Someone as Good as You

(For this writing meme. Askbox here.)

We definitely talked about this last night and I definitely remember 0% of the conversation. But I will try again.

1. Chloe is an already-ex-Peacekeeper. She’s on the prison transport because of it, and definitely helps the others escape. She’s still more emotionally put-together than Lucifer, but that is not saying much. Since she was a Peacekeeper, she’s still like. Wary of Emotions.

2. Dan is Crais. And also the one who arrested Chloe and sent her for... what did they call it on the show? Was it just reeducation? Or something different? Anyway, he’s the reason she’s on Moya. When he comes back, during the whole Talyn bit, she’s the one that trusts him the least. They never get together again.

3. Lucifer is, obviously, Crichton. Instead of a wormhole, though, it was a rip caused by Azreal’s blade. What he was doing with it, who knows, I haven’t figured that out yet. He gets thrown through the rip and tumbles out onto Moya in the middle of a room of Peacekeepers. He almost charms his way out, but it turns out Peacekeepers do not like having desires charmed out of them. So he ends up in Chloe’s cell. Most of the AU would be him trying to replicate the conditions that forged Azrael’s blade so he can get back to his shitty, Chloe-less universe.

4. Linda stands in for Zhaan (she does not die) and Ella is a slightly older Chiana who flirts with Dan and thinks Lucifer is the neatest thing since sliced bread.

5. Lucifer does get back to his shitty, Chloe-less universe. He expects it to be like it was before, but the partying feels hollow and the sex is missing something. He doesn’t know what. It’s less upsetting than the episode where Crichton goes home for Christmas and finds out he’s too changed for Earth, but only because Lucifer didn’t like Earth so much to begin with. It was just better than Hell.

6. When Amenadiel tries to send him back to Hell, there is a Big Fight, but Lucifer manages to get ahold of Azrael’s blade, which he’s kept stored in a Secret Place, just in case. Up until that point, he couldn’t go back to Moya, and really should’ve destroyed the blade, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He and Chloe fought before he went back to Earth, so he knows he’s not welcome there again, but even brushing elbows with Chloe in a place where she hates him now would be better than going back to Hell. The last time Amenadiel sees his brother, he’s just given him a cheery wave, blood still streaming down his face from his broken nose and the slash at his hairline, as the slice between universes zips closed.

7. The only time Lucifer curses not having access to his wings anymore is when Chloe dies after saving him from... the bad guy. Pierce? Would Pierce be Scorpius? Hmmm yes I like that. Anyway, Chloe dying breaks him a little bit, and not even her being fixed can fix all the missing pieces of him.

8. Daedelus Demands and Icarus Abides don’t happen. Like, fuck Infinite Possibilities. That was so fucking upsetting that just remembering it exists makes me cry. I need to go find some fucking tissues.

(From this writing meme. Askbox here if you want to ask more from this meme!)

mifflin: what do you feel is your strong suit in writing?

Hmmmm. This is a weirdly hard one. Like, my instinct is to be like “Nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!” but we all know that’s not true. Ugh, saying nice things about myself, how dare you make me do this.

I guess... I think my strong suit is resolving emotional hurt/comfort? Like, I strongly believe that in order to satisfy a reader’s emotional journey as they read my fic or whatever, the happy at the end needs to be equal to the angst throughout the rest of the fic. And I feel like a lot of endings with emotional hurt/comfort are... lackluster?

it feels, to me, like people have fallen to the dumb idea that an ending can’t be too happy or it’s not ~realistic~. And I get that other people may read fics for different reasons than I do. But, idk. Since the early 2010s there’s been a push for fic to be more “realistic”. I mean, who remembers the epic condom wank that has resulted in everyone mentioning condoms being put on in sex scenes? Regardless of if it’s going to interrupt the flow? Or the one about “depression doesn’t work like that” where people were objecting to depression being hugged away.

I get the impulse behind this, and even agree with it, but, like all writing advice, it’s been watered down and generalized and applied so strictly that it doesn’t make for as enjoyable fic anymore. Kind of like “Kill your darlings” and such.

Like, do I miss the overt homophobia of fic in the 00s and before? Especially the “we’re not gay we just love each other” trope? Do I miss the rampant misogyny and how canon love interests were treated? Absolutely fucking not.

Do I miss not having to put a disclaimer in the fic itself that “I know depression doesn’t work this way”? Absolutely. The entire point of fic, for me, is to be cathartic wish fulfillment. Yeah, you can’t love mental illness away, but wouldn’t it be great if you could? You can’t fix everything with a hug, but how cool would it be if it did work that way?

Anyway, I have gotten off track. My point is, I read fic for the happy ending. If I wanted to be sad I would read the news. And I feel like that is what I’m good at. Giving characters a happy ending that is equal to if not greater than all the angst and emotional hurt/comfort they’ve had to go through to get there.

Anyway.

houghton: what’s something you love that people compliment your pieces on?

I would die for anyone who mentions that they noticed the foreshadowing. For anyone who notices the clever turns of phrase I put in. For people who notice the small stuff.

Like, if you mention something like that, I remember your comment for as long as my ADHD brain allows. And after I’ve forgotten the comment, I’m still like “idky but I love this person” when I see your username. The easiest way to make me become a rabid fan of yours is to say “Oh I loved it when you hinted at X happening earlier!” or “This particular line is going to stay with me forever” or things like that.

Do you need me to bury a body? I will absolutely come help if you’ve told me what your fave line is and it matches up with mine. Need me to make an enemy’s life a living hell? I am down for that if you mentioned you noticed all the little hints I put in of what’s to come.

Like, guess what! Being able to guess the ending is a good thing! That means the writer is doing their job correctly and leading you down the path with a steady hand.

[Insert another massive rant about spoiler culture, the idea that guessing an ending means the writer is bad, and tropes being a terrible thing to have in your work.]

So, yeah. Aren’t you glad you asked for those two?

(For this writing meme, askbox here)

cancer: how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

Uhhhhhhhhhhh by... writing them? What? I can usually write through them so the days when I’m writing an emotional bit are usually days where I produce >1k, but yeah. I don’t understand this question >:(

Sometimes my heart hurts for them but like. I don’t feel what they’re feeling so much as I’m feeling sympathy. Like, my poor babies just need 10000000000000 hugs and they are not getting them until later on in the fic and that is tragic. Absolutely tragic.

scorpio: how much research did you have to do for your current wip? what was the weirdest thing you had to google?

OKAY okay okay okay. This is so fucking obvious BUT: I do not do research for fic. Like, fuck research, I am writing for fun and research is not fun. Like at all. I hate researching things that I’m not actively interested in. Like I spent hundreds of hours learning about scrapie in sheep and the regulations surrounding it and how they affect small farms and the pros/cons in the US for a 3 page paper in college. But ask me to go find out, idk, what gun Chloe uses in s1, it is like ughhhhhhh and takes me hours because do I really care? No! It’s a gun! You point it and shoot things! How many different guns can there possibly be??? (A lot, I know, please don’t tell me.)

Anyway, I couldn’t tell you the weirdest thing I’ve had to google because, tbh, I usually just ask you and have you google things for me. Like, hitman!AU (I KNOW but I will never shut up about it) is almost completely informed on my side by romance novels I’ve read involving hitmen in love. That’s it. That’s the extent of my research. lol.

Sorry that I don’t take fic writing as seriously as I should you guys.

(For this prompt meme)

This originally was meant to be a like 500 word coffeeshop!AU purely to troll you because I was under the (erroneous) impression that only I still like coffeeshop!AUs. And then, uh, it grew a plot and things so anyway here’s the first 650ish words of this multi-chapter fic that is not anywhere near finished yet.

9. “You come here often?” “Well, I work here. So I think I’d have to say ‘yes’.”

“You come here often?”

“Well, I work here. So I think I’d have to say ‘yes’.”

Chloe didn't look up from her phone as she responded to the clichéd line, hoping the guy would get the message and fuck off. She didn't want to spend her fifteen minutes fending off a creep's advances. Or have to go back inside before her time was up. It wasn't like the alley behind "Latte Nights" was a particularly nice place to hang out, but it was a nice day and it smelled slightly less like coffee than the inside of the shop.

"What a coincidence," the guy said, coming to stand next to her. "So do I."

She glanced over at him, taking in his expensive suit, carefully coiffed hair, shiny shoes, the ostentatious ring, and the fancy cigarette case in his hand.

"No you don't," she said and went back to scrolling through the news on her phone.

"At Lux," he clarified, sounding amused.

The coffee shop did share the alley with the night club, what with being on the ground floor of the building next door and all. But she was pretty sure she knew all the bartenders, and patrons wouldn't be caught dead in an alley. And, most importantly, it was far too early for the club to be open.

"Doubtful," she said.

The guy was silent for long enough to pull out a cigarette and light it, taking a drag as she sidled down the wall a little ways. He didn't follow her, but he did say, "Alright, I suppose that's true, but I am the owner. Surely that counts for something?"

"I'm not sure what you're hoping it'll count for, buddy," she snapped as her phone started to buzz with her alarm. It was time to get back to work.

She turned without a word and stalked toward the back door to the shop, wishing she could slam it behind her. That was the only break she got today, and she had been looking forward to the fifteen minutes of peace.

"Everything alright?" one of her coworkers asked, not sounding at all interested in the answer.

"Watch out for the guy out back," she said, pulling her apron back on. "He's a real charmer."

"Oh, you met Lucifer?" Anna asked, a grin lighting up her face and a light blush staining her cheeks. "Isn't he great?"

Chloe stared at her for a minute before turning to the espresso machine, taking a breath so she wouldn't say something stupid, like how men hitting on women in allies weren't anything near "great." Her coworkers didn't like her, but she'd managed to keep her relationship with them less antagonistic at this job than at the last.

Which, she supposed, wasn't saying much.

"Lucifer?" she asked instead, unwillingly intrigued by the name. "Is that his real name?"

"God-given, I'm afraid."

She froze, then reluctantly turned to the counter. Lucifer was standing there, smiling at her in a way that was probably supposed to be charming, a money clip in hand. Anna made a quiet squeak beside her and hurried up to take his order.

"I didn't catch your name outside," he said as he meandered over to watch her put together his sandwich order.

"I didn't give it," she said shortly. A flash of confusion in his eyes had her grimacing inside. She was supposed to be nice to customers, but there was just something about him… "Chloe," she said. "Chloe Decker."

"Well Ms. Decker," he said with a charming grin as she handed over his sandwich and Anna slid the coffee cup over the counter. "It was a pleasure meeting you. And Anna, it was lovely to see you as always, darling, but I must be getting back to the books. Accounting never sleeps, as they say."

"No one says that," slipped out before Chloe could think better of it. But he just winked at her and left, the little jingle of the bell over the door sounding loud to her ears.

(For this writing meme.)

Well I already did 29 here and I’m not doing it again now that I’ve had some sleep so you are SOL.

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

I have not. As much as I want to go delete my entire archive of Leverage fic that I wrote under a secret screenname, I have not. No matter how ashamed of them I are I will never delete them.

I strongly believe that deleting fics is a shitty thing to do, especially now that you have an option to orphan them if they’re posted on AO3. I have seen all of the hundreds of millions of reasons people do it and I still think it’s a shitty thing to do.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh man I know it’s almost February but I’m gonna do this now!!! Like the cool kid I am!!! So: 2019, a fic year in review, based on this list of questions.

Hmmmm. I think I’m going to take this to mean “posted” and not “wrote” because the only fave scene I can think of is probably the one where the first fate makes Chloe ask three times to be taken across the river in It’s a Love Song. Or maybe the next scene, where the second fate offers her three things in trade? idk, one of the two.

Sadly, I don’t have a good enough memory to have a favorite line. They all blur in my head once they’re out of my fingers. It’d probably be something in the hitman!AU. lol.

21. most memorable comment/review

Oh, obviously all of yours.

Unfortunately, individual comments fall down the same memory hole that individual lines do. I remember the feeling, not the words or who said it. :( Which isn’t to say I do not appreciate each and every single comment I get, and that they do not make my day. Because they do, they so fucking do. I am absolutely one of those jackasses who needs validation to keep motivation going, so each comment is like another few weeks’ worth of writing time in my well.

(From this ask meme.)

16. Do you have structured ideas of how your story is supposed to go, or make it up as you write?

I know the beginning. I know the end. The middle tends to be something of a mystery. I genuinely do not understand how people can write things without knowing the ending, though. I’m trying to do that now and it’s like fuckin torture and it’s a terrible fic so far.

20. 4 sentences from your work that you’re proud of

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM I want to do something that I haven’t posted yet and now that I’ve posted all of It’s a Love Song that opens up POSSIBILITIES.

I’m lying. We all know I’m going straight for hitman!au.

Okay people I’m in a bad mood so go ask me more questions so I can pretend I am popular and that being popular makes me happy.

(For this ask meme. Ask me more here.)

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean?

It means that I am not making sounds with my body. lololololol

It means Something Is Wrong although that something varies... a lot. Am I hungry? Am I dying? Am I mad? Could be anything!! Am I just distracted?? Probably.

148. What’s your favourite quote?

L O L. As literally everyone who knows me can tell you, it’s “Not all those who wander are lost.” Like, when I was a lol teenie I was obsessed with that quote, and now it’s what everyone associates it with: me being a lol teenie. Troubling!!

(For this ask meme)

17. - What would make them break up? Would it be permanent?

Why are you like this????

I actually think that by the end of The Peacekeeper Wars they’re like. Solid. Like they’ve gone through everything they could possibly go through and come out of it strong for it, yanno? And they’re both so rifuckingdiculously in love with each other still. So it’s hard to think of something that would be in character and something that would make them break up.

I do think that if, at this point, something caused them to break up, it would be permanent. They’ve both been hurt by the other too many times in the lead up to getting to where they are that I feel like it would be a one last straw sort of thing. Like, if, at this point, they feel like they can’t trust the other one to have their back and their heart, then it’ll be over for good.

Wow this is really fucking hard to answer without spoiling further in the series than you are.

Even though I can’t really picture it, I feel like one of the things that would definitely break them up for good would be cheating. Like they’re both hilariously possessive of each other (in a way that I feel is okay?) and that would be a last straw sort of thing. Aeryn would be crushed if Crichton cheated on her, Crichton would be crushed if Aeryn cheated on him, it would just be a bad scene no matter what.

But, like I said, I can’t see that happening and their relationship is just. So solid.

Listen it is COMING okay, I just gotta get all these OTHER BORING OBLIGATIONS done first why did I sign up for anything????

Oh I have thought up the perfect spoiler! Hopefully this will not remind you what the fic is about because I think I only mentioned it in passing to you ages ago. Fingers crossed that your memory is as terrible as mine.

Spoiler: Lucifer leaves an appointment with Linda with the impression that he has two choices: he can date Chloe or he can have sex with her. But not both.

dun dun dun

(From this ask meme.)

3. name three favorite writers

Ughhhh why are you DOING this to me. I don’t have fave writers, I have fave fics!!

So, one of them is definitely ElenaCee. I can not actually count the number of times I have read her Devil’s Trap series. It is just. So good. I love it. It’s my fave comfort read. I also love her other fics, obvs, but man, that series...

I never got far enough into Once Upon a Time to actually like. See Emma and Killian on screen together, but from what youtube clips I’ve watched and what you have told me, it is an A+++++ pairing, and the fic holds up. So @welllpthisishappening is also one of my faves. Her fuckin fic man. I will consume each one in like two days and then wonder why I am exhausted (because I have not slept). I’m a bit behind now, but man do I love her fic.

AND I GUESS @namedawesomeog IS ONE OF MY FAVES >:( THEY WRITE REALLY SOFT FIC AND EVERYONE IS A DELIGHT AND EVERYTHING IS DELIGHTFUL AND legit I have reread the um. One of the post season 3 ones (MY ONE QUIBBLE: FIC TITLES ARE TOO FUCKING LONG TO REMEMBER) like a thousand times. That’s as many as one hundred tens. And that’s terrible great.

Ugh, I feel all dirty now, having to say nice things about people. Yuck.

40. which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series

Ugh, okay. I have two answers for this one because lbr the one I want to see most as a movie is the hitman!AU because it is just. It is some of the best writing either of us has ever done and also: there is some wild shit coming up that all y’all out there don’t know about yet.

But! I feel like that one doesn’t count because it’s an AU so of course I’d like to see it on the big screen. Plus, only half of it is mine.

No, I’d want An Advent-ure in Christmas Spirit as a short TV series. Esp. once I finish it this December. It’s just such a cute series and there are tons of cute moments and I think it would work well as a like. Maybe a direct-to-video movie or something. idk. I just like it and want to see it with my eyes.

I can not, for the life of me, find this one. So, uh, guess you get nothing.

(For this writing meme, I think.)

17) Post a line from a WIP that you’re working on.

Greedy!!! You get all the good lines anyway!

So, this is slightly more than a line, but... It’s from a fic that I was doing for the deckerstar big bang and then had to drop out because there’s no way I’m finishing it by the deadline. In any case, Lux burns down, Lucifer ends up bunking with Chloe for a while, etc. I can’t wait to show the whole thing to you guys!

37) What’s the funniest story you’ve written?

Uhhhhhh funniest Lucifer story? I don’t really write funny Lucifer stories. Funniest story ever? At the risk of hardcore outing myself, and with the understanding that I find a lot of things hilarious that a lot of people don’t-

I wrote a fic ages ago (like, in 2010 ages ago) that was 616verse Marvel fic, Jessica/Luke/Danny/Matt. My fics back then were pretty funny, if I do say so myself, and that was probably my best. It was the first fic in a three-part series and I never wrote the other two parts. Whoops.

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

How dare you make me choose!!

...actually, I don’t think I can choose. Sharing a bed? Friends to lovers? Snowed in? I have no idea. I love them all too much ;_____;

(I think this is from this writing meme?)

5: What part was hardest to write

Well, going straight for the tough ones, eh? How kind of you.

So, this one is tough because this isn’t  one of the fics that I found particularly difficult to write, I don’t think? If I’m remembering correctly, this one basically flowed out of my fingers like water out a brand new faucet. So I guess the hardest part was the kissing, because I don’t feel like I am good at writing anything involving acting on sexual attraction? It’s a thing I’m working on, but I’m deffo not Good yet.

So, yeah, the kissing.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Ughhhhh can I just say this fic in its entirety? Because I love it. I love fics where Chloe gets fed up with Lucifer’s mixed signals, and I love writing fics where that happens. I’m good at writing arguments and enjoy doing it in case that wasn’t clear from, uh, most of my fics.

Okay, so i have two favorite parts that I can’t choose between? One is this one, which I love because of just how bitter it is:

And one is this one, which I love because it’s just so... idk. She’s had it up to here and he’s trying desperately to fix this only he’s bad at it because he doesn’t quite get what the real problem is, yanno?

I forgot how enjoyable this fic series was for me to write, even though it was under a time crunch and I was stressing from that.

Hows about a writing ask meme? Ask me more!

02: What was your favorite book growing up?

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh shit this is hard. This is harrrrrrrrd. How am I supposed to choose??? There were so many that I read over and over and over again but which out of those was my fave?

Probably The Black Cauldron. I read that and The Book of Three over and over and over again until my copies were falling apart. I’ve still got them, taped together very poorly and in my bookcase. They’ve survived all of my book culls even though I have the ebooks because I love them just so much. Fuck, they’re so good. I should read them again.

39: What’s the weirdest story idea you’ve ever had?

No.

42: Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?

Are you calling me out??? Is this a call out question????

I love it. It makes happy endings that much sweeter. The greater the pain, the better the resolution. That said, a lot of the time, characters suffering physically squicks me, so I mostly stick to emotional suffering. Like, just putting them through Hell is gr9.