#vidow fairytale au

[zarvasace]

I think I've officially been "working on" this Vidow beauty and the beast au for a little over a year at this point. I have multiple 20k+ documents with unfinished storylines, and I really love the shape of this one, but it's been difficult to hammer it out.

My most recent idea is turning it into a comic. Idk if I have the commitment for that but it's a fun idea! Think of this like a chapter announcement page or something. It's kind of a test for what style I could do something like that in.

Comic first part

[zarvasace]

*shrug*

Cover art || next

[zarvasace]

Part 2, pgs 3-7

previous

[zarvasace]

Doodle without (much) context

[zarvasace]

I know you already handed some over but I am frothing at the mouth for even a scrap of the BatB AU please Mina <3

I was hoping to hold onto this long enough to give you the full thing but also I like this line and didn't want to make you think I was ignoring you XD

Shadow sat up a little. “But you haven't seen a fairy? Do they just not give gifts anymore?” “Gifts? Fairy gifts are real? Do—” Vio paused again.  But before he could come up with anything better to ask, Shadow caught his drift. “Do I have fairy gifts? Sure. I have, according to fairy magic, a perfect complexion, a talent for oratory, and I'm also a wonderful dancer.” He snorted. “None of those things are very useful to me anymore.”

[zarvasace]

Vidow fairytale AU out of context

(I was at 9k and then realized something was really not working so I went back and edited some and now I'm like at 8k but some parts are bad patches so I'm gonna take some time and make it good. Nearly finished with the first draft though!)

[zarvasace]

Snippet Sunday :) (this is my still-in-progress Vidow fairytale fic... I keep hitting walls and that motivation juice is fickle :( )

"It's Old Hylian. Nobody's been able to decipher much of it. It's very old. Even in Taekya, it would have been obsolete." Vio remembered spending a coffee-fueled week trying to crack the script to better read ancient magic texts, but had run into the problem every other scholar had: too few complete samples that accurately compared Old Hylian to New Hylian. This notebook was filled with it, though, a valuable key to unlocking everything else. It looked like a journal of some kind, with dates in the corner and a few doodles here and there. Vio smiled to himself when he stumbled on a drawing of a little boy, sleeping soundly under a blanket with a fist in his mouth. 

[zarvasace]

Important announcement:

I am weak for lord/retainer-type platonic relationships

That is all.

[zarvasace]

👀 I figured out what my problem was in the Vidow fairytale fic! I was stuck on the climax part but shuffling a few events around condensed the action and focuses it all a bit better.

I'm going to ignore the fact that I have a half-finished 18k draft and rewrite it from the beginning with these new themes in mind, it'll be much better, and faster too since I've already written this once

[zarvasace]

Wip Wednesday! Take a piece of the Vidow fairytale AU that's just about done! (Fingers crossed for a post this week)

"Is it safe?" Green asked, and when Vio nodded, Green pushed on the seam between the double doors. The spots of rust on the hinges resisted for a moment, then gave way with a short screech. The doors swung inward, and Green and Vio stepped inside. 

It smelled like dust. The sheer size and loneliness of the castle pressed in on Vio's heart like a physical weight. Despite the melancholy and the darkness, however, the castle really was beautiful, all elegant arcs and pointed windows. Each piece of dusty furniture showed extreme care in its details, from golden thread in the cushion weaves to delicate fairies carved into the table legs. Honestly, this time capsule of a castle made Vio want to recruit a team of historians to make sure every detail was recorded. 

The two of them stood in an entrance hall with a high, vaulted ceiling, lined with several framed mirrors and some decorative furniture. Two wooden staircases curving in either direction rose in front of them, leading to a second-floor balcony. The darkness made it difficult to see what lay beyond the delicate wooden pillars. Vio felt glad for their winter cloaks, meant to protect against autumn's chill but just as effective against a cold castle.

[zarvasace]

My poor progress on the Vidow fairytale AU. TotK happened and it halted, hard. (These words include deleted scenes, the current draft is just under 20k.)

That's all right, it's been nice to marinate it. I've gone back and edited a bunch today, and decided which scenes need to be entirely reconfigured and which just need some poking.

[zarvasace]

Turns out, Frostys from Wendy's are actual ice cream. They may be mostly corn syrup and gluten-free, but they are certainly not lactose-free. :(

[zarvasace]

Four Swords Stuff pt 2

(because tumblr has a limited number of links they'll allow in a post.)

part 1

Mermay AU

Shadow is a mermaid and Vio is a prince :)

First appearance: 5-1-2024

First art

Little comics

Character refs for artfight

Fairytale AU

Began with a Red/Blue Sleeping Beauty AU, has expanded with a Vidow Beauty and the Beast AU involved too. Fic in-progress but so is a comic now?

First appearance: sometime 2023

Tag: #vidow fairytale au

AO3 series

Out-of-context memes

Doodle

Cover art and beginning of the comic

[zarvasace]

14. A fic you didn't expect to write?

14. a fic you didn't expect to write

I participated in three once-a-day monthly challenges this year—February, April, AND July, not to mention a few ask game minifics, so most of what I published this year was unexpected. But! I will say that Nayru's Thorns was REALLY unexpected. It was an expansion of a smaller fic I wrote for a prompt for Blue/Red, and I liked it so much I turned it into a bigger fic. :)

A matching Vidow fairytale AU is technically in the works, but I got so frustrated with it. I still love it though... I want to share that one.

[zarvasace]

PROGRESS POST

(10/4/23)

This is partly for accountability and partly just to get all this out of my head! This last month or two have felt so hectic, getting used to a new work and sleep schedule and all. I'm still not quite there.

If you're curious about what I've been working on and what my plans are in terms of writing and art for the rest of the year, read on. :)

I will say, though, that if you want more of a specific AU or story, the way to get it is by asking questions and leaving comments! Asks and comments remind me about things I'm doing and get me excited about them again! I have these plans, but I also am very good at chasing inspiration to unknown (and sometimes unimportant) corners!

By Fandom

Linked Universe Projects

I've been feeling less motivated to work on LU stuff, but I still plan on at least finishing what I have open, so you can look forward to some of that!

Writing

Disability AU—one small mobility trio fic in the works. A few vague ideas for doing backstory fics.

Council (1931 vampire AU)—this is still the "backburner to backburner" fic, but I do have some fun ideas. I just have been distracted with other things! I think this AU is a lot of fun and I'd love to do more with it. We'll have to see.

The Marvelous Misadventures of Wind and His Merry Band of Maybe-Human Misfits—chapter 7 (out of 9 or so) is in progress. I have it all outlined out, and it's fun to work on, but I have (again) been distracted! This is, I hope, going to be my main December project. It'd be nice to finish before it turns 2 years old next summer. Oops.

I have several other WIPs that aren't very exciting and probably won't see daylight, but they're there if I feel like them

Art

Coloring book—I'm part of the coloring book project! :) I have already finished 1/2 drawings, and they went so well, I'm considering doing more.

Shatterproof manga page—still on my radar! I'm doing the end scene from dazzling diamond danger, and my ambition keeps outgrowing my time.

Four Swords Projects

Writing

Fairytale AU—man I've started this Vidow BatB fic literally five times. I have an almost-complete draft sitting at like... 20k?? iirc, but I kind of hate a lot of it. I also like a lot of it. It's a bit difficult for me to work on rewriting something in that situation. Anyway. Another December thing probably.

Fright Fight—I have ideas for every week, but am currently unsure if I want to draw or write for them. Most of my October will be focused on filling these prompts!

Vampire Lords AU—I have strange as severe is this my fate open right now, with a fair amount of material... it just needs to be edited a bit. I do want to keep working on that, I've just... well. Distraction. A common theme. XD I might be feeling another little bite fic coming on, too.

Art

Fright Fight—see above

Fright Fight part 2—I have a few side things to do for this, like making graphics that I haven't quite finished yet. They shouldn't take long, I just gotta do em!

Non-Fandom

Stickers—I am in the process of drawing some stickers! Yay! These are for my work, but also just for me. I want some Halloween stickers. This is a backburner project.

Nanowrimo project—I need to spend some time figuring out a few things to really get going on my princess-verse. I'm going to be doing Nanolympics this year, so hopefully some of their preptober stuff will help!

Hearts Linked Together—my super-cool Linkverse. XD I love my dumb timeline, and all the characters, they're just filler drawings that I haven't had time to continue.

Secret Zelda project—I really really need to do this! I can't say much right now, but it involves a fair amount of work, both writing and art. I think I haven't gotten very far on it yet because I'm intimidated. Stop that.

Zine edits—I worked really really hard on an art piece for a LoZ zine coming up! This week is critique, and I anticipate a few edits later.

By Month

Facebook posts—a lady I know wants to commission pretty quote images to post on her Facebook. I need to reply to her text. And do them.

September

I primarily worked on the fic Blood-Sucker's Guide to High School. I also worked on and submitted one fic and one piece of art to two different zines, which I hope you'll see soon.

October

If you care, you may have noticed I'm not doing Whumptober this year! Part of this is because I'm a bit burned out from the above, and part of it is that the prompts just didn't seem very inspiring to me this year. Maybe that's just my mindset. I haven't been in a very whumpy mood.

I'm planning on filling weekly prompts for @fsfrightfight this month and maybe chipping away at some other fics, in addition to one more zine contribution. I'm also going to be planning for November and doing some scattered art work here and there.

November

NaNoWriMo! I considered skipping this... but I'm feeling really inspired and motivated to do it, especially with October as a break. I'm going to write some original work, and that will be the focus of my November. I'll likely get some other art done, too.

December

I hope to dedicate this month to finishing things up from this year! That means working on "backburner" projects.

[zarvasace]

I like to make things visual :) nobody asked for this but I'm gonna explain it anyway.

Okay so my usual writing "priorities" looks kind of like this. I say "priority" because this is just usually how motivation goes. I finish the ones in top, then next down, etc etc til I'm working on the Big One again. I tend to try and finish upper layers before moving on.

At the top are lightning ideas, stuff like prompt fills, things I do whenever I feel like it.

Next down are my medium fics, right now I'm working with the Vidow fairytale AU, it's been stuff like the FS sci-fi AU in the past. I don't always have a medium to work on, most of my abandoned and dead fics are here.

Under that are my random continuations, things I add to sporadically, like the 1931 AU, FS BOTW AU, isekai AU, that kind of stuff. I usually don't write more of these unless there's a reason to, like a prompt or an ask about them. They're not very high in my brain. Also here are ideas about rewrites or continuations of stuff that don't have them, like the follow-up to Loftwings Stand for Freedom that has a paragraph or two and a plot in my head but nothing more.

Last in the hierarchy are my bigggg fics, right now Marvelous Misadventures. I like having something polished simmering in the background. I'll think about it a lot, but not write too much at a time—I feel like keeping it marinating in my brain makes it come out better. I'll work on this when I don't have anything else.

Right now I'm doing Shatterproof every day, which doesn't leave me much brain or writing space for everything else, unfortunately. I'm having fun though, and I feel like these blitzes are nice little palette cleansers. They get me generating new ideas rather than sitting in old fetid ones for a million years.