Dabblings of a Lore Geek

Welp, C3 of TRATI hit 9k. Everyone in my vast reading audience (hurhur) can blame my love for Vassago.

It may not be up until the weekend, I dunno. I'm not satisfied with the distribution of talk time in the group at Rosie's. The end POV of the chapter still feels too rough. And then I still have to do the formatting.

Been doing light research on the historical structures of legions. It may help for later in the story, or it may go nowhere, lol. Been looking up lots of subject matter that I have sudden ideas for using, but lots of it won't/wouldn't come into play until a lot later.

So I did indeed end up splitting Chapter 3 because of how long it was getting. I was going to try to just let readers have a whopper of a chapter, but with how much I had left to fill in plus the formatting after it all, I just didn’t see that happening without a ridiculously long delay.

It looks like C3 will still be fairly long though, as it’s over 7k gain. And with all I’ve still got to add, it could very well hit 8k. I’ve got a printed draft I’ve marked up with some color-coded notes, and I’m only about halfway through those edits lol. Tonight I’ll be working to get as much of that done as possible. I think it’s possible I’ll update tonight, but tomorrow is way more likely.

The story is quite fun to work on, and it was gratifying to receive a comment that says I’m nailing characterization so far—even though I’m struggling with it in a lot of ways. I really don’t want to shy away from Alastor’s selfish/evil side/overwhleming majority of being, but I want to really think through what motivates him to be so enraging and unsympathetic a lot of the time so that his jerk moments really land. And then…I don’t know how well I can pull off Blitz. I am truly in awe of Brandon Rogers and anyone who writes Blitz’s lines. He has such unique and chaotic energy, erg how am I going to replicate that? Although I do think I’ve done a good job with him in a particular scene of what will be either C5 or C6.

The chapters keep stretching out, and the later parts of the story in my head keep getting pushed further away 😭. I would love for this story to end at 20 chapters, if I can stay inspired for that long. But assuming inspiration doesn’t die, and all the threads run their course, it could very well be 30+.

Releasing this made me a bit nervous because…Valentino.

Due to life priorities, the Stolentino one-shot has not yet been posted to AO3. I am aiming to have it up sometime this weekend.

Something about this moment from “Oops” in season 2 makes me want to dive into complicated friendships and histories.

I would love to see Vassago in Fizz’s place and Stolas in Blitz’s. I headcanon that introverted teen Stolas had a crush on extroverted teen Vassago, but it obviously went nowhere and their friendship is what remains. I think Stolas would have withdrawn because he was just too bummed about all his obligations with the engagement to Stella. Maybe they got back in touch later, but Stolas stayed fairly isolated a lot of the time because of either focusing on Via or having depressive episodes.

So I spent too much time yesterday drafting a completely new fic.

After a rarepair community post, started thinking “What if Stolas came across Valentino somehow between Apology Tour and Mastermind?” And my answer is apparently a one-shot that is the darkest fic I’ve ever written. I’m sure there’s a lot darker out there, and I haven’t written all that much fanfiction in my lifetime. I just say that to mean that I’m doing my best to handle a Valentino entanglement realistically, and it’s a dynamic I’ve never tackled before. I want to handle it respectfully, in regard to abuse and its related traumas.

Valentino is a pretty polarizing figure, for obvious reasons. I’m personally willing to explore him as a character partly because he IS pretty funny and childish at times, which a lot of abusers are. I personally think we need to not lose sight of how monsters like Valentino are able to mingle with the rest of society, because monsters rarely ONLY look like monsters. I think it also does a disservice to abuse victims and survivors to not be willing to discuss the subtleties or more palatable qualities of abusers, because always painting abusers as only very obvious or one-dimensional abusers gives “You idiot, how could you have fallen for them! OBVIOUSLY that person is a predatory menace!”

To figure out the layouts of the hotel or the office

Checking height differences so I’ll know angles characters are looking at one another

Observing how Alastor’s facial expressions vary

Observing how the imps move their tails during various moods

Trying to grasp various characters’ speech patterns (Blitz is so fucking off-the-wall, I genuinely don’t know how to consistently capture that)

Checking dialogue and information provided in conversation

Looking closer at vibes between certain characters

Not an exhaustive list by any means.

How immersive the description is (or isn’t)

How effective tension build-up is (or isn’t)

How interesting the story and characterization are (or aren’t)

If there’s something in dialogue or narration that doesn’t make sense so I can fix it

I really appreciate hearing which parts people aren’t as bought into as much as I like hearing what hooks or keeps readers. I’m intentionally practicing and building storytelling skills, and I would love to be able to write as well as authors I admire. If there’s a spot in the story that kills the immersion for someone, I’d like to know so I can improve. I also love hearing if I nailed a certain technique, especially at crucial points in the story.