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filmsthatdonotexist · 2 years

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There is a very specific category of film known amongst cinephiles who watch strange old films, that sort of film that's relatively slow and ponderous for nine-tenths of its runtime, and then goes absolutely bugfuck insane the last tenth. The films Society and Demonwarp immediately come to mind, as does the pastiche of such films done by Tarantino's Death Proof.

I bring this up because Sepulchre is also in this category.

For most of its time it is a slow burn story about a big-city businessman repairing an old rural mansion given to him as a part of a strange inheritance. You have the usual beats of strange split-second monster sightings (In this case the strange green headless things), curious behavior from the locals who know more than they're letting on, the protagonist becoming more and more physically and socially isolated from his life "back home," the usual for this kind of story, albeit perhaps a bit less elegantly than a Cronenberg or Lynch would have done given the shoestring budget for these scenes.

The larger plot as a whole seems heavily influenced by Lovecraft's "The Rats In The Walls," though thankfully minus the overt racism, clumsy attempts to walk around such issues in the obligatory backstory exposition aside. And indeed, in interviews the film's director/scriptwriter Paul Sawyer has cited Lovecraft as a major inspiration for the film.

Some viewers call this part of the plot suspenseful and even dreamlike, noting the strange liminal feel of the preceding scenes that the complete madness of the finale puts into sharp relief. Others call it tedious and pretentious, feeling as if the templating of its structure is far too stock and standardized and the foreshadowing is all at once thuddingly heavy-handed and miserably sluggish, like the world's slowest death by bludgeoning.

Me, I'm personally somewhere in the middle, but I will bluntly say, the ending where the titular Sepulchre does make it really worthwhile.The way in which it connects the plot threads across the location both physically and metaphorically impressed this old hand as a storyteller, and the lurid history of body horror; ritual and human sacrifice made bare after only getting a few hints about it was fascinating, but good god the real surprise was the set.

A character in its own right, not simply from its climactic appearance but by the way its prescence hangs over the film and its foreshadowing like a pall, it is is an amazingly elaborate piece, inspired of course by the seminal HR Geiger's biomechanical oveure, but also its own aesthetics, feeling as if it was designed to bring the author's impression of Lovecraft's oozing lavender prose of impossible spaces (The not-racist parts at any rate) into physical form.

I have seen the modular set design; reconfigurable and yet able to do the most elaborate setpieces, still flabbergast production designers in interviews, and the way in which the line between set design and creature effects are blurred for it is divine. One would think it seems like the sort of piece that would have cost the majority of the film's budget, and if you read interviews regarding the film's production, you would actually be correct.

The always artistically-ambitious yet budget-conscious Joseph Wright agreed to make the film after seeing the script as long as A) Everything else except that set was kept at minimum budget an B) He would be allowed to re-use and alter the elaborate set for any future productions.

The rest, of course, is history. The film did make more money than expected, especially on VHS once word of mouth got out about the notorious ending, but "made more money than expected" mainly meant "made more than just its budget + a little extra back," and the real financial windfall was from the way the set drastically cut costs on future films; heavily re-used and modified in a way allowing far higher production value than the thin budgets Wright often had.

This is why this film is considered the first of a "Recycling Trilogy," a triad of films greenlit by Wright mainly for the sake of these keystone props that could be utilized in future productions. Though, the last of these would also be the thing that introduced Wright to Ronnie and; sadly; lead to the fall of Red-Eye Productions in the end...

#metafiction #unreality #films that do not exist #fictional media #weird fiction #horror #gore #worldbuilding

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charmingpplincardigans · 5 years

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Here are some things that I love:

Crowley

This Kiki Smith sculpture that I spent A LOT of time staring at while it was at the MFA in Boston

Crowley and Aziraphale’s combined post-Apocalypse love language being a desire to meet each other in the middle of their respective becomings and still having to work out all the kinks in that.

There is no purpose to this and I don’t even know if it’s worth putting on AO3, but here, for people who also like it when angels and demons discuss art.

. . .

They hadn't properly been to a museum together in a couple of years. Of all the places the two of them met up during the anti-christ years, museums had been Crowley’s favorite. As spaces they were just so...human. Not that there were many places you could go on the planet to escape humanity if you wanted to, but museums tended to be one of those places of unguarded emotion. It was enough to make a demon reconsider his place in the world, which he supposed was the point.

Crowley had been to a few opening nights at galleries without Aziraphale, but those pit stops hadn't been about Art so much as they'd been about the stark distinction between the solace art can bring to a soul and the greed, avarice, and lust that usually floated around circles of artists. Easy temptations as those things went.

Strictly speaking, whenever Crowley met Aziraphale at a gallery before the Apocalyse That Wasn't, that had not been about Art either, but distracting Aziraphale and coaxing him into a contemplative mood about the nature of humanity as represented in chaotic drip and splatter paintings or calm, staid blocks of color was an even easier temptation than the ones he pulled on the artists. Probably because he knew Aziraphale so very well and was well-versed in his opinion on wine and canapes to be had at quaint little bars inside museums. The angel's opinion was, almost unwaveringly, strongly in favor.

This time it was about the art. Outwardly and ostensibly, anyway. Inwardly it was also about the itch that had been working its way down Crowley's back like the universe’s slowest drop of infernal sweat for the last month or so. Once a being became used to looking over their shoulder they would be doing it for the rest of their life. Just because the thing they expected to find there had stopped looking at them did not mean the being could just accept they were free and move on with their lives sans hunted and haunted feeling. Crowley and Aziraphale had effectively scared off Heaven and Hell for the time being, but that didn't mean they'd scared them off forever, and there were ever so many seconds between now and forever when Crowley's growing paranoia might prove itself well-founded.

(Update, now on AO3 after all, if you prefer to read there.)

Because of this, staying in one place became harder and harder every day. He had not yet successfully convinced Aziraphale to truly get out of dodge, though he’d floated many tempting destinations: the cusp of the aurora borealis, a dynamic volcano range on Venus, Iceland. The angel resisted every invitation. He claimed he needed to do inventory on the newly restored bookshop, which quickly turned into what might be a several year long effort to re-read everything in it and check Adam's handiwork for discrepancies. But even with this undertaking Crowley had successfully gotten him out of the shop a few times.

Usually that happened when Crowley became so tired of sitting in patches of sun and pretending to be interested in Foucault that he threatened to go somewhere else on his own and Aziraphale, who had been reluctant to let the demon out of his sight since they'd been returned to Earth more or less unharmed, promptly closed up the shop and offered to come with him. Crowley was still working out how he felt about this development, but for now he more or less approved.

They didn't have to hide anything anymore, which meant he didn't have to hide how important their shared history was to him and how much genuine pleasure he got from luring Aziraphale out on small adventures. Which was how they now found themselves in an art museum looking at a sculpture titled Lilith and comparing it to their memory of the real thing.

"She looks hungry," Aziraphale said. "Did that girl ever look so hungry to you? Do you remember?"

He had his head tilted back to look up at where the life sized sculpture was mounted above them on the wall. His left hand rested in the front pocket of his overcoat, but his right arm hung at his side, pinky just barely brushing against the back of Crowley's hand, a gentle reminder that they were both still there.

"They were all made hungry at first, weren't they? For each other and for the horizon? Insurance, I’d say."

Crowley had his right arm crossed behind his back, holding the elbow of his left close to his side. It was to keep himself in check. As much as Aziraphale did not like to take his eyes of Crowley in this shiny new world, Crowley did not like to take his hands off Aziraphale.

They were both fighting millennia of incompatible conditioning in their own ways. Some days it resulted in time spent pressed together and getting so wrapped up in each other's bodies they forgot to speak. Some days it resulted in arguments neither of them knew how not to have. It was all very different from the bickering and careless touching that had come before. The weight of their changing relationship was heavily yoked across Crowley's shoulders, but it was a weight he welcomed.

"To make sure the hard work was appreciated, you mean?" Aziraphale asked.

"To make sure everything got kicked off. You don't think They had us make all of that just to let Their creation be contained to one small walled in oasis in the desert? Come on, angel. You know better than that."

Aziraphale cleared his throat. "Why shouldn't I believe She wanted them to be happy, to revel in the beauty gifted them?"

"Angel," Crowley said.

It was half admonishment and half question. After everything, finally, Aziraphale had to know that the Almighty's intentions weren't universally good for those in Their charge. The two of them were proof of that. Or, at the very least, they were proof that just because machinations had been put into place, that didn't mean they were worthy of being seen through. Or that the beings doing the overseeing wouldn't twist them to their own ends when left to their own, bloodthirsty druthers.

He turned his head to look at Aziraphale's face. Aziraphale's blue eyes were staring steadily into the blue eyes of the sculpture. It really was very lifelike, with its clear, piercing eyes and the smoked, charred appearance of the bent and crouching body. One hand ground itself to the wall and one hand ended at the wrist as if it was meant to be disappearing into the boundary between them.

Myths circulated among some of the humans that Lilith had somehow straddled realms, that she conquered angels and birthed demons. Of course, no demons had been born of another body. All of them, to Crowley's knowledge, had been born of only the fault lines that ran through their own cracked shells. Crowley, who had many faults, had also once been charred all black and shadowed with the red of his wounds.

“The very making of them was a promise,” Aziraphale insisted.

“To who?” Crowley asked, incredulous. “There wasn’t anything to it. Here, have some green things and some new creatures and some teeth. Gnaw your way through the world, you’ll figure it out.”

“That was faith,” Aziraphale said. “And faith is perhaps the most important thing a being can have.”

He looked at Crowley with a fierceness in his eyes that reminded Crowley of kneeling on a tarmac and wondering, for just a second, what part of him was going to end up with a flaming sword in it. He still felt a little guilty for that fear, for being afraid of Aziraphale of all beings, but in his defense, a lot of acutely predicted unpredictable things had happened up to that point and he had quite lost his grip on the way things were supposed to be.

“Don’t know from faith,” Crowley grumbled. “The only thing I believe in is you.”

Aziraphale’s gaze softened considerably. “There was good to be found in Heaven when we were building,” he said. “Surely you remember that. And if there ever was good I think there still must be.”

“Good and altruism are not the same thing,” Crowley said. “Good can mean anything, depending.” They both knew that to be true. It was in fact the truth The Arrangement was predicated on.

"I'm just having a hard time of it, my dear," Aziraphale whispered. "I feel so...alone without all the rest of them, even after everything. Cut out, something has been cut out of me and while it is still hurting, it doesn't help when you gloat."

"I wasn't– " Crowley started, but he bit himself off.

Of course he was, though he hadn't meant to be. Not that his intention mattered when it was his utter certainty in the fallibility of Heaven that rubbed Aziraphale raw.

Crowley had tried for thousands of years to get Aziraphale to believe that they themselves were all they really had, and now they were. In theory he had won, but in practice they had both lost a lot. And while Crowley had never believed in Hell—because by its very nature Hell did not give demons things to believe in so much as it gave them a shared enemy in Heaven—Aziraphale had believed in Heaven. Wholly. With every part of himself.

Aziraphale was a creature of love so purposeful that he believed all angels were creatures of love, and that love was meant to be their purpose. Even when confronted with proof of the contrary, he never stopped believing his brethren could be better. Crowley was positive that Gabriel, for instance, would not be able to pick love out of a lineup if it offered itself up with an explanation, a prayer, and a perfectly tailored pair of trousers. Aziraphale, in contrast, didn't know how to let love go. He loved when it was a celebration and he loved when it was a wake. Aziraphale loved Crowley, against all odds, or maybe because of them. Maybe because of how odd the pair of them were, because they'd lived so long in each other's pockets it couldn't be helped.

Crowley loved Aziraphale because, well, the list was very long, but one of the bullets was definitely the way he was currently standing in a public art museum, eyes misting under the pressure of their new lives catching up to him. The new absences in both of them were heavy, but they were free to feel that heaviness, and wasn’t that something.

They could, perhaps in time, come to fill those absences with each other, but it would have to be done carefully, deliberately, and with the knowledge that it was impossible to make another being your whole world. It was also unfair. At the very least you needed to take up some of that space yourself. Just to give your beloved a place to come home to.

Crowley released his grip on his own elbow. He bumped Aziraphale's hand with his to warn him that there was movement incoming. Then he reached out, wrapped an arm around Aziraphale's shoulder, and pulled him close so that he could press a quick kiss to his forehead before letting Aziraphale tuck his face into Crowley's black, padded shoulder.

"I don't mean to gloat," he said. "But I won't lie to you either."

"No," Aziraphale said, voice muffled in Crowley's jacket collar. "I don't want you to. You never have have you?"

"Not when it mattered," Crowley said.

Aziraphale wiped at his eyes with a quick, small movement that Crowley pretended not to see.

"Do you remember what happened to her?” he asked. “I'm afraid I never made it a point to check up."

"Just as well. I'm sure she'd had enough of angels there by the time she'd been replaced. But yeah, she did alright. She survived for a time."

"They're all so very good at that," Aziraphale said. "They look fragile, but they're all so very resilient."

"So are we," Crowley said. "It's hard to tell sometimes whose image any of us were really made in."

Aziraphale reached across Crowley and grabbed a hold of his free hand. He squeezed it tight before loosening back into a more relaxed grip. They stood like that for another fifteen or so minutes while Aziraphale composed himself. He let out a few shaky breaths that Crowley would never mention, tilted his head up to kiss Crowley's cheek, and then pulled away.

The sudden emptiness at his side reminded Crowley that they likely weren't alone, but when he turned to survey their surroundings none of the handful of museum goers were paying them any mind.

"Where to now, angel?" Crowley said.

Aziraphale pulled the map from his pocket and studied it. “Oh look, he said, as he pointed to a purple square. “They have some Monets.”

Crowley sighed. “Fine. But I did tell him, I said Claude, if I see another water lily for the rest of my life it will be too soon.”

Aziraphale folded the map and slid it back into his pocket. “And what did he say to that?”

“That’s quite the point,” Crowley said, mimicking a French accent. “And then he went into that cathedral because he knew I couldn’t follow. The bastard.”

��Ah, Rouen,” Aziraphale said. “Well, you can’t argue with an impending sense of mortality anyway.” He stepped away from Crowley to move on to the next gallery.

Crowley took one last look at the frozen Lilith and then followed. “I’ll have you know I can argue with anything. Those were some nice sunsets though. He captured that alright.”

“Mmm, I remember Mesopotamia, right before the clouds rolled in. A sunset always could still that forked tongue of yours.”

“I’ll sssstill my tongue on you.”

Aziraphale laughed. The sound of it startled both Crowley and the humans near them. “Oh yes, I’m sure,” he said. “But let’s save that for later.”

Crowley trailed after Aziraphale and thought that, of all the promises available in the world, the promise of a later was his absolute favorite.

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #art museum fun times #kiki smith #lilith #god i love that sculpture #i miss it something awful

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homeawayfromhogwarts394-blog · 7 years

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On the twenty-second day of Christmas, fanfiction gave to me... Thewaterfalcon! Find her stories on fanficiton.net, check her out on tumblr @thewaterfalcon, and read her interview below!

Getting to Know You

HAFH: Tell us how you fell in love with Harry Potter

TWF: I’ve been a fan right from the start, I was introduced to Philosopher’s Stone when I was about 8 (1998), I was always a bit reader, especially as a child, but from that moment not many books have ever come close.

HAFH: Who is your favorite Character? Which is your favorite book? Why?

TWF: Ron, he gets such a hard time in ff but he’s my favourite. I think he’s the one I always connected to the most, he felt the most real to me, I like that he made the mistakes that he did, and that he didn’t particularly have a lot of love for his classes, but I think mostly, I just relate to how he frequently didn’t feel good enough. And then, of course, he still helped save the world! My favourite book is a toss up between PoA, and OotP, they’re the ones that I’ve gone back and read the most times. PoA because I love how we were introduced to the Marauders, and how you can re-read and see that there is so much more depth to the story than you first thought (Remus seeing Harry, the spitting image of his old best friend on the train, for example). OotP because it made me laugh the most, some of my favourite chapters in the entire series are the ones in Grimmauld Place, I love that even despite the frightening state of affairs (Voldemort having just returned, etc), there was this sort of community/family feel during those parts.

HAFH: What is your favorite book (outside of HP)?

TWF: The Lord of the Rings series, I’ve read them close to the amount of times I’ve read HP. I absolutely adore the world Tolkien gave us, the scope of the history, characters, and story are just incredible in my eyes.

HAFH: What are your favorite holiday traditions?

TWF: Crafts, baking, decorating, etc are all staples. We go to Christmas Markets when we can, oh, and our tree topper is a penguin called Chris, who sits on top of a bookcase all year until Christmas!

HAFH: Do you like the holidays?

TWF: Yes! I’m such a typical mum at Christmas, it’s all about the kids, and I love it all!

HAFH: Share one of your strengths and one of your weaknesses. Doesn’t have to be writing related!

TWF: My ability to overcome is the strength I pride myself on the most. One weakness is that I can be incredibly oversensitive.

HAFH: What other hobbies do you have?

TWF: I’m a watercolour painter, and fan artist, and I spend copious amounts of my time perfecting my bullet journal.

HAFH: Do you write anything outside of Harry Potter fanfiction?

TWF: Yes, one day I would like to release an original work, I write bits and pieces of non-ff, but I haven’t got enough of an idea in mind yet.

HAFH: What are you doing when you're not obsessing about Harry Potter or fanfiction?

TWF: Adulting, or bullet journalling.

General Fanfiction

HAFH: Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

TWF: I’ll take angst over fluff any day, I prefer rarer pairings, and a little bit of some smutty goodness wouldn’t go amiss.

HAFH: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

TWF: Oh my gosh, this is a really hard question! Can I alter it a teeny bit? I’d finish avis1756’s Unintentional Magic.

HAFH: If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose? Any actors you would hope play your characters?

TWF: The History of Magic, because I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to watch Hogwarts come to life for the first time. My fancasts for Rowena and Salazar are Katie McGrath (she plays Morgan le Fay in ‘Merlin’), and Michael Fassbender.

HAFH: If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

TWF: If I *had* to choose, I think I’d pick Ronsy.

HAFH: Do you have a muse? What is it?! If not, where do you get your ideas?

TWF: Primarily music; a lot of my stories are inspired by songs.

HAFH: Do you read fanfiction? Do you read similar or different things than you write?

TWF: I don’t read it as much as I would like, but I try to write different things, that I haven’t seen before..

HAFH: Share three of your favorite fic writers and what you like about them.

TWF: Clementine Mack; because I adore how she takes lesser known characters and gives them so much life, particularly her Millicent Bulstrode, she does for Millicent what I try to do for Pansy, she gives her this normality, and likeability, but with an unapologetic realness.

dulce.de.leche.go ; because I find myself so drawn into the words she writes, there’s such a depth and beauty to her words that I just lap her stories up.

@shayalonnie, because in my eyes she’s the best at what we do! Her stories aren’t simply stories, they’re epics.

HAFH: Share three of your favorite fanfictions and what you like about them.

TWF: Savage Heart - Clementine Mack, because somehow, despite werewolf fics being fairly popular, she has managed to weave such an originality in the story and characters that it doesn’t even feel like a fanfiction now.

The Debt of Time - ShayaLonnie, for the same reasons that everyone adores DoT! It made me feel everything, fall in love with the Marauders and feel even more connected to the canon story.

His Little Bird - thewanderer’swanderingdaughter, this one is rough, there’s no getting around that, it’s one of the darkest I’ve read, but I was beyond pulled into it, the writing is incredible and, even though I found it hard to read due to its content, I really, really liked how the author dealt with various issues.

HAFH: Does what you read affect what or how you write? If yes, how so?

TWF: I would say so, yes. I guess in a similar vein to how a musician often finds it difficult to just listen to music without scrutinising it, I do the same when I’m reading now, I’m constantly analysing how sentences flow, or whether the writer has done something grammatically different than I would have. If I really love a particular sentence, or passage, I often save it in my phone.

HAFH: How long have you been reading and writing fanfiction?

TWF: I’ve read ff on and off for quite a few years, I’ve only been writing since May, so I’m a relative baby compared to lots of other authors!

Published Works

HAFH: Have you ever deleted one of your published fics? Why?

TWF: I have not.

HAFH: Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

TWF: This is from Darkened Skies, one of the things I really wanted to address in this story is how Neville went from the accident prone target of bullies, to absolute bad ass. In canon we don’t really see this fully, because obviously the trio aren’t at Hogwarts during 7th year, and so it was fun to really dig deep with Neville in this way, also, DS has the slowest burn and this is right before Neville and Pansy finally kiss, so it was just great to get to this moment:

‘She smiled up at him. His face, which she had began to see as rather physically appealing from the minute he entered the carriage on the train, now had a whole new effect on her. She still marvelled at how good looking he had become, of course, but now there was more; he had a perfected rigidity to his jaw, and a deep sorrow in his eyes that she was certain, or perhaps she merely hoped that, nobody else could see. There was real pain and sadness in Neville Longbottom and knowing, and seeing, that, broke Pansy’s heart almost every day. And yet, despite the hurt, she knew there was also hope, and light. She saw it mostly in Herbology, an ambition in his eyes when Professor Sprout engaged him, or when Professor Flitwick commended his impressive spellwork. His Gryffindor fire was sometimes so close to the surface, she half expected his eyes to burn a deep red.

Their peers no longer regarded him in the way they once did, with mockery and pity. His abilities as a wizard had increased tenfold and his blatant defiance in the face of the Carrows’ proved he was no longer one to be trifled with. In fact, Pansy highly doubted whether Neville Longbottom would ever give anyone reason to truly make fun of him again.

Pansy smiled at his words, but said nothing. Instead,she let her head fall to the side, feeling comfortable enough, yet still nervous at first, to rest her head on his shoulder. She felt him altogether stiffen at her advance and then, all of a sudden, his whole body relaxed entirely, and she felt his head flop to the side, to rest against hers. His hand then reached for hers, and he grasped it in his own as their fingers interlaced.’

HAFH: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

TWF: This is from The History of Magic, I tried hard to really capture the Founder’s personalities, and I wanted to inject a bit of humour into the scene, and I hope I did a good job:

“And what if, at eleven years old they do not quite show the bravery of an ox-”

“I prefer lion, the lion is an animal of absolute grandeur.”

Helga narrowed her eyes at Godric. “Fine, the courage of a lion.”

“Much better!” Godric responded, this time earning him a most uncharacteristic, actual glare from Helga.

“Hush, Godric! Or, the intellect of a...a…”

“I’ve always admired the eagle, most intelligent creature,” Rowena interjected.

“...an eagle, then. Or the resourcefulness, and cunning, of...” this time Helga did not attempt to think of the relevant creature herself, instead simply gazing at Salazar, who replied without hesitation.

“A snake.”

“Of course,” Helga snapped, her arms now flailing in annoyance, much to the amusement of the other three. “a snake, so what happens? What if these children are not particularly brave, intelligent, or cunning? When their greatest attributes are kindness, or dedication, or patience, what then?”

“Well, one would assume, they would be in your House,” Godric answered the question Rowena was sure Helga had actually not wished for an answer to.

“Yes, yes they will! I shall take all the rest. And shame on all of you for not having the same attitude!” The small woman ended haughtily into a pregnant silence.

“Well, that is very kind of you, Helga,” Rowena said after a while, unable to bear the awkward quiet that had befallen the four friends. “What creature do you feel you would like to represent the House of Hufflepuff?”

Helga was taking deep breaths, and the reddening of her cheeks told Rowena that Helga was probably feeling a sense of embarrassment over her outburst.

“A badger.”

HAFH: Which fic has been the hardest to write?

TWF: More than Life, it came from this tiny idea, and I started it with virtually nothing, it’s one I should have planned out properly, first. It’s an entirely canon-compliant Hinny, and has none of my usual elements involved. It is however, my most popular!

HAFH: Which fic has been the easiest to write?

TWF: Need You Now; my filthy Ronsy smut-fest . I wrote that bad boy basically in one go, it came to me super easily.

HAFH: What is your favorite story you have every written?

TWF: Darkened Skies, it’s my baby. It started me on the journey of a writer and gave me this incredible outlet. I owe DS a lot.

Writing Process

HAFH: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

TWF: Write to express, not to impress.

HAFH: What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

TWF: Work on only one thing at a time. Now, please don’t think I mean that this is bad advice overall, as I’m sure for many others it isn’t, but for me, and the way my inspiration comes to me, I tend to work on one fic for a while, and then not touch it for a while, whilst I concentrate on another, this helps me immensely as I know how easily I lose heart in a project, this way keeps all my work fresh.

HAFH: Describe your perfect writing conditions.

TWF: A pristine desk, a view that involved water in some capacity, and tea on demand! (typical Brit here!)

HAFH: Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

TWF: I outline my big fics, yes. Nothing too fancy, but I like to have a timeline, and bullet point what plot points are going to happen roughly in each part of the story.

HAFH: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

TWF: If a later scene comes to me, I will write it, but mostly start to finish.

HAFH: Describe the process a chapter goes through before being posted.*

TWF: I sometimes jot down some bullet points of what I’m including. I’ll try to finish writing a chapter in a few days. I then add it to the file in my drive, and let my beta know it’s there. Once it’s beta’d, I will publish.

HAFH: How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

TWF: I have two plunnies hopping about, one is a Ronsy heavily inspired by Outlander, it’s a Voldemort wins!AU, the other is a prompt I actually entered in the Q&P mistletoe comp, claimed it myself and then decided to delete it because I want to write it later, and longer, and do it justice. It’s a George/Daphne set after the war and deals with George losing Fred, which will be coupled with what has happened to Daphne (but I’m not going to give that away yet!), and how these two unlikely souls find each other, and something to cling to.

HAFH: Would you ever kill off a canon character?

TWF: I try not to, but, I mean, sometimes it calls for it, I killed Harry, Molly, and Arthur in The Whole World without batting an eyelid. On the whole though, I tend not to.

HAFH: Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

TWF: I usually write things that *could be* feasible in canon.

HAFH: Is there a character, book, scene, etc from canon (above all others) that inspires you?*

TWF: It’s actually a film scene, where they’re preparing for the final battle, oh it just gives me all the tingles! It’s one of the things I really feel they got right in the films.

HAFH: Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to? Or one you never would want to write?

TWF: Time turner, I’ve never really had much of a plunny for one though, but I do like them! I’ll probably send Pansy back in time at some point. I don’t think I’d ever write a marriage law.

HAFH: Is writing your passion or a fun hobby?

TWF: I’ve only been writing for seven months, so I’d say fun hobby that is becoming my passion.

Revision

HAFH: If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

TWF: I don’t really have any older fics, but I guess once I’m at that point it will be Darkened Skies, because I want it to be perfect.

HAFH: How do you feel about collaborations?

TWF: I’d never collaborate, I know i’d end up falling out with my partner. I think they’re often great in theory, but I know a few people who have had bad experiences with them.

HAFH: What do you look for in a beta?

TWF: Someone I feel comfortable with, and someone who will be my cheerleader, not all the time, but I need it, every now and again.

HAFH: Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

TWF: I do, currently for two writers, and I’ll look over my friends’ work if they ask.

Works in Progress

HAFH: Talk about your current wips.

TWF: Darkened Skies is a Pansy/Neville story that takes place during 7th year when the trio are away. ‘He was her one and only chance to feel sane, she was his nights spent chasing a hurricane.’ Fire & Ice...and Everything Nice takes place after the war, and involves Pansy and Daphne taking a trip to Romania (no prizes for guessing who one of their love interests is!), it is primarily light hearted and fun, but deals with PTSD, anxiety, depression and panic attacks as a big underlying theme. “The aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts has left Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass alone; torn apart from their once-friends and shunned by the whole of Wizarding Britain. As Pansy is plagued by the worst of memories and left broken, Daphne realises that something needs to change and sets herself a mission, which, once in motion, might just alter both girls' lives forever.”

The Edge of Tonight is a Scorpius/Rose story where I make a pretty dramatic U-turn from how the next-gen are usually portrayed, it’s influenced a lot by how reckless I was as a teenager. “Baby, you are my horizon... Being sixteen is hard; between the endless expectations from being the daughter of not one, but two, war heroes, mediocre school grades and struggling to find her sense of self-worth, Rose Weasley must lean on the three people she trusts above everything, now more than ever. A coming of age story about friendship, love, late nights & poor judgement.”

HAFH: Do you accept prompts?

TWF: I’m not sure, nobody has ever given me a prompt!

HAFH: Which is your favorite site to post fic?

TWF: FFN, but I am slowly posting all my work to A03 also.

HAFH: How do you feel about smut?

I love it, to a point, I don’t overly like PWP, it has to feel natural to me, and be believable in my eyes, for me to enjoy it.

HAFH: How do you deal with trigger warnings in your work?*

TWF: I put them in A/N when they’re required, in fact I’m planning something pretty rough for DS, and I’m going to write a fairly hefty A/N which stipulates that if anyone feels they don’t want to read the chapter in question, then they can message me and I can give them the gist without details, so they can still follow the story, but hopefully avoid being triggered.

Feedback

HAFH: What kind of feedback do you prefer?

TWF: Positive, haha! I’m not going to lie, I don’t like criticism, but I do my best to take it on the chin when I do get it.

HAFH: Is there anything that you particularly like or don’t like to see in a review?

TWF: Well, I once got told my main pairing ‘would work better as Draco.Hermione’, that didn’t go down very well. I really like it when someone quotes one of my lines, or states that they think I’ve wrote something well.

HAFH: Talk about a review that made your day.

TWF: I honestly love getting pretty much any reviews! There were a couple that touched upon how I was handling Pansy’s PTSD in Fire & Ice, and it was really nice to read that they felt I was doing such a difficult and personal issue justice.

HAFH: Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

TWF: I’ve had a few, most I ignore and/or vent to friends about, I have given a couple of snarky replies though!

Thanks again to Thewaterfalcon for taking the time to answer all of our questions! We’ve so enjoyed getting to know you a little better! Be sure to check out her fics and find her on tumblr!

#HAFH25daysofchristmas #author spotlight #christmasinjanuary #thewaterfalcon

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DealBook: Why the New Coronavirus’s Economic Hit Could Be Worse Than SARS

Good morning. Congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs. The electronic dance music artist DJ-Sol, who moonlights as David Solomon, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, pumped out the beats at a Super Bowl party in Miami over the weekend. More on the ads below. (Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

World races to contain the coronavirus epidemic

As Chinese stocks plunged 8 percent this morning, governments around the globe are trying to prevent the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak from becoming an economic and public health disaster.

The latest:

• Beijing moved to inject $173 billion in additional liquidity into its financial markets.

• Leading health experts increasingly expect the coronavirus outbreak to become a full-fledged pandemic.

• China has reported 361 deaths nationwide, while the Philippines reported the first fatality outside China.

• The U.S. and other countries are temporarily barring visitors who have been to China recently.

The worldwide economic impact could be worse than that of the SARS outbreak, according to Peter Goodman of the NYT. “China has evolved into a principal element of the global economy, making the epidemic a substantially more potent threat to fortunes,” he writes.

The virus doesn’t yet pose a threat to the U.S. economy, James Areddy of the WSJ adds. “But that could change if the virus isn’t contained soon, or spreads more widely.”

____________________________

Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York and Michael J. de la Merced in London.

____________________________

What was your favorite Super Bowl ad?

Last night was a big win for the Chiefs and their quarterback, Patrick Mahomes. But let’s focus on the annual hot topic: the ads during the game.

Jeff Bezos is sued by his girlfriend’s brother

Michael Sanchez, the brother of Lauren Sanchez, sued the Amazon billionaire in court on Friday for defamation.

Mr. Sanchez accused Mr. Bezos of peddling a “false narrative” that he had sold the story of his sister’s affair with the Amazon chief to The National Enquirer, according to Michael Rothfeld and Jim Rutenberg of the NYT.

Fact check:

• The Enquirer has said that Mr. Sanchez was its sole source.

• Mr. Bezos and his security team haven’t accused Mr. Sanchez of leaking the materials to the tabloid, instead hinting that it may have come from an apparent hack of the Amazon chief’s phone by the Saudis.

• Ms. Sanchez said, in a statement provided by her lawyer, that her brother had “secretly provided my most personal information to The National Enquirer.”

Mr. Sanchez acknowledged signing a contract with The Enquirer in which he “agreed to corroborate the existence of the relationship under conditions that would help Mr. Sanchez manage the timing of the story and the way in which the affair was portrayed.”

Why private equity can’t fix the economy

Private investors took control of Payless, the discounted shoe retailer, and ran it into the ground. It’s a sign of how private equity often isn’t the superior form of capitalism that supporters say it is, writes Neil Irwin of the Upshot.

The central questions of Mr. Irwin’s article:

Why hasn’t the finance-driven capitalism of the last few decades created faster growth? What if the masters of financial efficiency are making choices that don’t actually create the more dynamic, productive economy they promise?

Mr. Irwin’s thoughts on the topic:

• Middle-class Americans who have observed bad private equity deals up close are angry about what they’ve seen. “A lot of these folks are pro-business conservatives in their personal politics, but think that the variety of financial capitalism we have right now is destructive,” he says.

• Private equity faces a conundrum: The easy deals have been done, and corporate boards are increasingly adapting private equity tactics to fix themselves. “That combination means that a lot of deals happening now don’t really have a pathway to create value by making companies better,” he adds.

What do you think about private equity’s role in finance today? Send us your views and we’ll feature them in a future newsletter.

Ray Dalio picks a fight with the media (again)

Mr. Dalio, the billionaire co-founder of Bridgewater Associates who has publicly complained about press coverage before, took up his megaphone once more after a WSJ report about his $160 billion hedge fund.

Highlights from the WSJ article by Rachael Levy and Rob Copeland:

• Mr. Dalio has put in place several plans for his succession, each failing to take hold.

• “His word nearly always wins out in debates at Bridgewater” on issues like investments and compensation, despite his philosophy of letting dissent flower at the firm, Ms. Levy and Mr. Copeland write.

• He once overruled employee concerns about meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia — and reportedly told one dissenter, “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?”

Mr. Dalio took to LinkedIn to hit back at the WSJ and the news media:

• The writers “had a goal and story in mind long before there were any facts.”

• He denounced what he called a lack of an “objective quality control process,” in journalism, in which he said reporters gathered innuendo and ignored protestations from the company.

Some context: It’s not the first time Mr. Dalio has complained about the WSJ.

BuzzFeed’s C.E.O.: We’re ‘open’ to being sold

The arrival of Ben Smith, the founding editor of BuzzFeed News, as our newest colleague at the NYT casts a spotlight on BuzzFeed’s fortunes. The company is doing better financially, Ed Lee of the NYT reports — but that may lead to its being sold.

• “The site booked a profit for the second half of 2019,” Mr. Lee reports, citing unnamed sources. “For the year, the company generated around $320 million in revenue, or 6.6 percent above the previous year.”

• “The closer the company gets to achieving a year’s worth of profit, the more its backers are likely to agitate for a return on their investments, either through a sale or a public offering.”

Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s founder and C.E.O., left the door open for a deal. “If being part of a larger company allowed us to grow our mission, I would be open to that,” he told Mr. Lee.

One possible merger partner: Group Nine, the publisher of sites like The Dodo and Now This.

The speed read

Deals

• Last month was the slowest pace of M.&A. activity in a January over the past seven years. (FT)

• Why pro athletes are turning to venture capital for their second acts. (CNBC)

• Simon Property Group, Brookfield and Authentic Brands are reportedly teaming up to bid for the bankrupt retailer Forever 21. (WSJ)

Politics and policy

• The Iowa Democratic caucuses are tonight, and PredictIt forecasts a big win for Senator Bernie Sanders. (PredictIt)

• Independent voters think the U.S. economy has improved under President Trump, according to a new poll. That could bode well for his re-election. (NYT)

• But recent government data shows the economy is slowing. (Hill)

• Mike Bloomberg proposed $5 trillion in new taxes on the wealthy and corporations — more than Joe Biden, less than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. (NYT)

• Talks to create a global tech tax are making progress. (Bloomberg)

Tech

• Senator Mark Warner was a telecom entrepreneur. Now he’s one of the top Democratic lawmakers calling for tighter regulation of the tech industry. (Wired)

• Mark Zuckerberg shouldn’t be allowed to run Facebook, George Soros argues. (NYT Opinion)

• Uber executives are reportedly weighing new ways to pay for a fleet of autonomous vehicles. (FT)

• Parents say that children named Alexa are increasingly facing bullying. (Business Insider)

Best of the rest

• Inside the misogynistic culture at Victoria’s Secret. (NYT)

• WeWork hired Sandeep Mathrani, an executive at the real estate firm Brookfield Properties, as its new C.E.O. (NYT)

• Tensions between the chairman and the C.E.O. of Credit Suisse are expected to come to a head this week. (Bloomberg)

• The far-right financial website Zero Hedge was banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation about the Wuhan coronavirus. (BuzzFeed)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].

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