Definitely fallen in too deep

I would like to lodge a complaint against September for messing up my sleeping patterns. I have very impressive shadows under my eyes.

This week I worked in the Cap BB fic edits, it's coming along pretty well. Next weekend are the posting date claims.

And I added to the Cap Septender fic, which is nearly done, and hopefully will be posted next weekend. It's set during the war, but somehow this tiny fluffy/smutty fic gained a coda set in present time, where Steve mostly contemplates art. I swear it makes sense in context :D And true to form, there is no title yet.

I also got a really good new idea for an angle of Steve's characterization, so I'll ponder on that as well and see what happens.

And a thing I haven't been talking about recently is the post-EG fic, which is definitely on a backburner now, if not on hiatus. Mostly because the creators keep talking about it and annoying me so I'd rather think of all the other stories, even though writing it might be cathartic in a way because I'll get to ignore all the stupid. I did recently get a bit of a new idea for one part of it, which requires me to rewrite a bit whenever I end up feeling like it again, but it feels much better fit for the whole.

Let's look at some numbers, shall we.

I have a document where I list all my fics that are either WIPs or just ideas. If I think of a very broad concept I don't put it on the list yet, but if there's a particular perspective or hook, it goes there. For example, there's no "something post-EG" entry, but "post-EG with this specific starting point and conflict" is there. Right now, the total number of fics on the list is 24. It's very likely not all of these end up written, because there are always new ones that at the moment feel more urgent, and if I get an idea when I'm very intensely writing something else, it might get shuffled to the bottom pile and as time passes feel less and less relevant. There are several ideas/WIP that came up during the writing of These Are My Hands, that will possibly stay as they are indefinitely.

Of those 24, four are currently on the top of my mind, and two are actual WIPs. The one I'm more intensely working on right now is the Cap BB fic. It's coming along pretty well, although (unsurprisingly) the projected word count seems to be going up. Three of nine chapters are written, and I've got 14k words, so it looks closer to 40k total than the 35 I guessed last week. I wrote a particularly tricky scene yesterday and it came out pretty well I think, so I'm happy.

The submissions for claims are on the 15th, which means I'm going to have to think of a title for it, and as usual I have no ideas at all. I'm easily past the required word count for this point, and the scene I want to submit for claims is selected, so clearly there needed to be one thing to struggle with. I know it can be a working title, but I'd prefer to have it at least close to final one. I'll keep my focus on this story over the next week as well, I want to have it as close to finished by the claims as possible.

The other story that I've been writing is the post-Endgame thing. Recently I've been focusing on it less, but it's coming along, and once my vacation starts week from now I'll start editing along with the writing so that I can start posting.

The last two on the top of my head are still on the idea level, but they're cooking, new details keep coming up, and the point when I can start writing is nearing. One of them is a war time story, and the other one has an ace-Steve, which is something I've been mulling over for a while now. I might start writing one of these during my vacation, or during the fall at latest.

Another thing I should start considering, since we're at the second half of the year; what will the end of year holiday fic be?

With the news of the impending rerelease of Endgame with additional scenes I'm considering posting the first chapter of my fic this weekend before that happens, just so it comes out at the "technically (but not spiritually) canon compliant" point in time. I don't know if the additional scenes will end up as something I'll ignore or if they'll fit in with what I have in mind but whatever there is, I'm not planning to change the story. I'm already ignoring everything extra, the creators can say whatever they want in interviews, I'm working purely based on what was on screen.

I have the first chapter written, and certainly could post it. The reason to wait would be that since I'll be writing while posting, pushing back a little would make it a bit more compact. I do realize that if this thing balloons then the few weeks' difference there will be at most between now and at the beginning of my summer vacation when I definitely will start posting might end up irrelevant in the larger scale. On the other hand there is a pedantic part in my nature that is annoyed by the new scenes possibly not slotting neatly in.

Guess well see by Monday where I'll end up. I have four days off from work with today's Midsummer holiday and making use of our flexible hours on Monday, which is very nice in general and should give me more time to write.

Is there a saying in English about the Devil reading the Bible? I'm assuming there probably is since there's the Shakespeare quote. We have one, which is basically about being very pedantic when interpreting something, usually resulting in the interpretation being something other than the original creator wanted to convey. This is basically me with my Endgame fic and canon, I'm definitely going to tag it with "Technically canon compliant" and "Not so much in spirit". Basically when I was writing the beginning of the story I was muttering to myself, "Steve actually didn't answer to Sam's question whether things went right or wrong." So the premise is that one small thing went wrong with long lasting consequences, and it's the fallout that the story focuses on.

Another thing the story will definitely have is Steve and his friends. The thing that most annoys me in Endgame is that they went so no homo with it that we actually have no scene where Steve is shown personally missing any of those who were dusted, which is absolutely out of character for him (and the film makers know it, after all in IW both the beginning and end of the final sequence is us seeing things via Steve and how it affected him). We see him work for bringing people back as much as anyone, but there's no personal connection given ever., it almost comes off as him doing his duty to the world rather than setting something personal right. One of the things I've consistently liked about Steve is his commitment to his friends and reaching out for them, and in EG while we see him with Nat and Tony (and I liked those parts), there's also a very conspicuous lack of missing those who are lost. Instead whenever his personal feelings of loss are portrayed, it's always connected with Peggy, which makes no sense in context, because she's not coming back even if they win the battle. And I like Steve's relationship with Peggy, but this is the wrong context to display it so prominently, because it just makes him look callous and non-caring toward other very important people to him.

There's also a whole lot of interesting stuff to do with Bucky in this story, but I'm not talking about it here since happily there's no "What the hell did you do with his characterization?" problem to deal with. You'll see what I have in mind for him when you read the story. I'm going to have alternating chapters written from Bucky and Steve's POV, starting with Bucky's right where the movie ended and moving forward from there. I'm also going to be posting as I write, this story feels right for that particular method. I just need to get to the point where I know enough of how it'll go so I won't set up stupid stuff in the beginning before I start posting.

This week was all editing, no writing anything new.

The Cap RBB fic is now basically whipped into shape. It means all the inconsistencies are sorted out, happily there was only minor stuff (along the lines of, do they actually sleep well in this specific case or not etc.), nothing major that would have needed a lot of work. Also the text is in much better shape now; the awkward phrases, repetitions and such have been taken care of. Mostly anyway. It'll still be read through at least a couple of times to catch the final bits and pieces, but most of the work is now done. 

This was a funny process, for starters I had a more thorough outline than I usually do. I didn't follow it religiously, if one were to compare there would be changes, but not with anything major. The writing was relatively easy, and in the first edit I added less than a thousand words to the 25k I had, which is less than usual, in line with the fact there were no major oddities in the first draft. Now it's only the final cleanup left, and three weeks to go until posting date, so no stress whatsoever.

As I said, I didn't yet start writing the Endgame related thing, but I did start thinking more along the lines I'll need to when I do write it. Namely, up until last week I had been thinking of what the story I want to tell is, and this week in addition I started thinking how to tell that story. I started considering the POVs, the structure, the timeline etc. All things needed for the writing, which will now start whenever I have the time, again maybe next week.

Apparently pretty much everyone I subscribe to on AO3 is updating their fics today (or yesterday depending on their timezone, but they came to my knowledge today). Please consider my need to write, people:D

My Cap RBB fic is practically written. One scene is still incomplete, but I'm happy where I am with it. Obviously there's still a whole bunch of editing to do, but it's definitely pretty much handled now. Except I still don't have an inkling on the title.

The Endgame related thing keeps ballooning. I know where to start and where I want to go with it, but the middle part keeps getting longer. I thought at first it would be something like a 10k thing, but now I'm kind of at a place where I'm throwing my hands up and going, who even knows? At least I'm confident it won't be the longest fic I've written (unless it gains a drastic amount of additional plot, which is unlikely), but other than that I'm not even going to guess at this point.

I'm also starting to incline toward posting the chapters while still writing.

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In completely other news, a kingdom for Steve related jokes that rely on something other than the assumption of him being a complete idiot for their humor. I'm *tired*