#mac book notes

Heck yeah! Let’s do this! (I’m gonna do these in reverse for the sake of spacing)

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

Ummm... so... a lot? Like, I opened up my folder of fic drafts to answer 46, and like, there’s a far amount in there. Some of them are ones I haven’t touched in a while, but I’d say at the moment I have a solid five stories/ideas that I’m worked on in the sense of moving towards writing and publishing. In terms of ideas I’m playing with that my just hang out in my head? Yikes, probably too many. (To give you an idea of that, there are 17 documents in my fic drafts folder, and I have at least three story idea outlines on my phone)

46. share a scene of a story that you haven’t published yet

So, I don’t have any FMA ones that are hanging out unpublished (at least not behind very rough outline stage, and thus I don’t really have any particular scenes for them) so I’m gonna split this question a bit.

In terms of the idea for a scene, the next chapter of the Many Parents of Edward Elric is going to be the Hughes chapter, and is going to feature a scene of the boys having dinner at the Hughes’ house, and him offering them a place to spend the night.

For a written out scene I haven’t published yet, I am still amusing myself with the Leverage/BNHA crossover I mentioned a while back, and I keep losing my mind over the dialogue between these idiots, so I’m gonna share a scene from that. (If you’re familiar with the Leverage pilot, this is the scene right after the warehouse gets blown up)

Izuku wakes with a start. Where are the files-

“Idiot.”

Izuku’s gaze snaps to the chair in the corner. Kacchan glares at him, “I can hold a damn door for myself.”

Right. Kacchan. The explosion. At the docks. This isn’t…

Izuku rubs his eyes, or tries to. His hand is jerked back to the bed, and he looks down to find handcuffs. Awesome.

“Uh,”

“Is he finally up?”

Izuku flinches at the voice, looking around frantically to the air vent. Ah, Yaoyorozu and Shouto must be in the next room.

“We were all knocked out from the explosion. Woke up in the hospital.”

Ok, that sounds wrong. They’re handcuffed. That means cops, and there is no way Izuku is still here, with them, if anyone-

No, stop panicking. Get the facts first.

“Why are we handcuffed?”

Kacchan growls, “Security at the docks grabbed us.” He raises his hand, revealing black smudges across his fingertips, “Printed us and faxed it in.”

Izuku nods. Ok, that’s not as bad. Not good, but they have some room…

“Any idea how long it’ll take before they come down here?” He directs the question towards the air vent.

Because they are going to come. Kacchan, Yaoyorozu, and Shouto are all high tier criminals, and they won’t risk them escaping. And Izuku...

He’s not really sure what will happen if he’s brought in. But he remembers the docks. He remembers sitting in the Chief’s office.

“Wait, you- You’re in on this, aren’t you!?”

He’s fairly certain he doesn’t want to find out what will happen.

Yaoyorozu’s voice filters through the vent, “Probably around 30 minutes, depending on the software.”

Kacchan slams his fist against the chair arm, “It’s been 20 minutes already! Why the hell didn’t you say that sooner?”

Shouto’s face appears behind the vent, “I don’t remember you asking.”

2. If you could request more of a certain type of fic, which would it be?

So this is kinda hard to pick, but in general (especially with found family) I love post-canon family stuff. So for FMA specifically, I’d say more parental!Royai with the Edwin and/or Almei kids. Like, I just love the idea of Roy and Riza looking after the kids. The fics I have read for it are spectacular but there’s just not enough. Same goes for Izumi and Sig looking after the kids. I flipping need more Grandpa Sig and Granny Izumi. Please!

15. What makes you pick up a fic, what makes it sound interesting?

I’m not entirely sure. My fic reading, while there are clear trends, is similar to my music listening. If it slaps, it slaps. But probably if I had to pick something, probably if a fic has a focus on a character pairing. I have some fics I love for plot, but far and away the thing I really want in a fic is an emphasis on how characters interact with each other. I really like the more rare/unusual pairs. Not in the romantic sense but like, characters who clearly did interact but aren’t shown interacting a lot. Like pretty much any of Team Mustang and the Elrics. Or I’ve stumbled upon a fic that has Izumi and Greed interacting in Dublith, and that’s just perfect. More of that please! So pretty much I’m a sucker for any unexplored relationship.

16. Name a fic that made you cry (or that made you come close).

Ok so, I love fics that make me cry, but I very rarely actually start physically crying. I’m gonna pick the most recent fic I read that made me start crying and also one of my favorite fics to go back to that makes me cry.

Most recently, Seventeen (Once and Never Again). It’s an Ace Attorney fic and I flipping love it! It also appeals to my unexplored relationship desires. It’s about Klaiver, Sebastian, and Kay being friends, which is amazing and perfect and completely absent in all of canon. It also has Klavier dealing with his trauma (also absent in canon) and that’s what brings me to tears. Highly recommend (if you’re in the AA fandom)

54 - writing advice?

Sorry for the wait! Kept waiting to see if I could come up with the perfect advice, but I‘ve decided to stick with the simplest most important advice (in my opinion).

Don’t worry about anything in the first draft.

I’ve read a lot of good variantions of this, and they all pretty much boil down to “it’s the first draft. Let it be bad.” Which isn’t to say it will be bad, but just that the “goodness” of it isn’t the point. You’re drafting, experimenting, playing around. I’ve written a first draft where in chapter one the main character’s parents were alive (if not really involved in the story) and by chapter three, I had decided it worked better if they weren’t, so I just kept writing as if they had never been there. I’ll have to rework the beginning of the story, but by not stopping to edit, I was able to maintain momentum.

12. Which of your stories is your favorite and why?

So, this took some thinking. It almost feels a little like cheating to pick my most recent fic, but it really probably is Currency of a Name.

It’s a piece that I kinda just let myself loose on. I had a vague idea of this one specific thing I wanted to cover (why Havoc calls Ed “chief”) and just let myself wander to get there. If you saw my other response to these asks, I mentioned that my preferred writing style is introspective description, and that’s really what this piece is. I let myself just wander around, exploring Havoc’s relationship with the different people in his life and how that would impact his response to Ed.

Heck yeah! Here we go!

2. What are your top 3 otps right now?

I do have a lot of otps, but at the moment most of my shipping stuff is fma focused, so I’d probably have to pic Edwin, Royai, and Almei (Lingfan is very close too)

 3. What is something you look for in an otp?

So this will take a little explaining, but mutual respect? Like, I love couples where they are just so in awe of the other person’s skill and will brag about them whenever given the chance. Ed is great about this. He will brag about Winry to anyone who will listen. My favorite instance of this is the Greed fight, where it looks like Ed has basically lost, and he takes a minute to be like “hey, isn’t my mechanic amazing? look what you did to my arm and I can still move it! can you believe that? anyway” He’s just so precious about that, I love it! With the other two, it’s more of a quiet confidence in the other person’s skill. Especially with Roy and Riza. They don’t brag about each other a lot (although they do certainly do it sometimes, in a very vague way) but there’s this clear confidence like “I can leave this in their hands and I know it’ll get done.”

14. What do you think their favorite things to do together are?

So for Edwin, I think it’s working with automail. I love the idea that Ed gets involved with the process because even if he can’t transmute, he’s still an alchemist and since he transmuted his own automail a lot, he’s pretty good with the composition of it. And since it’s something the two of them can nerd out about together, even if they’re technically nerding out about different things, I think it’s something that comes to be a favorite for them. I have this picture in my head of them out at dinner and Winry’s talking through a problem she’s been having with a new model, trying to work out the problem. And Ed makes a kind of off-handed comment about one of the materials she is/could be using and they just lock eyes like, holy crap that’s it! and they immediately leave the restaurant (even though they weren’t done eating) and go back to the shop and start working on it.

For Royai, I think their favorite thing is just having quiet time together. Their lives have been so hectic, I think the opportunity to just sit together and openly enjoy each other’s company would be something they would treasure. Like sitting together and reading or watching the sunset or something.

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often?

Holy crap yes! I freaking love any and all fancy writing utensils! I have a ridiculous number of pens. I do try to use them a lot, but I am also absolutely that person who tries not to use them too much because I don’t want to use them up!

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it?

Isn’t it?! Getting watch all the characters be dorky idiots is wonderful, and the confessionals are probably my favorite thing! I love hearing them talk about each other when they obviously have no idea what’s going on. And the challenges are great, cause there is definitely that vibe that, regardless of what’s going on back at camp, everyone hates Jeff.

I am now 14 pages down a google doc with detailed notes on the backstory/personality of each of the main character, a few side characters, outlines for three major character/plot arcs, and three pages into a rough draft of the first “episode”.