#fearless liabilities

[numberoneofficeworksenthusiast]

reading fearless liabilities is the best decision I've made in a long time anyway heres how the marauders and co sound to me in this gorgeous fic;

Marlene - My Own Worst Enemy

Lily - Come On Eileen

Mary - Summerboy

Sirius - Beautiful Boy

Remus - Vodka Cranberry

James - Friday I'm In Love

Peter - Octopus's Garden

was going to post how I see them too with all their outfits and snacks and belongings but alas tumblr makes the photo quality egregious 😔

GO READ FEARLESS LIABILITIES (I have like seven chapters left I'm gonna miss it so much)

[femme--de--lettres]

Big day! For folks! Who like summer camp fics!

Fearless Liabilities is one whole year old today and I have some thoughts and feelings about it.

I've called almost all of my fics "my baby" at some point, from [spooks] to SNWE to 867-5309, but Fearless Liabilities is particularly special to me because so much of it feels like a memoir of sorts.

The way Wisconsin smelled like dirt and summer camp smelled like suntan lotion and bug spray are real. The story feels like it stretches on forever because that's what summers up at camp were like. The pranks that the gang pulls feel silly and nonsensical because almost all of them were real things that my friends and I pulled on our coworkers.

If you've ever been to a sleep-away summer camp before, I hope you'll agree with me that it's a microcosm all its own. For me, that sort of environment meant I was constantly engaged in emotionally weighty conversations with my friends because for the first time, we didn't have parents to watch over our shoulders and see what we were saying—and that's what I tried to capture here.

There are conversations in this that are heavy—a coming out scene where religious parents don't react the way anyone would hope, discussions on abuse/homophobia, conversations where one person thinks that they're too much of everything to be at all attractive to the person they like. I love these conversations, they're important to me, I'm proud of them.

It's summer time now, which means it's the perfect time for an atmospheric reread (made even better if you can get your hands on some 90s soda and listen to John Philip Sousa marches) in my book. It's a beast of a fic, I know. I know it's not for everyone, I never expected it to be—but in the words of @greyeyedmonster-18, this is a story I can hang my hat on, and I'm proud of it because of that.

Happy birthday to my favorite Summer Camp Counselors, see you again this time next year. ❤️

[femme--de--lettres]

an ode to (some of) the chapter summaries from my summer child, fearless liabilities.

“”for all the things my hands have [typed]//the best by far [are] you” — andrew mcmahon in the wilderness” — andie

[femme--de--lettres]

not to be a bitch but I don’t know if I’d call Fearless Liabilities ”atmospheric”

lmao I’m pretty sure I said was only barely considered atmospheric in my book, but you’re absolutely entitled to that opinion.

For what it’s worth, Merriam-Webster defines atmospheric in the following way: “having, marked by, or contributing aesthetic or emotional atmosphere.”

Maybe FL didn’t strike that chord for you, but for me it hit all of the ‘emotional atmosphere’ sweet spots that I wanted it to, so I’m pretty happy with it. But like I said before, you’re free to feel however you want about it—no need to tell me that my interpretation is wrong!

[femme--de--lettres]

I'm reading Fearless Liabilities at the moment - which is delightful by the way - and I'm reading it in a way that may slightly horrify you. As an Australian who has no idea about American summer camps, although I did go to school ones and day ones. Slightly more surfing, I think. And snakes.

This gave me a good chuckle, thank you 😂

Yeah, not much surfing to be had in Wisconsin considering its major coastline is against Lake Michigan, not an ocean BUT

we did have (some) (small) (precious) snakes!

(i love them they’re my little babies and we love to see them slithering around in the grass)

AnYwAy, I’d argue that this is among the best ways to read FL—makes for a lot of humor as you try to figure out what the hell is going on and why these children are running wild through the WI hills with glow sticks on at 10pm 😂

[squintclover]

teehee i'd like to request a calligraphy piece but i don't know what so...dealer's choice :):)

😘😘😍 of course, bestie wifey!! And never a truer word was spoken...

Fearless Liabilities

[femme--de--lettres]

I just started reading Fearless Liabilities so maybe this shows up later on in the notes or something but is it based on a real place? Idk anything about summer camps so I'm not sure if you just really like them or something but this feels too detailed to have not been based in reality 🤨

omg omg please don't get me started talking about wisconsin, I won't shut up for a YEAR.

(but yes, it's based on a real summer camp i grew up/worked at, here are some photos)

a good place to start: the lake

my cabin, from the last year that i was a leader/counsellor. yes, i kept all of the flags.

the covered bridge—as referenced in chapter 7, "pretty sure I saw her crying in the walk-in"—in some morning fog

the sorts of field that Sirius and Lily would've been patrolling (in the dark), as referenced in chapter 11, "capture the flag, or as i like to call it, walking through the woods while my friends tell me about the boys they like".

the musuem! (also referenced in chapter 11)

the lighthouse + the fireworks photos we'd take from the end of it (referenced too many times to link hahaha)

the INFAMOUS boat shack (that really was quite creepy to be shut into), as referenced in chapter 19, "body body".

...AND A BONUS

me, bowling the way lily does in chapter 16, "Drive-Thru, No, Walk Through" (hot, i know)

will never shut up about this fic, but will especially never shut up about it when i had about five flashbacks today because of the humidity/weather in DC. you could ask me the silliest things and i'd still answer them (she is in love, okay, and she just re-read this whole fic this weekend and...had feelings)

[femme--de--lettres]

31. What was the development process of Fearless Liabilities like?

okay just got off a FIVE HOUR LONG conversation—yes, while I was trying to take notes—that was Not Good™ so I need a bit of levity here (so thank you, anon, I needed this).

Fearless Liabilities was a ball of chaos from the start—I was talking with a friend about stories that I felt particularly qualified to write based on my life experiences, and I made the mistake of saying "No one wants to read a Marauders fic about them as summer camp counselors." She then responded with something akin to "asdjfhasdjkhfkas yes they would" and FL was born hahaha.

From there, I wrote out all of the possible chapter titles I would want (fun fact, there were originally 21 chapters but I ended up cutting one...do I remember what was supposed to happen in it? No! Did it exist once? Yes!) and making a google doc for each title with a brief outline of the plotline for that chapter. Because I didn't have classes last summer, I was able to write after work every day and on weekends, so I'd try to cobble together a chapter of ~10k words throughout the week by writing different scenes on different days.

It was a bit of a beast, but a fun one—I knew from the start that wolfstar and jily were going to happen, so it was just a matter of getting them there while walking through some of the camp scenes I wanted to write hahaha. It's one of my favorites though, because I really just...let myself write for ages on some topics that I hadn't written on before. Definitely in my personal Top Five stories that I've written.

Questions from this list!