After a week with her mother, all Regina wants is a quiet plane ride home. She certainly hadn't planned on her son recognizing the woman across the aisle as one of his favorite athletes of all time. Emma Swan has long believed that being on two professional soccer teams is all the family that she will ever need. With a number of championships already under her belt and years remaining in her busy, fulfilling career, she hasn't felt anything missing from her life since she left her last foster home over a decade ago. She never imagined that sitting next to a young fan and his fascinating mother could drastically alter her ideas of what a family can be. But surely a day of traveling together isn't enough time to begin to fall in love?
Here is our interview with Caisin, for their story “Lullaby for a Princess”
What inspired your story?
Well, it's a protostar, so I saw the images before ever coming up with an idea. But also, I've been talking to the artist about ideas with Regina and Emma adopting more children for ages before this ever happened, so stories like this have always been floating around in my head. The tricky part was that I'd never thought about them adopting a baby before and it caused some problems with getting this started. Then someone suggested 'baby left in the woods' and I Knew!
Let's get deep: why do you write?
I don't know if I have conversations with them exactly, but they do seem to take on a life of their own in my brain. I often have to wrestle the plot back from them!
What is your favorite type of writing to do?
Domestic Swan Queen has become a really special thing for me. I love getting to see them in this stable, loving relationship where they both finally get this support and understanding they've never had before. Which isn't to say it's all fluff. The next part of this fic has been so hard for me because it gets very angsty for a bit, and they have to figure out how to work through that together. Getting to explore that though, what it looks like to have that with a loving partner, means a lot to me. I also really love fantasy, and getting to see what magic and fantasy look like in our world, which makes ouat a great setting to work with. Frustrating because the show never goes into it in a way that satisfied me, but it also gives me more to work with!
If you could live out one scene of your writing what would it be?
Nothing inspired by true life events, but there is a bit coming up that was directly inspired by a scene from Jane the Virgin. Actually I was watching the first 3 seasons of JtV on netflix while writing this and it was incredibly helpful because I have very little experience with infants.
How do you shape your characters?
With this particular fic, I found the spot in canon that I knew I wanted to change to get them to this point where they would be married by the time some of the events of s6 came around. I spent a lot of time coming up with little scenes that happened between that moment and when the fic starts. When did they realize they'd fallen in love? When did Emma move in? What did their wedding look like? From there it was easier to understand what they look like now, how this has affected Henry, how the town sees them, etc.
You can follow Caisin on social at: tumblr: witchpieceoftoast, twitter: witchytoast
On a happier note... Check out this pizza! It is vegan (minus the pepperoni) and gluten-free with turkey pepperoni! We used Namaste brand gluten-free pizza dough mix and replaced the egg. Then used tofu mozzarella cheese (which is actually really not bad on its own) and topped it with turkey pepperonis.
Some helpful tips:
When baking the pizza crust before putting the toppings on, make sure it is good and baked otherwise it will be soggy and doughy when you have the whole pizza assembled.
You might try flipping the pizza crust to keep it from sticking - this would be if you are using a flat pan to cook it.
Be careful what kind of cheese you buy! Read the ingredients - some vegetarian cheeses still have Caisin in them which is a by-product of milk and just as bad in most cases.
