5, 7, and 35: which character (if any) has changed the most as you wrote them, in terms of your interpretation or understanding of their character and choices?
(Fanfic/author ask game)
5. What's something you learnt while researching a fic?
I had to mull over this question for quite a while! Given my tendency to mostly write canon-compliant character studies in fantasy universes, most of my 'research' process is double-checking for lore compliance and the like and it was a struggle to identify anything particularly interesting or revelatory which would be worth sharing from those deep dives (unless people want to hear me bang on about the symbolism of Meredith and Orsino both losing loved ones in cupboard fires again).
So, I had a flick though the last few pages of my posted AO3 works, and came up with the research I had to do into the neighbourhoods of New York City for my Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fic Crossroads, featuring Rebecca Bunch crashing at her ex-frenemy Audra Bunch's house when stranded in NYC, as well as my Ace Attorney smut fic escargot*, which uh, features the eating of escargot. (I have eaten escargot before, but wanted to refresh my memory of the process because it was basically a food kink fic lol.)
*Heads up that this is a (aged-up) Trucy/Miles fic for anyone who's canon familiar and might be squicked by the pairing.
7. Coffee or tea while you write?
I don't really tend to drink either while writing these days! They're both very work-coded to me now. (Coffee for when I need to focus, tea for when I need to calm down.)
The real question is water or alcohol, to which the ratio is about 9:1 😉. (But no joke, I have found that staying adequately hydrated helps my writing process a LOT. glug glug)
35 (wild card): which character (if any) has changed the most as you wrote them, in terms of your interpretation or understanding of their character and choices?
I know I mentioned the other day that I've started finding Meredith easier to write due to recent life events, and I think there's at least a handful of people who follow me here who would understand the full context of why that's the case, and probably a dozen more that could make a pretty educated guess based on what I've mentioned publicly!
Because the explanation deals with pretty heavy mental health shit (psychosis, suicide) and is quite lengthy, I'm putting the rest of this answer under a cut.
Long story short, I think it's incredibly difficult to truly appreciate just how fucking weird brains can be when pushed to their absolute limits (especially where trauma is involved). And nothing quite encapsulates that for me more than the circumstances which lead to my involuntary hospitalisation on the other side of the planet last year!
Basically, due to a cumulation of insanely stressful life factors between January and June last year, I ended up having a psychotic break featuring hallucinations, persecutory delusions, and delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, I was still acting just normal enough before my pre-planned trip to the US last year that nobody quite picked up on it until after I left Australia (although in hindsight I was definitely having hallucinations before the trip).
Anyway, I quickly grew more deranged after that due to a combination of factors, such as being socially isolated from my support network, missing my connecting flight to NYC at LAX (and absolutely lacking the executive function to rebook one), as well as being separated from my luggage. I also misplaced my wallet and glasses (but somehow managed to hold onto my passport, thank god).
Thankfully, I did have my credit card details stored on my phone, so I managed to book a room in a Holiday Inn for several days, which I only left to eat at the McDonald's across the road in a state of constant hypervigilance. I became convinced that I was a secret CIA sleeper agent and that the CIA had killed my cousin (who had suicided some nine years prior).
Eventually, I decided that I desperately needed to return to Australia and tried to make my way back to the Australian embassy, missing its closing time by 15 minutes. Lost and confused, I spent a lot of time wandering about in circles hoping that whoever was tailing me would lose my scent. I sent my lawyer an email from an Apple store stating that I had "shaken the fabric of reality and discovered my moral values" and that I wanted to go home now.
I got hungry and hunkered down in a McDonald's again. I sat there for a while having occasional moments of clarity where I would be like 'holy shit I think I am losing my fucking mind'. During one of these moments, I asked to borrow the restaurant's phone and called 911 on myself. I then had a very vivid and soothing hallucination of my Honours thesis supervisor who I had not seen in a decade putting on a bad Australian accent (he's American) telling me that everything would be okay and I would get through this.
Then the police turned up and I screamed at this LAPD officer about how I was a proud Australian citizen, that I was going to become PM one day, and that when I was Prime Minister (of Australia) I would ... *check notes* fix Los Angeles International Airport? And then I got sectioned. lol
As for how all this relates to Meredith Stannard, I think it's very cool and sexy for me to have already been a massive fan of a character who more or less experiences canonical delusions (and implied hallucinations) so I can continue processing this absolutely bizarre batshit experience that happened to me the way I know best (terrorising fictional characters). It definitely gave me more insight into how somebody in that frame of mind (and not sleeping for days!!) might end up putting dots together that aren't there because their frames of reference are wrong, or they believe God is sending them signs, or what have you.
tl;dr I was always fascinated by how Meredith's sanity slippage has a very slow build up (she carried that red lyrium sword around for YEARS!) for her to just finally snap the way she does, and although I have written snippets set in that time frame before, I think I'll be able to do it in an even better and more meaningful way now.
