Such Familiar Distance

tumblr for the origfic series Such Familiar Distance on AO3. Bits and pieces of work in progress, asks, etc.

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This is a sideblog for my m/m original slavefic series Such Familiar Distance. Pieces of fic tagged #snippet, background stuff tagged #worldbuilding, writing stuff tagged #writing process, AUs with #au. Everything tagged with character names.

Reblogs, comments and asks all welcome :)

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Chapter 15 is up. I apparently haven't posted a link to an update since chapter 11, so if you go by Tumblr updates and not an AO3 notif, there's been several new chapters.

My work has been absolute murder the last couple of months but may be easing back off to normal, so I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things. This Teunis story has been a really rough go for that and other reasons, and I really appreciate everyone who's commented along the way because it helps keep me going on it.

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Gaius is Teunis's former master, but in SFD during Horatio's wedding there was a brief mention of another Gaius who was unmarried but in a long-term relationship with another man — do you think you'll keep both characters sharing the same name, or rename the less significant (lol) Gaius?

Good catch! I should probably rename that guy but:

1. I am lazy

2. I don't love doing revisions in case people find it more confusing on reread

3. There are so few Roman-ish names! Seriously, this is the hardest part of adding characters because there's so few personal names and a lot of them sound ridiculous.

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Does Kal have a sweet tooth? I was doing a reread and he seems like he likes sweet things except in the very beginning with the dates (port, sugar in his coffee). It's very cute :3

yessasssss he does ❤️ Marcus is always bitching about how much sugar Kal takes in his coffee and likes sweet drinks until somewhere towards the end of SFD he has a lightbulb moment of Kal never got to have any of that before, and then tries to make up for it with that dinner with Apollonia.

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hiii so baby!Teunis is breaking my heart he seems so different from his grown up self. how different would any of the boys have been if they hadn't been slaves? any chance we might see an AU of happy Teunis sometime 🥺 ?

awwww yeah this is bb!Teunis' journey of suppressing all his feelings for self protection, sorry! 😢 My goal is for by the end of this all for Teunis to get to a place where he can be happy but we'll see how that goes.

A happy AU--I don't know if I know how to write those lol! Teunis, Kal, or Cyril who grew up with their families would for sure be different though--probably less guarded for all of them, definitely less angry at the world for Teunis and more willing to trust people. He'd also be way less willing to be Calla's sidepiece and much more gotta get married, have babies and be respectable. He'd still have a lot of his fundamental oldest brother/mom friend vibe though

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Your other blog social construct has been shadow banned btw :(( it was hard to open at first, maybe u can update ur ao3 profile to this blog? Also is there any document of the worldbuilding of this universe I want to play but am afraid of getting things wrong 🫣

Yeah I think my main has been shadow banned since the 2017 porn purge lol and Tumblr has not responded to requests to unban even though I scrubbed all the boobies off ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ but thanks for the reminder about the AO3 link.

I don't have a world building doc per se, but I have a worldbuilding tag on here and I'm happy to answer any asks about specifics. I have a timeline doc linked somewhere a few posts back because someone asked for it, and I'm happy to do something similar if there's worldbuilding stuff not already in my tag.

But really fly and be free with the worldbuilding if you want to write something in the setting, it was all built on a foundation of porn logic anyway ❤️

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Could I write an AU fanfic of SFD where Kal is a trans man? I love your series, and I'm inspired to explore how Marcus would react to meeting Kal after the annexation when Kal had previously been his kept "girl." I think there's also a lot of potential for how Marcus would need to work to undo his image of Kal as both a helot and a woman before recognizing him as a citizen man. I wanted to ask in case you're not comfortable with this type of AU about your characters!

Sorry I didn't see this for a while, work has me traveling a lot.

Yes please, go wild with whatever you're inspired to write (or draw or podfic or crochet or whatever ❤️). One of the things I love most about online fandom culture is seeing all the directions people take characters or a world, and I'd love to see what you do with this. Please use the "inspired by" field if you're posting on AO3 so I get a notification, and if enough people post stuff in the future I'll make a collection. Can't wait to see what you do with this ❤️

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Joyfuljabberwock also asked on AO3 if Marcus ever opened the locked room where Kal did his painting, and if they ever talked about it:

I thought about having them talk about it in one of the last few chapters of Such Slow Recognition, but it broke the flow of some already crowded chapters. Marcus never did open it, and from his perspective it's like the conversation early on about sleeping with Lodee--it was so far from his mind and he never even thought about it, so what's there to talk about? From Kal's perspective it's the same from the opposite direction -- he never really believed that he had the only key to the room or that he had any privacy, so why wouldn't Marcus have opened it? They both think it's so clear what happened that they don't need to talk about it. So all of Kal's stuff has just been sitting in a locked room for 5+ years at this point. I'm drafting a thing where they go back to the estate for Titus' wedding/for Kal to paint the wedding portrait, and it'll come out then for sure.

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New chapter, bb!Teunis takes a walk.

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I had a couple questions on AO3 about when in the timeline Kal and Teunis know about Marcus' plays so I thought I'd put my answers here:

By the current present chapter 10 of Such Forced Contrition, Teunis hasn't realized Marcus is Hortensia yet. Marcus finds this very uncomfortable and Kal intends to eventually tell Teunis, but for the moment finds it very funny to wait and see if Teunis figures it out himself. Kal figures that since Calla knows and she and Teunis have their on and off thing, she'll tell him eventually (she won't, because she secretly finds it kind of sweet and thinks it will ruin the plays for him if he finds out. She's not totally wrong at this point in the timeline.)

Apollonia and Mayke realize when they see Marcus leave the theater in a panic in Such Slow Recognition.

The exact moment Kal realizes is on page at the end of the engagement party chapter in Such Familiar Distance when he asks Marcus to go to the Hortensia play. Kal doesn't realize at all in the past chapters of Such Slow Recognition, but like a normal person who is totally over their ex, he spends the next few years off and on thinking about how much Marcus would like these plays he's going to and isn't it weird that Marcus never took him to one. When he runs into Marcus again and sees some of Marcus' character growth he starts thinking "hmmm." He's not totally sure until he asks Marcus specifically to go to a Hortensia play (and that's why he asks, because he's testing how much Marcus has already been pushing out of his "proper" role). Marcus confirms it with his totally smooth super convincing lie, and that's when Kal decides to A. make Marcus uncomfortable by teasing him about it and B. try to get Marcus out of his sister's house so they can have a real relationship. Up to that point before the engagement party Kal was just kind of having a fling, and after that he was like "no I'm going to rescue Marcus like a damsel in distress."

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New chapter, Teunis has coffee with a lot of people.

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The anon who wrote Teunis/Marcus a while back wrote a longer version and it's so, so good, go read ❤️

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Hi! I figured this would probably be a good ask for tumblr and not ao3 lol

So my question is (and you've probably answered this before, sorry I forgot) how old are the characters and how exactly does the timeline work with everyone's age at the different parts and with the war/abandoning of slavery? I understand this probably needs a longer answer but I would appreciate it so much, thank you in advance!

I don't think I have answered this! I never know how much anyone is interested and I don't like just posting to the void because I don't want to be annoying. but I'm always happy to answer or post stuff people are interested in! ❤️

This got too difficult to answer in text, so I made a spreadsheet with what age everyone is when, color coded by what past/present timeline of what story is when. I hope that's clear and helpful!

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From an ask meme on FFA:

12. When and where were you the happiest?

Julius: Julius had a great life generally! He had a good time helping his bro Marcus do something kind of secret and scandalous when he helped Marcus get the play run, he was never responsible for anything and he got to do whatever the fuck he wanted. So pretty much everything up until Kal ruined everything >:C

Lucian: When Kal moved in with him. Got to be the big hero, got to have an in to the art world he couldn't get himself, got to show off Kal to his fiancee, got to have no-strings-attached blowjobs on demand. That was a great time for Lucian! Until Kal ruined everything >:C

Gaius: Honestly, marrying Livonia. It was a big step up economically and socially for him and his family, and he was really star-struck by her and really excited that she helped him go to university. Right now he's realizing that she married him for his looks and starting to think about what that means long term for him and their marriage.

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From an ask meme on FFA:

5. What is the most evil thing you have ever done?

Ephaedro: thought really mean things about Gaius being a big entitled baby sometimes :( (plus the, you know, enabling Gaius and blaming of Teunis for abuse)

Florian: really ripped into Marcus' brother at the end and told him exactly what a stupid, vapid, selfish asshole he is. Not so much evil as perfectly justified but Florian hasn't done much that would qualify.

Antony: went out of his way for several years to passive aggressive undermine Marcus at every turn and make Marcus look bad to Marcus' mom and sisters. Not a good look because Marcus was just a dumb teenager struggling with some depression, but Antony was very anxious about his own position in the household and also didn't have a lot of tools to like talk about or have feelings.

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A chapter: Something nice happens to baby! Teunis for once :)

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Chapter 8 of sad Teunis backstory, mostly Teunis running errands.