#not even joking from Nimona running away to the old well on I was just in tears

[yaboiwormy]

Yea I watched Nimona

Yea this frame in the end credits where Ballister is referred to as family made me cry

[sunshine-zenith]

1, 4, 18, 19, 24 from this ask game

Thank you for the asks!

Heads up y'all, this one is a bit long and the questions dig deep, so mind the tags lol

1) What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

I stick with default Ariel Size 11. Times New Roman is kinda the only other font I can take seriously when writing, and it’s kinda tainted from years of typing out essays and media releases for school and my old job

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

Recalcitrant and pluperfect — two words that I don’t think I’ve used in any of my writing but I love working into conversations when I can (bonus — they’re both words I learned from reading fics)

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end.

From By Your Side Again (sorry, this is a long one, with even longer rambles, probably, but I put a lot of thought behind the headcanons I included here)

Spoilers for Nimona (both the film and the graphic novel), and obviously the fic

“...Your arm?” Ballister eventually asks.

“Just dislocated, don’t worry. I can move it fine, the sling is probably overkill.”

“I heard Todd broke his.”

“Good for him.”

They both chuckle weakly before Ambrosius stands.

Ballister’s eyes glance away before meeting his again, looking apprehensive. “Speaking of, could you… plug my arm in? If you’re okay with it.”

Ambrosius blinks, turning to face the arm on the counter. “I- sure. Of course.” Walking towards it, he sees the robotic prosthetic is in three parts -- the arm itself, laying palm up (-Ballister’s arm falling, almost mockingly slow, the sword falling from it as Bal screams and looks at him in shock-). He sighs through his nose, counting to ten and grounding himself back in this moment. As horrible as he feels about his actions, this arm, right here -- it's not about him and he’s not about to make it about him. He’s not going to make Ballister pretend the arm doesn’t exist. Beside it is something that looking like the upper right part of their chest armor, but thinner and more form fitting, with straps attached to it -- what the arm connects to, Ambrosius guesses, with the straps presumably going across Ballister’s chest and under his left arm to hold the whole thing in place. On the other side is a thin, tiny crystal-like device on a tray. Ambrosius runs a finger along the edge before giving Ballister a hesitant look. Ballister quirks an eyebrow that had Ambrosius nodding, confirming his curiosity.

“That chip reads my brain’s signals, sending it to my arm to make it work like my other one,” Ballister begins. “It's not necessary for the arm to work, but without it, my arm wouldn’t be quite as….” he wiggles his fingers as explanation. Ambrosius nods again, silently urging him on. “It's a hybrid -- electronic and body powered, as well as mind controlled. When it has no charge and the chip isn’t connected, the wires react to movement in my shoulder, which can open and close my hand and- you’re smiling at me.”

“Am I?” Ambrosius asks absently. It's hard not to smile when Ballister gets passionate about something. “Should I stop?”

“No, no, It's just… I missed your smile.” Ballister’s voice dips low enough Ambrosius almost misses it. Clearing his throat, he says, “Anyway…?”

Just another thing they need to talk about eventually. Ambrosius lets it go for now, because he’s worried he’ll get choked up if he gets into it. “How would this even reach your brain?” He asks.

“Well, I cracked my skull open when the ground gave out that night.”

Ambrosius laughs at the unexpected answer. “Oh, of freaking course you would, Bal!”

“Wait- I- That was a joke, obviously I was joking!” Bal gives him an offended look that only makes him laugh again. “It goes in my ear, why would I- why would you think-?”

“That you’d do DIY brain surgery? Because you’re you, Bal. I mean….” Ambrosius gestures to the arm behind him. “I always said if you weren’t so squeamish, in another life, you’d be a mad scientist.”

So—

I specifically wrote Ambrosius with his arm as in a sling to both nod to the moment in the Nimona Graphic Novel this fic based on (where Ballister Blackheart’s arm is in a sling). I specifically gave him a dislocated shoulder because a) you can see his injured arm hanging limply as he approaches Bal after Nimona’s sacrifice, and b) I wanted to give him an injury that didn’t break continuity — his arm clearly being injured after the Director shot him and he was blasted to the ground, but it not being in a sling in the epilogue while Todd’s was

I wrote Bal’s prosthetic as a hybrid — biotic, mind controlled and body powered — instead of just biotic for a couple reasons.

In universe: he DIY’d it himself while on the run from the law, so it doesn’t need to fit solidly into one or the other. Who’s gonna stop him? Insurance coverage? Research funding? Nah, he’s out there probably salvaging parts from abandoned flying cars, he can do whatever he wants with his design

Out of universe/my personal experiences: my mother was in an electric wheelchair nearly the last decade she was alive, and while thing offered her a lot of autonomy, it was also, frankly, a clunker. One time when I was a teenager, we were going down the sidewalk when the battery that powered her chair just fell out.

I remember spending a good ten minutes trying to just pick the thing up to put it back in, it was so heavy. Luckily a nice jogger happened to be running by and stopped to help me lift it, but like. Y’all. When the cheapest electric wheelchair insurance will swing you loses its battery, it does not convert into a manual wheelchair. My mother physically could not move from that spot. Neither of us had good cellphones at the time and anyone we could’ve called wouldn’t get back to us very quickly, so if that jogger hadn’t stopped to help me lift that battery who knows how long we would’ve been stuck there

Since then, whenever I encounter fantasy mobility aids that rely on super high technology or magic or whatever, I just mentally tell myself that it’s a convertible/hybrid model that also functions without electricity/magic/etc or that they totally have a backup readily available just off screen, just because this memory is not a super fun one for me

As for why I specifically had Bal need to charge his arm/likened Bal’s arm charger to a phone charger, it’s because I’ve seen battery prosthetic users with above joint amputations (specifically, admittedly, above the knee amputees) describe charging their prosthetic as being like charging a phone

(Video examples by Alex1leg and Josh Sundquist, both above the knee amputees.)

I specifically took a moment to make Ambrosius unconsciously smile because I love his smile. I love his smiles for Bal. I love that little moment at the beginning of the movie where he tells Bal, “they’re going to love you,” before a smile grows on his face as he says, “like I do” — likes he’s excited and overjoyed he already gets to love Bal and the thought of others loving Bal makes him so happy. I love that moment where, when they see each other for the first time post-chop, when Ambrosius says, “Bal,” you can see his lip quirk up, like Bal’s name is just of of those sounds you can’t make without smiling a little. I love Ambrosius smiling because of Bal

The “chip” was my hand waving how Bal’s prosthetic could balance so well and had such fine motor skills when he’s basically finished DIYing it right before rushing off to the Institute. Many advanced biotic arm prosthetics do use brain scanning to interpret their user’s brain signals. Eh, its the future, if they can include holographic coins when venmoing tips to street musicians, Bal can DIY a neurolink in an alleyway while on the run from the law and probably having a hemoglobin of 3.6. I made it “crystal shaped” to mirror the crystals Nimona left behind after stopping the Director

Also Bal is absolutely feral enough to casually do brain surgery on himself. I just didn’t go that route because his signature finisher in the movie is headbutting people wearing helmets with his bare forehead, and thinking about it too long made my head hurt

Lastly, my favorite bit of characterization from the graphic novel was Blackheart’s love of science (I even specifically referenced Nimona shapeshifting into Blackheart and shouting “SCIENCE” in a set of notes I took for my friend for our cell bio class), and while I love the movie I am a little sad they didn’t lean into it. The “in another lifetime” line is a blatant reference to the epilogue of the graphic novel

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

I guess my “journey” started in elementary school — I would draw pictures and tell admittedly impressively sequential stories about them. My mother would transcribed these stories, stable them together, and show my teachers, who in turns told me I should become a published author one day. I wasn’t sold on it at the time, admittedly (I’m dyslexic and I was bitter about it as a kid), but all the adults around me figured I’d either go into healthcare or become a writer (my peers figured I’d either cure all disease one day or become the next Jack the Ripper, so make of that what you will).

(spoilers, I'm going with both)

(the healthcare/writer thing, to clarify. Not the scientist/serial killer thing)

My first degree was in English/Creative Writing, and I worked as a journalist for a couple years. I’ve even got a couple poems and a short story published in small magazines.

My mental health took a dive after some personal loses, including the death of a beloved irl writing partner, combined with a shitty work schedule (listen if your job promises only 35 hours a week but actually has you working 50 across five days, not including travel, with promises of punishment if you call out and refuses to offer part time, run), so I haven’t had the motivation to publish anything original lately. I’m hoping once I’ve got my second degree in nursing, I’ll be able to land a job that lets me survive off of three day work weeks, so I’ll have time to focus on poems and novels (I don't care if my work days are long, as long as I enjoy what I do and can get them out of the way as soon as possible)

For now, I’ve dedicated myself to my fanfics (instant gratification upon publication babay)

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

If you can’t tell, I overthink as many small details as I can lol. I try to plot my stories out in advance and research things in advance. This part of the process does lead me to procrastinating often, though — I’ll plot the entire thing meticulously, tell myself, “wow that was a lot of work,” then I won’t touch the story again for weeks. The thing is, once I do start writing, I let myself have freedom — the characters and plot will go where they go whether I want them to or not, so I don’t try to fight it. If there’s a specific bit of dialogue or action that I want, I’ll write that part of the story first and hope the before bits don’t go too off track to get there smoothly

I’m also the worst as guessing what my word count will be — it’ll either be half as much or twice as much as predicted and I won’t be able to tell you what the word count will be until it’s ready to go live