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gray-anxiety · 5 years

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No Sympathy Facts/ the chaos of my brain

I kept forgetting the damn name

Legit

Like “No… no wHAT????? Oh”

Aella is a name associated with storms and wind, so I gave her that name because I wanted someone who really did embody that

I kept wanting to spell Aella’s name allen smh

This book started when i finally got off my ass and convinced myself to do a mafia au. The entire plot was pulled out of my ass in a period of brainstorming that kept me up until 5:30 the next morning

I actually sketched out the apartment’s layout so I could see it better.

later I actually designed a messy version of what it’d somewhat be like in the sims

Karanese is actually a district in the Attack on Titan universe :)

Each chapter takes me like 2 hours to write simply because I play out each and every ending in my head and choose the best one I’d want to see in a story

Other times I legit just have a feeling like I absolutely know how a chapter plays out like Chapter 3’s murder fight scene. It just came to me and all I had to do was describe it like I had just watched a movie

Chapter one took a total of seven hours to write

The plot twists were created when I asked myself what cliche can I change?

(Except I kept a few just to make fun of it I.E. roommates and badboy x nerdy character because that shit is hilarious and can really show the dynamic of how different each character really is)

Chapter two bore me to death to be honest

An actual example of my brainstorming while writing down facts:

I have no idea what the fuck to do after chapter 3 help

I pretty much said fuck it to planning out a plot and just wung it

Where am I gonna place Hange and the others

What about Eren lol

OH SHIT I JUST HAD THE IDEA THAT HANGE AND AELLA WERE FRIENDS BEFORE AELLA WAS KICKED OUT AOUFHALIUEHFALIUEHF

THEY’D TOTALLY BE LESBIANS FOR EACH OTHER

How’d you come up with the name for No Sympathy?

hilarious answer, actually. I spent two damn hours laying on my bed googling “what’s your mafia nickname” to just messing around with broken languages on google translate until it just popped in my head. Pretty much I was like “oh shit that sounds lit and fearsome lets do it bois” and yeah

I’m actually making this list of fun facts while writing each chapter. I’m going to start working on chapter 4 tomorrow and hopefully get my shit together to make a somewhat good plot??

Lmao I lied I got really fucking lazy and wrote the chapter at 11 at night and published it at midnight

I wrote everything about no sympathy in one iCloud note and titled it “No sympathy; the complete chaos of making a book”

The true main character of No Sympathy is actually Levi since I feel like I understand him completely since I relate to him so much; making Levi the easiest character I’ve written about ever. Though, his true character (in my opinion) doesn’t necessarily shine through in the beginning chapters as Levi don’t get along with new people, but you can see him warm up to Aella by doing her homework, dragging her out of the party, etc.

I’ve realized I have a distinct writing pattern while writing No Sympathy: comma, semi-colon, double dash. (Chapters two and three really showcase it as I wrote those two back to back in the car)

Had I actually had the inspiration and the motivation to write this almost a year ago, I would’ve been writing about the mafia at 13, which is an absolute hilarious thought to think about when I look back to my previous fanfics. Then again, my dumbass 14-year-old self is just as clingy as my dumbass 13-year-old self lmaoo

I gave Aella the same birth day (not year lmao) as mine (September 10) so she’d be 17 during the first month of school and 18 for the rest of the book

Going off of that fact, Levi is exactly 1 year and 8 months older than Aella (I kept his original birthday)

My cat demanded that I gave him cuddles and attention so I had to stop writing for one entire day because he wanted cuddles

Normally my cat just lays on my chest while I write b u t n o he wanted cuddles

If Levi never came into the picture Aella would probably date Hanji (for all of those fellow LGBTQIA+ readers and readers that really love Hanji)

While writing chapter 1 I listened to Ghost by Halsey on repeat and I think if you read while playing the exact song it somewhat shows in the pace I set for readers.

The term ‘block class’ is actually derived from what my own high school (even though I’m not even fully considered a freshman yet jfc) uses when referring to a 90 minute class

The book Technically begins on a Saturday with Levi — the actual power duo meet that Monday (because unlike dumbass schools in real life, their first day of school was on a Monday instead of the Friday before.) on their first day. That Tuesday was chapter 4, Wednesday being chapter 5, Thursday being chapter 6 (we skip Friday because it doesn’t fucking matter in the story lmao), and Saturday being the day of the party.

Writing an x reader but without the reader was really fucking hard, honestly. I couldn’t just randomly say ‘Levi looked over at the H/C girl working on her homework across from him’ as it’d just be weird, so I thought of the next best thing and never described Aella — making her free for interpretation of her looks.

I was going to have Aella have a name reveal like ‘my real name is Y/N…’ but then I was like “No what? Fuck it. Levi already knew from the beginning after looking at her documents.”

No Sympathy was actually going to be an original story, but Levi’s character fit so well I decided to make it a fanfic.

I actually wanted to stop writing after chapter 3 because I didn’t know what to do with the plot, but I asked my friend for help coming up with the plot using the paragraphs of ideas I had to make an actual plot. So, I can successfully say I owe it to her for helping and the one sentence that kept me going in my head: “I want to make a story I’m proud of.” So I fucked up my (nonexistent, really lmao) sleeping and eating schedules and started working on this book everyday even when I didn’t post a chapter that day.

Though, it’s not really specified in the early chapters, Aella was bullied into being hated by the entire school — leaving her to be all alone, which actually happened to me and gave me PTSD after transferring.

Ironically, I gave Aella a ton of reactions and characteristics I would/ just generally have, but I see myself more in Levi, which is probably why I prefer writing about him over Aella.

As of writing this, chapter 5 is currently my favorite chapter as it is a mix of a filler chapter and a regular important chapter still just as important as the rest.

Depression and PTSD actually got in the way of writing so many times I actually am surprised I’ve written so much

As writing has always been my go to for letting out everything (as I have z e r o close friends lmao) I actually don’t realize when I’m done with each chapter until I realize I’m out of ideas for said chapter.

I don’t even realize I write about 2,000 words until it’s like “oh,,”

No Sympathy wasn’t just any fanfic for me, it was like I was actually Aella seeing the entire story unfold from beginning to finish

I tried to push myself to describe more, as I’ve noted while rereading my previous shitty fanfics — I struggled describing everything.

I tried to not have the basic “tch”, “brat”, and just random cursing from Levi unless it was at the exact wrong time (or I just put it in because I could totally see him saying that in said situation)

I tried characterizing Hanji as someone who wasn’t the basic overexcited dumbass most fanfics portray her as — instead I tried thinking of her as an actual person with reactions and different moods and tried to embody that each time I wrote her

Character development is a huge thing Ive been trying to work on ever since I wrote A Valkyrie and a Mischievous God (though that character development and story sucked ass and I cringe at how popular it’s gotten), and a huge target for it was none other than Aella. At the beginning you could see she felt trapped in an endless cycle of stress and fending for herself, but when Levi came in and was like “lmao I have money you don’t have to stress” she felt like she was in an odd spot, and eventually after she reunited with Hanji she started to feel more free

Parents were completely cut out of this story because I genuinely don’t know how to write them as mine are either states away by choice or always working, so I just had Aella get kicked out and had her entire family gone.

My best ideas surface at 4 am when I’m trying to fucking sleep

Help me

But hey I now have a new passion for this book

I generally didn’t know how to end it

buT THEN I D I D

A huge thing for me, and my entire driving motion for writing this was a simple sentence: “I want to write something I’m proud of.”

Am I proud of this?

Eh. It’s not shitty, I suppose. I could always do better.

Characterization was so difficult for me. I wanted to stray from basic fanfics of an overly hyper Hange (though, I couldn’t help in some situations, but after watching an entire season and a half in one day, you notice personality changes) and write and more serious one — except I’m a damn shitty author with so many grammatical mistakes my ex-mentor would literally rip her hair out.

Writing a book has always been my goal, and I know this is the only thing that will ever come close to it.

I have another Levi x reader planned, but I always hate doing the basic ‘_____’ ‘Y/N’, etc because it literally drives my depressed self I n s a n e when writing

Most times for my outline summaries of the chapters I just put my name in place of Aella lmao

I actually struggled a lot when writing this; sometimes I even broke down thinking no one liked this book or I wasn’t a good enough author to write anymore.

My asshole self mainly spent my summer writing this rip

Currently, as it is July 2nd, I am literally hoping to Levi that I fucking get this done before August or else I’m so fucking screwed with beginning high school and shit.

Oh yeah btw, I’M NOT FUCKING READY FOR THE FINAL SEASON. I’LL BE A DAMN SOPHOMORE AND THAT IN ITSELF K I L L S ME

I don’t know if I’m actually going to continue with this book, but have these collected facts I started writing the moment the first chapter was out :,) It’s already September and my past dumbass was right

High school is kicking my ass

I have another story idea/plot written out and I really like it so idk. I think I’d stop halfway again because I’d think that no one would like it

#no sympathy

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