Writing Meme: WIP working names

[rainsometimes]

[repost from Tumblr earlier today, edited. Yanked this meme from egelantier on Tumblr]
Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

Comment about the title that most intrigues you or interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

This seems like a cool meme!

I am nevertheless going to be a tiny bit secretive and not mention a couple of long-runners. Also, most of the below are old fragmentary drafts for One Piece and a couple of other fandoms that never went anymore. (Although the one titled “nami usopp cold time” was supposed to be a gift to someone, I feel bad about not having worked that one out… and I haven’t given up on it yet.)

Tagging anyone who wants to play!

ginzura businesslike or more
Fifteen years and two weeks old
pirate banchina more
Usopp wait
Want to help me hang up the laundry
blueprints frobin
Cold town
dreamlike
early timeskip
He never remembers the gunshots
It should have been easy
loose draft lusopp idk pining
love and be silent
Luffy is almost always quiet
nami snowstorm II
nami usopp cold time
mud voices in the cave
trouble zosopp
dehors en janvier
fantasio seccotine bar
City By The Ocean
till i’m gathered safely in
alchemist ryoga
or maybe
the mountain path
akane walk volleyball
akane ukyo training
for two weeks
they came upon the ruins
spectators
you know, akane
sena monta suzuna
sena pov
monta pov

Comments

[scribe_protra]

1. Luffy is almost always quiet

2. they came upon the ruins
and

3. Want to help me hang up the laundry

please?

[rainsometimes]

Of course! ♥

1. Luffy/Usopp draft. I think this one could have made a nice ficlet, if I'd been able to come up with some cool insight or new development for it. Alas. Third paragraph:

Not that Usopp doesn't try his best not to be noisy, himself: it's no longer really a secret what they're up to, but still. A little privacy is good to have. So it's not like he doesn't approve of Luffy being quiet - but it was still startling, those first times, seeing Luffy's normal bouncy enthusiasm retreat in favour of hands and lips and limbs moving mostly in silence, touching and breathing and kissing with a quiet glow in his eyes, in his touch. A glow of... Usopp's not sure what word to put on it. An intent, a desire that's not just hot but genuinely warm. It's all at the same time comfortable, unnerving, and deeply thrilling.

2. My ancient idea of a Ranma 1/2/One Piece crossover. But it's divided in several drafts, and this one only has Akane and Mousse in it, though. A few paragraphs from the middle.

“Quack?” The bespectacled duck looked concerned this time, as he peered up at her. Akane waved this away, then yanked a vine experimentally.

“It’s fine, Mousse. Okay, this vine feels like it will be fine. How about you fly over discreetly to scout things out? I’ll come over as soon as you give the all clear.”

The duck only nodded this time without quacking, then took on a rather resolute air itself, as it took to the air and flew down towards the ruins with caution. He had the size and shape of a tame duck and not a wild one. As far as Akane knew, tame ducks normally couldn’t fly. But she also knew that highly skilled and motivated martial artists could do practically anything.

She didn’t count herself among that elite class of fighters. There had been far too many times in the past when she stumbled, froze up, dropped the ball, was knocked out, was too slow... And yet, she had been on this unfamiliar island for two weeks now in a harsh jungle environment, with few people around and most of them criminal and hostile, her one friend and ally more or less permanently turned into a duck. They’d come across a few wary people who didn’t seem interested in robbing them, eating Mousse and/or selling her into slavery – an older woman gathering wood here, a man out to capture unusual fishes there – and had heard some very confusing words on where they actually were. Maybe those two were just very ignorant or confused, but it didn’t sound like they were anywhere on Earth that Akane had ever heard of.

3. Also one of several drafts for the same story idea. It's possible I've mentioned this to you before - it's been in my head for years now. An AU where it was Usopp's mother who left him to become a pirate, while his father stayed home, got sick, and died. Here's 14-year-old Usopp talking to the carpenter's wife, thinking about an offer to go to a neighbour island with a larger town and work as an assistant to another carpenter there. The 'realistic' option for the future, rather than dreaming of become an adventurer.

"Do you, do you think I can make it in a town like that, Mrs Barley? For real?" he blurted out, not looking at her.

"Whyever not?" she said, a tone of light surprise in her voice. "Plenty of people do, after all."

He chewed his bottom lip nervously. "But I don't know anybody there. And, and it's not that big anyway."

"Oh, not grand enough for his highness?" said Mrs Barley in amusement. But her expression soon changed into thoughtfulness. "You'll probably do fine," she said in a lower voice. "I think that's the best thing…" Then she raised her voice and said, "Of course, if it doesn't work out you can always come back here, you know."

Usopp made a face. "That would be really embarrassing," he muttered. Then he fell silent again, uselessly smoothing out a sheet that already hang quite smoothly.

[tonko]

Mrs Barley eh. :3 (Psst I want to see the rest of that one)

[rainsometimes]

Hee! Now, wherever could I have picked up a name like that? *whistles innocently*

I've wanted to send you something of that one for years now! But it never seems to get to the "presentable draft" stage...

Here's a doodle of it I did last year for Inktober! I'd completely forgotten about that doodle, I only found it now when going through my fan art to see if Tumblr had flagged any (it appears not, but I'm not completely sure I did the right kind of checking...).

(But I could send you another fragment if you want one!)

[tonko]

I would definitely love to see another fragment :3

[rainsometimes]

Here we go! This is from way earlier.

A blue, woollen skirt to hide behind; a slender brown arm that reached down to hold his hand, as he walked unsteadily on cobbled stones, and while her other hand pointed out new things to discover; long black hair flowing out in the water when she swam, and he clung to her shoulders without fear; a figure holding a rifle steadily, aiming at something in the distance, then turning to him with a smile. Red clogs in dewy grass, stopping when he stopped by a single yellow flower. A smell that felt warm and comforting and safe.

Those were the things Usopp remembered of his mother on his own. Sometimes he'd get other images in his head as well, but he wasn't sure if those were from his father's stories about her from later on, rather than true memories. He’d been so little back then, when she was still around.

[tonko]

1. Blueprints frobin

2. trouble zosopp

3. Akane walk volleyball

[rainsometimes]

1. Blueprints frobin (the rest will follow later):

I'll have to disappoint you here. The following is all I've written - rather overwritten, and I'm not quite sure where I was going. Apart from probably Robin finding something fun to explore about Franky's body via his own blueprints of himself, but I absolutely can't recall any details right now.(It's more accurate to call this "eternal fragment that went nowhere" than "WIP", I guess!)

She wondered, early on, if she had truly read his intentions correctly. That was after she'd started to pay more conscious attention; after she had noted her own interest, arching an amused eyebrow at herself, and started to wonder, but not yet decide, if this was something she actually wanted to pursue or if it seemed better to let it lie unexpressed and unacted-upon forever. She did realise she was leaning more towards acting than not, which surprised her somewhat: it had been a long time since that happened, and always before with so many careful reservations and restrictions that had utterly vanished now. But she hadn't truly made up her mind yet.

[tonko]

Dang that's a fascinating idea, I really like it, and I find myself really hoping it comes back to you as more than a fragment someday. I wonder how he'd feel find her perusing him that way like she does with her books...?

(Go for it Robinnnnnnnnn. He's pretty super!)

[rainsometimes]

I think he could get really on board with the idea, although it might take him aback some at first...

[rainsometimes]

3. Akane walk volleyball (doing this before 2 because I think 2 will take longer to talk about)

For Akane things could be said to have started on that quiet night in early spring, as she walked home from volley ball practice at school. She picked the path that went through the park and playground, even though it made the journey a few minutes longer. She liked the greenery to look at and the fresh scents of spring, but she also didn't mind the added time to think about things.

Akane liked to help out the volleyball team when she could, but she wasn't a regular member on it and didn't attend most of the practice sessions. But she'd promised to join in the practice at least three times a month, and tomorrow there'd be a game against another school. It helped that Sayuri, one of Akane's closest friends in school, was a member of the team.

This is another where I'm not totally sure where I was going. See, I've long wanted to write Ranmafic where Akane starts to find her own way in martial arts with help from Ukyo, and this image of her going through a park and getting inspired for a new kind of form is one that has stuck with me for ages. Usually I've pictured this happening after she's finished a martial arts class she's been attending - a relatively mundane one with no ties to her own dojo, just to pick up new ideas/solidify her form. In this draft it seems meant to happen after volleyball practice as she's thinking about the girls in the volleyball team, especially the most ambitious ones, and how she envies the ones who can see their own road forward clearly.

Well, I still didn't make it to the actual moment of inspiration, just as with the other fragmentary drafts of this idea. Oh, well.

[tonko]

It's still good to keep all these moments, in case you ever need them. I've ended up scrapping long sections then found I could cut them up and use good bits later. If you thought forward from this bit, does the inspiration come on her own or is Ukyou involved in that? Or Akane asks her later on to help?

[rainsometimes]

I was thinking that Akane had the initial flash of inspiration, but is unsure of whether it's just a whim or something she can build on. She goes to Ukyo for help with training in general (she doesn't want Ranma to help her train until she feels she's definitely progressed) and after Ukyo agrees she describes her inspiration and shows it to her. And that's all I got so far! (In my mind even. I haven't written this...)

[rainsometimes]

2. trouble zosopp

Extract first, then explanation!

Usopp had kissed him back right then, and he seemed like he was well into it, at first. It's not like it would have been their first time. (But only, to be honest, their third time.) He'd sounded pleased, just a little dubious.

"I dunno if we should, right now," he said, "The others could hear us..."

"We can be quiet," said Zoro. "B'sides," he mumbled, "sooner or later they'll find out anyway..."

"Yeah, but... it's embarrassing..." Usopp was quiet for a while more, moving slightly, finding a better place for himself under Zoro's hands; finding other places on Zoro for him to touch.

So my basic idea with this one was to turn a common scenario in a PWP into an angsty drama. Not so much "let's be realistic" but "let's indulge another kind of id". You know those things where the seductive seme knows juuust what the initially reluctant uke really wants and just keeps up the seduction until the uke gets with the program? I don't judge fics like that; they're often just PWPs that aren't meant to be taken that seriously. It's just that sometimes the writing lays the roles on a little too thickly and instead of finding it hot my mind just slips into wanting angst instead because it seems like the top doesn't respect the bottom very much.

And at the same time I wanted to explore the problems and fears I think could actually exist with two young guys in their first-ever steady sexual relationship where both have been fed ideas in their culture of how men are supposed to act and feel, and where one of them is so much stronger than the others.

But there are two big problems with this fic idea. First is that it might come across as lecturing writers and readers of those kinds of PWPs, and I don't really want to do that. I want angst-wallowing, not judgy analytical stuff.

Secondly and even worse is that, well, I don't really think Zoro would disrespect Usopp and come onto him overly strongly like a stereotypical overbearing seme. I think he'd likely do his best to take care something like that wouldn't happen, if he was with someone much physically weaker than him. In order not to write him OOC and be outright bashing him, it would have to read like he misunderstands and misinterprets signals and probably doesn't go that far... but then it also seems like Usopp is over-reacting and freaking out over basically nothing? Very tricky, see?

Also I wasn't sure how to reach a happy ending in a way that wouldn't seem boring and obvious (they manage to talk about their feelings and decide to be better at that from now on, whoo!). So, alas. The fic remains all but unwritten.