#fanfic writer: director's cut

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

⭐️

fuckinnn go I am ecstatic

send in a ⭐star⭐ to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

hi wiggly! ty for the ask ❤️

today i will tell you about my favorite lines from my fic, one does not love breathing! to keep it short i will give you my top five (in no particular order bc i can't decide 😂).

"Adrien had lost a minute of his life. His Rolex ticked away on the bone of his wrist, unaware it was precisely sixty seconds behind the time on his phone." (chapter 4)

i was so proud of this one when i wrote it! it's a fun bit of personification i got to use to show something magical has transpired. something otherworldly and freaky just went down and this rich rolex-wearing guy has been affected by it. how do you react when you lose a minute of your life? hopefully as well as adrien (fun characterization too!)

"Shadows flickered on the adjacent roof—a man’s silhouette in lightning, cutting across her path like a blade, and Ladybug chased both as she tore through wind and water, following the darkest part of the sky up the side of Montparnasse Tower." (chapter 24)

i love this one bc it was a challenge for me to write anything but "it was a dark and stormy night." trying to see in a storm at night is crazy and freaky, and yet lb did it with laser focus. i remember writing this and being like "oh yeah, that imagery is perfect." cn is in the middle of so much darkness, yet he's the darkest thing within it too.

"the darkness collapsed like pyroclast" (chapter 44)

this MIGHT be stolen from my original fiction wip. if you ever come across a book that uses this, you'll know it's me :))

"It had almost taken Adrien from him. It would have taken the air from the world with him, too. It ached in his lungs now, as though knowing how close it had come to escape. And every new breath he took felt like a tear in his seams." (chapter 34)

i really really wanted to title drop in this line but i couldn't find a way to make it work! still, it turned out great, i think. gabriel's love for adrien is the air he breathes, and without his son whose happiness and well-being he arrogantly took for granted, there is no point in living. or breathing.

"He flashed a smile with all the wicked beauty of a sharpened blade." (chapter 19)

hehe this is the first time felix gave kagami a real smile. she liked it because he looked dangerous, like he was going to take her down. and he DID. she thought that was really hot.

from the fanfic writer: director's cut ask game.

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

hello! I’m here to humbly ask for director’s commentary on Impure Thoughts: Some

(only if you want to!)

I'd love to! Thank you for sending in this ask 😊 Here's the ask game for anyone else who's interested!

I remember exactly what made me want to write Impure Thoughts: Some. It was this gif and the tags I saw someone leave on the original post.

I did a few writing warm-ups that were just Ed thinking about Stede with this vibe in mind. I was really struggling with finishing another fic (Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise, still unfinished but I got some weirdly accurate s2 vibes in there so that's neat) at the time so I was just trying to get myself to write anything.

It turned out to be really fun, just letting myself write something lighthearted and self-indulgent, and all those writing warm-ups fit together pretty well, so I decided to write a final chapter with the duel as the end. The goal was to have it pretty much follow canon, with another scene of Ed realizing the depth of his feelings for Stede.

And then I saw this gif:

And I figured Ed just had to kiss Stede at the end because LOOK at him he wants to kiss Stede so bad holy shit.

[anna-pineappel]

directors cut for Walk Through Fire? I’m especially interested in how it developed into a plot and evolved over time, what scenes you thought of first, and anything else that comes to mind!

Thanks for the ask, @meatsouuuuup!!! Just getting around replying to this now. How much time do you have? lol

(Note: at the time of this reply (July 4, 2024) I still have 2 Chapters to post, so I'll answer this without giving away the end, but I can circle back once the whole fic is posted).

Warning: this is a bit long, sorry not sorry!

Plot Origins:

So, I have 2 headcanons for Klogan and how they get together:

They are playing chess in Klink's quarters, they're drinking, and things happen - This is my fic Letting the Liquor Talk

They Banter/Argue in Klink's office and sexual tension... snaps - Which is what inspired Walk Through Fire

Walk Through Fire was supposed to be a one-shot, Chapter 1 - Unravel, like Letting the Liquor Talk. But then I decided it needed to be a two-parter because... I just kept writing lol. I wrote Chapter 1 kinda from Klink's perspective and Chapter 2 - Surrender to the Darkness, is more from Hogan's perspective.

However, it didn't stay a two-parter and before I knew it, I had a whole +40k fic on my hands! 😅 Let's get into it!

Evolution/First Scene(s):

I had Chapter 1, then 2, and Chapter 10 thought of first. After writing those chapters, I had a vague outline about scenes/plot points I wanted to include:

Schultz walking in on them - Chapter 3

The gang confronting Hogan in his office - Chapter 4

The Paris trip - Chapter 5

Hogan's disguise on New Year's Eve - Chapter 7

The gang listening on the coffee maker at the wrong time - Chapter 8

I wrote the main ideas for those chapters and then... I had to connect everything with a Plot™️. Luckily, once I wrote Schultz walking in and Chapter 3, it was a bit of a catalyst to other plot points, like the Paris trip.

I also decided that I needed something between Chapter 5 and 7, and then I got the idea for Klink to tell Hogan that he is Nimrod and then Hogan shows him the operation. It was with that chapter that the fic felt like an actual fic, since the relationship deepens.

Then, I was able to write the last half of Chapter 8, all of Chapter 9 (latest update), and changed some things around in Chapter 10. Chapter 11 was the last chapter I wrote, and the fic was almost only 10 chapters. But then I had an Idea™️.

Anything Else?

I wrote Chapter 4 - Secret Affair, while at the mechanic. There was something wrong with my vehicle and I waited 3-4 hours. At the time, the mechanic was an hour away, I couldn't get a shuttle, and my partner was at work so I brought my laptop and wrote some smut while I waited, like a Normal Adult.

I was going Through It™️ when I wrote Chapter 8 - Betrayal, and it got angsty very quickly. It was quite cathartic to write Hogan being angry and having a nightmare! And it inspired a whole other Whump WIP.

I wrote Walk Through Fire before any other fic. And my other fics served as a procrastination strategy when I didn't want to work on Walk Through Fire. Nothing like procrastinating on a WIP with other WIPs/Fics!

Hope you enjoy all that! 😊

[ellethespaceunicorn]

Director's cut ask... 👉👈

Did you ever consider a different ending for 'make that kitty purr'?

I cut down Make That Kitty Purr extensively. It was originally much darker and very sinister.

But, if anyone is interested, I would love to revisit this story and present it longer, thicker, and uncut (😈). I do have to rewrite it though. So, maybe by the end of the weekend, we can have:

[fiona-fififi]

⭐️ for… I got nothing to believe (unless you're choosing me)

Thank you!! 💜

Okay, so this one is one of my favorites, actually, mostly because it has a much deeper meaning for me than it maybe should because of just how much I was projecting onto it.

I started writing this one just after 7x04, if I remember correctly, and I was absolutely riding a high of canon bi!buck, and that brought forward a lot of very personal, complicated feelings for someone that I was both desperate to reveal and terrified to actually admit. So while the story, obviously, is not ours, several of the lines were all about how I felt for her, and all about how afraid I was of saying something so big to someone I cared for so much, even while the desire to do so made me feel like I couldn't breathe. (I got lucky. She's braver than me, and I had nothing to be afraid of. 💚)

But all those feelings felt like they mapped well onto buddie—so this was my attempt at catharsis via writing.

So in this story, I kind of poured myself into both of them, and I think that was, in a lot of ways, accurate to their characters—Eddie the embodiment of all that fear, and Buck the embodiment of some misguided self-sacrifice, trying to cling to something good, even knowing it could never truly be enough.

So, while I was in the middle of this crisis, all I could think about was the image of Eddie, drunk and sad, sitting curled in on himself beside Buck's door. My first plan was that he showed up while Buck was with Tommy, and that Tommy would find him there. But then, I didn't like that, because I needed Tommy gone for Buck and Eddie to hash it out (well, kind of), and I didn't see him just up and leaving in that situation. So then, I thought, oh! Tommy misses him in the hall, but spots his truck and calls Buck all confused, and Buck finds him. But then, my brain was like "no, that implies he drove drunk, and Eddie would never do that." And that was when I finally landed on Eddie and Tommy out, and Eddie getting a little too drunk and accidentally revealing his feelings for Buck to Tommy. (Shoutout to @messyhairdiaz for letting me talk at her until I figured this one out, because it took me a minute. And several back-to-back messages. 😂)

In the end, I think I'm very happy with where that landed. It allowed me to essentially end Buck and Tommy’s relationship without extraneous drama to open the door for Buck accepting his feelings for Eddie. So, while it is implied, rather than explicit, I intended for the moment Tommy leaves to be read as Tommy ending their relationship, so that Buck can be with Eddie, but in a gentle way, even if there was some hurt there. Largely, I wanted to make sure that no one was the bad guy. I wanted the implication to be that what Buck had with Tommy, no matter how brief, was meaningful and important to him, but that in the end, it was always going to be Eddie, because so many parts of him already belonged to Eddie.

In terms of the writing, the empty space metaphor is one of my favorites I've ever done (even though I absolutely dropped the ball on it in the end by not bring it back around). But the lines "I have all this empty space inside me that belongs to you, but you gave away all the space that was mine" hit me very early in the process, and obviously, those lines evolved a bit, but I'm quite proud of that metaphor and the emotional impact of it in this instance, and I think it hit all the right notes for what I was trying to convey about just how much they mean to one another.

And the ending was my hope. Buck's, too, obviously. But that was me saying maybe I'd have the courage tomorrow. (I didn't. But, again, I'm lucky and she's braver than me.)

So, I'm not sure if this was exactly what you were looking for, but that's the story of this little fic that holds such a very special place in my heart for so very many reasons.

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

[walkawaytall]

I want director's commentary on the HanLeia kiss in Purpose of Heritage. Out of all the many different ways you could get them to kiss, why did you decide to go with this particular moment?

Ohhhhh friend, you've picked one of the few scenes that I initially wrote months ahead of time...and then ended up writing a completely different scene for the final draft. I have so much to say about this. Too many things, probably.

So, a few things informed my choices here. In no particular order:

I felt I had adequately built their relationship to a point where, if something didn't happen soon, it would feel like things were being drawn out for no reason. I actually briefly considered having the kiss interrupted by the rescue team, but decided that that would be too much (and a little too tropey. Like, I obviously embrace lots of tropes, but it seemed like a bit much for this particular story). I do think that, as soon as Leia justifies something to herself, she's prone to act, so once Han bulldozed through the last reason she'd given herself for avoiding a romantic entanglement with him, she just went for it. (Plus, emotions were running awfully high. She'd almost been captured like a day or two before and was still feeling some kind of way about it, there was the whole worse-than-usual nightmare situation, and Han was freaking out due to his Snow Trauma, so they were both probably feeling a lot of things at that moment.)

I wanted to make a South Passage reference. Things are going to get kind of ugly between Han and Leia before they get better, and even though I'm mostly pretty neutral on the various interpretations of his comment in The Empire Strikes Back about Leia showing "her true feelings" for him in the South Passage, for this story, I wanted to run with the idea that he's referencing something actually meaningful because he's hurt and pissed for a variety of reasons.

The timing is bad. It's supposed to be bad. They've been living in a sort of bubble while running supplies, spending most of their time with one another and experiencing some separation from day-to-day Alliance life, which makes it seem like a better idea than it actually is, but neither of them are currently where they need to be emotionally for this to work out in a healthy way. Leia has some understandable qualms about starting up a romantic relationship, but instead of digging into those and trying to figure out what her own damage is, she came up with a handful of "logical" reasons to not become involved that were entirely dependent on the objections or actions of others, and then jumped at the chance to ignore every one of those reasons the moment it seemed like they might not be viable. Han has some unaddressed insecurities and abandonment issues as a result of the way he grew up that have been hinted at, but will explode spectacularly to get them to where they are in ESB. It's not that they can't work out (I obviously think they both can and should), but more that they're running into a situation that feels good in the moment while ignoring some issues they individually need to deal with to make sure they have a solid foundation.

I apparently like making them smooch on Hoth. (Okay, they technically don't smooch on screen in all of these, but I do seem to write a lot of Han and Leia having their first kiss on Hoth, whether it's specifically shown or just referenced/implied.)

Want the "Director's Cut" of a story/scene?

[gerec]

⭐Star!⭐

Oh thanks for giving me a chance to talk about An End Comes to All Good Things!

I recently got a new comment on this story, which reminded me how much I enjoyed writing it and how proud I am of my writing here - imo it's one of my strongest works. I love writing / reading 'getting together' fics, but I also REALLY wanted to write a break up one that wasn't necessarily about the beach divorce, so I came up with the idea for this fic and it's turned into a personal favorite. It doesn't have as much as reach as some of my other fics (understandable given the subject matter of Charles and Erik breaking up, and Erik cheating on Charles) but I'm always hopeful more people will give it a chance :D

Anyway, I keep thinking about a time skip forward from the ending of this story, where Charles finally packs up and leaves and Erik moves on (and in) with Shaw. I'm not really interested in the obvious follow up plot points - i.e. With Erik, where we watch him slowly realize what a mistake it was to fall for Shaw and get involved with him regardless of his feelings for Charles, and then the inevitable fallout where Shaw kicks him out of the firm and he's left with nothing. And with Charles, where we watch him run away to another country and take a job at Oxford U so he doesn't have to ever deal with seeing/running into Erik, and just losing himself to alcohol and bad choices. What actually interests me the most is writing them slowly climbing their way out of rock bottom and coming to terms with their respective mistakes and shortcomings, and healing and moving forward. THEN bringing them together again and exploring what happens - have the ugly feelings from that fallout really gone away? What about the love they used to share? Can they ever learn to trust each other again? Are they better off apart, even if they learn to forgive each other? Maybe sometimes, things are irrevocably broken and can't be fixed no matter how hard you try...

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

[ghosts-of-love]

hiyaa, how are you doing :>> can i- yanno- for the director's commentary, yanno, the hand? (from the quick and the dead) cause i know ppl bring it up a lot, but i had to walk around the room stimming so so, yes :>>

ahhhh hehehe yes the infamous hand. so important to me that I had to foreshadow it in the first chapter and then include both their perspectives on it.

I just really like the parallels and differences between chapter 1 where Pat cuts himself on the grater and doesn’t know about Cap’s vampirism, in comparison to later when he does know and specificically offers his own blood to Cap like it’s no big deal.

I think maybe he thinks the Captain won’t take him up on his offer – that he’ll flee like he did when he first moved in. He realises quickly, because of how Cap’s appearance changes, this it is a big deal though, and that his offer has properly stopped the Captain in his tracks.

They just know each other so well, Pat trusts him to be able to stop and that trust is the whole reason that the Captain’s control falters in the first place.

And then. the actual Act. Listen, okay. it’s about the homoeroticism first of all. It’s about Cap being on his kneeeeeees. It’s communion, it’s holy, it’s sacrilegious, it’s undeniably sexual.

Pat obviously doesn’t understand the extent to which it will be all of those things because Cap is standing up at first. But then he gets on his knees and goes first for the trail of blood down his wrist 😳😳 Pat’s like ‘oh shit, potentially a mistake’ but not for any other reason than he’s about to get really fucking turned on.

And Cap resting his head on Pat’s knee 🥺🥺 it actually makes me quite emotional, it's like he’s a loyal dog or something. and Cap is just feeling monstruous and out of control the whole time versus Pat is realising he’s okay with more okay with the vampire stuff than he probably ever realised.

both of them having different kinds of control over each other!! and both of them being turned on!! they're so silly for this i love them!!

fanfic writers: director's cut

[flowercrowngods]

Evening finds him on the living room couch again, staring up at the ceiling as he lies there, tired but too strung up to find sleep. Helpless to stop them, his thoughts wander to Robin, imagining the familiar weight beside him on the couch. How often they lay here together, staring at his ceiling and holding hands when they crossed a thought they didn’t like. He hasn’t been alone in this house in almost a year, it doesn’t feel right without her here — it never really felt right to begin with, but with Robin here it was a bit more of a home most days. It’s cold without her. It hurts. It hurts so much, but Steve can’t stop thinking about her, can’t stop feeling like she’s right here with him, about to turn the corner and throw a comment at his head and watch it bounce off. Like she’s about to tuck her head under his chin and ask what he’s doing. Ask, What’s with the long face, Dingus? Steve swallows and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes in an attempt not to cry again. He’s so tired of crying. Even for Robin. So instead of crying, he talks. “I miss you, Robs,” he whispers into the empty house. She should be here. Should come bursting out of the bathroom and say something stupid that will make him laugh, and then she would laugh, and her eyes would shine, and she would drop onto the couch, onto his chest, and be a nuisance. But she’s not here. And she won’t be. She can’t be, not until Steve figures it all out — which, fat chance without her and the superkids. “I miss you so much. I’m… ‘M gonna save you this time, okay? Promise that I’ll try.”

I hope that isn't too long of a selection. I am just, on a deep level, fascinated by situations that separate Steve and Robin.

⭐️fanfic writer director's cut⭐️ 🌷the fic: i'll try. ill try. (but i couldn't be better)🌷

first of all, hi! it's absolutely not too long of a section, don't you worry! :D and even if it were, you know i will always indulge you 🤍 but i'm gonna break this down into pieces, so uh. i have no idea how long this is going to be...

He hasn’t been alone in this house in almost a year, it doesn’t feel right without her here

so i love the fanon idea that everyone just always hangs out at steve's, but it's not quite realistic. what is realistic, though, and what i am absolutely convinced of, is that robin stays at steve's most of the time. they just hang out, he picks her up from school if he doesn't have a shift, he makes sure there's something for dinner, they watch movies together, she does her homework and her projects, steve comes home after a late shift and robin is there on his front steps, her bike on the curb, waiting for him to get home.

steve is not alone, and neither is robin. they're joined at the hip, they're codependent, and it's been almost a year of that. so he hasn't been home alone like this in almost a year – because even on the days when robin can't come over, he knows that tomorrow she will, and her presence is still everywhere, her stuff lying about, etc etc. so she's always there, even if she's not.

It’s cold without her. It hurts. It hurts so much, but Steve can’t stop thinking about her, can’t stop feeling like she’s right here with him, about to turn the corner and throw a comment at his head and watch it bounce off.

but here, now, back in the past, she isn't. and it makes the entire house feel even more alien to him. it doesn't feel right, and there's no reassurance in his chest that at least tomorrow she'll be here again. this absence of robin just heightens his alienation from his house, his home, and his person, and it highlights it, too, because he is so endlessly aware of it. he misses her, with everything he has and everything he is. but it's not just the i wish you were here kind of missing, but a deeper, darker sense of having lost something you can never get back, and living in the aftermath of it. in a world that doesn't even know about your loss.

Like she’s about to tuck her head under his chin and ask what he’s doing.

they're in platonic love, your honour. they're one. they touch and they ask and they know and they see.

and steve needs someone to see him, so he longs for robin, aches for her, thinks of the small things, the tiny gestures that mean the whole world to him like her tucking her head under his chin just because she can. just to be a little bit obnoxious and a large bit his soulmate.

but also

It's cold without her

i feel like one of the heaviest things about grief is the way you will feel like you'll never be warm again. like you'll always be cold. shivering.

(plus, warmth and cold is one of the motifs in this story. remember the way he made sure el was warm again in chapter 6? and then in chapter 9, wrapping her in all the blankets even though there were none left for himself? and then (spoiler) in chapter 10, when hopper makes him take a shower and puts him to bed. or when steve, panicked, tells him that she's cold, she's cold, she doesn't like the cold, please, she's going to be scared again.

being warm, and warmth, is a symbol for hope. a placeholder. a harbinger of comfort. being cold is the exact opposite. think of steve in the upside down, shivering, or him in the cabin when el has all the blankets. so steve's It's cold without her is really just a whole bunch of symbolism in one sentence that continues throughout the story.

She should be here. Should come bursting out of the bathroom and say something stupid that will make him laugh, and then she would laugh, and her eyes would shine, and she would drop onto the couch, onto his chest, and be a nuisance.

it's not even her death he's thinking of or obsessing over. he misses her. this isn't grief or mourning first and foremost, this is dwelling on the good things. and as much as it hurts, as much as it cuts him open, it's still a good thing. compare this to how in chapter 9, he was reminded of her cold, dead eyes, the moment she died, or her sickening cries and just. you know. the bad things.

the worse steve gets, mentally, the more his thoughts of robin morph into something horrible. it is almost tragically ironic, then, that he thought right after the scene you sent me, "I think I'm gonna have to stop thinking about you." – and he did, but in fact what he did stop thinking about were the good times. and it's breaking him further.

But she’s not here. And she won’t be. She can’t be, not until Steve figures it all out — which, fat chance without her and the superkids.

he doesn't think he can do this, doesn't think he can pull it off, saving all of them

“I miss you so much. I’m… ‘M gonna save you this time, okay? Promise that I’ll try.”

but he's gonna try anyway.

i'll try. i'll try. (but i couldn't be better)

[bg-sparrow]

can I have ⭐⭐⭐ for 3 different things u wanna talk about?? 🥺👀

Yay! THREE stars for Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut?? Eeeee

November 16th will be the one-year anniversary of the completion of my Marty X OC trilogy rewrite, The Time Circuits Series. With five works and 274K words written over nine years, it will always be one of my greatest writing accomplishments. I thought I would write it and be done in the BttF fanfic fandom, but lo, since I finished this series last year, I graduated to writing canon fics and have since added 30 more BttF fics to Ao3!

So I want to use these three stars to highlight the first scenes I wrote for each of the three main trilogy stories. I wrote the series totally out of order, as the scenes came to me. I had three chapters of Part III before I started Part II!

So, without further ado, the first scenes!

(There will be spoilers, ye be warned!)

⭐️ Where You're Going (Time Circuits Series #1) ⭐️

The first scene I wrote for this series was in Spring 2006, and it was the scene at the end when Doc reveals his bulletproof vest and the letter. Because that's what this whole story builds up to when it's said and done. This is the end product:

Emma clambered on behind Marty, catching herself on his shoulder when he dropped to the ground. As Marty pulled Doc over onto his back, Emma sank to her knees, staring at the holes on her father's chest and his unblinking eyes. Her body seized up, a crippling numbness seeping through her resolve with gradual, irreversible panic. What does she do? What does she do now? Even as Marty had to turn away, she held vigil over her father as she tried to digest this reality. This is real. This is your reality. It's real. He's — Emma wouldn't think it, not until she knew. Not until she knew. Hand trembling, she slowly reached out over the entry holes in the radiation suit for the side of his neck to feel for a pulse – definitive, tangible evidence she could tether to her hypothesis. As her hand passed over his heart, her own nearly gave out, and she froze. He blinked. Emma's eyes grew, and before she could more than blink herself, her father was sitting up. In her dumbfounded silence, his chest met her paralyzed hand as he rose. A watery smile wrinkled Emma's lip when she flattened her palm and felt him breathe. Emmett smiled. As expected, life pieced together every question he had suppressed that week, and realizing some time after sending Emma Klein back to the future that she was indeed Emma Brown filled him with insatiable anticipation for the moment on the other end of that lightning strike. And through the continuity of time, confirmation of the success of his greatest invention finally arrived by means of Emma throwing her arms around him in a parking lot. He could feel her holding her breath to refuse the sobs trying to surface, but when he wrapped an arm around her, she exhaled audibly and clutched the back of his neck. "You're alive." Emmett let his daughter fall away at Marty's voice, seeing her eye something she couldn't quite place about his torso as Marty turned around. He revealed the vest, amused at their predictable awe. He watched their eyes dance over each spent round plastered harmlessly to his person, Marty steadying himself at Emma's low back as he leaned in. "How did you know?" he asked, a question Emma hadn't even considered until that moment. "We never got the chance to tell you." Marty felt Emma draw a sudden, silent breath, further peering around her as Doc retrieved their preserved, yellowed letter from between the bulletproof vest and the radiation suit. They had been his first defense against this horrible fate in more ways than one, and Emmett had waited a long time to deliver this apology. Part of him was relieved to finally have the freedom to acknowledge them as he had first known them: the kid in the life preserver and the girl who spouted brainwave stuff. As Marty folded the letter over in confusion, Emma had already beat him to the punch with a soft, wry smile, eyes locked on her father. With that look, Emmett plainly heard her berating him in his mind: you damned hypocrite, quickly followed by thank God. "What about all that talk?" Marty asked, still trying to work the adrenaline out of his voice and gulp air at the same time. "About screwing up future events? The spacetime continuum?" Emmett dared a smug grin. For these two kids, he was all in. "Well, I figured, what the hell?"

⭐️ Where You Are (Time Circuits Series #2) ⭐️

The first scene I sketched out for Part II was dated May 17, 2013 in my notes. It is a scene in 1955 where Marty has been trapped in Biff's garage, and Emma, while trying to free him, is caught by Biff. I didn't just want Emma to be that OC that was constantly attached to Marty's hip, and the likelihood of both of them being caught in Biff's back seat was too high. I liked using Emma to see what Marty didn't — and push her out of her comfort zone when put on the spot.

Emma quickly scanned the outskirts of the driveway for something to bludgeon the lock with. There was a metal watering can and a few flimsy lawn ornaments with the structural integrity of a coat hanger, but nothing substantial that would free Marty with one hit. Maybe something lay between the side of the garage and the hedges – "Hey!" Emma spun around at the vicious bark. A small jolt of terror hit her to see that it was Biff himself staring her down, and she quickly resorted to a nervous laugh and bright greeting. Her voice cracked. "Hi!" His mouth hung open in confusion, utterly dumbfounded at the presence of this somewhat familiar girl. He tossed the red ball that had rolled in front of the house at the same group of kids from earlier, sending them the other way with a glare that indicated this was a one-time kindness. He redirected his narrowing eyes to the intruder. "What do you think you're doing?" Emma plastered a smile on her face. "I came looking for you," she said quickly, keeping his attention on her. "I thought I'd check the garage first since I know how much you like your car." "Yeah, well, what do you want?" he asked tersely. What do I want? That's a fantastic question. And the answer her mind came up with made her grimace inwardly, but Biff wasn't a bottomless well of patience. […] "Well, I heard you didn't have a date for tonight," she said clasping her hands with a dainty shrug. "That Lorraine was stupid enough to turn you down. And while it might seem terrible of me, I don't want to miss out on the opportunity she passed up."

⭐️ Where You Were (Time Circuits Series #3) ⭐️

So, looking back at my notes, I was WRONG about what I remember being my first scene for this story (by one day; my first notes for Part 3 were dated March 18, 2013)! I thought it was the scene in the blacksmith shop where Marty shows Doc the tombstone photograph, but it turns out it was the one scene I always wished had played out a bit differently: Doc and Marty at the silver mine unloading the DeLorean the night before they go back to 1985. The issue with this scene if you're giving Doc Brown a daughter: he's not going to tell her and Marty that he's staying in 1885 with a woman he met two days ago. So this scene became a huge deal because I couldn't omit it and I needed it to have the same emotional impact as the original.

In this version, Doc knows he can't stay with Clara despite Emma encouraging him to find a way to be with her. She ultimately fails, storms off, and spurs Marty into action. I always wanted a more sympathetic Marty in this scene, too, so I took the opportunity.

Marty went after his mentor. "You should say goodbye to her." Emmett looked up from the wrinkles in his bedroll. An inkling of intrigue passed over his face as Marty sat down, grimacing with a hand pressed to his side. Seeing the tranquil rise and fall of Emma's back, Marty lowered his voice, motioning to the fire as he spoke. "You guys just disappeared, Doc. Right in front of me." The Lyon Estates pennants fell at his feet over and over in his mind's eye. "Right out of the middle of the sky. And for the two minutes I had to wonder if I would ever see Emma again, it was hell." Marty glanced at the lock of hair snaking out from Emma's cocoon. He took a deep breath and held it, refusing to let the knot in his chest become a lump in his throat. "I couldn't imagine having to live through eight months of that, let alone the rest of my life." Marty hunted for Doc's eyes until he found them under the brim of the Stetson, unhappy with the resistance. Marty took off his hat and ruffled his matted hair, gesturing to the DeLorean next. "I mean, come on, Doc," he said, arm dropping soundly. "Is it fair that you'll go home and look Clara up in the City Archives, and she'll just have to wonder?" Doc sighed through his nose. He twirled Clara's stem of lupine in thought. "None of it is fair, Marty." Doc leaned closer to the fire, orange flickers strobing on his sleeves and nose. "What am I going to say? 'I have to go back to the future'?" Marty shrugged, moving his gun belt to the far end of his bedroll. "I don't know, Doc. If you tell her the truth, she'll think you're lying. And if you lie to her…" Marty whipped a stick into the fire. "Hell, I'm in it with you, and I don't even understand it." Doc looked over his shoulder at the fuzzy moonlight pooled on the body of the DeLorean. He imagined Clara caressing it in awe, captivated by the possibilities and envisioning countless worlds waiting to be explored. Only he could put that enraptured smile on her face – and take it away. "Clara would understand it," Emmett murmured. He slipped Clara's favor into his pocket, a blip of vigor returning to his flat voice. "She loves Jules Verne, Marty. She has all his books! And she knows that through the pursuits of science, the incredible feats of man in those books could be a reality. She has the ability to believe, and so, too, I believe, to understand." Marty raised a skeptical eyebrow, but Doc lured a half-smile out of him when he finally stood. "What she won't understand," Doc said, shaking out his duster, "is why I can't take her with us. But I shall strive to find a way to do so before I get there." "You'll think of something, Doc. Just… go easy on the details, huh?"

And there you have it! The first scenes I wrote for each of the three main stories in my Time Circuits Series! Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to spotlight these! :D

[larrysmomfics]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I liked all your fics, so you can start to rant about whichever you want.

Home for the Holiday is like my middle child fic lol. I feel like she doesn’t get the attention she’s crying out for, but I absolutely adore her and I put SO MUCH of myself into her. I think mainly because not only is The Holiday one of my fave Christmas movies, but also I really identify with Iris so much, which is why H is loosely based on her.

The mirror scene with Edith was really important for me to write because I had to find a way for H to finally allow the emotional volcano to erupt, so to speak, and the idea for smashing the mirror came from an episode of Queer Eye where Karamo had the person smash some windows in similar fashion, and because Edith is an artist it gave me the avenue for her to incorporate that into her portrait of H and for him to further explore those parts of himself.

Each word that he wrote and each feeling he expressed were actual thoughts and feelings I have had throughout my life, especially in my younger years, so it was also a bit of therapy for me to pour out those emotions along with H. This remains my favorite scene that I’ve ever written because it felt so real to me and left me so raw, and it also is the most emotional I’ve ever been while writing. I feel like I actually revisited those dark places and did my best to channel younger Keri, so it really was an exorcism of sorts and the whole thing was incredibly cathartic. Fun fact: I still can’t read this scene without crying. 🥲

[wackus-bonkus-maximus]

⭐️

send in a ⭐star⭐ to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

thank you for the ask lava 💜🌋 since you gave me free reign i'll tell you about feligami!

lol i was so proud of myself for 1) creating a new love square and 2) rotating it fully in one fic. the names i headcanon for them are

feligami (everywhere)

ryargos (everywhere)

relix (odnlb chapter 26)

argami (odnlb chapter 19)

i love all of them of course, but my personal favorite was relix. felix was just at his wormiest while kagami was saving/interrogating/flirting with him 🪱

a little bit about my post-odnlb feligami headcanon (for the sequel if there ever is one): once felix makes a name for himself in tsurugi tech, which is super quick, tomoe pushes kagami to marry felix bc he's rich & british & noble & really makes waves in the company. it's very "arranged marriage-y" but also not bc feligami are the ones making all the arrangements 💀

their kid is besties with adrinette's kids, & they play all the time 💛

from the fanfic writer: director's cut ask game.

[kitkatt0430]

director’s cut for “You Must Live (For Me)”? 👀

So before I wrote You Must Live (For Me), there was some renewed discussion about Savitar going on (still on going, i especially love everything you've had to say about Savitar @shrinkthisviolet) - I specifically remember @alittleflashvibe mentioning Savitar/Reverb as being the dark barrisco ship - and it was a ship I'd considered some on an off for a while but not really talked much about. But after having written some SaviFrost before and, more recently, some Eobard/Savitar and Reverb/HR I was really enjoying getting into some more rare pairs/villain ships/ships where I have a lot more leeway in their interactions because they either barely (Savitar/Eobard) or never (Reverb/HR) meet in canon. So it seemed like a good time to finally try writing something for the Savitar/Reverb (Saverb, I do like that as their portmanteau name).

I decided before I started writing it'd be a 'bad guys win' type story, which meant a happy ending for Savitar and Reverb but also meant that I knew from the start Iris was going to die. Which I thankfully didn't get stuck on writing, but I definitely procrastinated on finishing it a bit because I do love Iris, so giving her an ending where she's kidnapped, ignored, and then killed was hard to write.

I didn't really have a huge plan for the fic, so I thought it'd be maybe 5,000~ words long at most. But then I started writing and it kinda possessed me. It became a lot more slowburn than I'd thought it would be initially, but that also gave me more breathing room to develop their relationship and their insecurities over it - Reverb's fear of being a Cisco replacement or that Savitar would be too much in love with Iris even now to kill her, Savitar's jealousy over Reverb flirting with the baristas and a believable build up to it being Reverb's death he saw in the Speed Force prison - which was why I chose to have Savitar averting Reverb's death from the pre-Flashpoint timeline be the starting point of the fic too.

Leaning into both Reverb and Savitar's claims of godhood was definitely a cheesy sort of fun, but it works well as their special kind of flirting so I'm glad I stuck with it for the whole fic. It was also kind of what helped lead into the idea of Reverb making Savitar's armor. I'd initially intended for Savitar to have the armor, he just wasn't using it around Reverb much as a show of trust. But the more I started thinking about it the more I wanted Reverb to do something that would change the dynamic between them and how better than to showcase that he's still an engineer at heart (and is more similar to Cisco in that way than he'd likely be comfortable with). When Reverb wants to protect someone, he builds them that protection - be it the scythe for his brother or, say, armor for his new lover? It really brought the middle of the fic together, which I think would have really meandered otherwise.

The Savitar armor is definitely intended to frighten and intimidate. It's inhuman looking and it scared the hell out of at least four different speedsters - Barry, Jay, Jesse, and Wally - so someone had to have but a lot of deliberate thought into it's appearance. It made a lot of sense to me that Reverb would have considered the armor's appearance as being just as important as it's purpose. Flirting aside, both Savitar and Reverb are well aware that though they're walking that path to godhood (or as close as powerful metahumans could come to such a thing), they aren't there yet. Training Reverb was Savitar's contribution to helping Reverb hone his powers and so the armor became Reverb's answer to the training, something that helped push Savitar further along their shared path too.

Reverb being Savitar's new lightning rod was also something that wasn't initially intended for the fic. I had the first electric zap in there without really thinking about it initially, but when I was re-reading what I had so far while about... a quarter-ish through the fic (and slowly realizing I wasn't even midway done yet), I had this kind of lightbulb moment where I went 'huh, this would work as foreshadowing' and from there started weaving in the lightning rod thing into the fic a bit more so that when Savitar tells Reverb at the end, it wouldn't just come out of nowhere.

I'd also initially intended to split the PoV between Reverb and Savitar but once I started writing from Reverb's PoV it just didn't feel right to go back and forth between the two. It makes Savitar's unreliable narrator tendencies less obvious, but I feel like that worked out for the better overall. It also helped keep the tension about the final showdown with Barry up a bit - I wanted readers to be able to see that Savitar was too invested in Reverb to let killing Iris give him even a seconds pause anymore but still feel caught up in Reverb's fears that the vision he saw would come to pass.

I think my biggest disappointment was that I couldn't let Reverb's training pay off in a Reverb vs. The Flash fight. I still want to write that fight eventually, so I'm definitely not done with writing Saverb yet.

[rayslittlekitten]

⭐⭐⭐

Thanks for your interest! Wow. I didn't know which one to pick when I saw your ask. I didn't have any particular fic I'm dying to talk about but since I had talked about this particular fic with a close friend last night, I'll talk about it again.

"Breathe Again" took a while to nail down because I was going for something very specific which I wasn't 100% sure what it was yet. I guess that's part of the process of writing, but particularly the beginning before the flashback, I wanted to really capture the sadness and heartache.

You’ve come to the slow realization that there is no one else out there like Ray. Date after date, prospect after prospect, you’ve tried to ask your potential partners for certain things and they couldn’t give you what you wanted - what you needed. It’s not their fault though. They just weren’t compatible with you. Honestly, it doesn't matter how compatible they could be with you. They’re simply not Ray. You thought they could help distract you from thinking about Ray, but everything reminds you of him. You can’t even indulge in marijuana anymore without thinking of him. You take a long pull of the joint held between your fingers and inhale deeply, letting your lungs fill up. Slowly exhaling, you fill the space around you. You take another drag or two before leaving it in an ashtray. You’re haunted by him; his ghost still lingers in your flat. Even after all this time, you still so desperately crave his touch, his discipline, his embrace, his praise, his command, his love and adoration. There was just something so intimate about leaving yourself so vulnerable to him and that was how you connected. Everything he did to you - for you, brought you peace. He quieted all the noise in your head, as you did for him. With your eyes closed, you bring your fingers to your throat, lighting caressing it, then moving to wrap them around your neck. You don’t put any pressure on it, just let it sit snugly. Your hand is not as big as Ray’s but it still brings you some comfort, imagining it’s his. Your skin memorized his every touch, every hold, every grip, every caress, every slap, every bite, every kiss, every hug. He knew how to manipulate your body and mind so well, they always reacted to him so gracefully and naturally. You caress the side of your neck with your thumb before bringing your fingers up to grip your jaw, just like the way Ray used to.

I probably wrote and rewrote this many many times because I wanted it to be perfect. In fact, the part with her touching her own neck and imagining Ray was kinda inspired by my own habit of constantly caressing and touching my own throat and neck just out of sheer comfort. (Yes, i'm a weirdo). And I was probably a bit high when I did it one time and instantly I tapped into the reader's mind and what she may be going through and all these words just threw up onto the computer screen. I can be a bit methodical when it comes to writing and getting into the psyches of the characters so I did cry and I was sad and my heart did hurt while writing this but I feel like it makes the writing all the better.

Then of course the next chapter was even more heart-wrenching and you know if you've read it. Lots of crying on my end as well. It was therapeutic to write. I've been struggling with the chapter that follows it because again, I want to nail it. It's very much like "Breathe Again" but in Ray's POV. I want to make sure I know what I want to show and then actually make sure it gets across effectively.

Also sometimes it takes me listening to a super sad playlist on repeat to really get in the mood and me helping these characters figure out what they're feeling and what they want.

Fanfic Writers Director's Cut ask

[curator-on-ao3]

For the directors cut thing: I would absolutely love to hear you talk about "Facets of Belonging". I love this story soo much and I read it like a million times because it makes me so happy and warms my heart. It kind of became my head canon for pikeuna ❤️

Hello, hi, I love you! I’m extremely honored by you rereading that story, @azalealunalight, and, hoo-boy, am I happy to talk about it. ❤️

This is going to start a little down but get better.

Facets of Belonging was actually my second pass at trying to unpack Among the Lotus Eaters, an absolute garbage pile of an episode with shipper glasses off and even worse with shipper glasses on. My first try, a one-shot called The Curse of Memory, I very much wrote with my head as an attempt to make sense of at least some aspects of the garbage pile. That story got interesting comments along the lines of, “This writing is good, but I don’t like seeing Pikeuna like this.” And I didn’t either. I had tried for canon-consistency and made myself — and my characters — unhappy.

So fuck that.

Fuck that on the bathroom floor, actually.

So I wrote Facets of Belonging from my heart as a way to let love breathe the way I think it should — freely, honestly, with two people trying their best because they owe that to each other. And I had an absolute blast writing repressed Chris, Una who would have made a pass at him years earlier if she had believed he had any game whatsoever, and both of them not understanding why Batel dumped Chris (I wanted everyone to be somewhat valid there and I hope I succeeded).

It was extra fun to include all the “they were already married, your honor” details like Chris using the secret knock on Una’s door for their shared fresher, Una flawlessly reading Chris’ body language, and Chris and Una having chosen the bathroom rug together years earlier. (The first part of the story goes on and on about how comfortable and fluffy and thick the rug is because I know me and, if the story hadn’t done that, I would have spent the later parts of the story wincing as they made love on that same rug. But it’s okay because the rug is comfortable! and fluffy! and thick!)

In terms of the technical stuff, I enjoyed the shifting third person limited point of view. Having Chris and Una mentally vibing but him more brave while she’s always a step ahead and more calm as he worries — that felt right. Part of Una being a step ahead, for me, is how her consistent adjective for Chris is “exquisite,” while he thinks she’s “beyond beautiful, beyond gorgeous. Something else. Something new.” because he hasn’t gotten to “exquisite” yet … but he will.

In terms of other things that happen after the story ends — if bathroom plumbing on the Enterprise works in any way similar to bathroom plumbing in multi-family homes today, you’d better believe other crewmembers on their same plumbing line heard Una’s ecstatic screaming in the middle of the night. I like to believe Spock is among those crewmembers. Vulcan hearing and all. Gonna be quite a morning on the bridge, amirite?

Oh, and I feel like when Chris lets himself look at Una and actually consider shifting their friendship to romance, the primal attraction he feels truly put the “id” in “idiots in love,” if you will. (And him being like “whaaaa?” she called him “sweetie” was great fun.)

For me, Facets of Belonging is a Marie Kondo story — it sparked joy to write, cleaning out the mess from before. I’m absolutely pleased and honored and delighted that the story makes you happy, too, and that you asked about it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, @azalealunalight, from the bottom of my heart … and the fluffiness of Chris and Una’s bathroom rug. ❤️

Want more information about a fic I wrote? Send me an ask.

[bradshawsbaby]

⭐️!!!

Yay, thank you so much!!! 🥰

So, for those of you who have been reading Letters to My Love, you may have noticed that music plays a big part in setting the mood of the story. I was very intentional about putting together the playlist that pairs with the series. My goal is to be as historically accurate as possible, so I’ve attempted to only include songs that would have been released at the time the story takes place (1942-1945). There have been a few occasions where I’ve sadly had to cut songs I loved that weren’t released until the 1950s!

In keeping with the musical theme, you may have also noticed that the title of each chapter is either the title or lyric of a song from the time period. That was just a fun idea that came to me, and I love trying to piece together connections between what’s going on in that particular chapter and the song I choose for the title.

Many of the songs on the LtML playlist are songs that play during Sleep No More, an immersive theater production here in NYC that I absolutely adore. I owe a lot of my musical inspirations for this story to that show!

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut