Getting off the ground

[artemisdart]

For my Five Figure Fanwork Exchange, I'm at the difficult beginning phase of the project where I have it all plotted out in my head, but I've only written a few hundred words. The characters aren't quite gelling for me yet, and that's not at all surprising, because original characters have ALWAYS been a problem for me! That's why fan fiction is so much easier -- the characters are already made, and I just have to take them out of the box and play with them.

The few hundred words I wrote just now are a mere trickle in what needs to become a mighty stream of words -- at least, if I'm going to get this story out of my head and onto the AO3 screen by January 18.

I still have two other old WIPs that have been sitting undone on AO3 -- "Stays on Peridea," last updated in July, and "Uncage Me," last updated October 2023. Plus I have my Dead Boy Detectives exchange fic, two other long-form Gingerpilot fics in progress that I haven't started posting yet at all, and that My Hero Academia collaboration I've been putting off.

PLUS, I ended up signing for a Kylux Secret Santa exchange, but it wasn't accomplished via AO3, and I haven't heard anything about it in my email box yet -- so I'm not sure if that will end up happening.

Here's the thing about Kylux as a ship. I deeply dislike Kylo Ren as a person. I see very, very few good parts about Kylo Ren, which is, I guess, the point -- he's just awful in a lot of ways. I admit that Adam Driver is an attractive man, and I can see some smutty porn without plot in which either he or Hux takes advantage of the other one -- but I'm not seeing tenderness, I'm not seeing respect between them, I'm not seeing anything good coming out of it, and I'm certainly not seeing any sort of happy ending. Kylo Ren being a loving and supportive partner? HAHAHAHAHAHAH, no.

With all that being said, I am willing to take a crack at a Kylo Ren / Hux fic, but I'm worried that my blorbo will come out of it even more damaged than he went in (which was already a lot). So a fic like that would be more Hux torture, really -- even if he does get some short term pleasure out of the encounter, I would see any 'hooking up' with Kylo Ren as fundamentally damaging to him. So why would I want to write that?

Well -- I've been writing a lot of Hux torture recently (my poor boy!). In my mind, it's all so he can eventually find real happiness later -- definitely NOT with Kylo Ren. With someone much more well balanced, patient, loving, and all that -- someone with more control over his anger -- someone who has his own demons to battle but who has done a far, far better job of it than Kylo effing Ren! With someone who doesn't have the Force (Hux has been abused by Force users for too long, and the playing field isn't fair if we pair him with a Force user while he doesn't have any power in that realm). Perhaps with someone who has an affinity for spaceships and danger? A pilot, perhaps? Just spitballing here! :)

ANYWAY, that's 7 confirmed projects I could be working on plus 1 unconfirmed (the Kylux Secret Santa one).

I just used a Random Number Generator website to pick for me, and it chose #3 -- which, in my accounting above, would match back to Uncage Me. It's been a long time, but sure, why not let randomness decide for me?

I still don't know enough about firefighting, but I think I can squeeze in another chapter before I have to confront that deficiency!