If you do find that smut scene from exoplanet then…yknow…….🫣🫣
sooo unforch that one is legitimately a deleted scene bc it’s only 2 paras long 😭 i never finished it bc i felt like it just didn’t make sense for the tone of the finale and kind of bulldozed through the atmosphere of the end. so i apologize for the disappointment 😔😔
Awww 🥰 the exo scene was so cute, I loved reading your work again, do you have any scenes of before the epilogue, like during their situationship? If so would you ever share it? No pressure at all, I know you’ve been away for awhile so I don’t want you too think I’m hounding you. :)
hi anon!! thank you so much, i’m glad you enjoyed!! hound me as MUCH as u want i love getting messages
to answer ur question: i’m super annoyed w myself because i thought i had a doc floating around in my drive that has scenes i pasted out from when i was in the thick of drafting exo, but i haven’t found it yet 😭 but i haven’t reread my full rough draft doc (which is about 170 pages long….) and cross referenced w my posted parts on here yet tho, so when i have a chance to i can do that to see if there’s anything worth sharing!!
i have no issue with sharing any scenes that i didn’t include originally. the only caveat is obvs that they were deleted for a reason LMAO…in some cases this was because i just felt like it wasn’t necessary and took away from the more delicate parts (e.g the smut scene i cut from the finale), but in others i definitely left them out bc they were ooc and muddied up the narrative. so if i find and post just read w a grain of salt as something technicallyyyy removed from exo canon
HOWEVER*** if i can’t find anything at all, would not b opposed to just writing an extra scene in there if you would like one mid situationship if enough people want it! i can do more of a slice of life sort of thing bc so much of exo was stripped down to just the plot
good luck with everything, girl! no pressure at all to post here, it’s just a pleasant surprise to see whenever you are active 💕
I will say if you’re thinking about posting anything Ellie related, the current active accounts on here are probably the sweetest group of girls I have EVER seen in this community lol. everyone is so kind and supportive and welcoming
this is so sweet ong?? u are convincing me to return…i’m so glad to hear it esp after how crazy i heard things got a while ago on here LMAO. ifl i said this in one of my other posts but i never really knew it was happening until after the fact bc im perpetually out of the loop apart from a few small things on discord but im happy that it sounds like a less toxic community for all involved
EXO i can’t wait to read it later 🥰 are you dipping your toes into ellie tumblr again or is that just since someone asked? ☺️
omg thank you so so much!!! i hope you enjoy even tho it’s rlly not a whole lot!
to answer your question, i’m kind of on the fence! ive been toying w the idea of continuing/reworking love is a laserquest (esp because im about to move to where it’s set which is insane and crazy and nothing i ever expected lol) but in all honesty ive been kind of in a numb place recently and this has reflected in my inability to write anything that isn’t depressing downer angst sadgirl hours etc etc. but hopefully i will feel the spark of inspo and childlike whimsy soon!!
do you still have the Spotify playlist for exoplanet?
i deleted the original playlist because it was on my personal spotify acc w my full government name on it lol but i did save a copy of it to another acc! you can access it here :) thx for the reminder i need to update my masterlist
pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader (she/her pronouns used)
series masterlist - please read the rest before you read this!
summary: you’ve won the life lottery as one of the few people on earth with parents who gained admittance to the most prestigous safezone in the world after the outbreak. but after a lab accident sends you out to jackson, wyoming, real life hits you fast. it’s a good thing that a hot lesbian finds u. (lol). mean ellie at first, slowburn, enemies to friends to lovers, fem reader asf
warnings: none really, just mentions of canon typical violence
a/n: as promised here is one of my deleted scenes from exoplanet. some context: this is a scrapped version of the epilogue. it's not finished (obviously), but it has some reader/ellie interaction that in very in the spirit of exoplanet, so thought i would share. i did not edit this so read at your own risk!
word count: 1.6k
Ultimately, it was Dina who pushed the idea of going back.
“Think of all the supplies.” To Maria.
“Things have probably settled down there enough.” To you, who nervously tittered at the prospect.
“Think of all the coffee we could bring back.” To Joel.
“It’d be good for her. Give her closure, or whatever. You, too.” To Ellie, who was still shooting down the idea, even when you were all packed up and on horseback.
The nitty-gritty details behind how Dina managed to get the Jackson people to sponsor a supply run to what was once Terranova were entirely beyond you. All you knew is that you, Ellie, Dina, and Jesse were on a trip up North, armed to the teeth and with many empty bags.
Logically, it made sense. Terranova was the one place in the world within reach that had technology beyond what most of the people of Jackson could even imagine. The purple spools that had guarded the territory were just what Jackson needed as a final defense against raiders and hordes. The hospitals, if they hadn’t been destroyed, carried supplies and medications that hadn’t been invented anywhere else. Their antibiotics weren’t expired, their creams and treatments all more viable than what was available to the rest of the world.
But to you, this was the most terrifying thing you could imagine.
“I still don’t understand how this isn’t a suicide mission,” you confided to Ellie one frigid winter morning. Dina had informed you the night before that you’d reached what used to be Eastern Washington, and the December air was unforgiving.
You and Ellie had woken up early, just before dawn broke. The sky was a pale white, the horizon a muted orange against the bare skeletons of the trees in the distance. The sleeping bag shared between you two had fallen cold, the bottle of hot water you’d stuffed between you two almost solid with ice. Walking was the best way to get warm, so you two had brushed the snow off and laced your boots up.
Ellie’s gloved hand slipped into yours, squeezing once. “Don’t worry. Joel wouldn’t have let us go if he thought it was hopeless.”
“I don’t get how there’s any sort of hope in this situation.”
“Back in the early years of the outbreak,” said Ellie, patient and gentle with you like she (almost) always was now, “Joel told me there was a year or so when it seemed like the world was coming back from it. Like there was hope after all. The stage right before a runner becomes a clicker is when they’re most vulnerable and weak. Their senses are confused, and physically they don’t have the shards of fungus to protect themselves. So they’re weak and easy to kill.”
“And that’s what most infected are in Terranova at this point?”
“Probably.”
The snow crunched under foot as you and Ellie turned a corner, following the frozen path of a stream.
“Also,” Ellie added, pausing only when you reached up with your free hand to brush a piece of her hair behind her ear, “Terranova is a special case. It sounds like it’s really hard to get in, and really hard to get out. Even though the population density was really fucking high, there really aren’t that many people compared to the rest of the world. If they weren’t able to get out, then eventually everyone would be infected. And without any food source, they all probably cannibalized themselves, then withered away.”
“Shit.” You let the silence of the early morning fall over you like a blanket for a few moments, taking the information in. You loved how you could just be with Ellie now. There was no expectation to be funny or charming or capable. You didn’t even need to talk. All you had to do was exist around her, and somehow it was enough.
“Yeah.” She let out a shaky exhale that doubled as a laugh.
“Did Joel tell you that?”
“No. My own personal theory.”
“So smart,” you praised, dropping your head to press a kiss to her neck, then her jaw, then her ear.
“Shut up.” Even as she said this, you could feel her cheeks stretch into a grin.
“Your face is so cold!” You yanked your gloves off and pressed your fingers to her cheek, hoping that they were warm enough to help.
The moment your skin made contact, Ellie jerked away.
“Your fingers are fucking icicles,” she complained. “Don’t pull that shit.”
“Okay, okay.” You pulled your gloves back on, sure to heave a heavy sigh. “You hate me. I get it.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are so—”
“Hey!” called Dina from the campsite. “Would be nice to get some help starting this fire so I can unthaw my fingers! Real fucking nice! If only two other people were here!”
“We’ve been summoned.”
Instead of answering, Ellie took off a glove and stuck her ice hand up your shirt. You gleefully shrieked and smacked her on the shoulder.
~
The remainder of the trip past what was once the US-Canadian border was remarkably uneventful. The winter was harsher than usual, stunting the movement of runners and freezing most slower moving infected in their spots.
It was strange, seeing land that was both Terranova and not Terranova. You’d grown accustomed to the big skies of Wyoming, but the foliage of the Pacific Northwest that filled the forests you passed through were eerily reminiscent of the time you’d spent in Terranova. The air even smelled familiar—wet, damp, and green.
“Have you ever been up this far north before?” you asked one night.
Ellie paused from her position in front of the fire, her focus sharp on the rabbit slowly rolling over the flames. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Do you like it?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. It’s green.”
“Very,” you agreed, your gaze liquidy and soft. .
“What?” She sent you a sideways look.
“So I’m not allowed to look at my girlfriend?”
“No,” she said. “That’s weird. Are you, like, into girls or something?”
You shoved her, hard. She fell back onto the snow, grabbing your forearms and dragging you on top of her.
“Stop! Stop!”
Ellie had grabbed a handful of snow and was holding it right above the collar of your jacket. You stared at her with wide, unblinking eyes.
“Don’t you dare,” you whispered.
She loosened the grip she had on your jacket, letting you roll off her.
“Jesus Christ,” said Dina, appearing from the shadows. “I leave to piss for like, one minute, and you guys are already all over each other.”
Ellie made an incoherent grumbling sound, brushing off the snow that had gotten on her shoulders from the tussle.
“I think we’re getting really close,” you said. “You see that tower in the distance?”
Ellie and Dina followed the direction of your finger. Sure enough, there was a tall, dark shadow nestled into the mountains on the horizon.
“That’s the water tower,” Dina said, realization in her voice. “Right?”
“I think so.” You tugged your knees into your chest. Suddenly it all became a bit too real. You really were going back. Fear twisted into nausea in your stomach.
Ellie seemed to take notice, interlacing her bare fingers with your gloved ones and giving them a good squeeze. “I’m excited to see where you grew up,” she said lightly.
“Dude, you have no idea how absurd that hellhole was,” Dina cut in, demolishing what tenderness existed in that moment in its entirety. “We’re so lucky we didn’t grow up there. No offense, Y/N.”
~
The dawn was rosy and gentle as the three of you slowly approached the Terranovan city limits.
“I guess we don’t have to worry about getting in,” Dina said thoughtfully, motioning to the perimeter that looked to be more of a skeleton than anything else.
“I wonder what did that,” you mused.
“Probably some last ditch effort to escape.” Ellie checked her gun, and all of a sudden you began to feel nervous again. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. Force of habit. If anyone escaped, they would’ve found us already.”
It took only a few more steps until you were standing back in Terranova proper, the decimated fence at your back. What was once the forest that made up the outskirts was now an impressive collection of scorched underbrush and brittle, bare, dead evergreens, like someone had taken a flamethrower and gone crazy.
None of you spoke as you silently made your way through the forest, towards the buildings in the distance. Nothing but the occasional squirrel in the bushes broke the quiet, and you found yourself slipping your glove off to get a better grip on your gun.
“Is there a game plan?” you finally whispered once your group had passed a downed helicopter. “Anywhere we want to go first?”
“Depends,” Ellie responded, her voice impossibly soft. “If there’s trouble, just the hospital for meds.”
“And if it’s boring?”
She shrugged. “We’ll see.”
True to Ellie’s prediction, there didn’t seem to be any active infected. You only came across husks, their insides completely picked clean by the other infected in the area.
“This looks a lot like Boston,” Ellie said, her voice a louder volume now that it seemed like you were all safe. She walked alongside you on the street, hands shoved into her pockets.
“It did look nice back in the day,” you said. Your gaze rested on the dilapidated buildings that lined the road, with broken windows and boarded up doors. “I wish you could’ve seen it.”
As you turned the corner, you realized that you were in a familiar area—the university district.
“Oh, hey,” you said, poking Dina’s arm to get her attention. “Look familiar to you?’
She paused, eyes turning to the street sign. “Oh, shit. No way.”
“Huh?” said Ellie from somewhere behind you.
“I know that we have a couple of stops planned,” you said, “But Dina and I lived in that building over there.” You pointed at a largely intact structure at the other end of the street. “Do you want to see it?”
Exo is so good I’ve read it like 100….well or a million times ngl, I will personally pay for a weekly delivery for your favourite take out (whatever that may be) if you ever release your deleted scenes 😭 honestly take my food and money 😉
LMAOO you are so sweet. just because you asked so nicely i will post the one i just found 😋
the drama back then was cray (might be worse now or recently) but that time and exo is soooo nostalgic. all the fanfics from that time rly take me back.
i’m ngl i was so bad at replying to people on here/discord that i never really knew what the drama was back in the day LOL but i keep hearing about it so i assume that it was crazy. but anyway im so glad to hear that you enjoyed exo ❤️
GIRL….i just finished exoplanet and O.M.G, i felt like my soul had been lifted too the gates of heaven, you write Ellie so beautifully and i loved every word you wrote, i saw that another fellow anon had asked about any extra scenes of exo that you didn’t put in and 💳💥💳💥💳💥💳💥💳💥 PLEASEEEEEE.
omfg thank you so much!!! it means so much to me to hear this :,) exo is one of those fics that i still hold really near and dear to my heart, even years later. and yes ….i will get right on digging thru my old docs and seeing what i can pull up!
doing my bi-annual (is that a word??) reread of exoplanet :p its so gorgeous!!
OMG thank you so much!! it makes me so happy to hear this :,) i had so much fun writing exo and it’s such a privilege to know that there are still readers out there even though it’s an older fic!!
there’s just something sooo interesting about the way that ur seen as weird if you don’t believe ai art should exist because it’s not that deep but it’s totally normal to not want a lab grown diamond because “there’s just something missing”
How can you tell if a fanfic is AI? Sometimes I have suspicions but I can never really tell. Especially since no one really admits it, you know? If it wouldn’t be a bother, would you be willing to make a guide/give some tips on how to detect AI use in fics?
thank you for asking me this question and giving me an excuse to ramble about this because this has been plaguing me for months 😭
my credentials: i have a degree in computer science, work for a tech company where i run into ai generated content daily, have a basic working understanding of how these models are trained, and also have a lot of experience writing long fics
i’ll preface this by saying that the only way you can actually be positive someone is using ai to write fics is either when they either admit to using it or forget to delete the prompts/formatting they used to generate the text. unless that’s happened, i would never feel comfortable publicly accusing a writer of gen ai use.
that being said, these are the big signs i look for. typically if more than one sign is present i just assume they use ai and stop reading them
common structure
“It’s not A, it’s B”
ai generated writing can come off as normal and human at first, but the rhythm itself is tinny and weirdly clinical. a huge one i see is the “x isn’t just y, it’s also z”. if i see a writer use that more than once, i tend to get suspicious. genai loves this structure for some reason, or at least the most common models i see used seem to offer up responses with this. also watch out for the abuse of italics and bolded phrases, especially when combined with sentences formatted.
like.
this.
there’s always been a love for short, punchy sentences and the overuse of italics/bolding in fandom spaces, but most writers know that this is going to wear readers out. ai takes these elements and overuses it to a degree that the majority of writers would avoid.
writing too much too fast
this, to me, is the most damning sign, but i think it’s difficult for readers who aren’t writers themselves to understand since they don’t have a metric for what’s normal and what’s not when it comes to producing semi-good quality writing that is somewhat polished and edited.
i write very fast compared to some of my other writing friends, especially when i’m not busy. during sprint periods where i can just focus on writing, i can write a fic or chapter larger than 10k words in a little over a week with some additional days for editing. this is after writing consistently for the better half of a decade in my mother tongue, and i’m only able to keep this up for two installments at best before i burn out because this is incredibly unsustainable.
i mention all of this because i have observed writers drop into communities and publish fics weekly that are well over 10k words with zero grammatical errors while claiming to be very busy in their life outside of writing. some people are just geniuses, but like…im really good at fast turn arounds and i cant do this nor do i know anyone who can, and certainly not for months at a time. some things are just not physically possible. if you’ve never seen a grammatical error in their work and they’re producing an incredible volume of work fast with no mention of having the entire fic finished before posting the first chapter, that’s a huge indicator that they’re not being truthful and i would be very wary of that author.
writing quality - what you read just meant nothing or didn’t make a whole ton of sense
how do you feel after you read that fic? maybe it was what you expected—it hit all those plot points that you were hoping to read for that specific pairing, but did you skim half of it because you didn’t care for a lot of the prose?
obviously this can be true for any writing, ai generated or not. but this has been a glaring issue for ai generated writing that i’ve read, since computers don’t actually understand the meaning of the words. they’re literally just picking what word is most likely to appear after the the last word they just used. this can lead to long, meandering paragraphs that look flowery and profound from ten thousand feet up but when you actually read it, it means basically nothing. this probabilistic model also leads to sentences that look like they make sense, but are weirdly confusing and ultimately make u do a little “huh?”.
soft support for ai
people tell on themselves in weird ways, and this is no exception. if someone is advocating for (or not outright condemning when it comes up) ai-generated content in other forms relating to their fics (visual art, audio, c.ai, etc), that immediately makes me trust their judgement a little less. all the writers i’m close to are vehemently opposed to ai in all art and would be just as offended as i would be if their work inspired their readers to seek out and engage with genai.
those are the most common ones i notice. i dont recommend using the ai detector tools, i think they’re inaccurate 🤥 i’ll update this or i might actually make a real post outside of this because i do feel really passionate about this topic
if i missed anything big plz let me know so we can all band together and support real writing!
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