the fifth chapter of #myfic has been drafted for weeks but i hate it and i don't know how to fix it 😭 i feel like its way too talky but idk how else to get across all the info that needs to be conveyed.... (also they just like talking to each other. theres a whole movie of that even lol)
struggling to verify my translation of "i don't speak irish" into irish but what i *can* find is a bunch of catty & judgy phrases about someone else not knowing irish which is so funny. like it's not convenient for me but i respect it
🍆 What scene do you think was the hottest? What scene do you think your readers thought was the hottest? Are they the same?
okkkk honestly have been making a tier list re:sex scenes in my mind palace and i think for me number 1 is the fisting scene in ch4. runner up would be their “first time” scene in ch2. third place a tie between “i think you like my chest, pete” also in ch2 and the phone sex scene in ch3.
as for what the readers thought was sexy…i have no idea but would LOVE to know ur faves if anyone would like to share, lol.
🔎 What detail(s) in the story are you particularly captivated with? Is there any behind the scenes info or backstory?
one of the biggest challenges but also most fun elements for me in this fic is that i tried to use small details to relay information about the alt-history element. i read a lot of sci-fi/spec fic, but haven’t written much myself, so it was definitely a learning experience/something i wanna get better at. also hard to balance, since this isn’t actually a sci-fi story, lol — like i’ve been reading some william gibson short stories and the amount of details that guy can cram into a 10 page story is impressive but not actually what i wanted to do in my yaoi fic. anyway some examples that i liked:
Plus, Pete had realized something: Ginnie had told him that she and William had waited ‘till the end of the War, and Ray’s birthday was in late July. He was an Armistice baby himself, born in that magical little bubble of time when everyone thought it might get better.
ok this one is maybe kinda shoe-horned in there but i just HAD to include this info because i think it’s so funny and telling, on so many different levels: ray is judgey abt the peace treaty but he only exists bc of it; william and ginnie were married for a long time before they had kids; there’s a known phrase “armistice baby” implying this was not an uncommon experience.
in general it was fun to try and imply things about the war without explicitly saying “here’s what happened and why”. which is hard and don’t know how legible it all is? but it was a really interesting learning experience.
“It’s about a soldier who got captured at the Battle of the Azores and he’s held prisoner all over Axis territory, like in Portugal and Vichy France and the Reich. So it’s all about how shit those places are and how bad he wants to go home.”
that there was a battle of the azores islands and that portugal was axis territory is some of the most explicit info i managed to squeeze in about how the war went differently. NEGL a lot of this is inspired by like pop-history alt history musings on reddit/youtube about How The Nazis Could Win only ofc they don’t actually win in the disworld — basically like how could it go way worse but still end with an allied victory? and it’s largely that most of the allies surrender but crucially the soviets did not. bc i don’t think they would but let’s not get into that rn. Also Ray calls Germany the Reich not only bc the book he’s talking about is set during the war but bc there is no East/West Germany post-war it’s still a unified reich.
Ray smiled fondly at him and set the True American Bible on the bed. “Never seen one in person, actually. My dad woulda had a fit.”
honestly surprised there isn’t already some sort of official conservative american bible IRL. this is how u know trump doesnt actually gaf about christianity LOL
Ray stared out the windows at a stretch of land that had maybe once held the Washington monument. Eventually he burst out, “How the fuck do you get bombed out by Nazis and then become one? It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
dc/the midaltantic got blitzed and basically never recovered. #yay.
On the 7th, Danielsen was almost killed in the streets of the capital, all of Boston in riots.
Boston is the capital bc ^ see above. & bc the military occupation of new england thing. & also a little bit bc i think its funny.
🧭 What was the key choice or decision you had to make for this story? If you had chosen differently, what would the story have turned into?
okkk well. to start, #FunFact that the very first OG plot bunny of dis is from the wicked novel LOL specifically the idea of a political assassination failing and what that means and what you might do if you saw the intended target again later and they were pathetic and weak but you still finished the job. at the end of the day killing the major is actually a fairly minor element, but that is what it grew out of! so one of the biggest decisions as the story grew was whether or not i wanted to keep that original idea & how to handle it if so.
my original outline for the fic was actually really short, like 20k/30k words and their relationship was going to be much more distant. the thing was…when i tried writing it like that, it was OOC! they literally like each other…like the love at first sight/MFEO element is canon. in my very first draft pete was going to still be calling ray “garraty” all the way up until ray left to kill the major — which he was doing as like a solo assassination mission, lol — vs in the posted version, ray asks to be called by his first name at the end of chapter 1. a lot of the early process was like: i’d have these ideas that i’d try and get on the page but instantly be frustrated by them not quite seeming in character. tbc, i don’t necessarily think you *need* to replicate the canon dynamic in AUs, that can be part of the fun, but as this was my first fic for the fandom (crazy. why did i do that LOL) i wanted to.
the other side of this is that as the new version of the story developed, i started to get worried that my original planned ending wouldn’t work. i’m pretty happy with the end result: the big changes there are that ray is part of a (ill-advised! which i think is a fun variable) group instead of a solo actor, and that pete has more agency by choosing to follow him. honestly it was an interesting constraint to be like, ok, what if i really do wanna use the ending i always planned for this, how do i make it work now? & the answer ended up being that the event could still happen but the focus had to shift to their relationship and their loyalty to each other. <3
thnx for the ask and sorry this is so long?? i’m obsessed with my own fanfiction.
