Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: 7, 8, 10, 18

*runs around flapping arms* So many people did the thiiiiing, I love it!  

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

Um…depends on my mental state that day.  If I’m having an ‘up’ day where I’m in good mental shape and the anxiety et al are chill, I’m really enthusiastic about it.  Because, God, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, I love my writing, it is my whole heart, and I basically live in a constant state of “SOMEONE COME YELL WITH ME ABOUT THIS NOVEL THAT DOESN’T EXIST BECAUSE I HAVEN’T WRITTEN IT YET.”  On the other hand, if I’m having a ‘down’ day, or a slightly precarious sort of day, I’m not embarrassed per se, but one disinterested remark or sarcastic comment can put me into a spiral that can last for a long time.  I’ve abandoned whole universes without a backward glance because of stuff like that.  There was this one universe that I created as an assignment for a science class that ended that way–we were supposed to create superheroes based on the four major biomolecules, and the whole class turned in crappy comics about, like, ‘Daring DNA’ and ‘Lady Lipid’ or whatever, but naturally I created four real people and gave them superpowers/secret identities and wrote up whole justifications for why their powers and personalities and places in the group fit each biomolecule and handed in twenty pages of origin story and action figures, and I got a D on the assignment.  The teacher actually failed me at first, but raised it because “at least I knew what the four biomolecules were” and even though I had an entire novel and universe plotted out, I scrapped the whole thing and never touched it again.

8) favorite genre to write

*throws confetti* FANTASY, MOTHERFUCKERS. 

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I answered this one here!

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

In…what sense?  In the positive sense, all my characters kind of haunt me, more so if I finished their novel or one of their novels.  Like, they’re real people, my head is a pretty cluttered space with all the people up there.  In the negative sense, the characters in the novels I’ve abandoned kind of…loom.  Like that novel I mentioned up there?  Fucking haunting me.

Anonymous asked: Just here to say I reallyove your writing. You da bombdotcom👌👌

Oh my god, oh wow, you’re so nice.  Thank you!!!  I…suck at accepting compliments, so pretend I said something witty here.

I used that gif of Tamaki blushing as a response to a compliment once already in the last like week or two, but that’s like.  My default response to compliments.  Covering my face and retreating like *shoop* I’m dead.  Is it etiquette to use the same gif in response to every compliment I ever receive?

Anonymous asked: 3, 5, 6?

I love ask memes, I really do, they’re very soothing.  From this!

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

I start on page one and write until I get to the last page.  Every once in a while, when I’m bored and/or distracted and/or need motivation, I’ll do what I call ‘writing ahead’ and write individual scenes or events ahead of time and then integrate them later, but if I write ahead at length, it’s something that’s taking place immediately after the writing that I’m caught up on.  I just really hate having to meticulously go over the stuff I’m integrating in to make sure it’s all contiguous and everything.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

I answered this one here!

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

Um…I dunno.  It might have been kind of interesting to make Sam Lightworth a lesbian, but I like the dynamic of “tall snarky angry dude crumbles all over tiny lethal wicked-eyed girl with the fate of the world in her hands” that I ended up with in FtS.  I just…have a lot of things that I write and generally I get pretty committed to the way things are, because my characters are very real to me.  Altering them after the fact feels kind of like a betrayal.

Anonymous asked: Sorry go bug you, I just wanted to ask--what's Westworld? (your recs are always so fantastic and so much better than anything google could give me)

YOU ARE NEVER BUGGING ME, I LOVE TO TALK ABOUT STUFF I LOVE.

So.  Westworld.  First off: have you seen Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse?  If no, proceed and read this pitch.  If yes, second question: did you like it?  If no, you won’t like Westworld.  If yes, don’t even BOTHER with this pitch, just watch the show.

A quick disclaimer: Westworld is a brand spanking new show on HBO based on the 1973 movie of the same name and, HBO being HBO, they do what they fucking want, so this show…like, it’s a really good show, I really like it, but if you can imagine a trigger warning, it’s probably attached to this show.  Sex, murder, rape, blood, gore, etc.  This show is FUCKED UP.  Ergo, the cut.

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Anonymous asked: Ok so that lams reincarnation ficlet is everything I ever wanted and Hamilton's not even a fandom I read fanfics for. Please consider writing whatever happens next (or honestly anything in the AU where almost everyone is reincarnated because that is just such a good AU)

Oh my god, babe, I’m so flattered, I’m so glad you’re liking it.  And here!  I’ve basically used this as an excuse to bring in my Historical Fave, America’s favorite fighting Frenchman—LAFAYETTE.

All In One Spot AU

As far as Alex is concerned, highlights of Columbia include: orientation week, which lets him get a handle on the new arrangement of the campus, John Laurens, the several gorgeous libraries, the rediscovery of the Schuyler sisters (the blue-green bruise rising from Peggy’s fist notwithstanding), John Laurens, the potential to find more of his old dear friends, the fact that the dorms have both air conditioning and heating, and John Laurens.

Downsides include: his ongoing struggle with Academic Affairs. Honestly, this is his second time through their system and one would think that over two and a half centuries they would have sorted themselves out.  But no.  He’s not even trying to arrange a two-year program this time, all he wants is permission to take more than the maximum number of credits, he’s not asking for the moon here.

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Anonymous asked: Ooooh! I'd love to reas that fic when you write it. And the phrase is from a Conrad Aiken poem, jsyk.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, I’m totally going to write it someday.  Probably next year when I’m not in school full time.  (And also thank you for the source because???  Fuck me, that’s a gorgeous quote.)

Anonymous asked: Hello I just found ur blog and ur writing is beautiful af!!! Pls have these sunflowers!!🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

Originally posted by ashtonsbabygurl

I???  Thank you so much???  I love my new sunflowers???  You are the sweetest, have a wonderful day!  

Anonymous asked: Twisted By Simple Light

Maniacal cackling.  This would be/might actually someday be the title of the Fic We Shall Not Speak Of, previously discussed here.  I’m literally going to copy-paste because I’m so pleased with that summary.

Padme Naberrie-not-yet-Amidala is three when the Force comes to her, as strong as one of the great storms that close down all of Naboo, four when the Jedi turn her away for being too old, five when she begins teaching the Force to herself.

Surely emotion is not wicked at its core, young Padme says, surely not, and she reaches out, learns to shape the Force with her passions and her loves and her rages and her laughs, and it is warm and rich and wild and vicious and everything (and surely this cannot be the Dark Side).  

When she stands on the Tatooine sand and meets a boy who shines like a sun, some part of her mind (the part that’s seen people die because their vaunted politicians took too long to see them suffering, the part that’s seen wars start over petty arguments and diplomatic differences, the part that looks around Tattooine and thinks look at all these suffering people, if only I had the power to save them) says yesssss.  And she reaches out and she takes his hand and she stays in touch and she assures him that no, emotion is not wrong, love is not wrong, Attachment is not wrong, he is not wrong.  

One day…oh, one day he comes to her, wild-eyed, with the words of another person on his tongue and talk about Sith, and she does her research and she thinks look at all these suffering people, if only I had the power, and…

Well.  Padme only wants to help.  Surely the ends justify the means.  Surely this cannot be Dark, if it’s to save starving children and wounded soldiers and slaves.

And the Empire rises under the command of its Empress and her iron fist, Darth Vader.

Anonymous asked: Hey Moran! Have you ever pulled a double all nighter? Like stayed up for 2 full consecutive nights?

Okay, so on the one hand: if you mean no sleep for two full nights, no.  To date, I’m pretty sure the longest I’ve been awake at a stretch was around 40 hours.  I’m weird enough all day, every day, there’s no need to add truly crippling sleep deprivation to that.  I generally try to sleep at least two hours a night because it keeps me just this side of functionality.

On the other hand, fun story.  If you were around in April, you may recall me making this post about Organic Chemistry pickup lines.  Now, other than the fact that I’m still delighted with that last one on there, the reason I bring this up is because (ha) I made that post on a Monday night.  I’d already been running on little-to-no sleep by then.  By the following Saturday night, I had gone eight days on twenty-four hours of sleep total.  I wrote two papers, did a problem set, and took an Organic Chemistry exam, among other things.  I got all my work done on time (although the last day or so is kind of a blur) and this is why, in case you’re curious, @twistedangelsays calls me Hamilton.

Incidentally, I got like a 97% on the Orgo test.

Anonymous asked: Psst John and Alexander meeting in your Hamilton Reincarnation fic series?

WOO, I am literal Laurens/Hamilton garbage, tell your friends.  
All In One Spot AU

John has been at Columbia for a year and, honestly, he’s starting to think that he was wrong, that no one else is here.  He walks past the law center every chance he gets, and he doubles the time of the walk from his dorm to the natural sciences building every single day to pass Hamilton Hall.  The statue is…reassuring, somehow, Alexander’s fine-drawn face cast in bronze and a quill in his clever fingers.  When John’s tired, or he’s had a bad night, full of nightmares with bayonets jumbled in with cars, the cinch of a noose tangled with the static of a television, he’ll stop and look at the statue until he can breathe again.

It’s not all bad.  John is in New York City, and he finally gets where Alexander was coming from all those years ago, this might legitimately be the greatest city in the world.  It sure beats South Carolina, hell and gone.  He’s introduced himself to everyone as John, here, and even admitted to a handful of people that he was a soldier in the Revolution.  He doesn’t have any close friends, but he doesn’t have any enemies, either, and the handful of familiar faces who see him when he quietly attends a Pride parade don’t say a word.  He’s taken a handful of prerequisites for a biochem degree, in the pre-med track—he always wanted to be a physician last time, and his father is too distant to fight him this time.  

He spends a little money on a sketchbook or two, on a set of pencils, and draws old faces, tries to imagine them in the modern world.  Lafayette, eyes bright and smiling, dressed in a suit.  General Washington, hands folded behind his back—no matter how many times John tries to give him a modern military uniform, his long heavy coat takes shape.  Aides and friends and soldiers whose faces he half-recalls, in t-shirts and jeans and flannels.  And Alexander, a thousand times Alexander, Alexander in modern clothes, in his Continental Army uniform, in shirtsleeves, in the coat he wears in the statue.  A few times, in the safety of his locked single room, John carefully sketches Alexander stretched out in their cabin at Valley Forge, lit in candle-flame and all smooth planes of muscle and skin, smiling at John, soft and sated.  An entire sketchbook fills itself with Alexander, over John’s first year at Columbia.

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