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bluegansey) wrote2025-09-06 09:33 pm
bluegansey) wrote2025-09-06 09:33 pm
Entry tags:
fic: Drowning Lessons
I didn't think I was actually going to succeed at locking in and finishing edits on this fic and posting it today, but honestly, that's the AO3 draft feature working as intended for me! It was going to expire tomorrow. Historically that has often been a good motivator for me to actually stop procrastinating and finish something. (I guess I should do that with the DR longfic, huh?)
Under the cut: blather about time loop fics in general, the canon, and the process of writing this fic. No real spoilers for the canon--most of what's discussed is introduced as setup to the story--but some spoilers for the fic.
Drowning Lessons (21297 words) by darlingargents
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: What Happens Next (Webcomic)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Relationships: Milo Holliday & Griffin Petty, Haylie Gorski & Milo Holliday, Haylie Gorski/Griffin Petty
Characters: Milo Holliday, Griffin Petty, Haylie Gorski
Additional Tags: Time Loop, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Murder, Blood and Gore, Misogyny, Misgendering, Abusive Relationships
Summary:
Haylie dies over and over. Milo doesn't know how to stop it.
Time loops! I love time loops. I've written a few of them--a couple of years ago I did a Danganronpa double drabble, which was a fun challenge, and in 2019/2020 I wrote two of them for It, one for the 1990 miniseries and one for the 2017/2019 movies. But it had been a while since I had a strong idea for one. I know I've improved a lot as a writer since the last major attempt, so I knew I'd have a lot of fun with it once I had an idea. And oh boy, did I.
What Happens Next is a webcomic about a character who was coerced by his friend into abetting a murder when he was fifteen, and his inability to move past the trauma after spending five years in inpatient psychiatric treatment for his role in the crime. The canon has a lot to say about how we look at the perpetrators of horrific crimes and the ineffectiveness of the justice system and the struggle of moving past trauma when it's all anyone else sees when they look at you--but, given my own personal interests, I got particularly invested in the dynamic between Milo, the comic's main character, and Griffin, his friend who killed his girlfriend and used the threat of violence to coerce Milo into helping him dismember the body. It occurred to me that this is a really good canon setup for a time loop--the day of the murder is the specific day that everything changed. And Milo as a character is very passive; I was interested in writing a story that forced him to take action and change the outcome of a situation. So I wrote a quick outline of what I thought the loops might look like, started writing the first scene, and got distracted by Battleship and dropped it for a while.
Then I had my 8k writing day and the fic was well and truly in motion. I ended up disregarding most of my outline as I wrote, but I think it worked out well anyway, and it went some directions I didn't expect before eventually arriving at the conclusion I had planned. I was worried that the ending reads as... saccharine, maybe, because it doesn't really address anything about the *how* of the situation, or what would happen after. But I decided to leave it close to how I originally planned it. I put Milo through absolute hell, and I think he deserves a nice ending to the story. I think he dies... five times? Not actually sure. I should have counted. But he dies a whole lot, and I had an absolute blast writing the violence and gore. I've been thinking for a while that I wanted an opportunity to write more fight scenes and more gore. This fic gave me a ton to work with! (I've also read a few horror novels recently--the Clown in a Cornfield series, and I just finished Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng this morning--with really incredible gore that inspired me, so it felt nice to stretch those muscles.)
I also had the very specific urge to do something interesting with the breaks between the loops. I was numbering them in my document, which is functional but boring. I got it in my head that I wanted to do some kind of unicode to indicate separation, because I used to do that for paragraph breaks in fic back in 2020-ish and I thought it was fun to find something that matched thematically. (Like a moon symbol for a werewolf fic, that kind of thing.) I tried to think of something with arrows going in circles, couldn't make it work in my head, and eventually I landed on the idea of playing cards, going up by one number for each loop. They're sequential and can show the loops passing, but are also a fun detail a reader might not necessarily notice immediately. I switched between suits in a specific order, and made sure it landed on the successful loop being a heart card. For the twist loop, I used jokers. Not that interesting--I probably should've thought of it earlier and woven in something about fate and dealing cards--but it was a fun little detail to throw in at the end.
On a somewhat personal note, I think part of the reason this fic was so compelling to me as a project is because teen Milo is a type of character I've never gotten a chance to write before: a queer, mentally ill secular homeschooler who spends too much time on tumblr. Or, basically: me ten years ago. I don't think this fic had much, if any, projection--I did steal a couple of random details from my own life, but I don't have much in common with Milo in general--but it was a really interesting place to start from. You don't get a lot of homeschooled characters in media in general, and especially not from non-religious, fairly progressive homeschooling communities in the 2010s. (One reason I like this comic, actually, is that a lot of the characters feel like types of people I have met online and irl. The depictions of different social media sites are extremely real. It's chronically online in a way I am VERY familiar with and it makes it hit really close to home.) So it felt like an opportunity to write a character that I have something very specific in common with, which I doubt I'll have a chance to write in many other fandoms, if any.
I don't know what I'm going to write next, but Fic in a Box assignments came out today and I put in for swaps, so I guess I will find out soon!
Under the cut: blather about time loop fics in general, the canon, and the process of writing this fic. No real spoilers for the canon--most of what's discussed is introduced as setup to the story--but some spoilers for the fic.
Drowning Lessons (21297 words) by darlingargents
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: What Happens Next (Webcomic)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Relationships: Milo Holliday & Griffin Petty, Haylie Gorski & Milo Holliday, Haylie Gorski/Griffin Petty
Characters: Milo Holliday, Griffin Petty, Haylie Gorski
Additional Tags: Time Loop, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Murder, Blood and Gore, Misogyny, Misgendering, Abusive Relationships
Summary:
Haylie dies over and over. Milo doesn't know how to stop it.
Time loops! I love time loops. I've written a few of them--a couple of years ago I did a Danganronpa double drabble, which was a fun challenge, and in 2019/2020 I wrote two of them for It, one for the 1990 miniseries and one for the 2017/2019 movies. But it had been a while since I had a strong idea for one. I know I've improved a lot as a writer since the last major attempt, so I knew I'd have a lot of fun with it once I had an idea. And oh boy, did I.
What Happens Next is a webcomic about a character who was coerced by his friend into abetting a murder when he was fifteen, and his inability to move past the trauma after spending five years in inpatient psychiatric treatment for his role in the crime. The canon has a lot to say about how we look at the perpetrators of horrific crimes and the ineffectiveness of the justice system and the struggle of moving past trauma when it's all anyone else sees when they look at you--but, given my own personal interests, I got particularly invested in the dynamic between Milo, the comic's main character, and Griffin, his friend who killed his girlfriend and used the threat of violence to coerce Milo into helping him dismember the body. It occurred to me that this is a really good canon setup for a time loop--the day of the murder is the specific day that everything changed. And Milo as a character is very passive; I was interested in writing a story that forced him to take action and change the outcome of a situation. So I wrote a quick outline of what I thought the loops might look like, started writing the first scene, and got distracted by Battleship and dropped it for a while.
Then I had my 8k writing day and the fic was well and truly in motion. I ended up disregarding most of my outline as I wrote, but I think it worked out well anyway, and it went some directions I didn't expect before eventually arriving at the conclusion I had planned. I was worried that the ending reads as... saccharine, maybe, because it doesn't really address anything about the *how* of the situation, or what would happen after. But I decided to leave it close to how I originally planned it. I put Milo through absolute hell, and I think he deserves a nice ending to the story. I think he dies... five times? Not actually sure. I should have counted. But he dies a whole lot, and I had an absolute blast writing the violence and gore. I've been thinking for a while that I wanted an opportunity to write more fight scenes and more gore. This fic gave me a ton to work with! (I've also read a few horror novels recently--the Clown in a Cornfield series, and I just finished Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng this morning--with really incredible gore that inspired me, so it felt nice to stretch those muscles.)
I also had the very specific urge to do something interesting with the breaks between the loops. I was numbering them in my document, which is functional but boring. I got it in my head that I wanted to do some kind of unicode to indicate separation, because I used to do that for paragraph breaks in fic back in 2020-ish and I thought it was fun to find something that matched thematically. (Like a moon symbol for a werewolf fic, that kind of thing.) I tried to think of something with arrows going in circles, couldn't make it work in my head, and eventually I landed on the idea of playing cards, going up by one number for each loop. They're sequential and can show the loops passing, but are also a fun detail a reader might not necessarily notice immediately. I switched between suits in a specific order, and made sure it landed on the successful loop being a heart card. For the twist loop, I used jokers. Not that interesting--I probably should've thought of it earlier and woven in something about fate and dealing cards--but it was a fun little detail to throw in at the end.
On a somewhat personal note, I think part of the reason this fic was so compelling to me as a project is because teen Milo is a type of character I've never gotten a chance to write before: a queer, mentally ill secular homeschooler who spends too much time on tumblr. Or, basically: me ten years ago. I don't think this fic had much, if any, projection--I did steal a couple of random details from my own life, but I don't have much in common with Milo in general--but it was a really interesting place to start from. You don't get a lot of homeschooled characters in media in general, and especially not from non-religious, fairly progressive homeschooling communities in the 2010s. (One reason I like this comic, actually, is that a lot of the characters feel like types of people I have met online and irl. The depictions of different social media sites are extremely real. It's chronically online in a way I am VERY familiar with and it makes it hit really close to home.) So it felt like an opportunity to write a character that I have something very specific in common with, which I doubt I'll have a chance to write in many other fandoms, if any.
I don't know what I'm going to write next, but Fic in a Box assignments came out today and I put in for swaps, so I guess I will find out soon!
no subject
I love your card idea for the loops, tbh. I think that's really cool.
<3
no subject
I'm glad you like the cards, haha. As I was pasting them all in I was feeling pretty unsure about it, but I'm committed now! I'll see if anyone ever comments on it...
<3 <3