#winterbythesea

[pirateherokillian]

Charming ‘You’re a dirty, unreliable pirate’ but I also implicitly trust you and kinda like wanna protect you from harm? (aka The Charmings Actually Love Their Resident Pirate | Snow White Edition)

Also born from the Discord chat with @thesschesthair, @winterbythesea, and @optomisticgirl (and specifically requested by @optomisticgirl!). And be sure to check out the meta by @sunseulsoleil about this very topic!

[cshistfic]

Get-To-Know-Me: @winterbythesea

We’re excited to introduce the authors and artists who will have signed up for this event! Stay tuned in September, and make sure to give them lots of love.

Tumblr/Ao3 handle: @winterbythesea/Iverna

How long have you been involved in fandom? I joined the OUAT/CS fandom after season 3, so... 7 years? Oh boy.

What draws you to this event? I like history! That's really it.

Do you have a favorite historical period to learn or read about? Ancient Greece and Rome, Celtic Ireland, Viking times... I like Jane Austen novels too, though.

Why do you like historical fics? I think a major reason is I just like stories that aren't set in the modern world I'm familiar with, so if it's set back at some point in history, it means I get to experience a different world for a while, and I love that. 

What is the inspiration behind your story? A desire to see Emma and Killian as Vikings, because lbr they would both make fantastic Vikings.

I’m so thrilled to welcome @winterbythesea, our first artist, to this event! She treated us to a little sneak peek of her art on Discord the other week, and let me tell you - she’s right that they will make FANTASTIC Vikings.

Her piece will be dropping on Wednesday, September 22nd.

[kmomof4]

Hey y’all, look! It’s me!

Compliments of @winterbythesea

Thank you, Svenja!!!

[searchingwardrobes]

Melanie’s Favorite Fics - Part Two

"Sentimental" by @winterbythesea​ : Neither of them is sentimental. They would never keep something for sentimental value. They are both practical people. They are also both liars.

Part One

[cssns]

It’s sneak peek time again y’all!!!

Tomorrow @winterbythesea will be dropping a dueling magical vampire fic. Here’s a summary to whet your appetite!!! Be sure to give her lots of love!!!

Emma is determined to save Wendy Darling; Killian is just as determined to protect her. The trouble is, neither of them know what the other is really up to, and they don’t know who to trust. So what do you do when your former ally, partner, and lover is the one thing standing in your way?

You dance. You fight. And you don’t get distracted.

At least, that’s the theory.

[wistfulcynic]

You write a lot of very different and usually elaborate AUs so I would like to know, what, to you, are the fundamental things about Killian and Emma that make them THEM, no matter what the setting is? And how do you get into their heads for a story?

I love this question, because this is something I think about a LOT. The key is separating the characteristics of Emma and Killian that are innate to them and the ones that they gained through experience. And then deciding how the different experiences you give them in the AU would change them from the canon characters. 

For instance, an Emma raised in a loving family is not going to have the WALLS(TM) that canon Emma had. She’d still be tough and with a strong moral core, but she’d be less closed off, less insecure. A Killian raised by Liam, without all the loss he suffered and the injustice he faced, would still have his quick temper and smart mouth but not the regret or self-loathing. Changing their backstories would bring out their other qualities. Emma’s kindness, Killian’s intelligence. I could see competitive streaks in each of them and a desire to achieve. Passion in whatever they decide to do. 

I do like to try to bring in some of the beats from their canon backstories even in AUs, if possible, but one of my pet peeves is when those things get shoehorned in. Sometimes there’s no room in fics to involve Neal or Milah given the timelines they have, and also when AUs include Killian losing his hand I really wish they’d focus a bit more on the trauma of that. Canon Killian had three hundred years to get used to using his hook, an AU Killian who just lost his hand a year ago is still going to be struggling with it. 

Ultimately I feel like the most important thing is not to cling slavishly to certain canon characteristics or plot beats unless there’s a solid reason in your AU’s backstories for those characteristics and beats to exist. And if including them is important to you, then think about how to incorporate them in a way that feels natural. 

-

it’s fic writer Friday! ask me anything!

[ohmightydevviepuu]

5 and 7?

Which of your fics do you wish was more successful?

this is actually a tough one because i have a great base of readers who always boost me up when i post something.  but, yeah, it’s probably my firefly series (space pirates AU), because that is SO niche, and it’s really different in both tone and content from anything else i post.  that’s what is fun and challenging about it (for me as a writer) so i can see that being something a reader is hesitant on.

so you can understand it meant a lot to me to get your feedback on it!  😘

What’s your favourite piece of description or narration?

can i have two?  🤣

The full force of his attention on her, that was a lot, but that was nothing compared to all of him against her and the way that his fingers finally wound their way through her hair and ghosted across her cheek, caressing her as if her skin was a petal on one of the flowers in his bouquets—one of the tulips in her greenhouse—delicate and worthy of care and attention. There was the metal of his rings, cool as his finger traced the line of her cheekbone, and when his mouth opened and a sound escaped Emma wasn’t sure if it was him or her—but kissing Killian Jones was exactly as good as she remembered.

operation tulips (your two lips should kiss)

and

...the ink she’d given him in New York, his brother’s name and rank and serial number in a rendering of his dog tags; there was the anchor along his pelvis, that was from Boston. The octopus curling around his shoulder and down the side of his torso--that was Los Angeles. She’d done the roped sailor’s knots around his wrist and the watercolor shamrock with its endless Celtic knot on his forearm in Orlando; his calf sported the red rose on the watercolor blue background she’d designed in New Orleans.  All along his body he had a map, the cartography of their relationship drawn and memorialized by her hand, its ups and its downs and its endurance across time and distance.

(the words, day 1)

end of the year fic asks, why not? send me one!

[captainswanbigbang]

CSRT Snippet

Here’s a snippet for you to enjoy from @winterbythesea‘s CSRT work in progress!

Emma led the way down into Regina’s vault, taking a triumphant pleasure in letting her hands trail along the stone walls, over a decorated box, several books... touching.

“Never gets any less creepy, does it,” she commented.

Killian grimaced in agreement, blue eyes flicking around the cramped, dark space. “It’s certainly fitting to be the Evil Queen’s lair.”

“I never got that,” Emma said. “If I had a lair, I’d want it to be nice. You know?”

Killian shot her look, and for a second, she thought there was some alarm in there, or at least a question. Like he was wondering whether she was planning to get herself a lair.

It was gone immediately, and he smirked. “A nice lair? I think those words might be mutually exclusive.”

“Lairs can’t be nice?” Emma made a show of looking around. “I don’t know, I think you could make it a little homier, at least.”

“Some flowers and pretty drapes, perhaps,” he suggested.

“A couple of throw cushions,” Emma agreed. They grinned at each other.

Then Emma turned her attention to the wall, where dozens of hearts beat in their creepy, sarcophagus-like boxes. It was like a morgue for hearts, and she’d always hated it.

“Do you know why she never gave them back?” Killian asked, following her gaze.

Emma shook her head. “I don’t even know why she took them.”

“Leverage,” Killian said at once. “And punishment, perhaps. But the only reason to take someone’s heart and keep it is to control them, is it not?”

“Yeah.” Emma made a face. Killian, she noted, was all but glaring at the wall of hearts like it had personally offended him. Maybe it had. Of all the things he hated, being controlled was one of the worst.

“Even so, I wonder that she brought them with her,” Killian said. “If there was no magic in this realm, how are they still alive?”

“Taking hearts is different,” Emma said. Regina had never told her about this; of course she hadn’t, she’d avoided the subject like the coward she was, loathe as always to bring up any of her own wrongdoings. But Emma knew about it now. She knew a lot of things now. “You need magic to take it, and to put it back, but that’s it. I guess under the curse, people wouldn’t even have known that they were—”

She broke off as the memory hit her.

It’s my heart, Emma.

She swallowed, ignoring Killian’s look, feeling numbness spread out from the pit of her stomach.

Graham.

Like this snippet? Reblog with your thoughts in the tags to let the author know what you think!