A Fic Nostalgia Party
Sep. 9th, 2013 02:02 amToday Jay and I were having a freudwithwings nostalgia party on twitter. It’s been over a year since we started our joint collabfic account on FF.net (August 1, 2012 was the exact date), and the one year anniversary of Foul Team is rapidly approaching. Which sort of blows my mind, since we are only HALF THROUGH the planned number of episodes. And later episodes are bound to have higher word counts, help.
Anyway, talking about this led to the realization that the two of us remembered falling into writing AF fic together very differently. (“This is our Budapest,” Jay laments.) So today, I went hunting through the original Scrivener I’d set up for the first month or two before we moved everything into a gdocs folder. I found not only the dates of when certain pieces were first written, but also several chatlogs that I’d saved and screenshots of our initial flurry of texts.
And so, at the request of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
buttonloops, here is a rough timeline of the birth of freudwithwings and the crazy amount of fic that came with it:
( Timeline Fic Nostalgia! )
The discussion leads towards elements that would form the basis of Schrodinger’s Zombie. Our text flurry continues non-stop for the next several weeks. This is not an exaggeration, I have over 200 screenshots saved of our plotbunnying conversations.
(Jay confirms: She’s actually not kidding. I remember her taking them.)
July 19:
On Skype, we start to play the feels game.
(Jay: This game is a bit like Game of Thrones. You win, or you cry.)
Single angsty sentences become painful paragraphs become entire scenes.
I end up asking Jay if it’s okay for me to use some of the stuff she’s writing into the chat for the fic I’ve started.
(Present!Day Jay: I’m laughing at this to keep from sobbing. My mental health! I remember back when I used to have that! Oh, how the mighty have fallen...)
July 20:
In the course of 24 hours, we have written the first draft of Schrodinger’s Zombie Part One. At this point we believed the fic would consist of three parts, only the first would be titled “Schrodinger’s Zombie,” and we would be posting all three parts at once.
(Jay: I coined the phrase “Schrodinger’s Zombie,” and then proceeded to ramble about physics and cats and sarcasm and uncertainty. She nodded along and, in time, the name stuck itself to the entire fic.)
August 1:
We are hanging out on campus together when I write the first scene of a Time Paradox AU (affectionately known as Lemurverse). We realize this is going to be longer than expected, even though Jay is adamant we keep it a one-shot instead of separating it out into parts.
(Jay: I’m still wondering if we should just dig in our heels and get this thing done, post it all at once. Yes?)
Around the same time, we realize SZ will be the fourth collab we’ve written together, and decide it’s time to create a collab account on FF.net. Freudwithwings is born.
(Jay: After much joking around about what to name it - Jaygan? Meagay? - we decided that Twitter handles were a much better bet! She jokingly photoshopped a pair of wings onto a black and white photograph of Freud. I loved it.)
I also create the first version of a timeline for the AF series so we can figure out events for our AU.
August 2-4:
We continue to write scenes for Lemurverse, continually assuring each other that this is only going to be a one-shot because no way are we letting this thing grow out of control.
(Jay: And, to our credit, we did a good job of that. Lemurverse DIDN’T grow out of control. If only it were our only problem….)
August 3:
I write a little what-if blurb over Skype to Jay, imagining the characters of the series as a police procedural.
August 7:
Schrodinger’s Zombie Part Two is begun.
August 20:
Schrodinger’s Zombie Part Two is finished and posted.
August 30:
I write a short scene. While later discarded and forgotten, this is one of the first scenes of what later became Foul Team.
The envelope was olive green and marked with the official seals of both the fairy Council and the Lower Elements Police, as well as several red CONFIDENTIAL stamps. Artemis turned it over his hands, studying it thoughtfully.
“Did the Council change their minds and decide to award me that medal after all?”
Holly barely smiled. “Not in the slightest.”
Rather than open the envelope, Artemis raised his eyes to examine her. “You’re uncomfortable,” he observed. “You know what’s in here and you don’t like it.” Then, watching her face, he corrected himself: “No, you believe I won’t like it.”
Holly shifted weight. “The Council thinks it’s necessary.”
“The cloning has been discovered and the contents of the envelope outline the serious consequences I must face as mastermind behind the scheme,” Artemis theorized. “It’s a cease-and-desist order regarding one of the experiments in my special projects laboratory. I have been selected for Jury Duty.”
Holly’s mouth twitched.
“Or maybe,” Artemis continued lightly, “This is the highly anticipated job offer to work as a fully paid consultant for the LEP.”
The elf captain’s mouth dropped open. “But - “ she blurted, “How could you -?” She shook her head. “I should have known.”
“Indeed. Foaly’s systems aren’t getting any more difficult to crack.”
Deep below the earth, the centaur burst into a indignant tirade. Holly muted her comm.
“Frankly,” Artemis continued, “It’s arrived earlier than expected.”
(Jay: Oh, right! This was before any of the Changelings! Huh. WEIRD.
Now that I’m thinking back, though, I remember dropping the first scene of FT in Winged’s inbox one morning around this time. An arrogant little OC by the name of Becquerel Jones had wandered into my head around 2am the night before; I promptly decided that Artemis Fowl would most definitely NOT be impressed by him or his ponytail. The rest of the scene wrote itself, and I sent it to her as mostly a joke.
Basically, if you’ve ever been annoyed by Bec, sorry. He was my fault.
She decided that she liked the scene, wondered if perhaps this could be something we could explore in FT, and over a lengthy discussion over an IHOP breakfast the next day, the Changelings became the main plot to run through the series.)
(Jay: I have been corrected. Apparently that happened on September 8th, and I may have to revoke Winged’s timeline privileges from now on.)
(Meagan to Jay: I went to a LOT of trouble to look these dates up okay? I take my timelines SERIOUSLY.)
(Jay to Meagan: Whatever. I was still right about Alexandria.)
(Jay: Erm. I’m referencing “Past Paradoxes,” another of our collab fics. Alexandria happened and I was RIGHT about it.)
August 31 - September 8:
We work non-stop on an outline for an AF continuation written in the style of a three season television show. The outline reaches 7K and we freak out. Suddenly it’s 15K. And then it’s blossomed to 23K and neither of us know what just happened.
(Jay: Oops.)
(Meagan: And now our individual FT episodes average 7K, what even.)
September 8:
We write the first scenes of Foul Team.
(Jay: See above. I’m not telling this story twice.)
September 16:
The first episode of Foul Team is posted!
...and the rest just spiralled out of control from there.
(Jay: Huh. Let me elaborate on this.
In under a year, we’ve posted around 150K of fic on our joint account. That doesn’t take into account the sheer number of text messages we’ve sent, the various scraps and drabbles we’ve got sitting in various joint folders, a couple of AUs that never saw the light of day, and an orig!fic that’s sprung up recently, ran away with us both, and is probably going be novel-length by the time we’re done with it.
At this point, I’d stop saying “out of control” and start saying “we need an intervention.” Or perhaps for somebody to confiscate our cell phones, take away our Internet privileges, and set us both in time out.
Preferably in opposite corners of the room.)
And there you have it! An origin story (of sorts) for freudwithwings. Or, the craziest month I have ever had, in terms of plotbunny generation and ficcing output. It was glorious. It was terrifying. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
(Jay: We started out that month as friends. We ended it as one mind holding two pens, with nary a shred of sanity between us.
A fair trade, I’d say.)>
Anyway, talking about this led to the realization that the two of us remembered falling into writing AF fic together very differently. (“This is our Budapest,” Jay laments.) So today, I went hunting through the original Scrivener I’d set up for the first month or two before we moved everything into a gdocs folder. I found not only the dates of when certain pieces were first written, but also several chatlogs that I’d saved and screenshots of our initial flurry of texts.
And so, at the request of
buttonloops, here is a rough timeline of the birth of freudwithwings and the crazy amount of fic that came with it: ( Timeline Fic Nostalgia! )
The discussion leads towards elements that would form the basis of Schrodinger’s Zombie. Our text flurry continues non-stop for the next several weeks. This is not an exaggeration, I have over 200 screenshots saved of our plotbunnying conversations.
(Jay confirms: She’s actually not kidding. I remember her taking them.)
July 19:
On Skype, we start to play the feels game.
(Jay: This game is a bit like Game of Thrones. You win, or you cry.)
Single angsty sentences become painful paragraphs become entire scenes.
Meagan: The boys would have seen the plane land, she thought. Artemis would doubtless come to investigate, with Butler in tow.
Jay: I AM IN CLASS. DON’T YOU DARE.
Meagan: Sorry! Sorry.
Jay: And then Butler comes to investigate alone.
Jay: I AM IN CLASS. DON’T YOU DARE.
Meagan: Sorry! Sorry.
Jay: And then Butler comes to investigate alone.
I end up asking Jay if it’s okay for me to use some of the stuff she’s writing into the chat for the fic I’ve started.
Meagan: I’m assuming it’s ok to pull a bunch of what you’ve sent me and stick it into the fic, right?
Jay: I would be writing my own fic if it weren’t, xD.
Jay: This, I figure, is a tad better for my mental health.
Jay: I would be writing my own fic if it weren’t, xD.
Jay: This, I figure, is a tad better for my mental health.
(Present!Day Jay: I’m laughing at this to keep from sobbing. My mental health! I remember back when I used to have that! Oh, how the mighty have fallen...)
July 20:
In the course of 24 hours, we have written the first draft of Schrodinger’s Zombie Part One. At this point we believed the fic would consist of three parts, only the first would be titled “Schrodinger’s Zombie,” and we would be posting all three parts at once.
(Jay: I coined the phrase “Schrodinger’s Zombie,” and then proceeded to ramble about physics and cats and sarcasm and uncertainty. She nodded along and, in time, the name stuck itself to the entire fic.)
August 1:
We are hanging out on campus together when I write the first scene of a Time Paradox AU (affectionately known as Lemurverse). We realize this is going to be longer than expected, even though Jay is adamant we keep it a one-shot instead of separating it out into parts.
(Jay: I’m still wondering if we should just dig in our heels and get this thing done, post it all at once. Yes?)
Around the same time, we realize SZ will be the fourth collab we’ve written together, and decide it’s time to create a collab account on FF.net. Freudwithwings is born.
(Jay: After much joking around about what to name it - Jaygan? Meagay? - we decided that Twitter handles were a much better bet! She jokingly photoshopped a pair of wings onto a black and white photograph of Freud. I loved it.)
I also create the first version of a timeline for the AF series so we can figure out events for our AU.
August 2-4:
We continue to write scenes for Lemurverse, continually assuring each other that this is only going to be a one-shot because no way are we letting this thing grow out of control.
(Jay: And, to our credit, we did a good job of that. Lemurverse DIDN’T grow out of control. If only it were our only problem….)
August 3:
I write a little what-if blurb over Skype to Jay, imagining the characters of the series as a police procedural.
Meagan:
The first half season or so focuses on the forming of the team. It starts with Artemis and Holly and each new episode brings in a couple more players until about Ep 6 when we've got this good-sized, well-rounded team.
The season then moves focus to the group learning to function in their new capacity as the Diplomacy response team, with the finale realizing all their talents as agents and resolving any initial reservations about having joined the team, culminating in a heartwarming moment when the most reserved team member puts their career on the line to get the job done.
Season two picks up about six months later. The rest of the LEP is finally starting to take their department seriously (before, they'd been acting like it was over-hyped and underworked). Due to their success rate, the department has a heavier case load and thus, has been given a couple of rookies.
As that season progresses, we see a lot more interpersonal relationships, as well as more interactions with other LEP departments. Artemis and Holly start to hear rumours that officers in other departments refer to them as the Fowl Team. Neither of them mind as much as they feel they should.
Meanwhile the rookies are being rookies. There's a whole episode about them passing around Argon's book. Mulch makes several guest appearances. So does MInerva.
Conclusion to the second season includes the department changing their name to LEPfoul, a troll, and a daring escapade that leads to the suspension of one of the team's trusted officers.
Season three promises to be a doozy - according to rumours, the suspended officer isn't going to rejoin the department until halfway through the season, Artemis and Holly might finally admit that there's something between them, and the showrunner has hinted that one of the main characters gets killed off! Also, there's apparently going to be an episode in which the team deals with a human kidnapper looking for fairy gold - it's going to be heavy with flashbacks and emotion galore.
Jay:
Season 1 finale: a cave-in traps Artemis and Minerva in with a family of trolls. The rookies had better have a contingency plan, and Holly had better be able to marshall them into a team.
Meagan:
And that's after spending half a season joking about how Arty always has this seemingly redundant contingency plan.
Jay:
Artemis and Minerva are rescued. She flies into the skiier's arms. Holly and Artemis just exchange a nod before getting back to the ass-kicking finale.
The first half season or so focuses on the forming of the team. It starts with Artemis and Holly and each new episode brings in a couple more players until about Ep 6 when we've got this good-sized, well-rounded team.
The season then moves focus to the group learning to function in their new capacity as the Diplomacy response team, with the finale realizing all their talents as agents and resolving any initial reservations about having joined the team, culminating in a heartwarming moment when the most reserved team member puts their career on the line to get the job done.
Season two picks up about six months later. The rest of the LEP is finally starting to take their department seriously (before, they'd been acting like it was over-hyped and underworked). Due to their success rate, the department has a heavier case load and thus, has been given a couple of rookies.
As that season progresses, we see a lot more interpersonal relationships, as well as more interactions with other LEP departments. Artemis and Holly start to hear rumours that officers in other departments refer to them as the Fowl Team. Neither of them mind as much as they feel they should.
Meanwhile the rookies are being rookies. There's a whole episode about them passing around Argon's book. Mulch makes several guest appearances. So does MInerva.
Conclusion to the second season includes the department changing their name to LEPfoul, a troll, and a daring escapade that leads to the suspension of one of the team's trusted officers.
Season three promises to be a doozy - according to rumours, the suspended officer isn't going to rejoin the department until halfway through the season, Artemis and Holly might finally admit that there's something between them, and the showrunner has hinted that one of the main characters gets killed off! Also, there's apparently going to be an episode in which the team deals with a human kidnapper looking for fairy gold - it's going to be heavy with flashbacks and emotion galore.
Jay:
Season 1 finale: a cave-in traps Artemis and Minerva in with a family of trolls. The rookies had better have a contingency plan, and Holly had better be able to marshall them into a team.
Meagan:
And that's after spending half a season joking about how Arty always has this seemingly redundant contingency plan.
Jay:
Artemis and Minerva are rescued. She flies into the skiier's arms. Holly and Artemis just exchange a nod before getting back to the ass-kicking finale.
August 7:
Schrodinger’s Zombie Part Two is begun.
August 20:
Schrodinger’s Zombie Part Two is finished and posted.
August 30:
I write a short scene. While later discarded and forgotten, this is one of the first scenes of what later became Foul Team.
The envelope was olive green and marked with the official seals of both the fairy Council and the Lower Elements Police, as well as several red CONFIDENTIAL stamps. Artemis turned it over his hands, studying it thoughtfully.
“Did the Council change their minds and decide to award me that medal after all?”
Holly barely smiled. “Not in the slightest.”
Rather than open the envelope, Artemis raised his eyes to examine her. “You’re uncomfortable,” he observed. “You know what’s in here and you don’t like it.” Then, watching her face, he corrected himself: “No, you believe I won’t like it.”
Holly shifted weight. “The Council thinks it’s necessary.”
“The cloning has been discovered and the contents of the envelope outline the serious consequences I must face as mastermind behind the scheme,” Artemis theorized. “It’s a cease-and-desist order regarding one of the experiments in my special projects laboratory. I have been selected for Jury Duty.”
Holly’s mouth twitched.
“Or maybe,” Artemis continued lightly, “This is the highly anticipated job offer to work as a fully paid consultant for the LEP.”
The elf captain’s mouth dropped open. “But - “ she blurted, “How could you -?” She shook her head. “I should have known.”
“Indeed. Foaly’s systems aren’t getting any more difficult to crack.”
Deep below the earth, the centaur burst into a indignant tirade. Holly muted her comm.
“Frankly,” Artemis continued, “It’s arrived earlier than expected.”
(Jay: Oh, right! This was before any of the Changelings! Huh. WEIRD.
Now that I’m thinking back, though, I remember dropping the first scene of FT in Winged’s inbox one morning around this time. An arrogant little OC by the name of Becquerel Jones had wandered into my head around 2am the night before; I promptly decided that Artemis Fowl would most definitely NOT be impressed by him or his ponytail. The rest of the scene wrote itself, and I sent it to her as mostly a joke.
Basically, if you’ve ever been annoyed by Bec, sorry. He was my fault.
She decided that she liked the scene, wondered if perhaps this could be something we could explore in FT, and over a lengthy discussion over an IHOP breakfast the next day, the Changelings became the main plot to run through the series.)
(Jay: I have been corrected. Apparently that happened on September 8th, and I may have to revoke Winged’s timeline privileges from now on.)
(Meagan to Jay: I went to a LOT of trouble to look these dates up okay? I take my timelines SERIOUSLY.)
(Jay to Meagan: Whatever. I was still right about Alexandria.)
(Jay: Erm. I’m referencing “Past Paradoxes,” another of our collab fics. Alexandria happened and I was RIGHT about it.)
August 31 - September 8:
We work non-stop on an outline for an AF continuation written in the style of a three season television show. The outline reaches 7K and we freak out. Suddenly it’s 15K. And then it’s blossomed to 23K and neither of us know what just happened.
(Jay: Oops.)
(Meagan: And now our individual FT episodes average 7K, what even.)
September 8:
We write the first scenes of Foul Team.
(Jay: See above. I’m not telling this story twice.)
September 16:
The first episode of Foul Team is posted!
...and the rest just spiralled out of control from there.
(Jay: Huh. Let me elaborate on this.
In under a year, we’ve posted around 150K of fic on our joint account. That doesn’t take into account the sheer number of text messages we’ve sent, the various scraps and drabbles we’ve got sitting in various joint folders, a couple of AUs that never saw the light of day, and an orig!fic that’s sprung up recently, ran away with us both, and is probably going be novel-length by the time we’re done with it.
At this point, I’d stop saying “out of control” and start saying “we need an intervention.” Or perhaps for somebody to confiscate our cell phones, take away our Internet privileges, and set us both in time out.
Preferably in opposite corners of the room.)
And there you have it! An origin story (of sorts) for freudwithwings. Or, the craziest month I have ever had, in terms of plotbunny generation and ficcing output. It was glorious. It was terrifying. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
(Jay: We started out that month as friends. We ended it as one mind holding two pens, with nary a shred of sanity between us.
A fair trade, I’d say.)>
