#which is unfinished and unpublished

[penguinsomadagascar]

no context november

[acaciapines]

god remember when i was writing a deltarune daemon au on twine. that was BEFORE CHAPTER TWO CAME OUT.....

now my only twine projects are deeply personal essays ive written for various classes fndkgldfg the newest one involves deltarune though!! its in the early stages but sometimes you have to write an essay about being aromantic and you use deltarune as the lens for some reason!!

[perfectlynormalbooks]

Binding of the technically-unpublished technically-unfinished Doctor Who novel, Time's Champion by Craig Hinton! This was a commission for a friend, and they've officially recieved it now so I can ramble about design choices. The book is a folio binding with rounded spine, which is something I've been working on learning for a bit now.

The book cover - obviously designed to look like Six's coat! I used this excellent blog post as a reference while tracking down all of the bits of colorful fabric I'd need, it was a lifesaver. There's a little cat charm on the ribbon, because of course there is, and (it's not really visible in any of the photos) hand-sewn headbands in black-and-yellow, to resemble the sleeves of that coat.

If the book itself is Six, then the case is the Valeyard! Because obviously, this book is all about the conflict between those two. The clamshell case was a last-minute addition, because I hadn't ever done one before and wasn't sure if I'd be able to pull it off. But I did, and it looks great - that's metallic silver HTV on the outside. 'Time's Champion' is on the spine using the WS Simple Gallifreyan font - I thought about using Sherman's, but it's a bit too circular. The writing around the front and back frame is in Assassin's Gallifreyan, aka the writing the Doctor uses in the serial The Deadly Assassin. It's the names of all of the gods of Gallifrey, who show up in the book itself - Time, Fate, Life, Pain, Hope, and Death - repeated over and over. The book fits snugly into the case, and I've got my fingers crossed that it managed to protect the book on the way over.

I kept the internal typeset simple - Alegreya typeface with Bernard MT Condensed chapter headings and highlights. These are the straightest margins I've ever cut in my life. I impressed myself.

And here's a few pages from my design notebook from when I was pulling it together:

There's a LOT more progress pics lying around, but Tumblr only allows 10 images per post - I'll have to add more later!

[neil-gaiman]

Hello, Mr Gaiman. Hope you are doing well! I have a question about authors' work post-mortem. I know Terry Pratchett wanted his unfinished/unpublished work destroyed after his passing (which was done in a spectacular manner). But I wondered about the reason of it. I am not as much asking for Mr Pratchett's reasons, as it could be quite personal, but more what your choice would be and why? Is it worth to give the reader's some sort of closure, even if unfinished, or does the published writing only count as the true form of what the author intends to release "into the wild", so to speak? I'm very interested in your personal view regarding it. Thank you!

I don't know. I can certainly imagine asking someone to finish a book I had not finished when I learned I was dying, and would rather keep the notebooks around for the academics than have a bonfire.

[gotham-daydreams]

[English is not my first language, sorry if there are mistakes] If the reader made a song for Jason and Dick, and it's their way of taking refuge...then, did they make a "farewell" song for the Batfamily?

I don't know, I imagine the reader singing something like Dollhouse by Melanie Martínez or El hijo de Hernández Of the el cuarteto de nos.

Honestly I didn't really think about that- but now that you mention it, they probably have!

I can imagine that there are many different versions and iterations of that "Farewell/Goodbye" song that the reader has written for the Batfam. Mostly because I feel like the more they grew up, especially when they reached high school, the idea sort of just... dawned on them that they'll have to leave one day, one way or another. Either to pursue Music, or just have their own space, or whatever the reason may be- they'll have to leave the manor one day.

Which, said thoughts would lead to the reader just writing down potential "Farewell/Goodbye" songs to the Batfam, especially in moments where they really feel the loneliness in the Manor, and that distance between them and the rest of the family. Though at times they may try to write a proper one- which, those days leading up to the day the reader impulsively left, along with the months they spent away from the Manor and its residents/visitors- would be those times. But many of those versions do just stay as an idea or lyric sheet.

Some do make it to the stage where the reader is actually composing the song, but even if they're finished (which I can imagine that most songs in that 'composition stage' aren't finished at all either), they remain unpublished/private and the reader just kind of keeps the songs to themself.

In a heavily emotional moment, they might sing one out just to vent or something along those lines, and close friends may know that the songs exist- but I can't see it being something that the reader is totally open about or shares, even when asked.

Though, yes! To answer your question, the reader has written a kind of "Farewell/Goodbye" song to the Batfam. They just keep said song(s) private, and most are unfinished.

[ffcrazy15]

"Just Write For Yourself"

I think the thing that gets to me the most about the whole "just write for yourself!" response to writers complaining the lack of engagement in fanfic, is that it makes me realize that there's a fundamental misunderstanding between writers and readers of how much work writing fic is.

Like, there are 2-3 scenes in any given oneshot or chapter that I want to write. I usually write those first. They'll take me a couple of, very enjoyable, hours at most.

And then I have to go back and write the whole rest of the fic. Which is work. And it's usually not immediately enjoyable.

For example, one of my best fics on AO3 is a Star Trek fanfic called Rascal'ed. This was one of the fics that was easiest for me to write, one of the ones that just possesses you until it's done. It took me less than five days to create.

And I still had to go back in and fill in blank spots and cut bad prose and revise the dialogue.

If you want to see what a difficult fic to write looks like, like my fic Leap of Faith, here's what I do for my stories that I actually plan out:

And that's just the planning. I still have to write the damn thing. And there are things in the above layout—which is just for Chapter 1, mind—that got changed between this and the final published version of the chapter. You can see that the title of the story itself was changed at some point.

So when people say, "write for yourself, not for engagement!" What I personally hear is: "I as a reader do not understand how much work writers put into getting a story into a publishable form, and I also do not realize how easy it would be for them to write the couple of scenes they enjoyed writing and then to let it sit forever in their drafts."

(Of these eight fics—averaging more than 20 pages each—only two of them ever made it to AO3. The rest remain unfinished and unpublished.)

And for the record: I, personally, have wonderful readers. Kind, attentive readers who leave me comments engaging with the work. And it's because of them that I continue to publish stories! Like, I don't want to sound like sour grapes here, because I know that I get way more comments than many great writers out there.

But I've seen, across the board, writers trying to express that they are just not getting the engagement that they desire and expect for the work they put in, and people responding with "you shouldn't expect engagement; just write for yourself."

And the thing is, I know they're not trying to be rude. I know that! Of course they don't know how hard we work, who would have ever told them? We can't blame them for not knowing what they've never been told. Which is why I just felt the need to get out here and say:

Writing fics takes a lot of work. A lot of work. Hours upon hours of unpaid labor. Any fic that you see on AO3 or Fanfiction.net or Wattpad, is not something someone wrote solely for themselves. They could have just daydreamed about it, or written a couple of scenes and then left it unfinished. But they chose to put in the hard work it took to finish it. Because they wanted other people to read and engage with it.

Please engage with it.

Because if all fic writers ever hear is "you should just write for yourself"—we might start believing it.

[courtney-deserved-better]

seeing as it’s now been one year since the last chapter of slippery slopes was posted, i decided to make a big sappy post talking about what this fic has meant to me over the last two and a half years

i started writing slippery slopes after a bolt of inspiration struck me on this post. i’d tried writing my fair share of long fics prior, most of them remaining unpublished and all of them unfinished. i’m not quite sure what made me think i could write slippery slopes other than a strong desire to write the alenoah fic i wanted to read but that didn’t exist at the time. slippery slopes was the 30th fic posted in the alenoah tag, which didn’t have any finished long fics at the time. i think if you told 2021 pj that in two years there would be over 600 alenoah fics, many of them tdwt rewrites, their head would explode.

i honestly had no idea what i was jumping into when i started writing slippery slopes. looking back, i was very insecure about my writing. i’d actually forgotten about that until i was reading some posts i’d made while i was still writing it, where i wondered if i was going to be able to pull off the miscommunication plotline and the unplanned alecourtney friendship. almost every announcement of a chapter draft being completed included me saying i felt weird about it, or thought it was bad. i felt incredibly uncomfortable writing serious angst and when that started playing an important role in the fic at around chapter seven i feared that my writing was awful and other people would dislike it the way i had. i genuinely don’t think it hit me that slippery slopes was a popular fic until a few months before it became the most kudosed fic on ao3.

back then, i was able to understand why other people liked slippery slopes, but i couldn’t read it without cringing. i’m not sure when exactly the switch flipped—probably after i finally finished it and was able to distance myself from the writing process—but it became a fic that i’m incredibly proud of. i can reread it now and enjoy it without cringing in the slightest. i was able to see my writing as good, and well-crafted. i will always appreciate slippery slopes as a fic where i grew incredibly as a writer. i understand how to plan out long fics while still allowing for spontaneity. i can comfortably write angst. i feel strong in my choices for characterization and friendship even if it may seem unconventional. i have so much more confidence in my writing now, and a lot of that is thanks to you all.

other than desperately wanting an alenoah tdwt rewrite fic, a huge part of why i wrote slippery slopes was because i felt lonely in the td fandom and was hoping that this fic could connect me with more people out there. and boy oh boy it sure has. and not just the plethora of alenoah shippers—way more than i expected—but there were also people who didn’t ship alenoah, but still stayed for the story, and people who had never considered alenoah but gave my fic a chance and ended up shipping it anyway. when i didn’t believe my writing was good, there were many, many kind commenters who showed my fic love and encouraged me to keep going with it. and even now, there are commenters whose fresh excitement make me feel like all the time i spent on this fic was so, so worth it. and they all inspire me to keep writing. 

i may be a good writer, but i don’t think i can ever fully express what everyone’s support has done for me. i still struggle to wrap my mind around the fact that there are dozens of drawings of my fic that you all have made! that’s crazy! i am so, so lucky to have such wonderful readers, and i hope you all know how incredibly grateful i am. slippery slopes would not exist without you. this was a joint effort. it’s amazing to me how a spontaneously started fic for a crackship ended up changing the total drama fandom landscape the way it did. who would’ve guessed that a simple whim to write an alenoah fic could become quite the slippery slope.

[gwydpolls]

Lucian's Library 4

Feel free to suggest never written or never completed books you wish you could read.

[devsgames]

Indie Studio Possibility Space Studio Shut Down For The Dumbest Reason Ever

Today in completely unhinged video game business moves: Jeff Strain, former Blizzard and ANet dev and the co-founder of media company Prytania which operated both Possibility Space and Crop Circle Games, has shut down Possibility Space.

While layoffs aren't the craziest thing to hear about right now, what is crazy is that he did this because he caught wind that the project they were working on may have leaked and cited an unfinished and unpublished Kotaku article. (???????)

Like for reference, leaks happen in video games. It's just the reality of marketing. It's a fact on almost any video game. A senior marketing person I knew once said "With leaks it's not a question of if they're going to happen but when". Therefore, to shut an entire studio down and lay everyone off because of one rumored and unsourced article is frankly completely unheard of for a games studio. It's almost certainly not the whole story.

It's also really...erm...'funny' to look back on the statements Jeff Strain made in 2021 about the games industry:

Yeah...ok.

This also comes at the heels of his wife laying off the staff of their other studio (Crop Circle Games) abruptly a few weeks ago and without warning right after GDC, and then writing a weird and really unprofessional letter that also seemed to try and demonize the yet-to-be-published Kotaku article as some sort of conduit for the closure.

Honestly I'm looking forward to seeing this Kotaku article now, because all these events are throwing a perfect storm of "we did something horribly wrong and are going to get called out for it" red flags everywhere situation. Like this is incredibly unusual and suspicious behaviour even for business people in video games.

[t3a-tan]

I really don't want to seen rude, but as a form of advice, i think oliver is at risk of becoming perfect, really he is patient, calm, collected, humble, kind, organized, etc. I love him as a character, but he doesnt seen to have many flaws who are really important for anrealistic character and breakes the ilusion of a perfect guy.

I mean he doesnt seen confortable talking about his past which isnt really a flaw but aside from that i really don't see any flaws or bad habits.

Really REALLY don't mean to be rude its just an observation I've made and maybe he has more flaws that I didnt notice

Btw I really like your blog it's the first sfw and not romantic g/t I have seen

I understand the thought process there, but Oliver does have flaws they just aren't as obvious as characters like Sammy or James; Sammy is allergic to asking for help even if on the edge of death, and James is insecure about his worth and coming to terms with the fact that he used to be abusive.

Oliver on the other hand is usually written as the contrast to these sorts of characters; from their perspective he is unwaveringly kind and brave, so it's something that forces them to reconcile with their own behaviors and be better. This also means his flaws aren't seen as often because their flaws are focused on.

Oliver is flawed in a quiet way; something others don't see or recognize because from the outside looking in he seems perfect.

Oliver self-isolates. He masks. He tries not to let anyone's perception slip through his facade or else.

[To his coworkers he was known as a good worker; polite, well-received, compassionate. He wasn't friends with anyone though.

This didn't upset him in the slightest. He liked his quiet life, and whenever he got close to others they ultimately ended up discovering his past, rumours would spread, and then everyone would treat him differently again.]

The 'again' part there is important. Even though he says that it doesn't upset him in the slightest, his self-isolation was learned after getting close to someone before and that not going well.

[So things were fine like this. Quiet. Sometimes a bit lonely, but nothing Oliver couldn't handle. He stuck to his routine and that was that.]

His routine is a coping mechanism; it represents safety and comfort and allows him to not ever face his own issues until something breaks that routine (namely, James).

It's only after meeting James and seeing James be vulnerable that Oliver opens up about things in his own past, and he's always quick to move on from it. He always preaches about sharing your feelings without fear but when it comes to his past he deflects.

[Oliver cut himself off abruptly, remembering once again that his cousins were missing…and probably not even alive. Oliver turned his head to the side, brows furrowing in upset.

"Well… that's that."]

A lot of his flaws are still a mystery because they aren't shown as often, but obviously I as the writer are aware of them. In some unfinished stories he dissociates, drinks, and goes into self-loathing spirals (but obviously, because those are unfinished and unpublished I wouldn't expect people to know what I haven't shown lol).

Both human and borrower Oliver were told by their mother that they should have died instead. Borrower Oliver was told that mostly in reference to his sister when she drowned— and he blames himself for not being there when she needed him. Human Oliver's family all got in a car accident instead, and so he instead wishes he had been in the car (and he was originally supposed to be going in the car too) and died there, which is what his mother said.

He should have been there.

When his cousins went missing, Oliver just happened to be missing Sammy's birthday that year (both human and borrower Oliver), and he wishes he hadn't. I'll show a bit of an unfinished story;

[If Oliver knew that would have been his last chance to see them it wouldn't have mattered what he was doing— he would've been there. He should have been there.]

To James when he saw Oliver's wall of notes and pictures he saw it as a memorial of sorts; he found it sad but didn't recognize what it actually was; a constant reminder of the mistakes he made and who suffered because of it. Because yes, Oliver does blame himself even though he had very little control over how those tragedies played out.

[Oliver looked upon the note that he had attached to the wall as he sat at the edge of his bed; a mug of tea clutched so tightly in his hands that the tips of his fingers were turning white. It was no longer hot. He wasn't sure how long he had been reading and rereading the note, but it continued to taunt him again and again.]

Anyway. I hope that helped explain him a bit better— Oliver isn't supposed to be perfect, but he is definitely supposed to seem perfect. That's why I usually have other characters being the perspective of the story and actively thinking about how perfect Oliver is— when Oliver is alone and it's his own perspective, that's when you get the juicy bits.

Thanks for reading my stories ^^

[penguinsomadagascar]

Happy Halloween from our favorite boys!!

[silvereyedzoroark]

I've had this idea as a sketch for over two months waiting on my desk to be finish. So let me introduce to you Coltik and Trainantula. Now this idea was obviously based on the horror game monster Choo Choo Charles, now I actually don't like horror games or horror genre in general, but what brought this on was actually watching

What if You (and Charles) Talked in Choo Choo Charles? (Parody) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLASJ9T-BxI

Which made this idea in my head pop up, which is probably because I'm a Pokemon Subway Boss fan, but after sketching the original idea, I actually tried to write a one shot fanfic of Subway Boss Emmet encountering this fakemon, I called it 'Spider Down By The Tracks' but sadly its unfinished/unpublished as I just don't have the time to write these days at the moment =(

But the gist of the story was this mysterious Giant Cyrtid Spider Pokemon had been grabbing lone passengers from trains or from the platforms. Its targets were always alone, so imagine the horror its late, your taking the train back home, your tired and your the only one in the train car, when suddenly you hear a loud train whistle like noise, it startles you back to more awake state as you had been startling to dose off, then suddenly the car suddenly smoke leaks through the windows filling the place up with up with smoke, you cough and splutter trying to get to the door, when suddenly a light shines from behind you turn to face it to see this creature - cue scream and cut to black.

So the story is set a year and a half after Ingo disappears to Hisui, so these sudden chain of disappearances (As the camera feed cut's out before the 'attack' happens so they don't know its a Giant Cyrtid Spider Pokemon) is rekindling the talk of Ingo disappearance obviously that just fuels Emmet to get to the bottom of this issue and find the Pokemon or person responsible.

So the story plan was to follow a 'new' depot agent (OC) who had recently joined the staff, who was now debating his life choices with these sudden disappearances happening especially with the rumours going round that maybe Subway Boss Emmet had something to do with them, considering what happened to his brother as these disappearances seem eerily similar to the missing Subway Boss case.

And Subway Boss Emmet seems to always 'smiling' shouldn't he upset about the disappearances? Most people not realizing that's just how Emmet face default expression is. The new Depot agent OC starts believing the lies that Emmet is secretly a serial killer and is hiding the bodies in abandoned subway tunnels and Ingo was just the first victim. None of this is helped by Emmet's sudden odd behaviour (It's just Emmet trying to figure out what's going on, but he keeps accidentally freaking out the new guy) But also sighted talking to an unknown induvial (Its Looker)

Eventually OC and Another OC (This one has been telling main OC all the bad rumours of Subway Boss Emmet) were on the last train of the night when they get attacked, both getting taken and waking up later in an underground cave system they have no idea what's going on and quickly look for a way out, quickly spotting some joltiks and deciding to follow them out, eventually finding old train tracks, but as they are going down the tunnel they see a light, and think its the Trainantula again and start running.

They soon stop when it turns out its actually Emmet and Depot Agent Cloud, having followed a trail of Joltiks to find the missing depot agents. They reveal that Emmet had been using his horde of Joltiks to search the tunnels daily. He's developed a unique way for them to communicate to him so thats the reason he had been popping up randomly was because his Joltiks were altering him of an issue in the area that OC happened to be in.

It turns out the the 'Other' OC the main OC had been teamed up with and had also been telling main OC all those terrible rumours was actually a Team Rainbow Rocket Grunt in disguise. Who had infiltrated Gear Station on a mission to get access to the security system and other stuff.

Theirs is a battle, but it doesn't last long as the grunt it loosing badly but then the Trainantula makes sudden appearance and nabs Depot Agent Cloud stopping the battle and forcing a mild truce between the two groups.

--------------- A little scene from the fic

"Did you see how big those teeth were! they were huge!"

"I am Emmet, they are called fangs not teeth"

"Not helping Boss"

" I think correctly wrongful information is verrrrry helpful! Yep!"

"Shouldn't we be trying to stay silent? what if it hear us?"

"I am Emmet, it doesn't need to hear us, to find us"

"That's the worst thing you could possibly said"

"Actually no" Emmet turning his head slowly to look back at them "The worse thing I could say, is that its right behind you"

---------------------------------------

That's when a light suddenly appears behind OC and Grunt, OC and Grunt scream in panic but its quickly revealed to be Ingo's Chandelure. Emmet is laughing at them while greeting Chandelure, the Grunt then snaps verbally lashes out at Emmet for always 'smiling' and not seeming to be taking his situation seriously, how could he be smiling when they are being hunted by a giant Spider Pokemon! for all they knew this Pokemon was responsible for Subway Boss Ingo's disappearance/death!

"I am Emmet, that's not possible, these tracks were not in the tunnels when Ingo disappeared" Emmet then shows with his lantern the Pokemon tracks on the dirt floor.

---------------------------------------

OC and Team Rocket Grunt had been thinking Emmet was leading them out, but it's revealed that Emmet is searching for the other missing depot agent and passengers, but also to find the Trainantula as its his duty as a Subway Boss to make sure for passenger safety and that everyone makes it to their preferred destination, that means he's going to find them.

"We are getting close, Yep!"

"Getting close to what?"

"The nest"

"Why couldn't you have said exit"

--------------------------------------

So they find the nest, reveal that the Trainantula has been webbing up the missing people so that its Coltik's can feed on their life force, as it turns out they are a Bug/Ghost type and similar to the Chandelure evo line they feed on spiritual/life energy.

Emmet battles the Alpha Trainantula while OC goes to recuse the missing people and Team Rocket Grunt chooses to run away in the chaos.

Emmet win's and captures the Trainantula in a greatball, but it's revealed he had a MasterBall on him the whole time. When question why he didn't use that, he said it was given to him by a mysterious third party who wanted him to catch the Pokemon for 'Research', but Emmet didn't trust these mysterious people and so captured the Pokemon himself.

They then gather the missing people and collect the Coltik's and leave that place, everyone is okay, but the Team Rocket Grunt is now missing.

When they get out of the cave system/old subway tunnel's and back to the train station they encounter Looker and Anabel along with other recuse searchers. Poeple are returned to their family's its a big heartfelt thing and after some people look over Trainantula and the Coltik's its believed that Trainantula is actually from another dimension, as ultra wormhole energy is detected on it.

They order Emmet to hand over the Pokemon but he refuses to give up Trainantula and the Coltik's, saying he can manager them as he is both familiar with the their world variant and Ghost Pokemon of that nature 'Look to Chandelure' but he is willing to get help/allow Professor Juniper to study them.

After more talking and Emmet refusing to back down, it's agree he can watch over these new Pokemon, but he'll be under watchful eyes for it.

-----------------

I reveal in an minor epilogue the Mysterious third party had hoped Giratina was still lurking around in the subway tunnels and why they had given Emmet the masterball in hopes of obtaining it for their unknown purpose.

I then cut to the tunnels where the Grunt is hopelessly lost but then encounters red eyes in the dark, basically meeting Giratina and an unknown fate.

--------------------------------------

Name: Coltik

Type: Bug/Ghost

Ability: Flash Fire

------

Name: Trainantula

Type: Bug/Ghost

Ability: Steam Engine 

--------------------------------------

[cry-ptidd]

It took me way too long to realize Laura’s father was Jean Chastel lmaoo. I really like that, adds another layer of tragedy and betrayal to Laura’s horrible fucked up origin story. How did that situation go down exactly? Did Jean know the Beast was his daughter? If so, how conflicted was he? And how did Laura feel about all this?

Ok so Laura still harbors huge resentment for this. Considering that when she was a kid, she was her father’s favorite (and eldest), the switch-up was a bit jarring.

At first she didn’t blame her father for bringing her to the monastery, because she (like him) thought it was a solution for her ‘possession’. But when she broke loose, she saw it as him betraying her by throwing her to those bastards and never coming back.

It’s unknown if Jean looked for her during those ~7 years, but she never saw him again until the day he shot the beast.

(A small snippet of an unpublished and unfinished old fic I wrote about her backstory; this pov is very confused and bitter, that’s why it’s so accusatory) ⬇️

As for her father, he didn’t explicitly know that the beast was his daughter.

However, they did lock eyes before he shot her; and even as nothing was recognizable of Laura when she was in her wolf form, he did falter as he subconsciously recognized her.

(Also, note about the ‘her’: French is a gendered language and the word for beast (bête) is female, hence him using she/her to address it.)

Jean will never come to know that the beast or Gévaudan was actually his daughter, although the mere second they shared that look would haunt him even at his deathbed.

After the rampage of 1765-1767, Laura calmed down significantly. In the irl records it’s said that the hunters’ dogs tore the dying beast apart, but here she escaped miraculously (maybe not the proper word for it). After recovering for literally 2 years, she decided that going all-out and being noticeable will be trouble for her, so after that she decided to lay low. Which worked until Hellsing caught wind of her in 1995 and Alucard came along.

Her hatred didn’t abate through the years though. That shit will never go down.

[urbanshaman30]

Happy Posthumous Birthday Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (1924 - 2020), who is the third & youngest son of the author J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), as well as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's #TheLordOfTheRings books, which he signed as C.J.R.T.

From a child, Christopher Tolkien had long been part of the critical audience for his father's fiction, such as listening to his father’s tales of Bilbo Baggins, which were published as #TheHobbit. As a teenager and young adult, he offered a lot of feedback on “The Lord of the Rings” during its 15-year development. He also had the task of interpreting his father's sometimes self-contradictory maps of Middle-earth in order to produce the versions that were used in the books. He re-drew the main map in the late 1970’s to clarify the lettering and correct some errors and omissions.

J.R.R. Tolkien had written a large amount of material connected to the Middle-earth legendarium that was not published during his lifetime. He had originally intended to publish #TheSilmarillion along with “The Lord of the Rings”, and parts of it were in a finished state when he died in 1973; but the project was incomplete.

Once referring to his son Christopher as his "chief critic and collaborator", J.R.R. Tolkien had named Christopher his literary executor in his will. With this authority, Christopher organized the masses of his father's unpublished writings, some of which had been written on odd scraps of paper a half-century earlier. Much of the material was handwritten. Complicating matters, his father would sometimes write a newer draft over a half-erased first draft. Also, it was not uncommon for the names of characters routinely changing between the beginning and ending of the same draft.

Christopher worked on the manuscripts and was able to produce an edition of “The Silmarillion” for publication in 1977. His assistant for part of the work was Guy Gavriel Kay, who became a noted fantasy author himself.

“The Silmarillion” was followed by “Unfinished Tales” in 1980 and “The History of Middle-earth” in 12 volumes between 1983 and 1996. Most of the original source-texts have been made public from which “The Silmarillion” was constructed.

In April 2007, Christopher Tolkien published “The Children of Húrin”, whose story his father had brought to a relatively complete stage between 1951 and 1957 before abandoning it. This was one of J.R.R. Tolkien's earliest stories. Its first version dated back to 1918, and several versions were published in “The Silmarillion”, “Unfinished Tales”, and “The History of Middle-earth”.

“The Children of Húrin” is a synthesis of these and other sources. “Beren and Lúthien” is an editorial work and was published as a stand-alone book in 2017. The next year, “The Fall of Gondolin” was published also as an editorial work. “The Children of Húrin”, “Beren and Lúthien”, and “The Fall of Gondolin” make up the three "Great Tales" of the Elder Days, which J.R.R. Tolkien considered to be the biggest stories of the First Age.

Christopher served as chairman of the Tolkien Estate, Ltd., which was the entity formed to handle the business side of his father's literary legacy. He also served as a trustee of the Tolkien Charitable Trust until his retirement in 2018.

In 2001, Christopher expressed doubts over “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy that was directed by Peter Jackson. He questioned the viability of a film interpretation that retained the essence of the work, but stressed that this was just his opinion. In 2008, he commenced legal proceedings against New Line Cinema, which he claimed owed his family £80 million in unpaid royalties. In September, 2009, he and New Line reached an undisclosed settlement. He also withdrew his legal objection to “The Hobbit” films. But, in a 2012 interview with “Le Monde”, he criticised the films saying, "They gutted the book, making an action film for 15 to 25-year-olds."

[shivunin]

Fanfic Writer Questions

Tagged by @greypetrel - thank you so much! 💗

I know this has made the rounds already. If I tag you and you've already done it, please feel free to tag me in the replies or disregard!

Tagging: @nightwardenminthara @vakarians-babe @transprincecaspian @star--nymph @blightbear @inquisimer @dreadfutures @scribbledquillz

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

43

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

688,185

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Published? Just Dragon Age. But I have some unfinished/unpublished Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate stuff as well.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All of these are Cullavellan fic:

Your Fate for Mine (129,681 Words | E)

More Than Memory (5,214 Words | E)

Search Your Hands (13,581 Words | E)

Unyielding (3,083 Words | M)

The Epaulet Mate (7,303 Words | E)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes, though more slowly than I used to!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooh. Probably The Scourge of Sundermount, though it wound up less angsty than the original ending (in which Cullen and Lavellan are turned to stone forever)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm a sucker for a happy ending, so this is much harder to answer! I am avoiding answering this with the obvious innuendo haha. Maybe In Any Life? I feel like the vibe of that last chapter is so very soft, with a spring breeze blowing through the window in the house Fenris and Maria made together c:

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten some snarky comments, but never outright hate (thankfully!)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes--not sure what is meant by "kind." M/F and F/F--soft and gentle, hard and fast, mildly kinky, plot-relevant and pwp, etc. A variety of smut, haha.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Not really. Crossovers aren't really my jam, but if I wrote one it would probably be Inquisition characters in Mass Effect (like a genre switch thing, not picked up and dropped into our solar system).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

When I was like 13 on FF.net, yes. It's why I stopped writing fic until I was 28.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Only in a sense! I have a few pieces sharing an OC with a friend that were largely rp first before I set them down as a narrative c:

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

God. Don't ask me this haha. My first DA ship was Fenris/Hawke and it still lives so closed to my heart, but Cullen/Lavellan got me into the fandom and Zevran/Tabris brought me someone very dear to me. I don't think I could ever judge any of them by the merits of the ship alone at this point!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hmmm more than I'd like to admit :/ Probably The Red Crossing Arrangement, which is an arranged marriage/Halamshiral still belongs to the elves AU. It took so much more world building that my ability to write it slowly petered out. The odds are high that it will remain at roughly 80k for the foreseeable future (unless I suddenly want to get back to working out trade routes and governance and commerce, which is what did me in; I'm good at world-building culture on account of the degree and all, but the semantics of daily life don't really interest me as much) (tragically, this means the Adalene and Elandrin fix-it portions of this story may never be published :C and this does honestly make me so sad :C)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Voice and characterization/internal dialogue. I've been told that the canon characters I write feel very similar to canon and that's something I'm really proud of c:

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Physical space. I forget to define the setting very, very frequently. It's the next thing I want to focus on in my writing, actually, when I get back into it!

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Eh. I think it can add flavor, especially in fantasy settings where the cultures and worlds are built dissimilarly to the real world. I don't think there's anything especially fun about not being able to discern what's happening in conversation---I think it's most effective when it's a handful of phrases that repeat (hello, I'm sorry, I love you, etc.) or when followed by a translation of some sort. As a lover of Latin, I especially find google translations very unreliable and often incorrect. Better to just italicize it and indicate it's another language, imo.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Code Lyoko

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Oof. It depends on when you ask me this haha. For the moment, I think I'm loving As Two Reflected Stars a little extra right now c: I just love wound-tending and idiots in love and this is definitely both!

Blank version below!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

[acorrespondence]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Thanks @skelingtonsderek for tagging me! ♥️ And thanks to @love-leah and @willowmckinley for bringing this into the justified fandom circles!

How many works do you have on ao3?

2! Both in the Justified fandom.

What's your total ao3 word count?

89,708. About 90% of that comes from i put this heavy heart in you, which is shaping up to be a behemoth. My Old Guard fusion fic is just over 10k at the moment, though the final chapter might end up doubling that.

What fandoms do you write for?

Justified is the only fandom I’ve published for. I also have unfinished WIPs in the succession fandom and a league of their own, as well as one really old one in the MCU, a canon I’ve since parted ways with, but I do still hold fondness for those characters as they were at the time I wrote it. The succession fic is the only one that may still end up happening. It’s kenstewy because I’m nothing if not deeply predictable and fraught childhood best friends to assholes in love is my jam.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Oh well this is easy, haha.

i put this heavy heart in you (justified) - the clear winner at 185

catching bullets in our teeth (justified) - following at a respectable nearly-half-that at 90

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond to every comment point-by-point. To me, the whole point of posting a fic publicly is to interact with others. I write for myself, but I post for my friends and other fans. I would love to get into more back-and-forth comment discussions like I have in the past with @toli-a and @willowmckinley, because that kind of engagement and connection is the white whale I’m chasing every time I put something I wrote out into the world.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Definitely my as-yet-unpublished succession fic, haha. Currently the one that’s left off angstiest is catching bullets, because Raylan and Boyd are still separated at the end of the last posted chapter. However, I like to think the ending of every chapter of heavy heart has a healthy balance between happiness and unhappiness, with a slight skew toward angst because these guys are still a long way off from any kind of resolution on the myriad problems they’ve had thrown at them. I dislike both fluff and darkfic, so I like to live in the shades of grey and hope that comes through in my work. Bittersweet and/or ambiguous endings are my jam, while I find qualified happy or qualified unhappy endings also satisfying.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I suppose going by the above process of elimination it would have to be heavy heart.

Do you get hate on fics?

I never have, thankfully. Everyone’s been nothing short of lovely; I think this fandom understands that if you don’t have anything nice to say it’s best to say nothing at all. The closest I’ve gotten is people saying “I didn’t think I’d be into this because it’s kid fic, but boy was I wrong!” which is incredibly gratifying to hear.

Do you write smut?

Nope! I do write sex scenes, but I don’t think they’re necessarily the same thing; smut is to sex scenes as squares are to rectangles. To me, inserting a smut scene would be like having a mechanic character suddenly go into a long internal monologue about every little thing they’re doing in the engine of a car—their work as a mechanic might be integral to the plot, but that level of detail is just excessive and boring.

The very first sex scene in heavy heart is the closest I’ve ever come, I think, because I took a very close lens to the entire day that makes up that first chapter, and even that ended up pretty vague. If I ever got more detailed than that, I’d ruthlessly eviscerate it back down into something at a similar level. I can’t stand when my writing feels uneven, so suddenly inserting a scene with way more minute detail than anything else in the chapter feels incredibly jarring to me. I do think other people’s writing styles can support it better, and I can get through a car engine anatomy lesson if there’s enough about/within the rest of the story that I like, haha. This is why I categorically avoid pwps; I’m not a mechanic and have no interest in cars beyond their ability to get me from one place to the next, if you catch my drift.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

No, and I generally avoid reading them, with a few very notable exceptions. There are, very occasionally, canons that enhance each other rather than clashing. For example, I’ve read a justified/walking dead crossover that I absolutely adored and would recommend to anyone with knowledge of and interest in both canons (or even just one).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, I’m not nearly popular enough for that, haha.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! I imagine this tends to happen after fics are finished, which… well.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven’t. I’ve co-written one thing, ever, in my life, and it was a story my dad and I switched back and forth chapters on when I was maybe nine or ten. Even then it was difficult for me; I was the kind of kid who told everyone else what to say in our make-believe games, haha.

What's your all-time favorite ship?

I don’t pick favorites of anything as a general rule. Not food, not music, not ships. I despise ranking things; it’s very difficult and not at all rewarding. It requires a level of oversimplification that my brain is naturally resistant to.

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I know I’ll never finish the a league of their own fic (it’s an ocean’s eleven fusion and it would have been a lot of fun, but the canon turned out to be more of a hyperfixation than a special interest, so the enthusiasm has since left me). Meanwhile, I still have some hope that I’ll finish the succession fic, and I’d very much like to post it someday. As for my two posted fics, once I’ve posted them I’m committed to finishing them, no matter how long it takes. I suppose there’s the chance I’ll die before that happens, but one would hope not.

What are your writing strengths?

I think I have a pretty good ear, not only for dialogue but for the flow of narration. I just won’t post anything until it sounds right. Other people have called my writing lyrical, which I think is them picking up on this. Also, while I don’t think I’m the most metaphorically inclined, I have a strong sense of analogy. I make the distinction because I think my comparisons tend to be more practical than whimsical. I make a lot of connections in my head, and this in addition to the way I go about writing allows me to make callbacks and set up recurring themes/motifs throughout my stories, which I’m also quite proud of.

What are your writing weaknesses?

I struggle a lot to synthesize dialogue and narration. Most of my editing time is eaten up by trying to graft these together in a way that sounds right. I’m sure it would be less noticeable to others than it is to me, but I do think anyone who compared the drafts to the final products would understand what I mean. I also am pathologically incapable of brevity. I always end up adding way more than I’m taking away when I edit. However, I enjoy longer stories anyway, both to read and to write, so I’m not especially bothered by this. I tend to avoid writing things like drabbles because I’d rather add 100 words to a current wip than use an equivalent amount of time to write a snippet of something else. Most of my favorite things about writing don’t even apply to a work that short.

This sounds like me turning all my weaknesses into strengths, but everything else I struggle with is hard for me to really articulate. I guess my biggest weakness is how slow I am; oftentimes I’ll outgrow a hyperfixation before I can finish the story I’m writing about it, and it just gets abandoned. That’s why I only post in fandoms that I know have become enduring special interests. I’m confident that I’ll finish my justified fics eventually, so I posted both without having written clear endings. I wouldn’t do that with most fics (see: the succession fic I keep referencing) because I don’t trust myself to stick with it to the end. I also tend toward stories that are motivated more by character development/dynamics than traditional plot, so I’d probably struggle with a really plot-heavy story.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I’ve been speaking Spanglish since birth and am conversational in LatAm Spanish, if not what I’d personally consider fluent, so that’s the only language I’d be confident enough to write in besides English. I’d be comfortable throwing a few words of another language in if I could be certain I was using them correctly. Most likely, if the pov character understands the language, I’d just write “[Dialogue],” he said in Mandarin, and if they don’t, I’d just explain in narration that they said something in x language that the pov character didn’t catch. I suppose I might be moved to make exceptions for the sake of dramatic irony.

First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote an OC into the world of Dragons of Deltora in a spiral bound notebook when I was eight.

Favorite fic you've written?

Once again, I don’t pick favorites! I love all my fics for different reasons; it’s why I wrote them.

People I haven’t seen tagged, sorry if you’re a repeat, and if I missed you imagine your url in the following list: @raylangivins @eff41 @oh2e @freekicks @esteefee @norgbelulah @catchclaw @bringmefoxgloves @boydcrowdr @praycambrian @deputy-buck