#asky ask things

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

4 and 12 pls? 💗

Good morning, friend!!

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

Eeeeh. I don’t usually. I don’t think I ever outline my fanfiction. I might make a mindmap or jot down some things to keep track of, or just a few minor points I want to include if it’s a next chapter. But I don’t outline. And for original work, I recently finished the first novel in a series and I didn’t outline for it at all. It went brilliantly! I’ve outlined the second one and I’m completely stuck on it two chapters in because now I already know what’s going to happen and I’m really not... driven? Or excited, to write it. It’s already in my head! How un-fun. I know people swear by outlines, and they are pretty cool, but they just immediately kill my urge to write.

12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

Ooh. I watched the trailer for Love and Monsters recently and it seemed sweetly hilarious, so now all I can think about is an Apocalypse AU. Which isn’t a trope, but I really want to write it, and all the tropes that come with it!

Thanks for asking!! 🌻

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

I saw heart garden and immediately knew I had to ask about the root of the problem!

Haha, thank you!! At the minute it’s just 10k of me being like??? I love Albus and so does Scorpius?? But with added anxiety and a hint of an ankle fetish for a little spice. Essentially it’s Scorpius struggling with his lost job, and the fact that he’s falling behind everyone else, and what to do next. It’s also about communication, and how different relationships work, and about how cats can and will be stuffed if they don’t stop getting underfoot. Here is a snippet, if you’d like one:

Scorpius’s heart beats a little faster at the half-truth. His heart-garden feels at home in whichever room he stands in, but it never stays there for long. It pops from one room to the other, or ends up in his pocket. Now he can’t really go anywhere without seeing it out of the corner of his eye. With the rainstorm, it’s not as if there are plenty of places to go, nor the means to get there, and it’s likely his restless energy from being cooped up inside is making his heart-garden zoom about the place. 

But he’s worried, just a tad, that his heart-garden can’t settle here. The lid is free from the usual black splodges of unkindness, but the shifting and moving makes him ache inside. What if some part of him secretly hates it here in Hud? What if he’s desperate to move away, or start travelling again? 

What if he tells Albus that, and Albus thinks he wants to leave him behind?

Anxious boys! But mostly softness and silliness! Hopefully I can post it soon, and Barley can go back to being in the limelight, where he belongs!

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

gutter shine!!!

Hi friend!! I started writing this a million years ago for the Growing Neville fest, and I recently dug it out again. It’s a character study, sort of, but mostly it was about McGonagall in her little cottage on the Scottish moors with her wife, who I made up and then fell in love with, and how they both accidentally adopt a slightly-awkward Neville who doesn’t really know what to do with his old teacher’s attention. Lots of witchy moor magic and femslash and Neville being a good egg and eating shortbread. And cats!! 

“Hello, Minerva!” Professor Sprout says cheerily, clapping Neville on the back to usher him forward. “Fine day for it, eh?” 

“Splendid,” Professor McGonagall says crisply. “Boots off, please, Mr Longbottom. You too, Pomona. And I see neither of you remembered to engage your brains this morning.” She shakes her head, stepping aside to let a tabby cat slip out onto the front step. “Honestly, it only takes a few moments to do a featherweight spell, or simply levitate your belongings. Are you witches or not?”

Neville isn’t a witch, but as he glances down at the mountain of gardening gear in his arms, he has to concede the point. 

Fun stuff! Thank you so much for asking!! <3

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

the H in jesus h christ actually stands for. Hell

blasphemy! it’s obviously Henry. or Hermentrude

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

ooh can you tell us more about Death and all his family pls?? I'm intrigued!

Ahh, I’m so sorry, I missed this one! I checked back and I made a mistake when I put the list together: Death and all his family is sadly not a fandom thing.

It’s about a teenage boy who takes on the role of death after his father gives it up, even though he’s not very good at it, and even though his sister desperately wants the job. His whole family were/are in the reaper line of work, so they all have different (very loud and aggressive) opinions on how to do the job properly. He makes a bargain with a neighbour, who has the current role of Life, to spend three days in the human world. And lots of shenanigans happen.

It’s a very rough work! I do like the Grandmother Reaper though, she is absolutely the most crotchety person in the world and she is not afraid to jam a Mahjong tile up your arse if you cross her.

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

12, 17, and 25 (for Bee More Kind 🐝) 💙

Hi friend! I answered 12, but here are the others!!

17. What fic are you most proud of?

You know when you’re in one of those bad moods and nothing you’ve done feels important or good? Good morning, it’s me.

But I am proud of some things: I like ‘A Box of Butterfly Fish’ because it’s the first time I really explored asexuality in a story, and that’s important even though I was terrified to write it. I’m proud of ‘oh, I’m gonna let the future in’ because it was very honest and cathartic and that’s sometimes hard to do without leaning into unrealistic-ness. And I’m proud of ‘If It Walks Like A Duck’ because it managed to be hopeful without shying away from depression, which I think is a huge theme in my work, haha!

25. Which idea came to you first in Bee More Kind?

AHHH. This:

I would like to write about a cottage with a little yellow door and a garden full of magic flowers. But it hasn’t been that sort of week. Sometimes it feels like it hasn’t been that sort of life. But when that feeling grows too big for my heart to handle, I remind myself that melodrama is only attractive in a gritty noir novel, and I could handle that feeling yesterday. I could handle it yesterday, or I would not be here today, and so I will handle it until tomorrow comes.

It was supposed to be something else! But I softened it and changed perspectives and added a sly little talking cat and some whimsy and two boys whose hearts love each other very much. And I’m very glad I did!

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

hi idk if this counts but for the fanfic friday thing. what are your jeddy and/or scorbus headcanons

I’d say it counts—I immediately fell asleep so I’m only getting to this on a Saturday, but that counts too!

Hmm. I have a lot of character-specific headcanons but I’m not so sure about relationship ones. I suppose for Jeddy, I think they have a surprising amount of communication issues. They’re both very upfront, bright people but Teddy is more private, and James doesn’t like to burden people. So I think it takes them a while to settle into a relationship where they can communicate properly, but when they do, nothing can stop them. I think they use pet names freely, including the ridiculous ones. Especially the ridiculous ones. I think they like to go on adventures, even if that’s just to the corner shop at two in the morning for ice-pops. James steals Teddy’s jumpers and Teddy always mixes up their socks. Neither of them are very good cooks, but James can bake pretty well, and he puts little stupid notes with pick-up lines to go in his lunches. Teddy likes to take a lot of pictures, especially of James, and he will sometimes suffer a selfie for James’s sake, so long as it doesn’t get passed around. James buys him a camera for his thirtieth birthday, a proper beautiful expensive camera, and the film quickly fills up with pictures of freckles and a very cheerful smile.

It turns out I have so many Scorbus headcanons, oh no. My favourite one that I don’t often talk about is that I think they spend a lot of time apart, considering how co-dependent they are. I think Albus is very independent, and he’s a home-body, a creature of comfort, and he doesn’t like straying far from his routines. But I think Scorpius has a little wanderlust in him, and there’s a lot he wants to see and do. I’m not saying they don’t do some of those things together, but there is something sweet and achey about Scorpius climbing mountains somewhere or healing animals in the desert while Albus grows things and makes things back home, and how they’re both thinking of each other. I do think they get together after school, if I’m honest. I think Albus is a cat person and Scorpius is a crup-person, and they compromise by helping out at a nearby menagerie. Draco is the first person to give his autistic son a stim ring that he can chew on, but Albus is the one to measure his fingers carefully in their seventh year, when the Malfoy family starts to come around, and he keeps the measurements for later.

[thealmostrhetoricalquestion]

please share more headcanons' its lovely to hear about what you've thought about the characters. (I'm also a huge scorbus fan so hearing your thoughts on them is always a treat!)

I can always talk about scorbus!! I know electricity doesn’t work in the wizarding world but we are gonna pretend they have ALL the technology for this, because I have been thinking about games. Specifically Animal Crossing for right now because I was playing it this morning.

Scorpius is absolutely a rich person who makes big purchases without really thinking about it, despite being conscientious and a good egg. So he definitely buys two Switch Lites—one turquoise one for him and one yellow one for Albus. And a whole bunch of stickers for the back. Because Albus was talking about them and he wanted to see what the fuss was about. And because he likes giving Albus gives just to see him get all flustered and happy.

Albus (after a massive freak out about expenses and stuff) names his island something ‘cool and edgy.’ Excalibur or something because he’s a secret nerd who has recently been into Arthurian mythology. Scorpius names his after their crup, Jelly. They make their characters look exactly like themselves. Albus definitely has the sleepy eyes and the bed head. Scorpius is very neat and the very first thing he buys from Mabel is a wizard’s robe, because that’s awesome.

I feel like Scorpius is a bit carefree and easily distracted, so his island is full of stuff that he just puts down and leaves there and he doesn’t have a list of chores, though he has a lot of luck with the recipes. Albus has so much luck with the balloons that it isn’t even funny anymore. But he’s also very diligent and he donates everything he finds to the museum and he has a little line of money trees and Scorpius makes fun of him for being so uptight about his island when their flat is an absolute clusterfluff of mess and clothes.

Do not even get me started on the villagers. Suffice to say that Albus keeps all the ugly unloved ones because he refuses to be mean to them (and because of certain feelings relating to himself that he won’t go into because it’s not relevant at all shut up) and Scorpius searches desperately for Marshall and Zucker because they’re cute and remind him of Albus.

The whole point of this is ANIMAL CROSSING DATES. They bring each other gifts of course—Albus wraps presents neatly and Scorpius buries his on Albus’s island for him to find, which drives him insane. There’s a lot of net-hitting. They stay up really late, side by side on the couch at home with mugs of tea and the lamps on and Jelly tucked at their feet, soft and cosy while they wish on stars together on the screen.