I was cyber-bullied into being here.

I loooove all the fanart of mutated!Simon people have been coming up with, but I've only seen a handful of people go in a more tree related direction, and I just think that idea is so so cool. It also HEAVILY ties in with the convoluted lore I'm cooking up but shhhh that's a story for another day.

Here's the text on Simon's design if you can't read my shitty handwriting as compressed by my shitty printer's scanner lol:

Leaves growing through hair.

Softer skin is the texture of new growth tree limbs.

Left arm tougher & more bark-like.

The forever moon boots.

My first version of Simon's design had a kind of half-and-half thing going on, with the left side of his body being tree inspired, while the right half maintained the classic blood moon influence, like he had two cosmic entities vying for control of his body. I ended up........ not liking that lol. It all felt a little "knock-off my hero academia deviantart oc" if you know what I mean. My friend suggested I make his feet more root-like when I said I was struggling with a fully tree inspired design, and voilà! Moon boots Simon was born.

Ava's design doesn't have any little notes on it because I was so stunned by the result I couldn't bring myself to touch it after I was done aadsfjskfjlas. I'm literally so proud of her, my toothy fucked up meow meow, my sweet cheese, my bad time gal. I've seen so many people draw Simon as a mermaid and NOT ONE PERSON MAKE AVA A MERMAID!! SHE ALSO DIES IN THE BLOOD OCEAN!! FISHIFY MY GIRL RIGHT NOW!!!! I'm sure someone else has done it lol, but people should be doing it MORE.

As soon as I decided on doing a mermaid thing for her, I looked at the scar over her eye and thought "that should be teeth. Her whole body should actually just be teeth." I kind of smashed the Blood Eel, Joel from Look Outside, and a Shadow Leviathan from Subnautica: Below Zero together and called it a day. Deadlymelodic(the main artist/animator for Iron Lung + the person who designed the Blood Eel)'s website has some GREAT references, including a full body shot of the eel that reveals her tail is made up of human limbs??? God I love creepy horror shit like that so muchhhhh.

Btw the Light would 100% dub Ava "The Executioner" like it calls Simon "Butcher" right?? Like if a cosmic horror entity dug deep into what would make her feel the most eldritch guilt, all it would have to do is go "hey you know how you've been killing off some of the only remaining humans for a dubiously achievable goal?" and she would be going fisho mode faster than you could say HULL BREACH, HULL BREACH, HULL BR-

Writing process

Brainstorming

Behold, the great sticky note skewer. These are all of the sticky notes I used while brainstorming for the lore/worldbuilding of this fic (for now, anyway.) I always copy down my notes into my outline google doc, but sometimes writing stuff down helps my brain work through writer's block. I used to keep composition books, but I discovered sticky notes, for whatever reason, were SUPER helpful in speeding through large plot arcs while outlining. I wanted to keep them even after they’d been digitized, so I asked my dad if I could steal a receipt spike he got at the thrift store. Now, it lives on my desk!

I have a decorative corkboard next to my desk, and this is the only functional thing on it. I kept forgetting what calendar years corresponded to the Marauders’ school years lol. The little scribbles to the side are the word count for various segments within chapters. If I feel like a chapter’s pacing is a little wonky, I compare the word count for each segment separated by the little hourglasses ⧖. Ooh, btw, I totally got the idea for hourglass scene dividers from cyclical by cuips_not_cute. It’s a very, very good Stranger Things fanfic, and easily one of the best time travel fics I’ve ever read (and I have read……. A Lot….. of time travel fics……. lmao.)

Outlining

As you can see, some of my chapter outlines are super brief. Sometimes I figure out what scenes I want as I’m writing! But other times I plot them out beat by beat. The first chapter I just wrote out without an outline of any kind, then I started kind of plotting a few chapters ahead. It wasn’t until chapter 4 or 5 that I starting plotting out the entire fic. Chapters that I plan ahead in detail tend to be chapters that involve a lot of heavy plot threads that I need to keep track of for later, whereas chapters I just sort of free-style are ones that surround one specific plot point, and the rest I can kind of fill out based on vibes. I also cut things out sometimes, like James exploring the Restricted Section in chapter 2 (I spent way more time pre-funeral in that chapter than I expected), or Peter helping James experiment with the time turners in chapter 4. I write a LOT every chapter, and stuff can’t always make it in lol.

I plan VERY far ahead with my chapter titles lol, though I do change my mind sometimes. As such, I'm only going to give you a glimpse of the next two, teehee >:)

Writing

So I have a very specific writing process for most scenes. I'll write out all of the dialog for a scene, sometimes for a full chapter, and then fill in the dialog tags/action/exposition around it. I just find dialog easiest, so if I’m staring at an intimidatingly blank page, I do that first, and it usually helps me feel out when I want the scene to be. The little brackets [] indicate where a dialog tag will go. I don’t waste time on that when trying to get the flow of a conversation down. If I have a specific line/action note I don’t want to forget, I’ll toss that in brackets as well.

Really the only times I don’t do dialog first are if I have a long section I know will be exposition or an action scene. I like to do everything in order, because I like knowing what comes before a scene before I write it. If I’m struggling to find the pacing of a scene, I’ll end up jotting down the rough beats either in a comment or in the body of the doc itself.

Inspiration

The very first chapter of fic was like, an amalgam of countless daydreams I’ve had over the past five years, but here are some things that really made it the beast it has become:

Death Grips by Etta Marcus!! The song that started it all. I had this idea bouncing around for YEARS, but I don’t know if I would have ever gotten it on paper without this song. I opened a google doc on a vacation at my aunt’s house and wrote out half of chapter 1 in a single sitting, while listening to this song on loop. My writing playlists are now so dominated by her music, she was almost the entirety of my Spotify wrapped last year. I think I listened to her whole discography on loop for months straight, so she’s really responsible for the first like five chapters of this fic lol. Chapter 3’s title is also from a song of hers called Hide & Seek!

My favorite time travel fanfics, from various fandoms, which made it my favorite trope of all time (not a full list, I could not possibly name them all, and CERTAINLY not in order, because I could never rank them):

Severus Snape - The One Who Walks in the Shadows by Shinehiro — MY FAVE SNAPE FIC OF ALL TIME. PLS READ IT. The LORE. Ugh, I reread this biannually. So, so good.

The ‘What Goes Around (Comes Around)’ series by Arkodian — The best time travel fanfics in the HP fandom imo, very much including my own. In my top favorite fics of all time, across all fandoms (which is impressive if you know how my fanfiction I read/how many fandoms I'm in.) It’s a classic Harry Goes Back In Time To First Year And Does A Bunch Of Politics fic. Dare I say it is the pinnacle of the genre. The politics, the characters, the world building, the plot lines……. all delicious. There’s also a Petunia + Dudley redemption in this one, which I adore!! My favorite character has to be Méabh (one of the very cool ocs in the fics), all of the Knockturn scenes/lore just make me so so happy.

The ‘A Dead Man’s Guide to Reliving Your Youth’ series by Spork_in_the_Road — The SECOND best Harry re-do fics, but only by a hair. Just as jaw-droppingly good as the #1 spot. Harry rides a basilisk through the school in this one. Enough said.

I simply have far too many Tomarry time travel fics I could recommend, so I’m just going to blast through as many as I can name — Before the Storm by orphan_account, If we could turn back time by MBlack93, in the silence by Hoppsan, and Custodarium by Tina48 are all PHENOMENAL.

The one Tommary time travel fic I would beg you all to read, however, is A Snake In The Apothecary by Sedimentary Bear. IT’S GOT EVERYTHING. Diary!Tom being a simp, amazing worldbuilding and the most unique magic lore I've EVER seen in the fandom, BAMF!Harry. It’s one of the best HP fics I’ve ever read, I implore you all to check it out.

Venturing out of the HP verse and into Stranger Things (another of my chief obsessions), there’s cyclical by cuips_not_cute, which I mentioned earlier. I’m way pickier about time loops than full time travel aus, but this one is absolutely stellar!

Going back to my roots, I'll Die to Care for You by thehufflepuffhobbit is one of my old classics. The Hobbit fandom is what first got me into time travel fics many, many years ago. God, do I love Thorin Oakenshield x Bilbo Baggins so inconceivably much. They BUILT me.

In the same vein, I remember To Fix What Was Broken by hobbitoutoftime being very good. I haven’t read either fic in a good long while, but those are my two classic Thilbo time travel fics :)

The loml forced me to watch Arcane and it changed my life. No spoilers, but that final Jayvik scene? Yeah, that’s extremely relevant to this fic >:)

And ofc, lest I forget, ALL OF YOU WHO COMMENTED ON THE FIC OR SENT ME ASKS ON TUMBLR!!! I refresh my inbox daily. Nothing has inspired me more than your takes on my writing, your analysis of my characters, and the sheer insanity that so many of you have enjoyed my silly fanfic!! You guys are my BIGGEST inspiration, always <333

I'll start with Eileen since she's going to be very different next time we see her in the story. The funeral scene comes at a point where she is at her most raw and open, so we see parts of her character that might be more subtle under other circumstances. I wanted her to have this layer of dignity and strength under a jumpy exterior, much like her son. We're going to be getting into the Snape family dynamic in a few chapters, so I don't want to spoil too much, but weirdly, Eileen at the funeral was Eileen at her best.

Severus's loss was obviously devastating for her, but I think in some ways it was also a push to take back some control over her life. After all, what else did she have to lose? In the current timeline, without this huge, tragic event to kind of force her out of her shell, we'll find her very much stuck in an unhappy, abusive marriage that is slowly driving a wedge between her and her son.

There are a lot of versions of Eileen and Severus's relationship in various incredible fanfics across the web, but here's my take on them: I don't think Eileen is the kind of amazingly brave person to put herself directly in Tobias's path to direct his abuse away from Severus. I also don't think she's a really bad parent or anything. She's complicated. She loves her son, but she's stuck in this really horrible situation that keeps her very beaten down. I don't want it to sound like I'm victim blaming her at all. Tobias is her sole source of income and financial security. She gave up the magical world and her family to be with him, she has no other safety net. I think she feels very resigned with her life, and she doesn't have a lot of fight in her. She's the kind of person that just takes whatever the world throws at her. That takes a lot of resilience, but it also means that Severus grew up in a tumultuous and unsafe home because his mother never really stood up for herself (or him.)

He ends up taking refuge with the Evanses. He spends as much time at their house as possible. He becomes practically a part of their family. I think Eileen adored Lily when she and Sev were growing up. Here's this bright, kind-hearted girl making her dour son light up. What a relief it must have been to see her make him smile for the first time in years. But I think Lily didn't spend as much time in the Snape household as Severus did in the Evans household, so Severus kind of becomes distant from his mother. Maybe she feels like he's chosen this other family over her, and even though she doesn't blame him for that, she feels like she's lost him a bit. By the time Lily and Severus split, maybe Eileen feels like she doesn't really know her son at all. That's sort of the starting point we're at in this timeline where Severus is alive, and therefore Eileen has no impetus to really take charge, not having had this horrible wake-up call to her own helplessness in the wake of her son's death. Pre-time travel, I think Eileen and Lily took a lot of comfort in each other as two people that lost someone that was already lost to them ;-;

I also have a LOT to say about the Potters omg. I wanted to strike a balance between showing their status as old money purebloods and showing how genuinely tight-knit they are as a family. Potter Manor is meant to feel homey and warm, but it's maybe a little more polished than the Burrow, for example. Euphemia is elegant in her cashmere shawls and speaks in a posh cadence, but she also doesn't worry about tracking in dirt from her garden. Fleamont is an extremely successful potioneer with a keen eye for business, but he also has this obvious spark of mischief that he passed on to his son. They adore their son, so much so that he doesn't really grow up with limits. James could get away with murder in that household. Sirius basically does.

I think the Potters 100% adopted all of the Marauders. Anything their son loves, they love just as hard. But Sirius is special. That's their second little boy. The Potters canonically tried for a long time before they had James, but I think they always wanted a large family. I could see Euphemia maybe having had a few miscarriages. She's just a really maternal person, and Sirius is in such desperate need of someone to love him properly. She and Fleamont see him as their own, absolutely no different that they see James. They wanted more kids all their lives, and James brings them home another child to dote on, and they just fall to pieces giving him anything he wants. All Potters love and love HARD. The downside of that is that these absurdly wealthy and privileged children now have two unconditional hype-men in their corners that make them think they can do no wrong.

I'm really looking forward to poking into the more complicated parts of the Potter family dynamic. Fleamont and Euphemia are very loving parents, but they aren't perfect. They sure as shit needed to discipline their kids more, or maybe they wouldn't have turned into such unrepentant bullies. I'm especially interested in James's prejudice against Slytherin. Where did that come from? Kids repeat what they hear, and James is spouting anti-Slytherin rhetoric at eleven years old on the train ride to Hogwarts. Maybe the outwardly open-minded and accepting Potters have some prejudice of their own. I think he probably overheard his parents say a lot of stuff akin to "Gryffindor = Light magic = being a good person."

This creates an unintentional pressure on him. Yeah, they would love him no matter what, but kids are sensitive to perceived expectations. He's a Potter, and Potters are Gryffindors. Potters are Light mages. There is, in fact, this mold he feels the need to fit into, though I don't think was ever a problem for him until recently. It's not that I think his upbringing made James insecure, I think it was the opposite. He loved living up to those expectations, and he was good at it. It was never a struggle for him to fit into this mold set out for him. But ultimately, this superiority complex led him to being a massive bully, and pretty damned prejudiced to a whole house of people, so these heroic ideals he was raised with have a bit of an underbelly.

It isn't until he starts reflecting on his behavior towards Severus (and dabbling in Dark magic to bring him back to life, but that's neither here nor there) that he starts feeling like these ideas of Goodness and Righteousness are restricting. He's def going to have to start deconstructing some of the things he picked up from his parents. Even though the Potters are a very loving family, they still unintentionally passed down some baggage to their kid, as I think all parents do. When we get back into James's POV, he's going to be grappling with some of these ideas.

Overall, based on my current outline for the fic, we are going to be seeing more of both the Potters and the Snapes, but they aren't going to really be in the spotlight. They're more background motivation for James and Severus to examine things about themselves/each other. As much as I would love to dive into Literally Every Corner of my character's lives, I have....... so many plot lines....... to fit into this fic...... so some stuff with have to remain implied. I am def going to dedicate some space for their families though, because I think them having very different backgrounds is one of the biggest draws about Jeverus. They will absolutely have to tackle that baggage to get to anything approaching a healthy relationship. While Eileen + Tobias and Euphemia + Fleamont might not themselves get ton of screentime (pagetime? word... time?), I have found some fun ways to make the family dynamics plot relevant, so I will have an excuse to flesh them out a little more in the fic itself. As you can tell, i have a Lot Of Thoughts about this all adjfakfjdklafjsk.

Thank you so much for triggering this unskipable cutscene, I put literally so much thought into every character I write (they are on my mind literally 24/7) and it makes me so unspeakably happy to have an excuse to infodump about them. I'm sorry this was insanely long, but in my defense, my asks are titled "button that makes me talk." I fear receiving overly verbose responses is a risk you take with that :P