Hello my darling, I was your Summer Santa! It was SO HARD not to let on who I was, you have no idea! Did you already guess? As you know from both my anon messages and some of my own posts my mental health was very up and down during the writing process with seasonal depression, anxiety and general life stress kicking in at various points. But despite that, I have really loved writing your gift and I very much hope you enjoy it. [cont]


[cont]I love writing movie AUs, I really enjoy the challenges they bring and this one was no different. You’ve been a wonderfully accommodating giftee and I just want to hug you so hard. Your fic is up on Tumblr in link form and on AO3 in its entirety. Happy Reading and Happy RCIJ! ~ Worry aka Santa

Whoop whoop! *runs to read* oh no wait! *runs back to reply to this* hehe. Oh man this is going to be so awesome!!!!

I have to admit I did kinda guess it was you but under no circumstances can you feel bad about that! Ok? Truthfully it was a relief to ‘know’ early because I had time to get over the shock factor that I had THE WorryinglyInnocent as my Santa. You know how I adore your fic generally, so to have you write a fic kinda for me is just like *flaps hands* well put it this way I would be even more inarticulate than this if it had been a shock. The amount of flailing might have reached the stratosphere.

I’m really sorry it’s been a rough couple of months for you *hugs* I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed writing the fic. I hope it brought you nothing but fun and wasn’t an additional stress. Anyway, now I’m going to go read. Eeeeek I’m so excited!

Wait, wait, wait a minute. 27k! 12 CHAPTERS!!!! I’m the luckiest damn person in the entire world. Holy smokes. Just wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow! Ok comment spam incoming. Best day ever!

I just resubbed to Warcraft for a month because I’m weak. I know, I know, I kinda hate myself already. It’s just it’s been over two years since I last played and I got nostalgic.

Oh and in case anyone was wondering – this was the bribe I mentioned. I finished my RCIJ and rewarded myself. Tomorrow I’ll do the same with a mixture of fics and chores. Work first, play for an hour in the evening. Seems like a good bribe for as long as I’m enjoying it.

Anyway …

1) Where did all my buttons go? Seriously so many abilities have vanished. All my buffs, all my heals, so many of my cooldowns. I literally have 5 ability buttons – 5! I mean I have more with cooldowns but seriously this is insane. There’s no holy power! I’m stunned. I’m missing the sprint talent something fierce and it turns out muscle memory doesn’t disappear even with a two year gap. I’m trying to hit buttons that no longer exist. My hands remember the rotation. I have no idea yet what the gutting of my self-heals will have done to my soloing ability. There may be a rant incoming.

2) I started on my druid as I was nostalgic for playing cat form, and I have totally forgotten how to play which makes sense. Anyway so I died and then – corpse run. I was moaning bitterly the entire time because I’ve been playing Swtor and I can instant-res in that. Honestly having to find my corpse feels so antiquated. Oh and the fall damage in Warcraft is so much worse. I went to bound down this mountain and nearly died.

3) Seriously Swtor wins all the awards for convenience. I miss automatically knowing flight points, I miss the one click vendor all trash items, I miss Quick Travel because no cooldown and it goes everywhere. I miss the out of combat free regen ability because it makes recovery faster. It also feels like I’m moving faster on my speeder in Swtor, it feels like it takes forever to get anywhere in Warcraft. I could go on.

4) *incoherent screaming* THEY HAVE ADDED A WARDROBE SYSTEM!!! That wasn’t there when I last played and I am in love. I’m a collector at heart, and a completionist and oh dear. Same goes for all the new achievements. I have things to chase! Although it’s slightly annoying that I have to visit the transmog person to hide my head slot.

They may be more points later. I haven’t got Legion, I’m not even tempted by it as there’s more than enough game to play without it. Plus what turned me off the game last time was gearing up – it was too dependent on RNG and it was basically raid or nothing. So if I’m not max level, I just avoid the gearing treadmill completely, I can putter around playing solo and won’t get annoyed.

Plus it means I can play it like Swtor, dive in for a month every now and then, very casual, no commitments, no concerns. I can play when I feel like it and not when I don’t. Sounds reasonable to me.

rumbelleluv:

still-searching47:

rumbelleluv:

It is always pretty disorienting when you don’t play for awhile and then come back, that’s for sure.  And they have pruned a lot of abilities.  It was supposed to make it simpler and I suppose it has some benefits but I liked having more buttons to click.  And yes transmog is wonderful 😀  I think that was one of the best things they’ve added.  It is pretty fun 😀

Gearing up is kind of a turn off for me too.  I do it on my main but I’m not a raider so it’ll never be as high as it could be.  I really like to level alts so that sometimes takes away the focus on my main ( draenei shaman).

I have a druid as an alt but it’s not max level and I haven’t played it in a long time.  I do remember them always being fun though 🙂

Heya *waves* I didn’t know you played. That’s really cool! Thanks for responding to my random post! 🙂

Yeah I like having buttons to click. I have a razor naga mouse with 12 buttons on the side which I bind my cooldowns to, leaving the main bar for abilities. I have videos of boss kills so I’ll never forget how it used to be. Still I don’t raid anymore so it’s just soloing. I’ll have to test when I next zone in whether my soloing is affected with the lack of self heals. I haven’t really played since I last raided at the end of Mists and I know it was probably overpowered, but it was fun. My protection paladin was unstoppable /sigh.

Heh my bank is full of transmog pieces. It’ll be nice to clear it out and have some space! In the past I had transmog addons, and I farmed for pieces and made up my own sets etc. I’ve always been a collector. Back when I was playing before I had a farming schedule to clear certain raids on as many alts as could manage it each week before reset, so I could maximize my chances at the rare mounts and pets.

I do actually have an alt of every class (aside from demon hunter as I don’t have Legion) but only my paladin is level 100. My druid is level 95. Everything else except my shaman and my mage is level 90. My mage is level 86 I think and shaman maybe 82. I started leveling them so I could max all the professions, and then I got into playing alts during Cata because Cata made it easy and fun. I could login to an alt, run a dungeon, get some valor/justice points and know I made some progress. Then every few sessions I could get a piece of gear and then get more powerful. I liked that but they did away with that a long time ago.

Can you tell I used to be a completionist? Wanting to do all the things. I don’t feel that urge anymore. I mean I still like to have goals on login but I don’t feel the need to max my chances anymore. Just do what I feel like, and if I get the achievement or the drop then yay, if not then just enjoy the act of playing. I mean like with Swtor. I login and usually do a planet per session of the class quests of whatever I’m playing (currently Sith Inquisitor). If I get bored I login out in an inn and come back to it another day. No mess, no fuss, no worries.

Sorry I didn’t mean to go on.

😀 You’re fine! 🙂

That’s pretty awesome you have a gaming mouse.  My dad has something similar and I’ve been thinking about getting one.  I’m bad with keyboard binds for whatever reason.

The cool thing about clearing raids for mounts is it is so easy to do the old ones now since we’re so above the level range.  I was going after Ashes of A’lar in Tempest Keep every week on all my higher level characters for quite awhile before it finally dropped for me.  I know there are probably cool things to drop from Legion raids right now too, but since I can’t solo it, and I don’t always have the time to go into LFR and all that, might have to wait awhile on those ;).

I have a ton of alts too.  I would say the only classes I don’t have are rogue and monk.  If you ever decide to get Legion, I definitely recommend Demon Hunter.  I love doing melee and they are one of the funnest melee classes I’ve used so far.

I used to be the exact same way, wanting to do everything.  The reason I have so many alts is because I know I’ll get too consumed on everything I technically need to do on my main in a day to keep up with everyone else.  So I usually set a couple of goals for that character first and then I move onto my others so it feels more like I’m doing  what I want to be doing :).  Enjoying the game you play is important so I’ve tried to be more relaxed about it lol.

I’ve also never played SWTOR, but I’ve heard a lot of people say great things about it!!

If you like story/roleplay then definitely check out Swtor! I play it solo just for the story, it’s so immersive I wind up creating headcanons about my characters. All the quests are voice acted so it does slow everything down in that respect and the graphics/animations for the attacks are really cool. The games not perfect but it’s definitely enjoyable. Plus you can play for free. For convenience sake I like to sub but it’s not necessary. I would definitely recommend Swtor 🙂

Haha yup I used to farm Tempest Keep every week. You have the mount? Whoop, whoop, that’s awesome. Massive congrats! That’s a very pretty mount. It hasn’t dropped for me yet. Maybe one day! 🙂 It was funny when I logged out two years ago (I thought perhaps for the last time) I sunsetted my main but I left the alts wherever they were. So I still had 3 parked outside Oynxia’s Lair from farming attempts.

Heh regarding Legion that’s another bonus to Swtor – all the expansions are included in the subscription. I’m not sure whether I’m back just for a visit, or if I might stay a while so to speak, and getting Legion is a commitment I’m not willing to make anytime soon. Besides there’s more than enough content to play for months without it should I stick around. Maybe I’ll wait until the next expansion and get my account auto-upgraded for free when Legion gets rolled into the battlechest. That’s a thought heh.

TMI Tuesday

still-searching47:

Ask me about the show. Ask me anything about my fics, ask my characters anything. You can send me a word and if it’s in my WIP doc then I’ll post a teaser snippet. I accept prompts for any of my existing verses.

This week I posted:
Nothing. In fact I can’t remember the last time I posted something but there will be at least a couple of things posted in the next couple of weeks so yay for that. I actually forgot to do TMI Tuesday last week for the first time in about a year, I was too stressed. Anyway, I still have one question from a couple of weeks ago in my inbox but please send more if you feel like it! 🙂

Ask Box

Masterlist

You could also ask me a question off any of these lists.

I have to work on my RCIJ today but I’m procrastinating like a boss. I can’t decide if that’s because I haven’t had the time to write in anything in over a month and I’ve forgotten how to focus, or if it’s just me being rubbish today. I’m going to try bribery and see how that works 🙂

Anyway, if you want to kick me in the butt and make me write, or distract me with questions, or just generally say hi then I’m here all day.

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

Ooooh good question!

I’m afraid I don’t have a simple answer because honestly – it depends.

When I write a long story then I usually write a scene by scene outline before I start writing. This is because if it’s novel length I’m more than likely going to get confused and write myself into a corner. The exception to this is Painting Layers of Love because I’m experimentally writing that with prompts and as responses to people’s comments. I’m letting it develop organically and letting the characters drive more so than usual.

With all stories (short or long) I have clear images in my head for parts of the story. I usually have a jumping off point and I usually have an ending – it’s getting from A to B that I have to work out. Sometimes I just start typing and see what happens, sometimes I write up plans and essentially type out the entire story as a long summary. Quite often it’s somewhere in between. What I do depends on how inspired I am when I get the idea and whether I can start writing immediately, or if I need to put the idea on ice for a little while.

I usually have a fair idea of structure. I definitely fall down more on the side of planner than pantser but I’ve grown to appreciate a mix of the methods. I use what’s appropriate for the story and the situation. Novels I tend to plan to death but fanfic I’m more loose with and how many notes I have depends on the story. Sometimes this means I get stuck. I know where I need to be sometimes but not exactly how to get there. That’s when I talk with some amazing fic friends who have never let me down yet. I’m so lucky to have them!

TMI Tuesday — now that we’re in the middle of hiatus, what are your feelings about s6 as a whole? What do you think about the big changes teased for s7?

I am so, so, so sorry that this has been sitting in my inbox for so long! I didn’t have time to reply when you sent it because I wanted to give a thoughtful response and to be honest it’s been non-stop ever since. Thank you so much for sending this question in! You’ve sent me questions like this before and I love questions like this 🙂 You are the best!

I’m going to put the answers under the cut because I’ve gone on a bit. Given you asked about season 7 there are spoilers under the cut.

Continue reading

TMI Tuesday

Ask me about the show. Ask me anything about my fics, ask my characters anything. You can send me a word and if it’s in my WIP doc then I’ll post a teaser snippet. I accept prompts for any of my existing verses.

This week I posted:
Nothing. In fact I can’t remember the last time I posted something but there will be at least a couple of things posted in the next couple of weeks so yay for that. I actually forgot to do TMI Tuesday last week for the first time in about a year, I was too stressed. Anyway, I still have one question from a couple of weeks ago in my inbox but please send more if you feel like it! 🙂

Ask Box

Masterlist

You could also ask me a question off any of these lists.

Hello my dear giftee! Sorry, things have been a bit busy this weekend and I’ve only just got back online. I hope everything went smoothly on Saturday and you’re able to have some downtime to relax now! I’ll send another teaser snippet of your gift asap. ~ Santa

Snippet: “Excellent. I’ll take on seafood for today then.”She moved away into the depths of the kitchen, leaving Gold staring after her in silence. “You know, if you stand there any longer someone’s going to try and serve you to the public. Chef à l’orange.” Gold glanced over at Jefferson who had come into the kitchen and was watching the proceedings with a calm air. “I see that the lovely Miss French is continuing to astound you?”

Heya Santa *waves* yes everything did go smoothly on Saturday thanks 🙂 My mum is now married and she’s jetted off to Spain for two weeks, so I definitely have some downtime to relax – and hopefully do some writing! heh

Urk *screams*

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That snippet is awesome awesome awesome!!! Man I could not be more excited. *dances* seriously I’m in love with this fic already. What’s not to love? I have such a weakness for cooking AU’s and the sass/banter is amazing, and Jefferson is so cool and just yay yay yay 🙂 I think I’m the luckiest giftee in the world! I can’t wait to read, I’m going to comment all over it 🙂 and there’s just less than a week to go until the reveal!

Eeeek actually maybe I shouldn’t say that *glances at decidedly unfinished fic* it’s ok I have it in hand. Tomorrow, fingers on keys, no excuses. Anyway I hope that even though things were busy for you this weekend that you had a good time, or as good a time as possible. I also hope that the upcoming week will be good to you! Thanks Santa! *hugs you*

Ooops I misremembered. My ordered queue ran out early hours of this morning, and I thought it covered today but obviously not grrrr. That’s why today has been extremely unbalanced.

I know that was bound to happen eventually but I’m really annoyed with myself now because it’s all wrong. I have a system. I often add things to the queue in batches but I like it to post evenly so nobody gets irritated by one thing getting spammed. Oh well I’ll fix it from now on.

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