#hfwc

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it's finished!!!!!!! 🥹

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YALL IT'S STARTING AHHHHHHHHH

LIVE

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Her best friend is getting married, and no matter what complicated feelings she's having about her dad, about Jaime, and about her own future, it's time to celebrate. She walks out the door — — and nearly collides with Jaime in the hallway.

Chapters: 5/? Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Ygritte Characters: Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, Sansa Stark, Podrick Payne, Arya Stark, Jon Snow, Ygritte (A Song of Ice and Fire), Rickon Stark, Original Jon Snow/Ygritte Child(ren), Selwyn Tarth Additional Tags: Weddings, Reunions, Slow Burn, Winter, Trains Summary:

Brienne is invited to her best friend's wedding, and calls in a favor from her old coworker-turned-friend to make it there.

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using this template as a longfic author interview for myself, because i’m snowed in, and because i can! and because i’m a little sad it’s finished, because now i’m staring at my wips folder and don’t even know where to start.

The fic: How Far We’ve Come

Rating/Pairing/Word count/Completion status: Teen and up audiences / 27.7k / complete! 😁

Plot Summary: Brienne is invited to her best friend's wedding, and calls in a favor from her old coworker-turned-friend to make it there.

The ✨viibees✨ : Winter wedding, nostalgia, mutual pining for the one that got away & reconnecting, found family, cozy!, lots of fluff, past trauma mention, caretaker burnout, healing.

Short snippet:

She toys with the idea of buying plane tickets, despite the fact she really can't afford it. She finds the name of a travel agent in the phone book anyway, and they inform her that there are some cheap ones out of Tarth to King's Landing, but that still doesn't get her close enough to Winterfell. She would have to rent a car and drive, and she would be away from her father too long for her comfort.

Brienne takes a few hours to work up the courage to do it, puttering around the house and finding chores to do. First, she does the dishes. Then, she takes out the trash.

Entirely too soon, she's exhausted all her methods of procrastination. But she needs to figure out how her plans for getting to this wedding, and sooner rather than later. She finally glances at the phone that's been staring at her all afternoon. If she doesn't do it now, she won't do it at all.

She gets out the address book like she doesn't already have the number memorized. She doesn't even look at it as she steels herself, walks to the wall, and picks up the phone.

Then, with a shaking finger, she takes a deep breath and dials the phone number of Jaime Lannister.

What other media inspired this fic? …hallmark movies 😆 but more so, personal experience. used inspo from my own wedding, my sister in law’s wedding, and elements of healthcare i’ve learned in nursing school.

What character trait did you amplify or minimise to make your version of a character work for your story?

ok, so jaime is not sarcastic. this is set ~5 years after the loss of his hand, which he lost in a different way considering it’s a semi-modern au, but yeah. he’s had time to process that and grow. he’s softer, which is how i wanted him for this story, but also because i find writing sarcasm very hard 😀

How did your understanding of the characters change while writing this?

omg. i feel like i know brienne so much better now. even though it’s an au, i tried to keep her thoughts and actions true to character. this brienne harbors a lot of guilt, she wants to be there for everyone but cannot possibly be in multiple places at once, and she learns how to cope with that.

What’s one thing you put in—trope, character beat, scene—that was just extra shamelessly self-indulgent?

making jaime look extra fine 🙂‍↕️ and putting them in situations where they have to share a bed, of course.

What’s the structural choice you made on purpose—POV, timeline, chaptering—that most shaped the story?

don’t pay too close attention to anyone’s ages. sansa and arya have a bigger age gap, and so do arya and bran, and bran and rickon. it’s what i had in my head.

Which theme emerged accidentally, and which one did you pursue deliberately?

accidentally: persuasion parallels! brienne reads jane austen btw because, write what you know. 🤷‍♀️

deliberately: i’m going to use this an excuse to use a sentence that was scrapped from the fic because it was too in-your-face about the theme, and i thought it was borderline cheesy, but i saved it and put it in my scraps folder called #myscraps :

Brienne realizes in that moment, that joy and grief are not opposites. They live alongside one another, braided together so tightly it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

What was the biggest risk you took with this fic?

started posting it before i had the ending written. i had it in my head, but once i got there i got freaked out about it, felt like i couldn’t execute the idea properly, and didn’t write anything for a week. that’s a risk i don’t think i’ll be taking again, at least not for a while!

In a hypothetical scenario where you are forced to rewrite the whole story from scratch, what would you do differently?

oh…i actually don’t know. maybe write it in the past tense, not the present. idk if i could do it from jaime’s pov, considering the story is primarily about brienne.

no pressure, guys! i know this one’s lengthy : @erathene @emmathefanficgal @noah-wyles @amarveloustune @greenmtwoman @angelowl-fics @sdwolfpup and anyone who wants an excuse to talk about their fics!

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The next day, Jaime calls Brienne back to relay the plan: Brienne would take the ferry from Tarth to Storm's End. Upon arrival, she would take the train from Storm's End to King's Landing, where she would meet Jaime, who would have taken the train from Casterly Rock. From there, they will catch another train to Winterfell together. Which means Brienne will be on a train, with Jaime, for two full nights and a day.

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV), A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Podrick Payne/Sansa Stark, Jon Snow/Ygritte Characters: Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, Sansa Stark, Podrick Payne, Arya Stark, Jon Snow, Ygritte (A Song of Ice and Fire), Rickon Stark, Original Jon Snow/Ygritte Child(ren), Selwyn Tarth Additional Tags: Weddings, Reunions, Slow Burn, Winter, Trains Summary:

Brienne is invited to her best friend's wedding, and calls in a favor from her old coworker-turned-friend to make it there.

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i usually struggle with the opposite problem, so i am not complaining at all in the slightest, but…

my brain keeps adding new details for me to incorporate in HFWC…and i feel like if i leave them out, i’m a sucky writer. but at the same time, i want to wrap it up because i did not plan on it being this long.

this will be the longest fic i’ve ever written, and the most personal. i’m so proud of it and it’s not even finished yet. it’s been my brainchild for over a year. every element of it can be linked to something i have personal experience with. it’s like the fully formed fic appeared in my head like a movie, and all i have to do is put it in words, which has never happened to me before.

that being said, i wish i knew when to shut up and end a chapter. i could split it in two, but i don’t want to. currently agonizing over where to put dividers so it’s not just one huge chapter with no room to breathe.

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i am living my best life right now. it’s 2:30am, i’m sitting in front of the fireplace with the softest, heaviest (but still breathable!) blanket in the world that literally looks like it’s made from a direwolf, laptop open literally writing about winterfell and cozy fireplaces and my favorite ship everrr jaime x brienne, and warm blankets and thick rugs ugh. the vibe is immaculate 🤌🏼✨

(found this in my drafts from 3 days ago but wanted it on my blog so dumping it here now)

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[Start ID: HLVRAI How Far We've Come M.A.P Video Thumbnail Art featuring the Science Team, G-man, and Darnold sitting in the theatre from the "HLVRAI but the cast is commentating" video, their faces lit in blue light from the implied screen before them.

In order, Bubby, Dr Coomer, Gordon, Tommy, and G-man are seated in the first row, followed by Darnold in the third row, and then Benrey in the second-last row behind all of them.

Gordon is seated front and centre in his HEV suit, with his red-and-white striped bag of popcorn that Dr Coomer is unabashedly eating out of propped on his right leg. In his left hand is a blue and purple drink cup with a straw, which Tommy has instead steered towards himself to sip from. G-man sits next to him, arms crossed and stoicly watching the screen.

Bubby is reclining in his seat, snoring away with one leg crossed over the other to rest his foot on the empty seat next to him, and Darnold sits behind him sipping from a conical flask through a sily straw. Meanwhile, yet another popcorn piece bounces off of Gordon's head to join the rest littering the floor before him. Benrey, a bag of popcorn in his lap and his arm still raised from launching the popcorn piece, grins toothily from the back row of seats.

Gordon endures all of this with a look of unamusement.

The words "How Far We've Come" and "HLVRAI MAP" are written in white in the dark space between the crew and the screen on the left of the image.

Tucked away behind all this is a whole hoard of Coomer clones crowded into the sound and lighting control booth. A couple of them are smushing their faces up against the glass, some banging on it to be let out, one licking the glass, and others are t-posing and piled up in the background. /End ID.]

Here's the thumbnail art I did for the HLVRAI HFWC MAP :D [smile] Thanks for allowing me the opportunity to make this!!

Edit: HAPPY 3RD ANNIVERSARY HLVRAI!!!!!

[Plain text: HAPPY 3RD ANNIVERSARY HLVRAI]

Edit edit: I just realised looking again, my style for drawing them changed in the few months of my participation hwehh (but hwehh in a good, things-changed-with-practice way)