#askstrange

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Well, there was a bit of a wait, but we finally have an update! And on the plus side, it’s around 10,000 words.

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

It’s the last chapter of you great unfinished symphony! Read under the cut for some spoilery thoughts and musings from me. (In other words, read the chapter before you click!)

1. So right near the beginning of the story, someone asked Dr. Strange for any spoilers we could get about how things would eventually end up. And the one I almost shared and didn’t was that I knew almost the entire time I was writing this verse that the last word (not counting the post-credits scene!) would be ‘dust.’ I didn’t share that then because, well, I didn’t want to scare the pants off folks who might assume we would get some kind of Infinity War redux. But I really loved the idea of ending on the image of Tony conceptualizing his marriage and his collaring and all of the positive and hopeful things about his future through a kind of re-materializing. The guy is, after all, a builder.

2. I also made a kind of throw-away comment in the notes that I should probably clarify regarding weddings. I’ve read a lot of great fics featuring weddings  (@deehellcat​ has one that is absolutely brilliant), but it’s never something I imagined writing, in some ways for very personal reasons. My long-term partner and I have never gotten married, and have no real desire to change that. It’s just not a personal milestone/marker that I ever really connected with.

But when I first sat down and considered the ending of this story many moons ago, I kept coming back to the classical distinction between tragic (everyone dies) versus comedic (ends in a marriage) literature. Part of the case superhero movies seem to be trying to make for their seriousness or respectability these days often seems to be by aligning themselves with the tropes and archetypes associated with tragedy. And I don’t have anything against this per se. Personally, though, I came to love the superhero genre because these characters fundamentally embodied hope for me.

So I loved the idea of a Tony that assumed almost the entire time that he was doomed to be a tragic archetype of a hero coming to realize that actually, he might just have a shot at the other option, at ending on hope and love and belonging.

3. I have a huge, huge love for people getting to retire from professions they normally expect to die doing. Retired James Bond? Superheroes? Gimme all of ‘em.

And now, some notes on future stuff in this verse and beyond (there’ll be some repetition here with the notes on the actual chapter, so feel free to skip if you’d like.)

4. Ask Strange will still be open for a few more weeks, so feel free to send in any last prompts/questions. I’ll also be catching up on some of the ones that I currently have outstanding!

5. The Peter-centric side adventure should start in about a month.

6. I...I think I might do Marvel Trumps Hate this year? I’m kinda terrified, and definitely would be in the company of people waaaaay better at this than I am, but why not try, right?

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being amazing, generous, kind, and supportive humans. I love our little corner of the Marvel fandom.

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Me, a couple of weeks ago: Oh, the story is winding down, I guess the chances of getting many more AskStrange prompts are pretty low.

Me, this week: *writes almost as many words for AskStrange replies as she did for the main chapter*

Seriously, fabulous questions this week team. You’re amazing.

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

I’ve gotten terrible at remembering to cross-post about new chapters here, but I’m super excited about this one!

Happy Fic Friday, all!

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Ask Strange responses to the week! And a big thanks to @dixiehellcat​, who alerted me to a copy-paste error that resulted in two responses being missing. (The Doctor wants it made very clear that this was my mistake, not his.)

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Who’s the star of Ask Strange this week? This guy! (I am SO not complaining.)

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

So, when I started this whole interactive story thing, I had no idea how it would go: would I like it? Would it be a huge damn mess? Would it feel silly and superflous?

Team, it is SO FUN. I like outlining the main verse, I like having the skeleton of what’s coming, but I also delight in the chaos of having no idea what your questions are going to be from week to week. Sometimes I can predict them, and it’s fun when that happens and I’m all “why yes, I’ve had that scene written for weeks, here you go!” But so often I am confounded in the best ways.

Take this guy:

I expected someone to ask me where Sam was like, I don’t know, two or three chapters into this story? When no one did, I figured hey, that’ll be a fun surprise toward the very end of the narrative, cool! And then? This week? 47 chapters in? Someone asked. And I got to scramble to think completely differently about how to share his backstory at this particular point in the story. I say ‘got to’ scramble because even though scrambling is usually considered a bad thing, it was AWESOME! I love being kept on my toes, I love being forced to think about the relationship between the main text and the paratexts. I love responding ‘in the moment’ (ish) to stuff when so often I’m like a week behind everything because I’m home, sans childcare, with a young kid and can’t always get online as often as I’d like.

Really, this is just an extended rambling note to say thanks for how much fun you all have made #AskStrange thus far. You’re the best.

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It’s Fic Friday! It’s been a long time since I had such an uninterrupted streak of weekly posting, so I’m feeling proud and accomplished and grateful for such a supportive community today. Thanks, team!

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works