HI I'M LATE TO THE WRITER ASK GAME! â€ïžđ„đđŠ (for my brand) đ§Șđ€©
HI NATALIE THANK YOU FOR THE ASK <3
â€ïž What is your favorite line that youâve written in a fic?
What the hell, have a goofy excerpt from the journal fic:
List of ideas
Prostrate self on spiky rock
New rock???
Horse????
Sculpt horse out of rock
Repair old rock??
Repair old rock with blood
Sacrifice self â Delilahâs magic in soul = soul goes into old rock = repairs rock??
Find Delilah new magic = gives back rock??
Prostrate self on very very spiky rock on the ground in front of her so that she can step on me â forgiveness via pain as I deserve
Give some other chance to take retribution??
Give her my hair?????
đ„ What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?
I really wish weâd spent longer in Yiosâit felt like Matt spent soooo long building up to it and then the Hells found all the information they needed in like two episodes and skedaddled. The pacing has been pretty frantic and while Iâm enjoying all of it Iâm also hopeful that the second half(?) of the campaign will have a little more breathing room. I was put a bit in mind of the way Campaign 2 felt right around Travelerconâwhipping through the visit to the Blooming Grove for instance. Having something fixed on a calendar is tough.
đŠ Which character is the toughest to write?
God I absolutely cannot get the hang of FCG and it drives me insane. Iâm almost tempted to write something set during this Wildemount arc where Imogen gets to yell at him or something just to practice his (impossible) voice and getting inside their head.
đ§Ș Do you research for your fics?
I am a terminal canonfucker so yes I dooooo. Lots and lots and lots of linkable transcripts, primarily, but when I was writing the journal fic I had like seven or eight tabs open at a timeâa couple of transcripts, the two critrolestats campaign calendar pages, a CR wiki page about the calendar, a critrolestats tab listing all of Imogenâs dreams, and a couple of CR wiki episode pages.
đ€© What led to your interest in the fandom?
I got really into TAZ balance in I think 2018âIâd been hearing @thunderburning talk about it for quite a while and then someone I was friendly with at work recommended it as well and I figured what the heck. I started seeing some CR on my dash from following TAZ blogs and gradually became interested. The thing that finally pushed me over the edge was meeting someone at a work lunch who spoke really enthusiastically about it, and then immediately going on a vacation where I had a lot of downtime (car rides and also jet lag insomnia). I think I listened to maybe the first six or seven episodes of Campaign 2 on that trip? It was a bit of a slow burn and then somewhere around the disastrous hospital heist episode I really went all in.
đ Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?
I truly donât have much right now so I am taking inspiration from you and using something I abandoned. I had fully forgotten about this one, it was set post-38. Iâd written about a thousand words so Iâm putting it under a read-more.
After dinner, after everything, theyâre laying blankets out around the base of the sun tree. Laudna doesnât really remember coming outside. She doesnât really remember dinner. Snatches of itâImogen beside her, hand on her arm, bracing her. It makes it feel more real. Imogen and the sun tree.
As they lay down, Laudna hovers a little, unsure of what to do, whether toâwhere toâit was her idea to sleep out here and theyâre all looking to her and she doesnât know where to, what toâ
âLaudna?â Imogen says, and her voice is a touch to the hand, soft, firm, kind. âCome here, honey.â Sheâs found a spot in the curling roots, a trough between them. She sits and holds out a hand, and Laudna takes it and curls down beside her, lays against the rough, warm bark. She doesnât quite realize she hasnât been breathing until Imogen lays down beside her. Warmth in both directions. Everywhere. Itâs been a long time since she was warm.
Thereâs a sound. The bumping of a wheel across ground. âImogen, sorry, I wanted to check. Did you want me toââ Letters says. âIn case tonightâs the night?â
Imogen shifts beside her. âOhâsure, Letters. Yeah, thank you.â
Laudna turns to see whatâs happening. Letters is laying out spell componentsâa feather, twine, a silver coin. She doesnât recognize them. She wants to be conversational. She wants to ask, normally, what he is doing, and not because the presence unfamiliar magic makes her feel twitchy, like the time sheâs missed is spinning out ahead of her, things changing in her absence, foreign and alone. She winds her fingers into Imogenâs, and just like that, Imogen squeezes back.
After a moment, she finds words. âWhatâs the feather for?âÂ
âShared Dream,â Letters says proudly. âLets someone come into a dreamscape with you.â
Her eyes move to Imogen. Imogen, Imogen. The dreamâand Otohanâ(a flashing sword, echo of a Imogen giving in for her, a liability, a nuisance)âImogen looks brave and hopeful and scared. âInto the dream?âÂ
âWeâve been tryinâ it for a few days, while you wereâgone. It hasnât worked yet,â Imogen adds as Laudnaâs heart falls, catching it. âBut maybe tonightâs the night.â She forces a smile. Brave. Laudna wonders if there are updates her dream journal has missed.Â
âI was wonderinâ, actually,â Letters says. âShould I cast it like normal? Or now that Laudnaâs back, do the two of you want me to try to send her in?â
She can go into the dream? She can be there for Imogen? She can escape her own nightmares, her own head? âI canâI can come,â Laudna says.
âOh, honey, no, you donât have to do that,â Imogen says immediately, and something inside Laudna caves in like wet sand. âI donât needâall I need is for you to be here with me, okay?â Laudnaâs expression must show something because she reaches out and touches Laudnaâs face. Laudna is grateful. âIâm so glad youâre here with me.âÂ
âMe too,â Laudna says, and Imogenâs expression goes soft and intense and warm, and she wants to cling to it.
âAll right then!â FCG says. âSo Iïżœïżœïżœm just gonna get it set up, then, with one end on me, okay?â Their magic sparks and then they hand Imogen the silver coin. She slips it into a pocket; the feather, twine knotted around it, goes back into FCGâs bag. Laudna watches it disappear inside the cloth, stays sitting as they roll away.
âLaud?â Imogen has laid down again, tucking herself back into the space between the two hugging roots. Sheâs got a blanket from the castle; itâs getting dirty. Laudna makes a mental note to clean it tomorrow. Prestidigitation. She can do things like this again. She can make things better. âCome to bed?â
âOf course,â Laudna says, and she lays back down amidst the brambles crawls under the corner of the blanket where Imogen has lifted it, crawls inside to where Imogenâs arms are waiting for her, and lets herself be folded within them. The tree holds her; Imogen holds her. Imogen kisses her hair softly and, surprisingly quickly, with a sense of safety and assurance that Laudna has rarely seen in her, her breathing falls into sleep, where Laudna cannot follow.
-
Laudna dreams.
The tree is cold. The tree is cold and she is cold and the barn is cold. Sheâs dressing for dinner and the clothes are paper against the wind and thereâs a chill wind on the air as they bring fire towards her home, and she doesnât finish making PĂątĂ© and she is alone and itâs cold, sheâs freezing, and then sheâs not alone for the whisper of a voice, Delilah, always Delilah, waking rope around her neck to Delilah, the whisper ofâ
Imogen.
Warmth.Â
Her face, through the branches; her voice, a rush of dream-memory, telling Laudna to fight. I want to, Laudna tries to say, youâre here and I want to, tell me how to fight and I can keep trying, I donât know how anymore, but thereâs nothing that comes out and she tries and tries again and her tongue is gone in her mouth and the fire picks up around her, how is the fire cold, and PĂątĂ© must be burning and her bird, the drawing, to take her away, she has a pocket full of feathers to build the bird and theyâre carrying away on the ice wind,
âWeâre here now,â Imogen says, and her hand is against the glass against Laudnaâs and her eyes are warmth, and Laudna touches the glass and she feels Imogenâs hand in hers, theyâre at dinner and thereâs a sandstorm at the windows and Imogenâs hand is in hers and itâs steady and it squeezes when the lobster is served and her breathing stops and she looks to the end of the table and itâs Delilah, and Laudna looks at the lobster and itâs a noose, and she looks to Imogen in a panic and Imogen is there. She holds her hand and sheâs there. Just stay close? Laudna says, and Imogen nods and leans towards her as though to kiss her, but thereâs a barrier there, and she leans away. Donât go too far, Laudna says, and Imogen says, I think thatâs up to you, darlinâ, and Laudnaâs hands are Delilahâs and her face reflected in the glass is Delilahâs and the glass is a bubble and the dining room is a tree and Imogen is on the ground.
Donât go too far, Laudna tries to say again, and Imogenâs face is terrified and she is farther away from LaudnaDelilahâs face, good, thatâs safer for her, she shouldnât be here, she shouldnât, and Delilahâs voice speaks as Laudnaâs mouth moves. Donât go too far, donât go too far, she says, donât goâ
and the tree closes around her
And Laudna wakes up.
(âŠâŠanyway after that Laudna was going to beg her way into a dream with Imogen out of a need to feel useful, and in the dream she was going to be able to protect Imogen in some very Laudna way that I hadnât quite worked out yetâsomething that gestured at just how false that âI havenât been able to fight her for thirty yearsâ was, that demonstrated all of the ways in which Laudna is and always has been so so strong. But then I started writing until the mosses take root in thunder instead and this one sort of fell by the wayside.)
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