I’d love the ⭐️ director’s cut⭐️ of literally any scene you’d like to talk about from TNAA!! Your last notes are so fascinating. (Don’t know who complained about the fight scene- it hurt me in the same way the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight hurt me and it was so so good)
Any way I literally haven’t stopped thinking about your incredible fic!!!
Oh Stars, many people complained 😅 just read through the comment section on Chapter 25. Some are quite mean. It's okay though. If what I wrote was complex enough to challenge people, that's a good thing.
Another behind the scenes for Then, Now, and Always....hm. God, I feel like I gave my best in the first one. Oh, I know! I'll tell you about an early version of the plot I had.
I'm remembering stuff while reading through my first, very early drafting document. In this one, the Witch Plague vaccine I mention in Chapter 10: Jem's Gift, was much more important. Like, Raelle and Scylla actually crack it, they figure it out. The problem is that Alder can't do vaccines, the Biddy bond makes them not work. I actually had this whole subplot, like a big press-conference thing where General Alder is photographed getting the first dose of the vaccine to comfort the American witch population and assure them it's safe.
But of course, it's a dose of saline.
That was going to be the Chekhov's Gun of Arc III, instead of Hearst finding Alder's blood after the big duel and making Blood Plague from it. It's this big, classified-above-top-secret fakeout where Alder's actually deeply vulnerable to Witch Plague, really the only witch who is. This, rather than the Biddy bond, is why she's the only one who can stop the big explosion of plague from Silver's Fountain.
But I kept running into "oh then why would this happen? why would that happen? why would this be important?" sorts of issues. Eventually, I realized they all stemmed from the fact that if there's a Witch Plague vaccine, Witch Plague stops being a threat. And this completely undercuts the death factory as a plot device. This source of the Camarilla's power that the army is so desperate to find, that Tally breaks into a top secret government facility to find, that she commits high treason to find, that Nicte murders the Secretary of State over, is now sort of irrelevant. The stakes of Tally and Alder's death factory infiltration in Arc III are much lower. Not only that, but it blunts the Ozarks reveal in Chapter 28: Alder's Folly significantly. And given the first 27 chapters, that scene had to come down like the hand of God.
I realized that if I wanted the death factory to be a major plot device, I had to keep Witch Plague in the game as a big, terrifying weapon of mass destruction. Not only that, but I had to up the ante in order to make the death factory as critical as possible. So I leaned harder into Blood Plague. An even more dangerous Witch Plague that ended up introducing all of the DNA/eugenics/technology stuff, which brought thematic depth to the fic. Not only that, but the development of Blood Plague as an unstoppable weapon of war added a ticking clock, which every action-thriller needs.
The only real bummer is that I didn't realize all of this until after I'd written the first seven or so chapters. So Chapter 6: The Nightmare Bat was already done. If I was going to write Then, Now, and Always again, I'd have Alder and co. go up against Witch Plague during the Idaho extraction.
I actually feel quite silly for not doing that. Like, I wrote Raelle into the scene initially because I knew the Unit wouldn't be getting much screen time and she made more sense than Abigail, given she's a Fixer and Tally might have been injured. But looking back on it, why would Alder risk the army's most valuable asset by bringing her into the field if they didn't need the Witchbomb, specifically?
(This ties into my whole rant as to how dumb it was that Alder let Raelle off-base in Season 2, even with the protection detail.
Why??? The fuck???? Would you allow a priceless, one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable, war-ending asset to leave Fort Salem during an escalating conflict???? I know it's another Make The Plot Go decision so Raelle could be captured by the Camarilla, but come the fuck on, there's other ways that could have happened.)
Not only that, but I'm a big believer in Show, Don't Tell. Then, Now, and Always does a lot of Telling about the massive threat of Witch Plague, but not a lot of showing. In Chapter 10: Jem's Gift, Raelle tells Tally "Oh, it's weirder to not encounter Witch Plague in the field," after they pointedly don't encounter it in...really the only military field mission in the whole fic. That would have been the best time to Show, Not Tell.
They're trapped on the Idaho alpine plateau. Witch Plague is swarming in from all directions. It's a big black sea. A flood of pure death. No one can see the trees for it. Raelle's trying her best, there's glowing Witchbomb explosions everywhere, Alder's pouring torrents of lightning into the plague, Nicte's bombing the hell out of it with her jars, but it's not enough, not enough--
Until Tally puts her hands on the Nightmare Bat's console and gets it airborne.
In my defense, I started writing Then, Now, and Always before I'd really seen the show, so putting Witch Plague into the scene wasn't instinctive at that point. It's still a dope-ass scene and I'm proud of it. Just saying....y'know, if I was gonna do it again.
Fun additional fact: Tally mentions in Chapter 18: Hopi Cession that Witch Plague is being deployed more and more, becoming more dangerous, more aggressive because Tally's efforts in the mediasphere are working. A a few weeks ago, I started drafting a screenplay version of Then, Now, and Always as an alt-Season 3 and quickly realized I was going to need to actually show that action, versus just alluding to it. I came up with the coolest, most suspenseful, tragic, action-packed, badass, deeply allegorical episode of Motherland: Fort Salem ever.
And then I realized I couldn't write a Then, Now, and Always screenplay. It would be like composing a symphony, but never hearing it. A screenplay is just instructions. The medium is film. I could make a bangin' screenplay of Then, Now, and Always as the amazing, heart-stopping, transcendent final season of M:FS, but it could never be shot, and that would kill me. I'll save that idea for an original screenplay.
Thanks so much for the ask and for reading and enjoying the fic! I love all you guys very much.