#evans23

Worth Waking Up

Sinclair/Reader

Summary: You wake up far too early, but cuddling your boyfriend makes it all worth it.

AN: Shout out to @mc-tummy-blur, I tried to make this one gn for your sake 😌

Read on Ao3 or below the cut:

OC Ask Game

You haven’t specified a character lol so I’m gonna go ahead and pick Abbie

1. What was the original thought that led to the creation of this character?

Not a thought but a dream! I had a dream about being a Hogwarts student who was a Gryffindor but was dating Malfoy in secret. As you can tell the story and her character changed a LOT over time but that’s where it all started from.

2. How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

LONG. She sat in my head cooking for a long ass time. Some characters and stories show up fully formed, some take a lil effort to make them grow, but Abbie was a slow process. I had the dream in like 2011 or maybe earlier and didn’t start writing Soul of Ice until 2021 so that’s how long she was cooking for.

3. What was the first thing you decided on, the character's name, appearance, personality or their role in the story?

Because it was a slow process and she evolved over time, and different traits/story elements came and went in my mind, it’s hard to say what order everything came in. But I think her name must have been first, I remember picking it out when I heard it on TV in the very early days of her development, so her name must have come first. (Her first name, anyway — Payne came much later.)

20. Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about

Here’s a fun fact for fans of Paul Shapera: Abi of the Kevin & Abi albums is, in a slightly roundabout way, named after my Abbie. Here’s how:

So even though she started and ended as a hp character, for most of that 10 year period she mostly just rotated in my brain and I played with her in various ways. Such as when I made a Runescape account in 2015, I named my character Miss Abigail after her.

12 & 13 for both, Abbie and Mary and I ask for a bonus question: if you have a playlist for them, do you listen to it while you write, or before because you need some inspiration, or the playlist comes after, when you listen to something and you're just like "Oh yep! That's Mary!".

OC Ask Game

12. Do you have a playlist for the character? What songs do you associate with them and why?

I love a playlist! I have so many random playlists. These are the ones I have for Abbie and Mary:

Abbie’s muggle music mixtape: songs on a cassette Abbie brought to Hogwarts with some of her favourite music on (aka a bunch of 80s bangers)

songs abbie definitely wrote: as title, songs that I can imagine her writing

snabbie: songs that remind me of Snape and Abbie

sins of the eternal summer: songs that cover the storyline of Sins of the Flesh/The Eternal Summer

Mary and Elliott: songs with a general Mary/Elliott vibe, doesn’t particularly cover any specific timeline but was put together around the time I was writing Die With A Smile (hence the title)

I make playlists as they come to me, if I hear a song that feels right I chuck it in there. I usually put them together and listen to them while I’m working on something, eg my Champagne Problems playlist I’ve been listening to a lot while writing it but will probably listen to it less now I’ve finished it.

13. Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like?

My characters mostly sound like me cus that’s what the voice in my head sounds like 🤣 but they do usually have a specific affect to them.

Abbie is a little bit raspy, because Sephy is*, so she naturally mimicked the voice she was raised by, but it’s not as obvious as Sephy’s, and it smooths out a bit as she learns to sing so her voice is more controlled, and after college she has a little bit of an American twang (much to Snape’s chagrin lol). If I had to pick an actress I’d probably say Olivia Cooke’s more neutral accent that she does in House of the Dragon (sorry to Hailee lol but her English accent is too posh)

Mary’s voice is hard to give a voice claim to bc her accent would be quite specific, she would have naturally been cockney when she was younger but working as an apprentice she would have learnt to speak better to impress the upper class clients, so when she meets Turpin she’s well-spoken but not posh. I imagine her voice being quite light and airy, but not too high-pitched.