#aurenflare

thank you so much!!

as to your tags about my favorite 2025 reads—if you read poetry at ALL, PLEASE pick up Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman. I'm begging. She's my favorite modern poet, possibly my favorite ever poet, and I am so obsessed. I almost never buy a book immediately after reading it, but I had this book en route so fast. It came, and I was carrying it around with me, performing excerpts to my family and friends, shoving pages in their face for them to read while I looked at them with big wet eyes and they went ....uh huh.

But I HAD to have it, so I could reread my favorites over and over until they're tattooed on the back of my skull. I know the exact page number of "Alarum," page 63:

so somehow making a soundcloud account was the only way i could attach this </3 but your song reminded me of a snippet i made last year when spitballing a kotlc musical with a friend! meant to be a fitz intro song lol <3

oh ALSO !!! did you see someone is working on a bookbinding of the wings au? they just posted chapter plate designs and i thought it was so very neat (https://www.tumblr.com/asp3n0/800348616317337600?source=share)

<3 good luck with the awkward conversation o7

I honestly haven't thought about it before, but when trying to think of good animated movies with drama and action (bc I am team 2D animation here), the first one that came to mine was actually Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I have no clue what would transfer or how, but i just remember really liking the visuals, the character design, the drama and cinematography of the fight scenes (here's part of the final battle--flash warning), things like that. And while it might be a little silly or much in places, I honestly think that's perfect for kotlc. cringe is dead go full throttle <33

Another one I really like for visuals but in a different way would be Wolfwalkers. And while, again, not sure what all to take from it, I really like the ambiance, the set, the environment. You can see some great shots in this trailer.

If we get even more abstract and just talk about vibes and pretty visuals, then I'd also throw out Ori and the Blind Forest, which is hands down the prettiest game I've ever played. This trailer (flash warning) shows some of it. The environments are phenomenal and it also has a great soundtrack--very mystical fantastical vibes.

this is all like. daydream ideals that I don't know how they'd work in reality. but just musing these were my first thoughts as potential inspirations that could be fun !!

creature: you appear in my dreams and make me wake up in a cold sweat

YES HAHA YES!!! i've always wanted to be a haunting specter you guys are making me feel so loved

heart: you freak me out (compliment)

!! Link me up with your father we have things to discuss

Anyways, that's so cool! My father also likes Murderbot--he's the one who kept bugging me to read them, but my father and I have similar taste so not at all surprising in my case.

gosh there's something about your writing style that's just so so compelling... u can really feel the emotion in every sentence yk? like there are specific parts where i can just feel sophie's desperation or fear or care and it's like. i'm loving it. and the descriptive languageyou use is like!!! so peak !!! you use so many like. idk the right way to put it. lush words ?? they're so rich and evocative and they feel so carefully picked. something about your prose makes me feel like im sinking into a bed of moss in the best way possible. every description is so thorough and immersive and i'm just!!! im so in love with it. i can just feel the care that you've put into this world!!! like there's clearly so much passion there and it's so so awesome to get to experience <3 i feel so lucky to be in on it. like i feel so honoured that u shared it with me !!!! it's just. there's so much. it's such an intricate world n you can just see all the work and love that you've put in there and i'm like. it's so cool. i'm so so in love with this entire world you've built !!! oh my gosh !!!

and !!! okay one more tiny thing!!!! your characterization has me off-the-walls insane im clawing at the bars im throwing up im gnawing on the floor. like. quil. they're so good i feel like you've just. NAILED these characters !!!! like they're all so so near and dear to my heart and i feel like i can be lowk a little picky but you've just. you've nailed them !!! just the way they act feels so in line with their canon personalities and i LOVE how you've handled their responses to the events of this au!!! like they're all painfully going through it but it's also like. it's so them. they're painfully going through it in the most them way possible. AND THE INTERACTIONS !!! the DYNAMICS !!! one of my fav things about this fic so far is how fleshed out all the relationbships between the characters are – like we're getting some INCREDIBLE platonic dynamics and im!!! it means everything to me !!! kotlc to me is SOOO much about the relationships between everyone. like the dynamics between characters will forever be one of my favourite things about the series. and the way you write these dynamics feels so true to canon but you've also expanded upon them and fleshed them out !!!! and im loving it!! like some key ones that i've absolutely ADOREDDD with sophie in the past couple chapters have been biana, tam, dex, fitz, and both keefe and fitz... all absolutely top tier dynamics that i feel are a little underrated !!!! so it's actually so wonderful to watch how you handle these relationships and how you work with them in a situation that moves beyond the world we know !!! it's just. oh my gosh it's just so good.

gosh so this got. abominably long im so sorry. just wanted to lyk how much im loving your fic so far !!!! ik it's been a fair while since it was written but it is actually genuinely doing things to me that i haven't experienced from a fic in AGESSSS so!!! thought perhaps i should tell u how fab u are. but ofc u already know <3 anyways quil keep being amazing i love your writing and your BRAINNN you're so cool what else is new ? have the best evening ever

(Shattered Upside Down <- ao3 link; all tagged posts on my blog )

Benn!!! Hi hi hi!!! I was 99% confident the fic you were posting about was the wings au and let me tell you. You are so sweet. I keep rereading your tags and just. augh. if 15yo me could see...<33

(Also no need to act normal on my account; i find it all very flattering)

I'm so incredibly charmed that you like my style. I've always really loved..not flowery prose, but prose that's robust and intricate. I love highly specific words and trying to create a sense of immersion in it. I'm SO glad it's coming through--I love your bed of moss description that's like!! yeah!! that's what I want! i want something ethereal and multi-faceted and challenging. i want you to have to think about what i'm saying, maybe even look up a few words

and the world!! you're right I put so much thought into it. i was workshopping background and worldbuilding for months if not over a year before i actually started writing, and then it was months if not another year more before i ever posted the first chapter. it started as just like a one-off idea--what if they had wings? well, how would they get them? why would that facility have those elixirs? who was behind it? what were they intended for? what was the actual impact? how did the rest of the world react? and that just spiraled into a whole semi-apocalypse. some things I originally planned never came to fruition or were altered as the story grew (i posted as I wrote, so it responded both to me writing and to people reading/commenting), so there's pieces across that don't quite mesh, but I tried to be so meticulous about it as much as I could

you come into this story at the tail end of an apocalypse you don't get to hear about except in aftershocks. i always say chapter 1 should've been the climax for a different story, but instead they got exposed to all those elixirs and this one started instead

and the characterization!! GOD this is one of my favorite compliments to receive because it is my primary focus in 99% of my fics. Every fic I write I try so hard to get the characterization right. What makes them them, even under these weird circumstances or in a different world. People have different interpretations, so what's the recognizable core. Everyone is made of patterns; what's theirs? Especially since I also made the choice to remove all romance from the au, which is a significant factor of relationships in canon. how do I keep their bonds recognizable when shifting them like this?

i'm not joking so much of my focus in fics (and meta posts) is trying to figure out characterization so I am. SO thrilled it's clicking for you

"this got. abominably long im so sorry." Benn. I wrote shattered upside down. and you've seen my other fics, i've never been concise a day in my life; I LOVE long asks and comments and such <3.