#has anybody written a fic about this btw id like to read it

[lazycranberrydoodles]

modern AU where they meet again at the fast food place Xie Lian works at and Hua Cheng has to figure out how to romance a customer service employee

[etraytin]

Directors cut for “Ourselves and Immortality” (I sobbed, btw, the whole way through it. SOBBED. Especially when Donna has to ID people. But I loved it.)

Ourselves and Immortality is by far the most depressing fic I have ever written, but thinking about it makes me happy because I FINALLY got it finished, woo-hoo! It started out as a one-shot (just like Such A Winter’s Day, in fact), at the beginning of my 100-Day-Fic-A-Day back in 2016. I was in a very creative mood back then and taking pretty much any prompt anybody threw at me. My husband, who is only a very casual TWW fan but gives good prompts, tossed me “Roger Tribbey’s first hour as President.” 

“Wow,” I mused, “Everybody’s going to hate that.” 

But the idea was too tantalizing to pass up; it was so completely unlike anything I had written so far. Even just doing the one-shot involved a fair amount of research, figuring out where Secretary of Agriculture falls in the order of succession and such. Turns out, basically everybody else has to die in order for Roger to land in the hot seat. And if President Bartlet, Vice President Hoynes, and the Cabinet were going down, it seemed obvious that most of the staff would be gone as well. This fic prompt came along just as Designated Survivor was getting started, so I didn't want to go the "terrorists blow up the State of the Union" route, because that felt too done. Unfortunately (or fortunately for real life) there's really not that many ways to take out the government that don't also take out Washington DC and that don't involve targeted building destruction. 

(This got kind of long and involved, so I’m tucking it behind a cut.)

I wound up reaching back into my sci-fi reading childhood, to an original series Star Trek novel called The Pandora Principle. In that novel, the crew discovers an alien artifact and takes it to Starfleet Headquarters for research, only for the artifact, secretly a weapon, to shatter when it is scanned and release a bioagent that eradicates all the oxygen in the air like a self-replicating virus. Everyone in the building dies except for Captain Kirk, who for shenanigan-related reasons is in a self-sealing bunker under the building, and the rest of the novel is devoted to trying to nullify the agent before it manages to escape the hermetically sealed building. It's a great book, evocative and claustrophobic, and I definitely recommend it, but for the purposes of what I thought was a quickie one-shot, I stole the idea of a weapon that could asphyxiate everyone in a building nearly faster than they could realize they were doomed. As the story developed I had to cobble together a little modern-Earth science to flesh it out, but I hoped that the story would hold without much in the way of explanation of how everything had happened. 

One thing that helped was that OaI was not, at its heart, an action adventure story. It was barely a mystery, really. Our main characters were not the ones charged with solving the mystery or catching the bad guy. For the most part, they were not even in direct danger (except for Syl's brief action turn at the end). We spent one chapter with Mike Casper as he investigated and one chapter with the bad guy to get some important creepy exposition, but by far the character we spend the most time with is Roger. It's not Roger's job to know what the Asphyxiant is made of or its exact biological effect, and it's not Roger's job to hunt the bad guys down like dogs in the street. Like pretty much every West Wing story, it's Roger's job to keep the country running, and it's the job of the people around him to help him. The story had to be about what was happening in The White House, with the action-adventure plot clicking along offscreen and occasionally cropping up in a phone call or Sit Room briefing. I had to avoid a lot of temptation, but in a way it made the job easier. West Wing stories are stories about relationships. 

Writing the canon characters was very hard, especially in the beginning. The thing that never caught for me about Designated Survivor was how quickly the survivors moved on after the disaster. Their friends and colleagues were murdered, and there was little indication that anybody even cared. But Margaret, Carol, Mrs. Landingham, Danny and especially Donna, these people were gutted. Every single one of them was utterly devastated, but from Roger's perspective it was hard to see because all of them are so good at their jobs and so dedicated, they'd keep carrying on as best they could until they collapsed. I decided pretty early on that I would start spreading the point of view around so we could see what the characters were going through in their own voices, but that only Roger would get more than one chapter. (I did break this rule right at the end; Donna gets the first and last non-Roger chapters in the story.) Roger's narrative ties the story together but being the President requires one to stay largely in one place while being told things, so spreading out the POV also gave the story a little more momentum.

Donna's first chapter was probably the hardest part of the story to write, both because I am a hardcore J/D shipper and I'd just shut the pairing down in the cruelest of ways, and also because it was through her eyes that I had to bring the scope of the horror home without fully traumatizing the readers. My first draft of the chapter included considerably more time in the refrigerated warehouse with the FBI team, and a lot more detail about the last minutes of the lives of the senior staffers. I ended up going through and cutting a lot of it out, leaving the audience to understand how terrible it was by the way it affected Donna, rather than by my descriptions of it. And yes, it is one of several chapters I cried while writing. There's a reason (several reasons, but my own feels especially) that I had to let Zoey and Charlie live!  And yes, Margaret was speaking for me when she admitted to temporarily forgetting about Annie and Gus, but we got around to them eventually. 

OaI wound up containing most of the material I wrote for it, but it has one deleted scene and one crackadelic alternate ending. The deleted scene occurs shortly before the state funeral and is from Bonnie's perspective; she and Ginger are trying to pack up Sam and Toby's offices to allow the new senior staffers to move in. I got it half-written, then thought I lost it in a computer-related accident. It was so damn sad to write the first time, and it was all character work and only smidgens of plot, and I was really mad about losing the work, so I decided to skip over it and go straight on to the next thing, which I believe may have been Zoey's chapter. It turned out that I did recover most of what I'd written for the chapter, but by the time I found it, the plot had moved on. I tried to make it up to Bonnie by giving her a nice little character bit and a job promotion at the end of the story. 

The crackadelic ending is sort of a long story. Most of the reason that OaI got finished despite all my life changes and busy years and general creative slump is that my parents both fell in love with it. You may ask, "Doesn't having your parents reading your fanfiction make things awkward sometimes?" and in answer I will point you to the number of real sex scenes in my published fanworks, which is zero. And then I will nod enthusiastically. But my dad, especially, loved this story and decided that he ought to be in it. And that he ought to be the Chief Justice. My dad is a retired judge, so he felt this should not be too much of a stretch for him, career-wise. I tried to explain the concept of self-insert to him, but then caved and created a thinly-veiled expy of him to be Chief Justice, then gave him a little ceremony in-story and a few extra mentions here and there. I gave him that chapter as a Christmas present, and he was happy! For awhile. Then he decided that he ought to be the President. I tried to explain to him that this is not how governmenting works, which he of course already knew, but he was firm. His Chief Justice character was great, and he ought to be President. He is nothing if not persistent, and also nothing if not hard to buy gifts for, so for Christmas the next year, I presented him with Chapter 28: The Surprise Noncanonical Epilogue, which has never before been published to the internet. It is very silly. 

This has gotten very long and I still need to write today's Quarantine Journal, so I guess I'll wrap it up there. If you have any specific questions about the story or any other stories, feel free to toss them my way! 

[winsister91]

>send an ask: get to know your author ---> all the number >:3

ARE YOU SERIOUS? Damn. Did not expect this. Well you asked for it!! 

Lemme just go ahead and pop a ‘keep reading’ here coz this shit’s gonna get lengthy.

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?Got a ton of ideas I noted down and still haven't got around to doing? Does that count? I’m lazy and think faster than I write.

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?Published online? Not really. Unpublished? LOADS.

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?Generally chronological when doings fanfics. The piece of shit novel that I’ll never finish has been all over the place.

4) favorite character you’ve writtenAlways love writing Dean

5) character you were most surprised to end up writingDidn’t expect a request to write Richard Speight Jnr fluff! Shocked me a little. But it was fun to do!

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change nowI ballsed up Three Wrongs Make a Right. I had a vision for the ending, but then went off in a completely different direction and backed myself into a corner. Now I dont know how to continue it DX

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?Bit of both I guess. I’m more comfortable with strangers reading my stuff tho. There’s a very select few people I know IRL who have actually read stuff I’ve done. I’ll tell people I write, if they ask to see it, nine times out of ten it’s a huge HELL NO.

8) favorite genre to writeWhen writing original works, I always fall into fantasy. Fanfics I'm a sucker for fluff.

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?I listen to game/movie soundtracks! I dunno why, just helps me visualise stuff and get in the groove.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?Alone with background noise.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?Pfft. I don’t think it has haha I’m maybe more confident in actually doing it these days maybe?

12) your weaknesses as an authorGRAMMAR. Super dialogue heavy. Suck at setting and describing scenery.

13) your strengths as an author:S IDK. I may be dialogue heavy but I’d like to think it’s decent dialogue at least?

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?Nah.

15) why did you start writing?Simple, I just enjoy it. Writing is super hard tho, but I enjoy attempting to tell stories and hope it entertains someone :)

16) are there any characters who haunt you?*shrugs* dont think so?

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?LEARN TO GRAMMAR. QUICKLY COZ YOU STILL CAN’T DO IT AGED 26 FGS YOU HAVE AN A-LEVEL IN ENGLISH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?Uuuh...maybe? I’m not observant enough to notice coz I’m a dumb :3

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?PLAN PLAN PLAN. Or just wing it and hope for the best. Depends on my mood.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?I came to Tumblr during a fortnight off work, so the sessions were looooong and stretching into the stupidly early morning hours. Then I had to go back to work *sulk*. so now its more short bursts coz I’m too damn tired all the time.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?This sucks. That sucks. Why do I subject people to this trash? NB: this applies to current works too.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?If it makes me that uncomfortable, I simply won’t write it I guess. Is that cowardly? I don’t like writing abuse.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?Lived in a pub in my childhood, have always worked in customer services so I have met and spoken too some nice/fun/weird/creepy people over the years. No doubt some of them will have creeped into the writings. Again, I’m not observant enough to fully notice tho.

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?I wouldn’t say ‘expert’ but I got a request to write a migraine fic (which can be found heeeeere), and I’ve never experienced one. So I did some googling, found a page where people described how a migraine actually felt to them, looked up suggested home remedies, what happens when a migraine comes on etc etc The overall feedback I got from that fic was that I got the description pretty damn accurate! Which was pretty cool :) I would never wish a migraine on anybody btw.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud ofOh god...guess I better scavenge and see if I actually like any of it...Okay, I’m gonna go with this chunk out of This Means War

“Round 1You skulk up to the blonde Dean has been chatting up just as he goes to the bar to grab them both a drink.“Hey,” you whisper and the girl turns to you puzzled, “My sister hooked up with that guy a week or so ago. Crabs.”Dean approaches while you dance with a baby-faced cutie.“Again?” he says, pulling out his fake FBI ID, “I'll let you off this night Miss Spankalot, but I catch you in here looking for customers again, I'll have to take you in.” Round 2You run up and slap Dean amongst a group of girls on their hen night.“You bastard!” You cry over dramatically, “You're other wife just called to tell you she's pregnant! With triplets!”“She's loopy that one,” Dean mumbles to your next victim, “I heard she pokes holes in condoms and goes crazy screaming you'll be the perfect happy family.” Round 3Dean wanders over to the guy eyeing you up. You watch as he points at you and lip read him saying, “Has a penis.”You make eye contact over Dean’s shoulder to the brunette he's charming. You lean forward, nodding you head towards Dean and announcing, “Micro-penis.””I just really enjoyed writing this chunk. Fun and pranky Dean is always a joy. I like how ridiculous he and reader are getting over a silly bet and determined to one up and sabotage each other. One of my finer moments in attempted comedy I feel :)

THERE ARE YOU HAPPY NOW! (That was actually really fun, thankyouloveyoubye)