#willowcrowned

[incorrecttrigun]

[phoenixyfriend]

would you ever write a dystopian au?? like zombies, technodystopia, etc (for the purposes of this question assume the gffa is not already basically a dystopia)

Let’s play Writer’s Would You Ever

Oh, this is a fun one. Let's see...

There was a trend, maybe a decade ago? I remember it being big right after Avengers 2012 hit, and it lasted a few years, so probably a decade. There was a trend for zombie and similar dystopia AUs for a lot of fandoms. There are two that stand out in my memory for Marvel in particular (one is young, deaf Clint in a no-powers au, Survival Value, and the other is a zombie-adjacent AU where the Chitauri won and Earth is a hellscape, Underground), and a few more across other fandoms, so I do remember really enjoying the style... however.

As you pointed out, the GFFA is kind of already a dystopia. And I feel like dystopian AUs are most useful in terms of putting characters in a setting where not only do they not have any real resources, but they can't realistically acquire any meaningful stash, as such, or a setting that's overbearingly authoritarian, which, again, a cyberdystopia is just... canon? Even zombies are canon, if in a much more limited manner, but at this point I think zombies as a trope are pretty played out unless you add an extra twist (like P&P&Z), and I can't think of anything off the top of my head that I could write that would actually be, like, more interesting than canon settings.

Mostly, I don't think the normal settings, the zombies and the technodystopia etc, would bring anything new to the table that wasn't already present in canon to one degree or another. I'd spend a lot of time going "why am I doing this instead of canon, again?"

There are AUs with an element of dystopia that I could do (easily with a steampunk setting, play into the imperialism and a dash of medical malpractice, that sort of thing), buuuuut I don't think that really counts since the dystopia isn't necessarily the main draw.

I think if I ever did do a dystopia fic, it would probably be an Earth-set post-nuclear wasteland. I haven't personally played any of the fallout games, but I've watched The Final Pam and those hours-long hbomberguy reviews (I really liked the New Vegas one), so I think I get the gist, and that would I think be the best setting to work with. A more limited set of tech than canon, a tighter world with less maneuverability, and a fun set of aesthetics and general vibes with some Old West But Make It CyberSteamPunk draped across it.

So yeah, unlikely to write one for Star Wars, but if I do, it'll probably be a mountain states post-nuclear war Wild West type of thing.

I'd get to play with small scale economics (not really a draw in zombie AUs) while deviating from the canon technodystopia stuff.

[the-overanalyzer]

obsessed with this post chain

[purplesauris]

boba + luke 45 & 46

WILLOOOOOW thank you for sending one in! This one was a lot of fun to write, even if i fudged the line just a little 😊

45. "I think I made a mistake."

46. "Shut up, I am a delight!"

Boba isn't quite sure how his life became this.

One moment he was a remnant of his father's legacy, and the next a daimyo of Tatooine with a pet Jedi who likes to haunt his halls. His Jedi would object to being described as a pet, but Boba likens him to a massiff, friendly one moment and deadly the next. Both sides of him excite Boba in unique ways as much as they frustrate him— whether that be when Luke's annoyingly optimistic outlook overshadows Boba's attempt at being annoyed, or like right now, when the teeth and razor sharp claws come out.

Boba isn't quite sure what set Luke off, but he's not about to step in and try to break up the bare knuckle brawl in front of him. 

He only slumps on his throne, cheek resting on his fist as he watches the scene play out before him. Fennec joins him, perching on the wide arm next to him and tossing back a hearty swig of neon blue spotchka. "He's at it again?"

"Mhm," Boba agrees, wincing sympathetically as Luke's synthetic hand collides with the jaw of the trandoshan that's drawn his ire. "He's awfully combative for a pacifist, isn't he?"

Fennec snorts in agreement, offering the bottle with a quiet slosh and shrugging when Boba waves it off. "Did you manage to catch what the fight is about?"

"Not a clue," Boba deadpans. "I think I made a mistake bringing him here."

Huffing a laugh, Fennec kicks a leg up and leans back to watch the show. "You're just catching that?"

"Watch it Shand, I sign your paychecks," Boba replies, shooting his second-in-command a look that she summarily ignores. "Think he'll win?"

Fennec hums, ignoring the question as she watches Luke tackle the trandoshan to the ground. Boba watches for a while longer until he grows bored of them beating on each other, and then he launches his whip cord, catching Luke neatly around the ankles and pulling him over. Luke glares at Boba as he catches himself with the Force, laying flat on his back as Boba hauls him in. There's blood beginning to crust under Luke's nose, and a dark bruise blooming on his cheekbone, but he's otherwise fit enough to scowl at the interruption.

"You just love to ruin court, don't you?" Boba murmurs, holding tight to the cord even as Luke wiggles. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Luke replies, relaxing where Boba leaves him at the base of the dais. "He started it."

"Are you four?"

"I'm easily a ten," Luke sniffs, somehow managing to look down his nose while tangled in Boba's whip cord. 

"You're a pain in my ass," Boba replies, Fennec snickering next to him.

Luke's affronted look is almost worth the trouble he brings as he manages to worm his way out of the restraints and to his feet. "I am a delight and you know it, you bantha's ass."

"You'd have to prove it first," Boba snips back, bracing himself a second before Luke nearly smashes their heads together in a brutal Keldabe kiss. This close, Boba pitched his voice low enough that their words are hidden. "You're going to tear apart my throne room."

"I'll fix it," Luke replies breezily.

Boba isn't convinced, not one bit. "Menace."

"Your menace," Luke murmurs, flashing a pink-toned grin. 

Heaving a sigh, Boba chucks Luke under the chin and sits back, resigning himself to the inevitable. "I want everything back exactly the way it was."

"As my daimyo commands," Luke teases, sweeping into a low, mocking bow before going to hunt down his forgotten foe. 

Silence settles for a moment before Fennec breaks it with a snort. "Bet you fifty credits he'll come back with a new best friend."

"Can it, Shand."

Unfortunately, she's right as usual, and Luke chats amicably about his newest companion over dinner that night.

[waukrife]

okay so here’s the thing about getting modern-girl-in-middle-earthed into the middle of the gffa— there’s several trillion people in the galaxy and you are, statistically speaking, so unlikely to meet anyone important to the plot ever that you may as well just stay on earth. there isn’t really any solution to that problem besides being ~incredible and ~magically being so good at the force that you run into your favorite character, so i am suggesting a version where the person dropped into the gffa ISN’T special and to get their favorite character’s attention, starts internet stalking them

I activate my world-beaming Macguffin/open the case of my Star Wars: The Prequel Trilogy With Directors’ Commentary Blu Ray Disc/die suddenly then wake up. I’m in the GFFA. 

I can read the street signs. I can speak Basic. I’m in 500 Republica. Padmé sets eyes on me, immediately divorces Anakin. Now we’re married and I use her wealth and connections to live in luxury. Occasionally, instead of dropping hints about the rare and expensive spacefruit I’d like to try, I go, “Hey babe, Mas Amedda like, totally creeps me out. I also think he’s kind of...majorly breaking the law </3 I heard him and Sheev on spaceskype chatting to Count Dooku. Do you think they’re like, cahooting?” I’m destroying careers, I’m copping that (space) Valentino. Anakin is crying outside the window. I’m closing the blinds. 

......

Either that or I wake up, face down in the middle of a swamp on J'doytzin III and die within 3 days from eating poison moss. 

[jediknobi]

Anakin: I don’t feel like you’re being properly impressed by my investigation skills, Obi-Wan

Obi-Wan trying not to die: yes, I can’t imagine how you couldn’t be my priority right now

Anakin: the sarcasm I detect in your voice adds 20 more seconds of me sitting on my butt and watching you getting beat up

[fanficwritersinterviewed]

MCM, willowcrowned

<<This post is a part of a longer conversation about fanfic writers, how they view fanfic, and their writing process. All views are the fanfic writers’ own, and whatever fanfic they choose to write is entirely their own decision. No judgment value will be placed on fic content. These conversations are meant to provide insight for other fanfic writers in whatever stage they are at in their writing life>>

Meet-Cute Monday (with willowcrowned, @willowcrowned​ )

AO3 Stats:

Pseud: willowcrowned Pronouns: she/her How many total fic: 58 How many fandoms: 12 Total word count: 308,663 Long fic word count: 45,632 Shortest fic: 417 Highest kudo count: 1517 Lowest: 9

And what's the story behind your pseud? The short answer is that I like trees and crowns. The longer and much nerdier answer is that I had Tolkien’s stuff about willows on my mind while I was trying to come up with a pseud that didn't have my name in it. Also, I like crowns.

How long have you been reading and writing fanfic? I've been reading fic for about eight years. I've been writing fic for just as long, though my first attempts belong thoroughly in the tweenage slush pile of 'well, it shows promise. kind of. maybe. if we're being generous.’

And was that under a different pseud or have you been monogamous with this one this whole time? HA. Totally different pseud. I've gone by, oh, four now? It wasn't even on AO3, either, which is a major relief. Also loving the phrasing here. Yes I DID cheat on my last pseud. Don't tell it though—I don't want to be the one to serve the divorce papers.

What drew you back to writing fanfic for this go-around? I've never really left fandom. I've always liked hanging around the edges—writing when I want to, not writing when I don't. I like writing—not just having written, or reading what I've written, but the act of writing itself (or at least I like it most of the time). I just find putting words down on a page very tangibly fulfilling. I don't really want anything more out of it than that.

So you en... enjooooy writing.  Am I pronouncing that right? Aahfsjhkdjghj

Talk me through how that works because that’s not how my brain operates. Have you ever played an instrument?

Badly. Okay, uh. Imagine you can play an instrument well. There's a point when you're playing when you slip into almost a meditative state, where you can feel the vibrations of the instrument underneath your fingers, and you can feel the rhythm, and you know you're the one doing it, but at the same time you hear music in the air, and you've done that—you've made something beautiful, and through the act of creating it, you've become more a part of it than you could listening.

Anyway, my point being: there's a joy and a satisfaction inherent to creativity and to the act of creating something, and that applies with anything you make. That's all there is to it, I guess. I do find joy in connecting with a community, and I wouldn't give up that part of fandom for the life of me, but when I'm after that, I go on Tumblr or message a friend. When I write, it's because I want to write—specifically to write, to create in that way.

What is your relationship to your fic after you've written? How much fulfillment is the "after" in writing for you? I think for me there's a difference between writing, sharing, and posting. When I want to write, I write, and in return I've created something and fulfilled what I think is a very basic human need to make things. When I want to talk about my writing—when I want to know if it's good, if it's affected someone, if it's working well and if it, at the end of the day, might matter to someone else, I share it with someone I know will be able to give me the thoughtful feedback I crave. When I post something, I definitely do want comments from it—I'm not a perfect human, free from all desire for attention—but I'm not posting it expecting thoughtful, meaningful, and fulfilling engagement. I'm posting it because I read fic, and I like reading fic, and I want to sort of... contribute. And also get praise, because again: not perfect.

In terms of my relationship to fic after I've posted, I will say I do check for comments pretty obsessively (the potential promise of a comment notification from AO3 in my email is the only thing that gets me to actually check my email these days), but the biggest fulfillment comes from (a) the process of creating and (b) the meaningful, thoughtful engagement I seek out on my own terms.

So you write a lot of headcanon, cracky, what-if takes on Tumblr that never turn into fic. What does Tumblr give you that fanfic can’t? Functionally? Community. Tumblr is a lot quicker at responding, especially now that I've got a bit of an audience on there, and it's also way quicker for me to write a Tumblr post because I'm not putting much actual thought into it. When I'm writing, I'm focused on creating a piece of art—dubious though the quality may be. When I'm posting to Tumblr, I'm focused on making a funny joke.

Tumblr is where I get a lot of my laughs, and a lot of the feeling of community that I think is so integral to fandom—for whatever reason, a lot of us care about something (and when that something is Star Wars, you definitely are searching for a reason, because why) and humans are social creatures. We want to care together.

Fic—specifically writing fic—is where I go to fill a deeper, harder to satiate need for creation and for intellectual stimulation. Community and intellectual engagement aren't mutually exclusive, but I find that for the most part, Tumblr is better for the former, and writing fic is better for the latter.

Inspiration. Where is it for you? Other people! I'm terrible at coming up with things on my own, and that's not an exaggeration. The easiest shortcut to inspiration for me is reading other people's fics. Sometimes the inspiration is just "well that was a terrible take on everything, hold my beer while I do it better" and sometimes it's "huh, that's a neat concept, but what would happen if I did this, and threw in a pinch of that, and I think some nutmeg would go nice here," but either way it almost never fails.

[thebibliosphere]

New pitch: Anti-Kellog's Cereal by Joy. Made out of organic corn specifically to induce horniness. Your joints still do the advertising for you.

😂😂😂