Defining Home: Extended Author's Note
Warning: This might contain spoilers for the series
(For clarity, when I say 'Tommy' etc in this post, I'm talking about the characters from my fics, not the content creators themselves.)
So it's done, huh? This note will include the sappy shit, the fun facts, then some of the more serious stuff, because I just didn't want to add an essay to the end of that chapter.
First of all, thank you all for the support along the way. Defining Home is easily my most popular series of fics I’ve ever written and I’ve been writing fanfic for years now. The comments and the kudos and the bookmarks were so very validating when I was new to the fandom, and still are. Hell, people have gifted me fics and written related fics to Defining Home, which blows my tiny mind. I haven’t gotten the chance to read a lot of them yet (procrastination I know thy name), but when I do, I’ll be leaving my best comments in thanks <3
I'll be honest, when I posted the first chapter of Enough, I never expected it to turn into what it did.
That first chapter was written in my phone notes at 3am, hours before an exam. I hadn't interacted with the fandom at all at that point, didn't even have a Tumblr for it, but boy oh boy did I get a warm welcome.
The point is, that first chapter was a very spur in the moment thing, mainly consisting of one scene I couldn't get out of my head (Tommy on a train to Wilbur's). I've gotten a few people telling me since then that they wished that they could write as well as I can, which is a huge compliment, but every person can write a fic like Enough. There are things that we all struggle with when it comes to writing: dialogue, prose, starting scenes - I have my own things I struggle with, things you might have noticed, things you might have not. You don't have to be a perfect writer to tell a story, especially in fandoms, where betas are easy to come across.
Write your story, even if its just for yourself. Posting that chapter gave me the chance to make new friends and I'll never stop being grateful for that.
One of those friends is Kat, who I've mentioned a couple times in the author's notes, but who honestly, I owe a lot to. Kat has encouraged me and been one of the main motivators to write this fic when I felt like it would never be finished, or that I'd never live up to other people's expectations. Sometimes, that meant motivating in some weird ass ways, but hey, it worked.
People who know me in discord servers might know that I'm a simp for Kat and it's damn true. Kat, I love you, you've improved my life more than you know in the last couple months and you deserve so, so much happiness.
In fear of love reciprocation from Kat, we'll move swiftly on to the more fun side of things.
Anyone feel like fun facts? You might already know some of these because I tend to overshare in author's notes, but I'm pretty sure some of them are new to all of you.
Barney the dog? Named after my own late labrador, who I love very much and loved to jump in lakes and need rescuing, time and time again.
I had no plans in moving Tommy in with Techno, hell, I had no plans in Techno moving to England at all. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everyone else when he told Tommy the news, but I latched onto the idea and ran with it. I think it worked out okay, in the end.
Techno has a draw in his bedroom full of parenting books, most of which were stolen from Phil.
After Tommy asked for help about what to do with Dream, Wilbur sent Dream a dm telling him he better not fuck anything up and if he did, Wilbur would not hesitate to humiliate him in front of millions of people. It was unnecessary, of course, but Dream was definitely a bit more cautious about what he said when he listened to Tommy’s explanation.
Some of my favourite things about writing Defining Home:
The Tesco v Asda discourse. Look, some of you just need to accept that Asda is the superior shop and get off your Tesco stanning bullshit. /j
The offers I would get for new chapters, some honourable mentions being newborns, siblings, diamonds and kidneys.
Now, I know that as much as I tried to, I won't have managed to include everything that everyone wanted from Defining Home, whether that's certain confrontations or scenes, I am sorry if I haven't included.
I don't imagine myself writing any more in the series, not because I think there isn't more I could write about, but because as a whole it feels complete to me, and any added oneshots I write would disturb that.
Right now Defining Home feels well rounded in a way that I'm proud of. The minute I realised that Enough was going to turn into a series I planned out how I wanted it to work. Maybe its just the maths part of my brain, but I like how there's three fics, with three chapters in each and how Tommy heals as you progress throughout the series.
My aim for the series was for the tone to get lighter as you went through, because yes, things kept happening (confrontation with dad, beach incident etc) but the point was that Tommy dealt with those things in different ways that he would have earlier on in the series. I have lots of thoughts and lots of emotions about how he felt safe enough with his family to experience nightmares and such. I made an effort in The Truth Behind Family to include more fluff, especially in the last two chapters, because I think it’s important to show that yeah, his parents’ abuse effected him, but it didn’t dictate how he lived his life.
Like yes, I could write about their first Christmas together, for example, and add it onto the series, but I don’t think that I’d be able to do the rest of the series justice in that. Defining Home is largely about what the title implies, Tommy discovering what words like ‘home’ and ‘family’ mean beyond what he’s been told he’s stuck with and I believe that by the end of the series, he’s been successful in that.
I'm so proud of the characters I wrote, Tommy in particular, for how far they've come in Defining Home, but I think that in a way, it’s time for me to let them go.
That’s not to say I’m done with writing for sbi! Hell no!
I have a couple long fics in the works and a one shot I’m working on. The main fic I’m excited to focus on now Defining Home is finished is heavy heart, heavy head, heavy hero which, to put it simply, is an sbi royalty au, where unfortunate circumstances mean Tommy is forced to become King. It’s going to be a little more plot focused than Defining Home was and I am so very pumped to give it my full attention instead of leaving that lonely one chapter on AO3 like I have been doing.
I was 🤏close to making a Discord server, but ultimately decided I’m much more suited to causing chaos on other people’s servers than running my own. I think at this point the karma would be too great to even consider making my own server, so if you’d like to talk to me on Discord, keep an eye for me on other people’s servers - I mainly lurk, but I’m pretty active on one or two :D
On a more serious note, Defining Home deals with some heavy topics and I’ve had comments tell me that they relate to Tommy’s situation and wish that they had their own found family to run to.
This Tumblr post has a list of phone numbers and places you can contact if you need help or want someone to talk to. Saying that, I recognise that a list as long as that can be daunting, so feel free to shoot me a message and I can either help you find the right one for you, or keep you company for a bit if you need it.
Not all of us are lucky enough to have our own found family, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t forever, or that you’re alone. My dms and ask box are always open if you want someone to talk to.
Keep yourselves safe <3
- Lee
