adventure and a sharp tongue. They both meet under strange circumstances and end up teaming up to save the worlds from being corrupted by magic the same way black London was. They are a very cute, sassy, pairing who really complement each other well and help each other grow as people. Highly recommend. (There’s also another really really cute pairing that start appearing in book 2, Rhys and Alucard)

The Folk of the Air, Holly Black: Okay so that one is much more romance oriented. It takes place in the land of Faerie, where Jude and her twin and half-fairy sister where taken after their parents were murdered by a fairie general who was married to their mom and decides to raise them out of honour. And because the twins are human however, they’re not really accepted by other fairies. That’s partly why Jude feels an insatiable need to prove herself and gets involved in all sorts of political schemes and plays for power. Carden is a prince of Faerie and is know for his cruel, tempestuous and wild temperament. Him and Jude both feel nothing but contempt, hatred and disdain for each other and yet Cardan might be the key to Jude’s plans. So it’s a bit tough to summarise but basically enemies to lovers with lots of sexual tension, an insanely clever and ambitious female lead and faerie lore!

Lore Olympus, Rachel Smythe: So this one’s a webtoon, I don’t know if you like comics but seriously this one is amazing. Lore Olympus is basically a retelling of Geek mythology and follows the Hades and Persephone. The art is just gorgeous, Persephone and Hades are just so adorable, the plot is complex and well built and if you like mythology, you’ll definitely love it. Episodes come out every Sunday and you’re in luck cause the hiatus ended just a few weeks ago !

So that’s for my little recommendation list! On that note, I just wanted to say, because I haven’t had a chance to do so since motn ended, thank you so so much for your writing!! It was seriously one of the best fanfics I have ever, and I mean ever, read. And I don’t say this just for the sake of it because I generally never really reach out to authors personally. But wow, let me tell you, nothing makes me happier than the thoughts of a sequel. And just as you’re stuck on battinson, I’m stuck on motn 😂

Anyway, thank you so much, lots of love,

Mal 🤍🤍

Hi Mal!! Thank you for the book recs!!! I have read and loved both ADSOM and The Folk of the Air!!! 🥰 literally two of my favorite series! I haven't read Lore Olympus though and I shall do so!

(Also, love that you included a little like summary for each of these and why you love them!! 🥺 we're best friends now just based on this, you have excellent taste)

And thank you so much for the love about motn 🥺😭 It means a lot to hear that! I'm hoping to take a week or two to read & refill my creative well while working on the sequel! 🥰

[aelaer]

Hi hi hi helloo, big fan of your works and all :p Anyway, is the update for your Earth 197320 series coming sooner or laterr? I mean, you can take as long as you want ofc, I just needed something similar I guess 🥲 Any recs maybe?? I'm searching for something angsty haha

Hiiii thank you <3 That's always a lovely thing to read, I appreciate it, Nonny.

So my plan was to start regularly writing the final(!) story for Earth-197320 since like, 2020. Then 2020 happened and my muse noped the fuck out for about 8 or 9 months. But I was very prepared to start writing it in 2021! Then several things happened:

The Blood in Your Veins, taken from a prompt of all things, decided that it wasn't going to be a 20k fic, but a 90k fic, and since I was publishing it as a WIP it took some precedence.

I changed jobs for what turned out to be a really sucky job and then got weirdly sick in the summer which really killed my muses for like, 3 months.

But! I started working on it in October! ... then half-way through, my Marvel muse decided it needed a break and I didn't do anything in the MCU (including watching TV/movies) for two months.

Okay, fine, I could still start working on it in December and that counts as 2021.

Then I decided to join an IS gift exchange and am now finishing up with the monster currently a WIP on AO3.

Then NWH came out and I am of course writing something for that (that also was supposed to be a one-shot but guess what, it's not a one-shot anymore).

And... yeah. My poor little finale got pushed back again and again and again. So I don't plan on doing anymore challenges and want to really work on the finale of Earth-197320 once the NWH fic is done. I have prompt replies to get to from 2019 and 2020 but those are the only other works on my eventual to-do list. But I desperately want to finish the Earth-197320 series this year. I love the ideas I have for it and I've got about 12k written so far (it's hard to know for sure with all the notes in the doc too). Which is not much, but it's a start. Also, I have to finish this before I work on what is probably gonna be my magnum opus in this fandom if I pull it off right. Assuming MoM doesn't change my muses.

This reply was significantly longer than it needed to be. xD

(Also, as for fic recs, see the ask two posts below! Some of those are very, very angsty. Otherwise, there's definitely angsty one-shots I have favorited in my public bookmarks on AO3).

[savrenim]

hi hi hi. so I just got into the Hamilton fandom, I swear I am four years late where did everybody go, and, well. I am apparently a hamburr shipper. bcs that is my life now. anyway I saw your fic ifmlam and I swear it is my favourite of all the fics I've ever read (and trust me I've read literally thousands). I love it so so much, how do you write fics like that??? I cried about four times during the whole thing, I stayed up till 4am reading it even when I had to wake up at 7 because it is just. that. good. I could not stop thinking about it for days afterwards and ifmlam has just ruined me. I can't think of listen to Hamilton without thinking of ifmlam anymore.

on to my qursttion: is it abandoned? of course it's perfectly FINE if it is. don't let anyone tell u differently, your fic is YOURS and u are amazing.

but pls I really need closure from ur fic, it has been haunting me if its abandoned or ongoing and I've read ur other fics and they are just chefskiss and thank you so much for writing them all. thank you thank you thank you, I will never be able to thank you enough for writing this fic and for everything it's done for me. I am probably thousands of miles away but I am sending you virtual jugs through a co.puter screen right now.

(don't feel pressured to reply to this or update it flam, I know how overwhelming it can get with so many messages and after a while u get desensitized to it. u can literally reply "thx. itfmlam is abandoned" and I would still be amazingly star struck. anyway has gotten way too long and I need to sleep and I'm sorry u probably won't see this so I'm just talking to myself right now but bye!!)

and thank you so so much for writing itfmlam.

aaaah hello anon!

thank you so so much???? I am so??? honored??? that ifmlam rates so highly to you, and also that you've read my other fics??????

the answer to the "is ifmlam abandoned" question is probably the worst possible one, which is pretty much "I do want to finish it, both for the folks that still want closure as well as it bothers to me have abandoned projects that are in the public eye/ already partially published, but also, it is last on my current writing projects list"

my current actually active writing projects list, kind of in order of priority, is

I'm literally three chapters away from being Actually Fully Done with the not-quite-first-not-quite-second let's call it 1.5th draft of an actual?? full?? original?? novel?? Opus which of course then goes out to beta readers and then gets who-knows-how-much edited and then maybe beta readers again if a lot does change and then a copyeditor my mom, my copyeditor is my mom, and maybe my little brother he's one of the betas but is very good at catching typos and then I!!! get to publish it!!!! which is the single thing I am most excited for!!!!!!!!! this should be closed up in the next week or two, and then take a while for people to actually read the draft and get back to me.

I really desperately want to finish my open-but-like-90%-written fic, which means we raise it up, the final chapter of to the bottom of the river bc I realized that it was kind of incomplete, and the second chapter of a buried and a burning flame because any more work there will need to wait until the author publishes the next book in the series. this should be closed up in the next month or two.

Speedwrite the draft of the second book of the Opus series so that hopefully by the time book 1 edits are happening, I have an almost complete draft of the second book. this is mostly me side-eyeing myself about taking nearly four years to write the first book, but that is solidly in part because I had so many other open projects which point 2 is about clearing that docket. this should be done in the next year.

And then just have my major projects be, at least until books 1-5 are written and published, books 1-5 of that because that is arguably the first major 'plot arc' of the series, so if I'm looking for a pause point on writing, that's probably where to stop.

There are two or three other short side projects (a weird fun second person short story tentatively titled witch-queen, a collection of four short stories Memoirs about a not-so-evil necromancer and the shenanigans he gets up to trying to rule a kingdom, working title Perfectly Normal Recipe Blog which is a collaborative project about a perfectly normal recipe blog that definitely doesn't include anything out of the normal) that will happen when they happen

There are other projects that are on the backburner -- The Numanok Files, a series of probably 12-15 short novellas about a mercenary/ bounty hunter esque person in space whose specialty is dealing with hauntings, but, like, 80% of their jobs is actually "you are effectively a space home inspector pointing out faulty wiring reacting to solar flares/ there's a weird alien fungus/ it's carbon monoxide okay change your atmosphere filters" and 20% of it is punching ghosts; there's a post-post apocalypse novel that I want to write that I know characters and general pacing and half the setting but need to work out the other half and figure out how much aesthetic I want to commit to; there's Strangeside7 aka spacerace book that is my reaction to how much I love how Redline the anime movie commits itself to "no we are about a race, like 60% of the screentime is just fully going to be an utterly ridiculous sci fi space race"; there's even a ridiculous YA trilogy that I would have to completely transplant the setting but might end up writing because the interplay between angel-physics and physics-physics was one of my favorite things in the world. and I guess the weird ridiculous technically a sequel series to ifmlam that was going to be published as original books that was basically me having fun with 'okay I fucking love star wars prequels old rotting space bureaucracy galactic republic style' except with seers and that also still might happen because it does have some of the coolest sci fi concepts and honestly I thiiiink that's all?

but the tl;dr of that timeline is I'm trying to finish a punch of projects Right Now, so that I can write books 2-5 of Opus, and then when I'm done that (which honestly, my average fiction-writing output is close to 100k a year. if I'm concentrating purely on one project, and writing books that are about 100k, we are talking four years. although my job situation is super up in the air in that period and writing might get put solidly on the backburner as I try to make it in academia, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I will re-evaluate which projects go next, and that's when ifmlam is likely to come up for review.

I do not have any expectations that I will make it as an original author. I'm planning on posting all of my stuff online for free, but, like. it is incredibly difficult to convince people to try out even a piece of free and easily accessibly original work even if one has a huge following, I am a very small fanfiction author, and from what I can tell the majority of the people who are interested in my work are mostly interested in me finishing ifmlam. writing is a hobby for me, and while I'm writing mostly for me--and hence the for me bit at least for the next five years is pretty solidly going to be this series that I am deeply excited about and have sunk my heart and soul into every single aspect of--I'm human, and I don't really like shouting into the void, and I expect if I spend five years publishing to absolutely no response I will either stop writing for a while and do other things gods know my life is busy enough, return to fandom in general to write some other fanfic about whatever I get deeply into, or return to a work that I actually get response to. so ifmlam will probably start getting worked on a bit at that point one way or another. unless, of course, we are in the incredibly rare timeline in which I do make it as an original author, there are people who are deeply hyped for my original works and an actual demand for them, in which case as you may have noticed there are enough ideas there to keep me busy for a decade or two, and they will just get my full attention instead of fanfiction*. in this timeline, I will do what I was considering doing a few years ago, which is officially declare ifmlam otherwise abandoned and make one more giant chapter update which is a full and cleaned up outline of what I was going to write, interspersed with the scenes already written, and have ifmlam be given at least that closure.

*I want to make it clear that I very much love fanfiction and am proud to have been a fanfiction author and in my heart of hearts would keep writing it forever, I just also have a lot of ideas for characters and settings and magic systems and Aesthetics and I have been biting at the bit to write something that is //mine// and all mine and only mine for a while, I don't see original work as superior so much as there are a dozen fandoms that I am currently in and bursting to make content about except oops these fandoms currently only exist in my head, and I want to correct that

of course given how much as writing is my vent activity and I write what I'm in the mood for, there's a chance I'll feel ifmlam cravings before then, just... expect it to take a couple of years for an update, but also for there to be an update one way of another in a couple of years? but as for right now, I'm turning to original writing, because that is what brings me joy.

but I am really deeply honored that it brought you so much joy!!! and while I will never publish spoilers in a public place, if you message me off anon I am perfectly happy to give a run-down of my current plans for the ending, bc I know "wait a couple years and see" is not the most satisfactory of answers! and hey maybe you'll be like me and once you've given Opus a try you'll decide you like it better too, it does have Seers although they are deeply different Seers than in ifmlam but imo it's very gay and fun and at least politics on one side

[sunel0]

Fanfic Questions (If you want haha): 6, 20, 23, 32 and 50 😬

Oh I SO want to answer these! :D

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

Okay define involved again, I've been in fandom spaces for over 10 years now and things happened

I'll cut it to the places I actually interacted with something or someone, which includes RPing, and I'll also cut to one per fandom, so it'll be:

Drarry (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy) form Harry Potter (I used to RP the third generation, plus we had a community fic notebook with my friends)

Legitimately Alice Cullen & Jacob Black BroTP from Twilight Saga (we had a fic notebook for that as well, and I shortly RPed as an OC werewolf girl)

1880 (yes hi number names, Kyoya Hibari/Takeshi Yamamoto) from Katekyo Hitman Reborn (I used to RP a lot for Reborn TBH and had a couple of drabbles for a half OC pairing)

I will have to say Rimahiko (Rima Mashiro/Nagihiko Fujisaki) or Kutau (Kukai Souma/Utau Hoshina) from Shugo Chara, but all of them are literal babies, so even when we RPed it it was 100% gen tbh (but I did write some romance fics with them being older)

Okay then there was

Klaine (Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson) form Glee (used to beta read a very popular Russian Glee author, have once rewritten half of her chapter (she allowed me to) because she wouldn't Give The Actual Angst), and have a fic posted myself)

Casmund (Edmund Pevensie/Caspian X) form The Chronicles of Narnia (have a fic with them)

Oh Jesus Caleb/Four from Divergent don't ask questions have a fic about them I don't know why

Then there was Homestuck with Erisol (Eridan Ampora/Sollux Captor), I used to RP a lot with Homestuck but for OCs, and I used to be in the Ask Character thing as Eridan

Then there's Steo for Teen Wolf

And since I've done moodboards for it, I can't decide between Declansey (Declan/Gansey), Jiclan (Declan/Jiang), and Jordeclan (Declan/Jordan) (or Jiang/Declan/Jordan together with Declansey and side Sarchengsey arrangement) for The Raven Cycle + The Dreamer Trilogy universe

And also Helnik (Matthias Hevlar/Nina Zenik) form Six of Crows (part of Grishaverse) just because I'm in a discord server for this fandom

20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking?

I've actually answered this already, but now I also remembered Chuck/Dan from Gossip Girl, and yeah, I was shocked I was willing to read anything for this show

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

Ohhh it's a tie between The Beginning and He Knows Now (I hate the named of my fics ah<3) TBH. HKN was the fic written on a spot and it was deliberately so weird I absolutely loved writing it, although it makes 0 sense. I still feel very inspired about it and murder mermaids in general (probably Homestuck's fault). And TB... Just... Hell yeah I'm getting back into killing my favorite children, I love that stuff, I don't ever read it, but writing is 100/10, Hurt no Comfort is <3, plus the moodboard turn out to be AMAZING, and just the way it's written, the experimental thing with trying to show how Stiles is conscious but trapped inside his body that functions on its own??? loved that despite the fact that it probably didn't render at all considering how I had to explain to @/impractical-matters after the first round of betaing, so I'm pretty sure I failed at actually properly showing this idea, but I still loved the challenge and the concept. Probably it's partially due to me not being a native as well:C

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

I way too distracted by music, so I usually watch reality TV shows/listen to audiobooks I don't care too much about/watch TV shoes I don't care too much about (all of it distracts me less than music does). Objectively, I don't possess the mental capacity for this so eventually I'll turn the noise off anyway if I'm really getting into writing, or still be distracted all the time<3

50. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction?

I don't actually remember? I was a baby for both of these:D I think somehow trough discussions in VK communities, consider what my first read fic was, and then for the writing I probably started with joke little scenes or something like that:D It was so long ago, it's terrible to be a child on the internet

Thank you!:333

[krisrix]

Kris! (ops sorry do you mind if I call you that? It's in your username so I assumed it's fine? so so sorry if it's not) YOUR WRITING IS PHENOMENAL AND OMG YOUR ART?? HOW CAN ONE PERSON BE SO FUCKING TALENTED AND GOOD OMG I ADORE EVERY WORD ON YOUR AO3 AND PRACTICALLY WORSHIP ALL YOUR DRAWINGS HNNG IT'S UNREAL OKAY. I'm just rereading So This Is Christmas (I already read it like fuckilion times....I know...I'm disturbed) but I wanted to ask... What's your fave snowbaz fic/art you have ever done?

Calling me Kris is all good! 👍

You are SO SWEET, what the heck, thank you so so so much 😭

What a lovely message to wake up to!!! I’m really glad the Christmas fic has been so re-readable for you! That means a heck of a lot to me, 🖤

My fav snowbaz fic/art I’ve done… What a great question! I’m notoriously bad at valuing my own creations, so this is pretty hard. And since I’m incapable of answering a simple question with a simple answer…

Below the cut is an extremely overly-detailed explanation of my choices, along with a deep-dive into all the research I did for “So This Is Christmas” ⬇

Let’s start with the art:

I liked a few of the Inktobers I did, perhaps particularly because they’re not my usual method, and therefore I’m mentally filling in the blanks on what it ideally could look like, had I done it digitally… (As opposed to my digital stuff, which always falls short, in my eyes.) (At least this way I’m giving myself the benefit of the doubt haha…)

So, I’ll narrow it down to these three:

Wait, I lied, I also really like this one (mostly for the concept/potential):

Sorry, these are such weird choices! 😂🤦‍♂️

As far as for my fave fics I’ve written… that one’s hard, too! I get embarrassed by my writing, worried about my characterization, and torment myself by basting in the fear of being seen, etc…

I think I’ll have to go with “So This is Christmas”, with “What Stays and What Fades Away” as a close second.

WS&WFA is also a super niche choice… and while Wayward Son means that pretty much none of the characterizations are “correct” any longer, I’m still proud of it as a piece of storytelling because it was my first time writing anything bigger than “just” a romance. There are a lot of moving parts to that fic, all of which I was incredibly strung out about. I’m not saying it’s the best or anything, but I’m pleased I managed to accomplish what I did! (There was a lot of research that went into this fic, too—where Baz was being kept, etc—but I’ll spare you.)

The Christmas fic I definitely feel pretty good about, though! It’s a whirlwind, and I struggled a lot with trying to balance “is this too much? is this not enough?”. It’s difficult to get such a mule-headed character to bend his ways so quickly while his whole world-view comes crashing down! There are likely many ways I could have done it more successfully, but I think it came together all right.

I also did an embarrassing amount of research on that fic, which should maybe induce more shame than it does pride, 😂

Originally I was going to tuck them someplace up north in a semi-secluded motel. It still had the same story beats: Mage walks in on them; they run away (no teleporting—just legging it for the rail station, with Baz withdrawing whatever he could from a cash machine); all the phone conversations; slowly Simon falls in love; they decide to go back. The struggle was trying to come up with things they could do together other than just fighting in the motel room all day… And then WS came out and gave us more motel heartbreak than any of us signed up for, so I considered it a sign that I should scrap that idea!

I went hard the other direction instead. I figured, well hey, Baz is That Bitch and would totally drain his bank account to have this one holiday of bliss with Simon. And so then the idea of snooker came to mind. And Christmas markets (that would be open on the 22nd). And it would have to be in Hampshire, since I committed to the teleportation-escape idea, and I needed a way for them to get to Baz’s house fairly quickly…

And so my hunt for a central spot that could fulfill my ever-growing list of demands began.

Every location they go to is real. They take the cab to Winchester, hit up the Barclays and Enterprise and then circle back to the McDonald’s that Simon spotted:

That particular Enterprise offers a blue Mercedes C Class, so I went under the assumption that they have carried that make and model of automobile long enough for Baz to have rented it in 2014. Here’s the 2013 model, which is what I figure he got:

Then they drive to New Forest and stay at the Chewton Glen Hotel and Spa. All of the activities they do, all the food they eat—it’s all real stuff on offer there (as of my research in 2019). That includes the little 10-minute walk to the beach! Here’s the view of the back, which is where their room looked out upon the croquet lawn:

And here’s a few photos of the place overall:

I wanted them to have a white Christmas (Simon even makes a mention of it early on…), but the weather there in December 2014 was too warm! So instead they went to the beach~

Their day out is in Southampton at the Westquay shopping centre. The esplanade is converted into an ice rink in the winter. In the pic below, you can see the shopping centre on the left, the medieval wall remnants on the right, and the Alpine Bar is tucked in the back of the rink (where you see the warm yellow light).

Here’s the map of the overall area:

There’s a Hugo Boss store inside the shopping centre, which is where Baz gets all this for Simon:

And the Southampton Christmas market that they walk to is very closeby. All of the stalls and vendors they check out are real (for 2018, anyway—that’s as far back as I could find). So the gifts are all things they really could have picked up there~

I’m probably forgetting stuff, but that’s the gist! As it is, this is undoubtedly way more information than anyone needed, 🙃 

Fun fact: in mid-December, I spent a few days in London and then went to Nottingham for my sister’s graduation (got her masters!). I was supposed to be doing research on what things we would want to do while there, but I kept getting my wires crossed with all the fic research, 😂

I was extremely excited that we stumbled upon a Christmas market in Nottingham! It was lovely (and the mulled wine was great).

Sorry for bombarding you with all this when you surely just wanted a simple answer, Anon… Thank you for entertaining my ramblings!!! And for the truly wonderful comments about my fics/art, 🖤 I really really appreciate it!

(I’m still considering posting that epilogue chapter… it was half-written when I gave up on it. Who knows!)

[khorazir]

I'm one of those people who didn't like S4. You've been mostly quiet about it, so I'm unsure what kind of art and fic to expect from you in the future? For example, will you be including Eurus or Rosie? Will you include John's aggressiveness from TLD? Will you draw John with his old haircut, or with the S4 one? Will you draw 221b how it was before the explosion, or how it is now, with partially different furniture?

Hiya, and thanks a lot for your ask. It’s true, I have been mostly quiet about S4. I liked parts of it, particularly TLD, but I also think the series has issues that have mostly to do with a writing style that concentrates on lining up big, sensational moments one after another but doesn’t care about the “clean-up”, so to say, and doesn’t resolve the problems raised or the character arcs begun properly. I find this kind of writing frustrating for the viewer. It’s one of the reasons I don’t enjoy most action movies. This isn’t just a problem of S4, it began earlier in the series, and it’s not an issue with Moftiss only but seems to be a general trend in films and TV. I guess it’s because it’s easier to write that way. Go big and don’t mind the consequences.

What bugs me most about TFP in particular is not the lack of a Johnlock kiss. For me, they’ve been a couple all along. I like that at the end, they are basically back where they belong, and with all the high drama out of the way, should there be a fifth series they could do what they do best: bicker and solve cases, preferably some more realistic and clever ones).

My main issues about TFP are the many logical errors and simply unrealistic situations. I could list them here, but it’d be a long, long list. For me, this episode feels more like Doctor Who or a James Bond film (one of the over-the-top ones with completely unrealistic stunts etc). The way it unfolds, it has no place in the Sherlock universe, which of course has contained unrealistic things and turns before, but not to this degree. In the past, there were logical explanations for even the more ludicrous, strange and sensational things, and indeed finding explanations for those is part of Sherlock’s job. Jumping through a first floor window onto the street below and surviving unscathes has no place in the Sherlock universe. And there are loads of moments like these in the episode that simply make no sense, or pull the viewer completely out of the story by making them wonder about how all this way organised and achieved.

On a sidenote I should add that this is a very personal complaint. I am like this, with stories, too. Give me a scene where someone opens the fridge to fetch something and it’s not mentioned that they close it again … that’s going to bug me throughout the rest of the story, you can be sure of that. I won’t concentrate on anything else. So, good people, close the fridge doors, and explain how Eurus was able to organise all she had set up for the boys etc, etc, because otherwise you’ll lose me as someone interested in how the story unfolds.

Anyway, for these reasons and others, for me, this episode is not canon. It has good moments, and is acted and crafted well (apart from some special effects). Should I ever write about it, it’s going to be either a fucked up post on John’s blog, some sensational article in the Daily Fail, someone writing a bad fanfic about the boys, or even the proposal for a movie script (any fanfic writers out there, feel free to take these ideas and play with them, I’d love to read fic where the story of TFP and the way it unfolds becomes a piece of bad fiction in the Sherlock universe).

That said, there may be the odd piece of fanart inspired by imagery from that episode, but I don’t plan on including elements of it in my fanfiction any time soon. The blot bunnies may push me to do so at some point, but right now, they are occupied elsewhere.

I have drawn fanart inspired by the first two episodes of S4, and have one coming up inspired by a fix-it fic about the hug in TLD, Happy Birthday, Sherlock Holmes by @glenien.

As for my own fics, of my two current WIPs, the first, Enigma, is an AU and set in 1941. Mary briefly appears as a character, but not as John’s wife. I don’t think anything from S4 will be picked up in that story.

My other story, The Summer Boy, is my own version of an episode of Sherlock’s childhood that helped shaping him into the man he is now. It was begun before S4 aired, and is set after S3/TAB. John does have a daughter in this story (and the new haircut), and Mary’s alive, but they’ve disappeared into a witness protection scheme, which in case of the daughter (yet unnamed) is a source of grief for John, and one of the themes of the story. I will deal with his anger issues, too, but there will be more talking between the boys than in the series. I haven’t quite decided on the baby’s name yet. But of course this story is an AU to S4 (and honestly, I like my version of Sherlock’s childhood better than theirs ;)). The story is almost finished (one chapter and a half to go), and I have plans for a case-fic sequel that will concentrate more on the developing relationship of Sherlock and John.

I also still have plans of writing a sequel to Over Earth and Under Earth, part of my Over/Under verse which is set after S2 and describes an alternative version of Sherlock’s return after the Fall. In my verse, he returns earlier, basically before John and Mary get involved. Mary has made an appearance in Over Earth and Under Earth, and I have ideas of what to do with her, and characters like Magnussen and perhaps Culverton Smith. But this will also be an AU.

As for art, I will soon continue working on my Sherlock/London graphic novel, first by colouring the existing linearts (over 50), and then continuing the story and considering how to promote/publish it. In this story, the flat is in the state of before the explosion, and so far it’s open whether John and Sherlock are living together. The only hint at placing this story within any of the seasons could be the type of Sherlock’s phone. But then, he could have different ones … He does have a number of different laptops, too.

As for other stories, I have several other ideas, and I’m sure the plot bunnies will provide more. They tend to bite me hard sometimes.

Hope that answered you questions :)