#aponderingcharming

Bestie, youre the sweetest <3

nefariouslycharming: Andréa is one of my favorite people ever. Seriously, she’s so sweet and fun to talk to. Our snapchat conversations are the best. She reminds me so much of my RL friends and my brother thinks she looks like Kacey Musgraves. Im so lucky to call her my friend and I cant wait for the day when were in the same state at the same time. 

jemmafiitzs: Ah Randall. So much fun to talk to. So passionate about world topics. So British. One of the three founding members of Unitedstatedomland and someone I am proud to call a friend. And I love having someone to talk horse with :)

aponderingcharming: Possum is lovely. Another member of Unitedstatedomland and fun to ride roller coasters with. Also beat me and my brother in pool, which is a problem. Always a pleasure to talk to and the only one of my online friends my brother has met. Also the only person who understands the pain of ‘Falling Slowly’

nameisariel: Juliane is always fun. Love getting all of the audio messages even if I cant always listen to them all the time. Makes me glad someone loves talking to me so much that she must send as much as she can :) I told her the day we started talking that we’d be friends and Im glad I stuck to that :)

THIS IS THE BEST

I was so confused. I was like WHO IS SAYING THINGS TO AOIFE

SO STUPIDLY HAPPY TO HAVE WRITING QUESTIONS!!!!

Here we go!

9. Favorite character to write?

This varies for me a lot since I shift POVs around. Generally Snow White is my favorite, obviously, but Charming is equally fun. I try to write Snow and Charming less almost stupidly good than they are on the show. Yes, they have high moral standards but they are also people facing very real life and death situations. Just having hope doesn’t get you through that, although it can help.

Rumple, Red, Grumpy, and Regina are ALWAYS absurdly fun when they decide to take a turn at the helm. 

10. Favorite line or lines of dialogue that you’ve written

Oh fuck. I have far too many favorite lines. I’m such a quote whore. But off the top of my head: 

From “Masks”: 

Charming seemed to notice her appraisal and grew uncomfortable, hands curling restlessly at his sides. “So…what brings you here?” 

Snow bit her lower lip, picking at her gloves, unsure how he’d react to the truth or if she even wanted to tell it. “Maybe I just wanted to see how you and your fiancée were doing,” she joked instead. 

His head quirked to the side, blue eyes regarding her skeptically. “You didn’t come here just to see me, did you?” He read the truth on her face without her saying a word. “You’re here to steal something,” Charming began, then remembering all the commotion outside, he continued, “You already stole it.”

She just shrugged, not meeting his gaze. 

He grinned at her. “My little thief.”

Snow shot him a pointed look at that. “I prefer the term bandit,” she corrected dryly. 

That was one of my favorites just because it was them having fun and showing their connection in a small way before the romance jumped into overdrive. 

From “Breathe Again, Chapter 2: Blood, Tears and Gold”:

"Have you ever seen what happens to a wolf caught in a snare?" she began, glancing back at him over her shoulder, judging how the muscles in his jaw tightened as a confirmation. "It usually plays out one of two ways. The wolf struggles and struggles until it finally realizes that it’s hopelessly trapped, then it gives up and starves to death. But some wolves will do whatever it takes to survive," Regina spun to face him, brown eyes flashing. "They know that no matter how hard they fight they’ll never get free. At least not unscathed. So they chew off their own foot instead."

"Which kind are you, my pet?" the Queen questioned, striding forward and trailing her fingers through his brown curls, letting her hand fall by her side when he jerked his head away. "Are you going to lie down and wait for death, or make a sacrifice in exchange for freedom?"

That was fun just to have Regina be evil and show how smart and manipulative she can be. Regina doesn’t have to bulldoze people into doing what she wants, here she’s playing devil’s advocate and trying to manipulate the Huntsman into saving himself at the expense of someone else. I had chills when the idea for the line came to me, complete with Regina’s voice. I always know something’s going to be good when I hear it in the character’s own voice.

"I can’t do anything for that wound while you’re still wearing that so…" She began pulling her hand away when his fingers tightened around hers, causing a confused frown to flicker across her face but it was immediately chased away by a wry grin. "As irresistible as I’m sure the mere sight of your bare chest is, Charming, I think I can find a way to control myself enough not to throw you down and have my naughty way with you for five minutes."

That was just plain fun. I love to have my characters be funny. It makes the writing so much easier to do those moments of humor. 

13. Are there any things that might have happened in any of your stories, but you changed them at the last minute? (So-and-so dies, they don’t actually kiss, main character has long extended ballet-based dream sequence, etc.)

Hmmm. Very good question. The most major one I could think of was when I was writing the beginning of “Blood, Tears and Gold.” I was a bit stuck on how to transition into Snow deciding to go kill the Evil Queen. I wanted to show her slowly descending into darkness in a different way than the show did and I couldn’t figure out how to do it. And then I was having a conversation about Shakespeare with my lovely dartie, KayleeThePete (or kayleepetey on tumblr) and I remembered the quote from Hamlet: 

"How stand I then,

That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep?

…O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!”

And I just felt that little light bulb go off upstairs. Hamlet is berating himself for his inaction against his uncle for killing his father and sleeping with his mother. Snow has a lot of unresolved anger toward Regina for murdering her father and taking away the kingdom from her. You could even argue that there is resentment at Regina taking her mother’s place if you wanted. 

I had so much trouble understanding how Snow could be so seemingly forgiving of Regina killing her father that I really wanted to explore the parts of Snow that are not so forgiving. That quote really inspired me and gave me a hook to get Snow moving from point A to point B. 

Another was when I wrote the scene were Jiminy freed Charming. I’d almost forgotten that I’d written in the previous chapter that Charming keeps the dagger from Lake Nostos that he used to kill the Siren. And I wanted to keep the dagger around (for reasons that will be revealed later) so I changed that scene from the way it was done in the show to include the dagger about halfway through writing it and loved it. I got to include humor about this cricket trying to saw through the rope with a dagger bigger than he was and Charming freaking out about it, and that just made the scene so much more enjoyable for me.