So I finally got around to watch the season finale of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. My only thought to that is that it didn’t really change my plans for one of the characters since their experiences are very different. Mine is much younger and “idealistic” whereas the person we saw on the show is more edgier and older.
I still have the drafts for the next chapter, I’m just not motivated to get around with it despite the latest Loki trailer that’s been released a couple of weeks ago. I just felt like I had to address I’m not totally dead.
While I’m busy with academics, I decided to post one sneak peek of one of the future chapters that I had written.
Here it is:
“So why? Of all the ways you could have gone, why that one?”
To submit, thought Lucas.
To abdicate.
To rest my head.
Who the hell this mortal thinks he is? Lucas thought furiously. But with the practice self-negating smile, “Oh, I don’t know. For the quiet life, I suppose. I am fond of histories and perhaps the way of my living is like a sybarite, if I’m honest.”
...
It was hard to pick which scene I want to show because majority are spoilers, but this is vague enough. Anyway, hopefully I get my motivation back.
(Contains spoilers. Please read the chapter first before this)
References
The Montauk Project is a conspiracy theory that began in 1980s. That inspired Netflix Stranger Things, if you don’t know ;)
And yes, another Doctor Who reference when Shane mentioned about UNIT.
If you look closely, it is an Indiana Jones reference. It’s not like I’m an expert in Arcaeology.
Notes/Thoughts
There’s a LOT of scenes that I didn’t plan here. In fact, I’d say 1% of the initial draft/plan made it into the final editing of this chapter: Jack Monroe has more dimension than I initially plan, and I’ll be honest that I didn’t even know what to do with him and somehow him fighting Loki was also another unexpected addition (which is bad because Loki is super strong. I’ll admit the action scenes are lame in my perspective), only because it occurred to me that Loki and Jack would have cross paths in that situation. It’s possible to love a villain (look at Loki), so I’m down for a challenge to write more dimension to the characters and even the antagonist;
Jemma Simmons (from Agents of SHIELDs) POV was also unexpected and the lines and dialogue are actually based from Agents of SHIELD S1E01, for this one, I was trying to think how SHIELD would have handled a burnt building and I suddenly remembered that episode. What a coincidental timing. In here, Fitz & Simmons are still in SHIELD Academy, and would “graduate” next year. So their appearance here is meant to be short;
And Shane, also another unexpected scene, but after that unplanned scene with Jack, it gave Loki an inkling that this wasn’t a mere “accident”, and, in his “rational mind” (which is questionable because he’s not thinking too clearly and everything is going fast for Loki to process so he’s bound to make mistakes, but he’ll eventually adapt to this “human” crisis and incident) the best course of action is to delete every single hint of the project and NOT go back to his apartment, even though he’s arrogantly sure he can win in any fight. Well, there’s a line between cocky and confidence. At least we get to see what Shane and Loki’s relationship are like, though they are not THAT close as Loki was to Aaron, but they get on well enough. The funny thing is that according to my notes, Shane was supposed to be a Biomedical Engineer yet I had him as an Astrophysicist. He’s such a contrast to Aaron, so he’s interesting to write. I have a written but deleted 1k word scene of Shane talking to Sharon and Coulson. I didn’t add it because it felt like OCs taking over the story and that is definitely NOT my intent. My strict rule in the fic are, if there are OCs, keep it limited and no romance for Loki.
It was tricky to write Loki’s thought process. In his head, it’s fast-paced and maybe to the point, unreliable. But the sad thing is, Loki is a thousand years old. He had nearly 2 years to adapt living on Earth and he had come to some terms that he is surrounded by short-life span creatures. I don’t think Loki could articulate his thought process at the moment because he wasn’t THAT prepared to face it, and it’s better left to be interpreted (to us) and unsaid (to Loki). If you are wondering why I don’t add tags like “character death”, well there are some things I don’t want to spoil.
I honestly hold some regrets the way I have written Culver University - Part 1, because i wanted to explore Loki’ life he had built before the explosion happened. Maybe I could have kept that part a bit slow transition but I also wanted to introduce SHIELD and it was a starting point of how Loki would get involve. I’ll admit I’m sad about what happened to Aaron, sort of fond of him because he’s such an energetic and witty friend of Loki.
The flashbacks, definitely should have placed one in the previous chapter but I was concerned of the wordcount at that time. It felt like info-dumping since it’s the introduction so here it is. I kind of like writing the flashbacks because Loki here is a little close to the MCU-canon mindset and personality. It’s such a contrast to the present-Loki (Lucas) who is more guarded…but then again, a lifetime with his family have much more influence over Loki compared to humans.
I never thought I would finally be able to get Chapter 1 of Falling - and shockingly 5k words. I feel like I want to cry for my past-self, who has been suffering from writer’s block.
And now, I can only hope I would be able to complete this series till the end. The last multi-chapter fic I had completed was like 6 years ago and that had been around 80k. And now, Loki’s Legend, probably my biggest and most ambitious project in fanfiction that has been around for 6 years. I estimate the series wordcount would be around 300,000 and more. Who knows? For now, we’ll focus on Part 1 of Loki’s Legend. It contains a long character arc for Loki that I planned, “lots of worldbuilding, hand-wavey comic book science” and some added spy elements. I was an ambitious high school student, okay? With the pandemic and online classes, let’s see if I can pull this through.
Thoughts on Ch 1? I’m not entirely satisfied. Maybe because of Loki’s tone, which is hard to pull off, which is why I sometimes switch to Third Omniscient POV. Oh yeah. There’s a LOT of Easter eggs planted in Ch 1.There’s one that wasn’t even planned but added last minute. Ugh. I need to look for my notes because I’m sure they were based from the Marvel comics but I know it’s significant.
Hmmm. Sharon as their neighbor was also one of the latest addition that wasn’t planned. Originally, she was with Coulson in HQ but then when I thought of Captain America: Winter Soldier, she just has to have some experience in that area as pretending to be neighbor hehehehehe.
I’ve seen a lot of “Loki falls to Earth” that has some Tesseract involved, in this case, I want to emphasize heavily that Loki has his own story and focus on that other plots and sub-plots. There’s a lot of Thanos and Tesseract fanfics out there, and it would feel a bit redundant or rehash for me to touch that storyline. Not to say it’s a never. It’s really more out of desire for Loki to have his own experiences and has to shine in his own way in that universe. Eventually, but let’s just stick to Loki crossing paths with SHIELD.
And I sort of pity Loki in this chapter, because he’s just so confused and tired. His time in Midgard sort of changed him. But underneath, he’s still the God of Mischief we love.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 2/?
Fandom: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Sharon Carter (Marvel), Phil Coulson, Other Character Tags to Be Added
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Series, Agent Loki, SHIELD Loki, Loki-centric, gen - Freeform, Character Study, Character Development, Action/Adventure, Mystery, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Sci-Fi, Loki falls to Earth, Issues, Family, Spy - Freeform, Episodes, Unreliable Narrator, Friendship, Pre-Avengers (2012)
Series: Part 1 of Loki's Legend
Summary:
Loki has been living on Midgard after his fall into the Void, struggling to adapt the realm. When SHIELD offers him an opportunity to be recruited into their organization, Loki decides to take it if it means he would never be bored of the dull life he had built. And SHIELD never suspects that they had recruited the God of Mischief.
Unfortunately Falling Ch 1 will be release the beginning of January instead of this year. Besides there isn’t enough time to get the chapter out, I notice there is something that will match the story and I kind of want to fit it, hence it will be out on January.
I have to ignore my 4k Draft and go for a new one. On the latest draft, it’s around 400 words and I’m still taking some of the scenes from the first draft to combine with the latest one. It’s a mess but hopefully I got Loki’s tone and voice right. Cuz I’m still annoyed on why I chose to go for present tense and I had to rewrite the whole thing to past tense.
And I can’t find my notebook which I had YEARS ago, served as reference from Agents of SHIELD. I rather not bingewatch the whole show again to refresh my memory of what the organization is like. That takes a lot of my time and I’m still reading my 60k notes for this fic. I’m tempted to be a panster, but I knew I’m gonna kick myself in the head.
Good news, Ch 1 of Loki’s Legend: Falling is finally ongoing. There were 8 different drafts I believe that had been done between 2015-2017. And it took a while to find the file in which I labelled “Drafts”
So I decided to combine ALL of the drafts for the first chapter and surprisingly, the wordcount is 4k. I don’t plan to polish this fic at the moment, but I do plan to start around Christmas Break as I mentioned. Still thinking of whether to do advance writing by completing the whole book or just have a couple of chapters written ahead.
When I think about the drafts, I remember the only reason I managed to push myself to write it is because of the word challenge (750 words and NaNoWriMo). Which helped because I do have a “perfectionist” side, so I tend to stay still at certain scenes when I should just pretend not to make the fic person in first round.
Here’s what my folder looks like and it’s a freaking mess with all my notes there and I have to organize once again. It seems I prefer to plan and outline rather than write the actual chapter, and once again, I can barely remember an amazing quote and in which scene I have to particularly insert. And before you ask, it’s not a spoiler that I DO plan to have Loki’s Legend it into 5 books. At the moment, it might be into 1 fic, but we’ll see
So I had been stressed cuz I’m pretty sure I had a backstory outlined for Loki’s Legend, and I only just noticed I had a folder that says “Backstory”. There are two files, Asgard and Midgard.
The Asgard - which is funny because I don’t know how I managed to write the backstory in 5,000 words
Whereas Midgard backstory only had 3000 words
It served as a refresh for me since I now have an idea how I would portray Loki and his mental state.
I’ll admit that the reason why I haven’t update is mostly because I’m having a writer’s block in one of the main characters. Because as far as I have seen, Falling has definitely been outlined. At least, 60% I have a general idea what happens in each chapter. But this character’s arc is what I struggled the most and I have no idea what to do with her.
If I ever updated, it won’t be my best work. I’m most likely going to start working on it by Christmas break, and I’m debating back and forth if I have to finish the whole book first before I publish it or not.
