Thoughts On Writing 2013's Yuletide fanfic…

[calliopes_pen]

-This is the longest fanfic I have ever written. I feel like it could have gone on for another thousand words, if I hadn't been able to stop where I did.

-The original title was I Am Sister To The Fates, until the story changed course. About halfway through the writing process, it became Darkness’ comment to Lili (in the aftermath of the sacrifice) of Blood Begets A Curse Anew. Other rejected titles include Blood Anoints Her Brow, and Blood Anoints A Curse Anew.

-Kudos to anyone that can catch all the mythological and fairy tale references that occur in this story.

-If you’re ever in desperate need of help with finding out something (which I was, at points) in regards to Legend, I highly recommend The Legend FAQ website. The Director’s Cut Shot-By-Shot Breakdown (and the American one, and the European) helped when I didn’t have the time for another rewatch. You can also find almost all versions of the older scripts there.

-Listening to the Director’s Commentary, I learned that Jack’s armor was made from beer bottle caps (and Coca Cola). So what I ended up doing to him in the story was that much easier. Beer bottle caps cannot withstand what I put him through. (Nor can a terrifying lack of pants)

-For Lili’s transformation, I opted to watch several sources, before I decided how it should go. An American Werewolf In London (three times in a row). The Howling. The Company of Wolves (and some of that made it into the story, as Lili wonders if the wolf will leap from her mouth). Fright Night. Being Human. And--of all shows--The Vampire Diaries provided some inspiration, too, due to how prolonged Tyler’s first transformation was.

-The Brown Tom scene (before edits) was written in 20 minutes, by the light of a foggy full moon 45 minutes after the sun had gone down. Atmosphere!

-In the Brown Tom scene, I researched several tortures for Gump. I read up on quite a few options. I wrote out something rather excruciating, but then I realized Lili (since it was her POV) wouldn’t have any knowledge of specific methods of inflicting those pains with their particular devices, only seeing the end results. This eventually led to me including Darkness marveling at how innocent she was in those ways earlier in the story, and how he would fix that soon enough. So it could have been much more graphic than it ended up being.

-Gump was originally going to be conscious and shouting at her for the ruination of nature and damning the world, but then I started writing and things just took a turn into Lili wanting to give a nice death to Brown Tom. It was that, and I soon realized the blood loss would leave him out of commission. As it is, he'll wake and discover he's down one companion.

-Unless Gump breaks free and does something atrocious with or without his fiddle in revenge, he’s stuck in the dungeon for a very long time. Or Oona might get him out if she ever feels guilty about switching to Darkness’ side, and they could all deal with that. Or she’d just visit him once a month. Hard to say with fairies involved.

-I had a scene of Darkness watching Lili’s movements through his realm, via scrying from a pool of magma. It interrupted the flow from Lili running from his Father’s chill, into her finding Brown Tom. It also wasn’t going to be more than a paragraph. Due to a contradiction somewhere in there, I scrapped it prior to the beta stage.

-Screwball was still sleeping soundly when the guards caught him. He woke up briefly while being baked into the pie.

-The living chair might be confusing for some. In the American version, Darkness tells Lili to sit and she does—she just doesn’t eat anything, and he gets angry from that. In (scroll down to “It grows late. Sit. I value your thoughts,” and you’ll find it) the Director’s Cut, she stands for a minute, says she won’t sit after a long, lingering moment. In the background, if you look carefully, something of the chair is bubbling up/oozing and moving around towards her. By actually touching it, I’d assume she’d lose more of herself. It’s more blatantly sexual in this earlier script, if you can find the bit starting at “Sit…I value your thoughts.”

Extremely Obscure Reference No One Will Ever Catch: A mention of Lili being “no angel mild” toward the end was a roundabout reference to the alternate lyrics to the unicorn theme of the film, which has only been played once, on German radio, in 1998. You can listen to it being sung by Suzanne Pawlitzki here, if you are so inclined. Listening to that inspired the line.

-What Might Have Been: I originally had a sex scene at the end of the story, after Darkness watches the candle--but it just didn’t fit. The logistics of not goring Lili to death by mistake with his massive horns were a slight nightmare. It was removed before I sent it off to my second beta, as the place before it became a much more suitable end. A second rewrite around that spot (from a great suggestion by the beta) gives you the ending there is now.

-Oh, and also in that lost sex scene in my fanfic—Lili’s thoughts of going off to play (in the world’s most twisted threesome with Darkness) with that evil chair, since she was scared to at the banquet at the last second. The story was just getting weirder than expected around there.

-In that deleted sex scene, Lili was lost in wolf nature after being aroused, and slashed Darkness’ back in the heat of everything; his blood was black, and scalded whatever it touched before healing. (Werewolf and demon healing fixed them both up.) I was whittling it down to a suitable time for demon and werewolf endurance to last without killing her, before it was finally discarded. The original ending of that--Pox would have been sentenced to hanging from a meat hook until he perished, upon being discovered listening at the door. Lili's heightened hearing detected him; Darkness would have been okay with her mauling him.

-All in all, I would have to say that this story was a disturbing amount of fun to write this story, no matter how dark it went. The endless of amounts of rewatching the film in all its incarnations ended up with me coming up with a request for next year’s Yuletide.