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Chapter Twelve ("Breaking Point") is up.

quick reminder that recovery isn't linear. she's no longer puking every time she has serious thoughts about her arm, that's progress even though she doesn't feel like it is.

anyway, this chapter was hard to write. not because it wouldn't come, or because I fiddled with the wording/flow a whole lot, but because writing Yang's PTSD in full bloom fucks with my headspace. I have to dig into my memories, and sort out the testimony I've gotten from others, and the whole thing can become a shitshow if I let it. but this story needs to be told (if only so it will leave me alone), so I've been doing it.

the next chapter was hard for a similar reason. I identify as genderfluid, and sometimes my flow takes me to nonbinary places. so I have the relevant experience to explain what's going down in that chapter, but I have to filter it through Blake, who lives in a world where that science isn't nearly as developed as it is here. so I had to tap into the base feelings of the thing, without using many of the words I've found that accurately describe it, because I don't think she'd have them.

in a superficially cheering note, the girlkissing has resurfaced in this fic. the eighteenth chapter has a female-bodied person kissing another female-bodied person and everyone enjoying themselves. of course, it doesn't stay fun for long, but hey, it happened! (and it might take anothr goddamn seventeen chapters to get back to the girlkissing tbh)
 
Chapter Thirteen "Defying Definition" is up.

as mentioned last commentary, this is the chapter where Blake tells Yang she's nonbinary. as we'll see in Blake's side (I'm faffing between "Seven Years Of Bad Luck" or "Breaking Mirrors" for a title; something witty to reference her being a black cat as well as relevant to the story), she's making a conscious decision to open up to Yang, which paralells Yang's conscious decision to trust Blake. it's still hard for Blake to talk about stuff in general, but she's trying.

minor aside: Blake isn't bothered about what pronouns are used for her, so I as the author use female pronouns.

anyway, speaking of paralells, I don't get much into it in the majority of ETD, but I am purposefully comparing STRQ to RWBY. Taiyang did it earlier with a weak comparison between Qrow and Blake, and now Yang is doing it with her own comparison between Blake and Raven. it's interesting to note that Qrow and Blake do have similarities, but they're not as strong as Blake and Raven, or Taiyang and Yang, and therefore Taiyang/Raven and Yang/Blake. if Taiyang gets his own companion fic, he'll delve deeper into that.

speaking of companion fics, I'm pretty sure Blake's side is going to be longer than Enter The Dragon. Yang gets a lengthy timeskip (four months between Ch One and Ch Two, then another two month timeskip inside Ch Two), and not only will Blake's side start earlier than ETD, Blake is busy during that six month timeskip. she's got to recover from the Fall of Beacon, track down Adam, evaluate the situation, kill him, then head back to Patch. and then comes her perspective on the events covered in ETD. it won't be a strict retelling of everything with Blake's thoughts because that's unnecessary and boring, but some of the stuff she skims or isn't there for is made up for by stuff that Yang didn't notice or wasn't there for. for example, I'll only really be getting into world politics from Blake's end, because for one Yang doesn't care, and for two Blake not only does care, she makes an effort to educate herself.

I'll talk more about potential companion fics another time, but right now I want to do one for each of RWBY, possibly Taiyang, possibly Jaune. we'll see.
 
Chapter Fourteen "Getting By" is up.

another bridge chapter, this one with a bit of background for Blake. it's kind of crazy to remember that Blake only got parents in Volume 4, and before that her past was a formless mass of "protesting as a child" and "White Fang skullduggery". no news on any of her family, even though family is a really big recurring theme in RWBY. in all fairness, Weiss also got some family reveal in V4, but we already had the important dynamics down.

disclaimer: before I get into the next bit, everyone in this fic (except Ruby) has turned eighteen at some point during the timeskip. it shouldn't come as a surprise that Yang didn't celebrate hers.

anyway, Yang's libido surfaces here. I think it's important to note that for some people, trauma/depression/ptsd suppresses their libido, and for some people it doesn't. and working your way out of depression tends to come with rediscovering urges and needs that you forgot you had, such as sex. separate from that, I established Yang as a tactile person early on, and while I'm sure Taiyang would have been all for paternal cuddles if Yang had gone for it, I really doubt she did while she was on Patch. so she has this touch starvation that she doesn't really want to sate because of her current body issues, but she still needs to deal with. combine that with climbing out of depression little bits at a time, and hey, she really wants to kiss Blake.

something that might be interesting to note for readers, from here forward, is how often Yang touches Blake, and Blake's reaction. I'm on Chapter Twenty right now (yeah, I'll definitely be updating the chapter count again, because Ch Twenty is in no way the end), and I realized they're pretty tactile with one another. I was purposefully working in the idea of touch as a part of Yang's recovery, but I think Yang deliberately touches Blake in just about every chapter. and Blake is completely okay with it, as you might guess.

I meant to get into the other companion fics in this commentary, but in the interesting of not writing a filibuster, I'll defer that to another time.
 
Chapter Fifteen "WBY" is up.

I think the chapter speaks for itself. I had tears in the corners of my eyes while writing it, and the RWBY reunion chapter almost got them to fall.

anyway, now is the time to talk about companion fics. I already knew that Blake's fic (which as of now is called "Breaking Mirrors", but I've got a lot of ETD to publish before that) wanted to be written, but it felt pretty optional. I wanted to at least get the Blake&Weiss and Blake&Taiyang interactions jotted down somewhere, notably Weiss chewing Blake out and the Taiyang shotgun talk, but that could have been in an omake or small collection of side stories. now, though, while Blake's side still isn't strictly necessary to understand Yang's storyline, Taiyang's companion fic is. certain ending events have a whole different spin on them when Taiyang finds something out that really, only he could find out. I spent some time trying to wrangle it so Yang could, but the whole thing felt forced even in just the planning stages. so Taiyang gets a fic, and like hell I'm writing Taiyang's bits before Blake's.

I still want to do companion fics for Weiss and Ruby as well, but they're more important to understanding their stories than Yang's, and Yang's post V3 story is the whole reason I started all this. I have thoughts on how I could do something for Jaune, too, but that depends on how certain events in the end play out. really, I could do all of JNPR, but they don't feel relevant enough. I like them, but they're not central to Yang's story, which is again why I started ETD. Jaune only gets consideration because I enjoy theorizing about how his character could have grown.

in terms of length, Breaking Mirrors will probably surpass ETD, while Weiss and Ruby likely won't. W & R are still doing stuff in the time that Yang spends on Patch, but most of it is repetitive: Weiss does a lot of patrolling and surveying as Winter's attache, Ruby hunts down fruitless leads wrt Cinder and her group takes under the table missions. I might be wrong, because Weiss has some realizations to have regarding her father, and Ruby has to deal with All The Trauma (TM), but I don't think so. Taiyang's side is going to be far shorter, that I'm already pretty sure of. I can only spend so long on him worrying over Yang, and he spends most of the currently-published bits of ETD doing nothing. he even spends most of the currently written or planned bits of ETD doing nothing plot-relevant. it's that end bit that makes him crucial to understanding, so I'll be working on getting to that as soon as possible.
 
Chapter Sixteen "Adjustments" is up.

fakeout makeout and I ain't sorry.

more seriously, this still isn't a love story. this is a recovery story with a romantic subplot. a big part of pre-V4 Yang was her confidence, and a lot of that had to do with how she felt about her body. she worked hard to get that body, and used it as a weapon on a couple different levels. it's not straight up canon, but I could see her having a few casual kissing friends at Signal, and wouldn't be surprised at all if she weren't a virgin by this point. she just feels like that kind of person, who owns her sexuality and isn't afraid to express it. naturally, that translates into that part of her resurfacing during her recovery.

part of the reason you got a fakeout makeout was because I needed to have at least a little WBY normalizing/settling before the RWBY reunion, and I didn't want to combine those two chapters. part of it is because I'm a sadist, haha.

quick note: WhiteRose (Ruby/Weiss) will not be riding sidecar to this fic. I know it's a common to double them up, but that's not where this fic is going, or will ever go. I'm debating between mentioning that in the fic, or just letting it go and dealing with anyone who throws a tantrum. I mean, I'm 100% sure I haven't been hinting toward it, so any perceived WhiteRose is all the fault of the shipping goggles. hmm. thoughts for later, I suppose.

next chapter has our RWBY reunion! and it took me seventeen chapters of knowing they'd be in here eventually, but finally, the rest of RNJR has surfaced. not that they do much here, but they're here! they're definitely only supporting cast for this fic, though. they'll have more of a role in later arcs (and they're absolutely critical to the last arc as it stands) but right now they just kind of exist. if I manage to get myself through to Ruby's companion fic, they'll be far more important there.
 
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Jan 2017 Writing Report
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    • January Writing Report

    Miscellaneous Unpublished Stuff: ~20,000
    Enter The Dragon: ~16,000

    As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I write a lot. If I have the time, it becomes this all-encompassing drive, one that results in a lot of creativity released out into the world. From 19 Jan to 2 Feb I published 18,783 words in Enter The Dragon, releasing a new chapter every day. I've written in total about twice that, between advance chapters and notes about future occurrences.

    That said, that level of writing generally only comes about when I'm unemployed, or underemployed. I'd love to do this full-time, but it doesn't pay the bills just yet. Any possible support makes it a little easier to breathe during those times, and I'm hoping to eventually transition into a writing career. That said, I've got a Patreon tip jar available. Broke like me? Spread the hype! Someone somewhere will feel generous enough to drop a few dollars into the bucket, and I truly believe that eventually it'll add up into me being able to be this productive full-time.

    Even if you're not about it, I still definitely appreciate the people who just quietly read and appreciate. I write this because my muse demands it, but I share it so other people can go for the ride with me. Thank you for coming along. :)
     
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    • Chapter Seventeen "RWBY" is up.

    this is another chapter that I feel mostly speaks for itself. I nearly cried writing it, so that's something. also, Weiss was totally crying.

    part of what keeps me writing this story (aside from accepting that I'm going to rewrite it and release a Director's Cut edition) is that some scenes are already mostly-done in my head, they're just missing a few details that I can only write if I write everything up until that point. for example, Weiss explains how she got her scar, but I don't know who is going to be around when she does it, or what the exact situation is going to be. I know how she got it, I know how she talks about it, but I don't know who's there to offer commentary/support/contrast, versus who is out investigating/working. Yang will be there, but Blake could be out scouting, Ruby might be picking up groceries, etc etc. with most stories I write, I can write in patchwork, getting the really interesting scenes out while simultaneously trying to write from the beginning. it usually burns me out. I've gotten all the intense scenes out of the way, and who wants to spend a month writing the filler/transitions? not me, that's for sure. I'm not sure why ETD is different, but it is, somehow.

    there's a lot of stuff I can't get into until we get further into the story because I'm trying not to spoil too hard here, but I really love that Jaune carries Pyrrha's rifle. we're probably never going to be told this, but due to the damage it took on top of the lighthouse Beacon tower, it actually can't shift into the other forms. Jaune's stuck with just the rifle until and unless he can get it to a master smith of some sort. Ruby could probably fix it if she had a lot of time and access to a good workshop, but since they've been on the move she has neither.

    shorter commentary today, but RWBY reunion!!
     
    Chapter Eighteen, "Reunions" is up.

    and here we have people making bad physical decisions instead of stopping to think about the whole thing. no one is surprised.

    more seriously, this chapter is characterizing for a lot of people. we get a glimpse of how close RNJR got to Ruby while they were hunting, just how much Weiss missed her best friend, and Yang demonstrating that she can be observant when she has cause to. then we get into Yang/Blake, in which Yang operates on instinct more often than she slows down to think, and Blake normally thinks a lot, but she's in love and love makes fools of us all. honestly, Yang's in love, too, she just doesn't know what's going on. she's got all the signs, but she's never done this before. just give her some time.

    speaking of giving something some time, I'm currently writing Chapter Twenty-Five, and the fic is not gonna wrap in five chapters. it is, quite frankly, impossible within the current writing structure. confronting Cinder is one of the main plot points of ETD, and as of Ch25, our heroes don't even know where she or any of her allies are. don't get me wrong-- stuff is happening. as mentioned before, this is a recovery fic with sides of action and romance, and Yang's recovery is scooting right along. it's just that at my usual goal of 1k words per chapter, we're not gonna get from their current location to Cinder's current location, handle that shit, and then deal with the wrap-up afterward, not in five chapters.

    I'm strangely fine with this. as mentioned last time, I have a lot of scenes that need context in order to be written properly, and I'm steadily making my way through them. about a fifth of the doc I'm writing in is little placeholders, either really short script-style stuff (the conversation between Blake and Yang in this chapter used to be that), or stuff that starts with "in which" (example: "in which blake and taiyang spar" was the placeholder for that part of Ch12). there's also a little section where I put notes for the companion fics, and then a really small section - less than a page - in which I've got notes for fics that are completely unrelated to ETD.

    oh, as a note, I have a name for this series: Rising At The Fall. I've got quite some time before I need to formalize that, as I'll only be making it an actual ao3 series when I start posting Breaking Mirrors, but I'm pretty happy with the name.

    and that's all for this time. next time I'll try to talk about supplementary skills that the cast would reasonably have (ie Yang is decent at urban tracking, Nora likely knows some stuff about meteorology), and we'll see where it goes from there.
     
    Chapter Nineteen, "Catching Up", is up.

    the tags are still relevant. this back and forth thing they're doing, where they can't figure out what they're doing? not exactly healthy. please do not attempt at home, it rarely works out in a good way.

    when I first wrote this, I was fussing about the number of queers in this story. we've got a demisexual bisexual biromantic, a bisexual homoromantic, an asexual aromantic, a bisexual heteromantic, a homosexual homoromantic, and a bisexual biromantic. of course, there's also the heterosexual heteroromantic who just happens to get into the kind of quasi-romantic two-girl friendships that anime uses as queerbait. and that's just in the current generation. in Taiyang's, you've got two bisexual biromantics, Ozpin, and Drunkle "I like orgasms" Qrow.

    and then I said fuck it. it's fanfiction. the fact that there are any monosexuals at all is gonna blow people's minds, let alone a completely straight girl who ends up with a boy in the end. (also, considering my own friend group is not dissimilar to this one, it's not like this is unrealistic, just unrepresented in fiction.)

    anyway, supplementary skills, as promised. in the main cast, we've got Ruby being able to forge her own weapons (with Yang therefore being able to do it too, since Ruby specifies that all Signal students do it, and Yang went to Signal), Yang's urban tracking (demonstrated in her trailer; I will fight you on this), Ren's cooking, Jaune's dancing, and apparently everyone learns parkour. those are canon. you could reasonably extrapolate that, based on their core skills or background, some people have other stuff, too. Blake must know another way to make money, considering she'd have to have gotten by at least long enough to travel from wherever that train was in her trailer, to Beacon, and possibly have paid tuition/supplies/books. I theorize that she knows how to take the unofficial contracts in any city's underbelly, but there are a lot of possibilities. if you tell me Nora knows nothing about meteorology despite it being extremely convenient for her Semblance, I will fight you. Pyhrra grew up in a situation where she could enter combat tournaments, and she became an icon; I'm reasonably sure she's been press-trained, or at the very least interview-trained. I also truly believe they've got at least one tailor or seamstress among them, probably Ruby. Weiss could easily afford to have her stuff designed and produced by a professional, but none of the rest of our group have that kind of funds, and everyone has their own style. I wouldn't be surprised if Nora did stuff too, now that I'm thinking about it. or Ren. the two of them sitting there making clothes sounds adorable.

    I had other stuff I was gonna talk about here, but this is already getting long. for next time, then!
     
    Chapter Twenty, "Separation" is up.

    this fic is so gay. like sometimes I don't even remember how oblivious Yang is to what's between them because the chapters I've been working on don't have it as the focus, but dear lord these girls are in love with each other. if Yang had ever been in love before, the romantic subplot would be so much less intense, because she'd know, acknowledge it, and then promptly shelve it because she's still got stuff to deal with. it wouldn't be half as much fun. :)

    I'm gonna feel really bad for Ruby&RNJR if I get to Ruby's side, because these kids are flailing around with no subtlety, and the only things they really accomplish are completely unrelated to the main plot. like, they're making a real difference to a handful of little villages across Vacuo, but every time they get anywhere near anything Cinder's working on, someone goes, "oh, a girl in a red cloak with a giant scythe, a girl in a lot of pink with a giant hammer, and two quiet guys? yeah, I saw them not too long ago" and all of her underlings do the Scooby Doo split. and then in comes Blake like, "you guys are really distinctive" and what the hell are they supposed to do about that? their weapons stick out - it's canon that Ruby is one of the very few people ever to wield her kind of weapon - and even if they didn't, this world isn't one where a group of combat-trained teenagers just wander around. Beacon turns out early-twenties graduates, and it's likely that the other academies do as well. there's nothing they can do to keep their heads down that will reliably work. so it'll seem like they just spent six/seven months doing just about nothing.

    as the author, I know that those months were necessary. not only do they all have trauma to work through, they're sharpening their skills against real Grimm, with no backup and limited supplies. this is the crucible, and they're going to need these skills to survive. not only that, they need these skills for me to get through the plot later, which is why I'm allowing it.

    also, I updated the theoretical chapter count to 40. much more likely to have wrapped at that point, even if I'm not entirely sure on that one. I'm still on ch25, which had some action in it and I'm not a great action writer, and the fic... might... wrap in 15 chapters. we'll see, I guess!

    EDIT: it's official; Enter The Dragon is the longest thing I've ever published on Ao3.
     
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    Ridiculously Average Guy said:
    I'll take that as a challenge! :V

    How many chapters of Enter have you written up so far? Also, have you watched Thrilling Intent yet?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I'm also on Discord @fallintolife #1980 if you Discord. :p

    I'm on ETD ch 25 and have been for two days, because this is the chapter that never ends. and no. LDJ and I are slowly winding through Unlimited Budget Works.
     
    Chapter Twenty-One "Taking Up Arms" is up.

    short chapter, but a necessary one. also a disclaimer that there will be no WhiteRose (Weiss/Ruby) in this story.

    it's an interesting trend, that of slotting either WhiteRose or Bumbleby into fics that happen to have the other. I understand it, because these girls all have close bonds, and their relationships with one another are all different. it also pairs the spares in a way that feels tidy. it's just not a direction that I'm going, here. I know where both Weiss and Ruby are headed in terms of companionship, and I think it'll feel satisfying once we get there.

    I have a fairly standard formula for how I write chapters: every chapter must have a self-contained little plot, and also advance one of the main conflicts (Yang vs Self, Heroes vs Cinder&co). for example, ch21 is about taking up the weapon of someone who meant a lot to you, but it also has both NJR leaving, and BY getting on the road. it also advances the Yang vs Self conflict. the line where Yang touches Blake's arms with both of her own hands is important because she's using her right arm without thinking, and also the progress of slight nausea versus active vomiting when she thinks about using her arm. I also aim for about 1k words per chapter, but that's more a nice bonus than an active goal. so long as it fits my first two goals, I'm okay with it being a little short, or over by however much it needs to be. as you might be able to guess by the wordcount:chapter ratio (currently 26k:21 chapters), I err on the side of long more than short, haha.

    you know, I probably think way too much about this stuff.
     
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