#ask lea

-"Anon" commenter :3 surprise!

🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️DEVON CHAPTER!!!!!!!!!!! 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

your devon pov is so good. would love to hear any process details about the chapter or other recent progress that youre interested in sharing

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YAYYY THANK YOU SO MUCH I'm glad you like it!!! I love Devon so so much and writing her is so fun aaaaaaaa

I don't have much in the way of process details (at least none that are interesting lol), but I will say there's a thing implied in this chapter which I thought would be incredibly obvious but which is, based on the feedback I'm getting, not in fact all that obvious so WHOOPS.

After I'm done watching POI, should I get into LOST? 👀 I'm very curious. I originally came here for the Severance, but I remembered seeing you were into LOST! so I figured I should ask someone who was into it lol

Enamored by the dynamic of Mark Scout a fugitive in someone else's basement for once vs. Mark S. back to living in Cobel's basement. Sharing her spoon...

"[Cobel] stuffs the can into a black trash bag, nearly full, sitting loose in one corner of the room.

Something about the sight irritates him."

Mark Scout/Selvig trash can drama lives so deep in this man's psyche...

"Weeks? “Jesus.” He’s all for occasionally roughing it in the wilderness, but this just seems ridiculous."

Along with camping! (really liked how subtle this one was)

"He lets out a scoff of his own. “You don’t look like anything,” he says. “I can’t see you.”

“Find a fucking mirror, then.”

“I don’t…” Dread twists in his stomach. “I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” the voice replies after a few seconds, sounding annoyed. “Why is that my problem?”

He frowns again. “Is it? A problem?”

“Probably.”"

[...]

"He sighs and rolls over [...] then shuts his eyes tight and hopes for dreamless sleep, for the darkness of oblivion. Of peace."

Mark "Avoid/Forget/Flee" S(cout) trying to choose oblivion over facing his current reality??? Surely this will go well for him... Not particularly shocking considering both of his component Marks didn't want to reintegrate in the first place...

Devon POV last chapter!!!!!! Very exciting; love the hints of whatever's going on with Gemma (even deeper in hiding somewhere, considering that Lumon knows she's alive??) being kept from the reader because it pisses off/stresses Devon out too much to think about.

Bold decision (in the most positive sense) to execute a concept that only works with very precise characterization & choosing to do that without the aid of defining either Mark via memories (minus subtle hints and also the Soil Hill Costco, of course). Lots of thoughts on this aspect of the fic but unfortunately have been on break much too long already & have to scuttle back to the kitchen...

🦧!

(ps. Rmark song of the week: the live opera house version of Arlington by the Wailin' Jennys)

YES YES I'm so glad you picked out the trash thing specifically, I did not know if that line would make any sense at all to anyone besides me lol. Petty neighborly trash can grievances transcend severance/amnesia it seems...

I'm glad you're enjoying it so far!!! tbh I was a bit worried initially about whether people would even like this as a sequel or if the amnesia thing would be an immediate turn-off, so I'm glad that doesn't seem to be the case! Trying to keep Mark(s) in character when he doesn't remember much of anything is sorta challenging in a way I didn't really expect, but I guess that's also kinda appropriate considering (gestures to canon). Hopefully that won't be a problem for super long though 👀

Thank you so much for the ask, I've been reading it repeatedly for the past couple days trying to organize my thoughts enough to respond in a coherent way that isn't just a billion exclamation marks and heart emojis!!!!!!!!!

very cool that parallels with the show keep coming up like that, though; helps the fic fit naturally into the show's arc/continuity vis-à-vis taking place post-S2

(MAYBE not worth sending an ask over jeans and socks, but I read the chapter closer after getting home in a Not Hiding At Work This Time sort of way & was like. oh my god. the ask... he has socks on... jeans, even........)

pretty typewriter, though! what's your planned process for transferring documents to digital? (manually typing up the draft (chance for extra copyediting)? some sort of text scanner?). either way looks very fun to write fic on; hope the keys have a good click to them!

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trying not to send too many asks (& asks correcting previous asks), but full of thing to Say about the fic as I rotate each new chapter in my mind...

I mean spiritually it might as well be pajamas tbh! I'm of the mind that running around in socks outside is far worse than bare feet, especially if the ground is wet and it's cold, cause that seems like a fast track to hypothermia lol

Re: the typewriter, so far my plan is to draft (aka word vomit) chapters on the typewriter (so I can't get stuck going back and rewording the same sentence twenty times), then manually type those drafts up on my laptop to edit from there! The model that I got has "noiseless" in the name but it is very much not that (though I imagine it's much quieter than an ordinary one would be), it's got very nice clickyness and it's very very fun to type on!!! It is the rare impulse purchase that I have yet to regret so far which is very exciting!

mark, having figured out one (1) strategy: is that so 👀

also cobel freaking out one of her fresh out of brain surgery former employees in a basement so bad that they flee barefoot down the road in pajamas. doofenshmirtz_if_i_had_a_nickel.jpg

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Thought process went: 6 Underground -> Underground -> Where the Marks were in that fic being experimented on -> Black Mile to the Surface?

I felt insane.

imagine, if you will, an orangutan in the stands cheering you on with a #1 foam finger, waving a pennant that says BLACK MILE... 📣🥇❗❗

waiting so so very patiently to see the mystery unfold in future chapters...

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🚩👋🦧

I WOULD DIE FOR YOU