Nothing is always absolutely so.

At this point I assume most folks have read the most recent chapter, so this is probably good to share now!

Some background first (and I don't recall if I mentioned this in the past, but) - originally there was no party scene at all. It opened on a completely different scene, a day or two after the party (that will either get moved to another chapter or cut completely; depends on if I find an organic place to slot it in in the coming chapters). It wasn't until a reader (off the previous chapter I posted, almost two years ago) mentioned their excitement for a party scene that I realized: Oh shit. They're right. I set the stage for a party in the last chapter and it would be shitty of me not to deliver on that.

Not just shitty, but also, it wouldn't have made sense. Why spend any time talking about a party at all if the party isn't going to happen? There was room to do that, and besides, while they do involve a good amount of work and sometimes tricky navigation, I tend to like scenes with lots of people because it gives me a lot of room to play with different voices (beach chapter is probably the biggest example of this). While they can be a lot of work to write, they can also be a lot of fun in the process.

So I committed to writing a party scene as it's what the story naturally called for. And, because I'm constantly in my Reds feels, the first scene I wrote was for them.

( I was really, really in love with this idea of them sitting at a table across from each other as the clock struck midnight and a bunch of couples around them kissed while they just stared and fantasized about kissing each other. )

Anyway! Chilling in rb's stream now, at least for a bit. Also trying to figure out another old fic to port over to ao3. Maybe something from the old hub contest days.

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi

How do I end this sceeeeeeeeeene

Sorry this isn't a real post but today was a struggle. At least I hit my quota for the day!

Other things I discovered while going through the next chapter - there's something like 4 pages I gotta cut out. I remember being so excited when I first wrote it (years ago now at this point, yeesh) but as the story progresses characters keep moving in slightly different directions and now it feels so out of place. So. Bleh.

But hey, on the other hand! It turns out I have most of this chapter written (MOST, not all, still a lot of work left to do). At least, judging by my outline. Which I basically avoided looking at for the past mmmmmmm few months or so? Because I felt like the story was moving in a different direction? And then I opened it up today and looked at it b/c I got stuck and discovered "Shit this actually does work." I had it in my head that my outline wasn't actually done and, well, parts of it still need work (particularly ch19) but there's more than enough to actually, like, write. Anyway the moral of the story is I shouldn't discount my advance planning.

Hmm. Not quite a real post but perhaps a mini-post. Work on TEF/MTH continues.

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi

The year is coming to a close, so I'm going to spend the last post of it on some shameless plugs! This post is pretty much laser-targeted at the folks who have asked when I will be opening my Ko-Fi up again - the short answer right now is IDK, but I do have a few others to recommend in case anyone out there is financially stable and is feeling generous! Thanks for the consideration 💗💙💚

TEF-related stuff

• I'm never gonna stop promoting racketballs' work for as long as I am drawing breath. Here's rb's linktree (and inprnt store if anyone's feeling something tangible)!
• Lalefue did the first Webtoons comic (manga-style!) based on TEF/MTH and has a Ko-Fi
• AurumMaiden did the second Webtoons comic (the colors QoQ) and has a Ko-Fi as well (linktree here)

Old friends whom I love dearly

• Doubledoe does fantastical forest art; here is the Ko-Fi
• Maz is one of my oldest PpG-lovin' buds and has a Ko-Fi here

Organizations/Activism

• Black Lives Still Matter and this carrd is still being updated with resources and GoFundMe links
• The Conscious Kid is one of my favorite orgs at the moment and they are also providing ongoing rent relief during the COVID-19 crisis; donation info is here

It's the end of what I am (and I'm sure several others are) hoping will be the worst collective year of our lives, but one thing that has never sucked has been you all. I'm grateful for your love and your support and encouragement. I'm grateful for you sticking around to hear what I have to say, even when there's a multi-year gap in between those things. You all have been a consistent bright spot during good times and some really unbearable times. I'm grateful for that. Thank you.

Survival is a sort of victory. Take your win, even if it's small. Whatever you're going through out there, I hope you're okay. I hope you're safe. Be endlessly, relentlessly kind to yourself, and see you in 2021. 💗💙💚

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi (currently closed)

Finally finished my revisions and read-through of ch11, so that's off to Round 2 of beta. God that read-through had no business taking that long. It offends me how long that took. Well, it does and doesn't. Just the idea. Whatever.

Since I'm in the TEF mindset, I reckon I'll be moving on to the FD11a revisions I got stalled on. And then when I get stalled on those again I'll circle back around to the ficlets that have been taking me 9 months to write so far.

Speaking of the ficlets, I did find some additional scrapped bits in my notes app from back in October for that Reds share a bed ficlet. I initially jotted these down from Brick's POV.

Are you really leaving Yeah Do you have to You should go back to your room Do I have to *turn* *kiss*

His hair has gotten long again

Her mouth still tastes faintly of the travel size mouthwash from the bathroom, hasn't yet soured, and it somehow makes this feel more perfect, more inevitable, more like kismet. The stars aligning for him, for them. Just this once.

It's chilly. Want me to adjust the thermostat?

Her knees bump into his and he wants to touch them, suddenly. But she's burrowing close now.

"Whatever you say, boss/You're the boss"

I remember reading over these the next day and thinking 'I don't want to do this from Brick's POV, I don't want him to drive the narrative of the story and besides that I already wrote Lorca from his POV' so during my actual writing time on this one I re-centered on Blossom. While there's things I do like about writing from the Boys' POVs, I want to avoid it as much as possible when it comes to describing physical desire/attraction. I don't want to play into any sort of Madonna/Whore tropes with the Girls, especially since the Good v Evil thing already exists between them and the Boys. I have lots of thoughts on this which maybe I'll get around to someday.

Anyway some of y'all are gonna lose your minds in this next chapter and I apologize in advance

Being confronted with my earlier, terrible drafts of various TEF scenes is some form of psychological torment. It's funny, I feel like most of the stuff I wind up posting is just straight up "Here's the earlier, boring version of whatever you read" but this stuff, ugh. This is straight up "LOL YOU GUYS THOUGHT I WAS A DECENT WRITER WELL FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS HOT GARBAGE AND PREPARE TO EAT YOUR HATS MY FRIENDS"

That said, there are some bits sandwiched in between the cringe that I actually still like, aside from how I wrote Blossom towards the end - she gets really damsel-y, because UGH past!sbj. That was one of several things that motivated my complete overhaul of this chapter, with the biggest simply being the tone. It was far too serious, which at the time I felt was fitting because canonically, Citysville is supposed to be a dumpster fire of a city played straight, with all the cartoonish elements that make the actual PpG show so fun stripped out of the episode it features in. I originally completed and sent this draft to beta in January 2011; my next draft of it is dated May 2018. Ha.

I'm glad I had that time away from it; it was probably around 2016 or 2017 that I went back to it and realized I hated the tone, it skewed too heavily from Brick's POV, and for some reason it didn't account for events that had led up to the chapter (e.g., there was very little mention of the Reds' date from ch9 - a mere month ago, in-story). At the end of the day, the only major story element that was salvageable was Buttercup wailing on the asshole that smacked her, and even that was scaled back from what was originally a much longer, tedious fight scene. Sedusa, the White Cat, and Aunt Lilith weren't even in my original draft.

( So, in short: Fuck Citysville. )

There's more - WAY more - but it's real bad, so don't hold your breath! Unless I make the time to redline it with commentary similar to what I did here, years ago.