#targetcontrolsys wip

[ilovedthestars]

😬 or 💖 for the thing you just shared?

Hi Bardic!

(Emoji asks)

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

None of them would be terrible, lol, but i don't tell IRL people my ao3 username, even friends. Probably one of the angstier ones, like Kill them. or the malware trilogy? For some reason I am often embarrassed at the thought of other people reading my more dark/angsty writing. I think I come across as pretty cheerful and sunny to people, so it feels like it would change how they think of me.

💖 What made you start writing?

Murderbot fanfic? I had an idea (targetcontrolsys WIP, which is long abandoned, alas) that I literally could not stop thinking about. It was a what-if scenario (what if that moment in NE when targetcontrolsys almost takes over MB's brain had gone differently), and it gave me emotions, and I kept playing through it in my brain until I had to write it down.

As for writing in general, it's pretty much always been moments like that--stories I can't let go of until I get them on paper. I don't know what was the very first, but the first big one was my novel wip that shall remain unnamed, which is currently trunked but which I worked on for a solid five years. I still go back and reread my favorite bits occasionally.

#ask game answers #stars fic #stars wips #the unofficial malware trilogy #kill them. fic #targetcontrolsys wip

[ilovedthestars]

Ask game for fic writers!

4, 20, 69 (I'm sorry but not really)

lol thank you alex XD (link to ask game here)

4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

Ohhh targetcontrolsys my beloved. By which i mean not the character/entity but my wip titled targetcontrolsys, which was the very first murderbot fic i ever started writing. I hadn't been excited enough about a piece of media to write fanfic about it in years, but that line in NE when murderbot says "i thought for a second that it was going to delete me" (paraphrased) would not get out of my brain and i kept imagining a scenario where 2.0 failed and targetcontrolsys did take over MB's brain and eventually i had to write it. There are still (checks notes) 10,944 words of this sitting in a scrivener draft. Parts of it are really good but as a whole it's a hot mess.

Bonus question: Yes i am absolutely haunted by it, although honestly it's just one of the chorus of unfinished wip ghosts that are constantly competing for my attention. (have i mentioned my insane words written:words published ratio recently? because apparently i've hit the 200k mark in my drafts recently, and only 32k of that is on ao3. help)

20. what is your favorite trope to write?

This will not come as a surprise to you or anyone, but: MALWARE, BABY. Or to put it a little more broadly, the specific brand of hurt/comfort that comes from a character losing control and being forced to (almost) commit atrocities. The (almost) is important to me, because I personally don't like to go too deep into despair, but I do want the very strong hurt/comfort emotions. The targetcontrolsys wip very much fell into this category, and I have a lot more fics like it (which have even made it onto ao3 once or thrice). I like pushing a character (let's be honest, it's usually Murderbot) almost to the edge and then having it unpack its feelings afterwards. Which is fun with any kind of hurt/comfort, but I like the malware/governor module/combat override flavor most of all.

69. how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

Emotional scenes usually come first for me! A lot of my semi-abandoned wips are a handful of emotional scenes that are missing the connective tissue to tie them together. Emotions are my favorite part of writing (see above, re: h/c) and I tend to write them very big and dramatic. I like getting a little poetic/creative with the writing style sometimes, which is harder with murderbot's style of narration but fun when I get the chance. Often I'll pour a big scene out in one sitting because it struck me, and then sit down and try to assemble a fic around it. I do feel emotions sometimes when i'm writing--i don't know that i feel what the characters feel, exactly, so much as i just feel an "i am full of big emotions" feeling no matter what emotion I'm writing about? It's a really fun feeling that only strikes me sometimes, and I miss it when I'm trying to write an emotional scene without it.

#ask game answers #stars has thoughts #writing stuff #targetcontrolsys wip #idk if that's ever gonna be finished but i might have sharable snips from it if anyone's interested #unofficial malware trilogy fics #thank you for the qs alex these were fun :)