#alisha rambles

Things my brain is throwing up instead of focusing:

- pretty robot horses

- working steadily towards a goal that looks hopeless, despite the hopelessness, is the only way that goal will ever be achieved.

The thing is, I am bad at ideas for "fucked-up stuff happens". I was a middle manager for 17 years, I naturally gravitate to the Stop Fucked-up Things Happening response to everything and so do my characters. Fanfic is easy because often you are given a tailor-made fucked-up situation and can have the fun of de-escalating, or at least coast on the audience's knowledge of fucked-up potential (this is why it's fun to write fanfic where a horrible villain gets to not be a villain). But often you gotta escalate. Catharsis only works if things get heavy first.

And this thing is... well, it's probably not worth rewriting as original fiction. But about 60% of the characterisation is headcanon, the themes are my own, I could trivially change genders and names and do a worldbuilding switcheroo for one of my own, add a B-plot, rewrite to include a lot more of the description one tends to leave out of fanfic of visual media, and it might actually unlock something in me and make the whole thing more than its undignified origins. It's also really nice to have not posted anything, it means I can go back and change whatever I like, and insert whatever Feelings are motivating me today. One can add whole layers in the redrafting phase. Like "this character is meant to be angry and volatile but she's coming across as resigned and pragmatic, like characters written by me tend to do. ADD ANGER HERE."