fic || author's notes
One Need Not Be A House, aka Bleach Horror, is finally done.
It only took about... 3 years? Maybe more? Which is why I decided to wait another day to write the Author's Notes. I was too tired last night to do a proper job.
Bleach horror started back when I was a young Bleach fan and heard that KT decided to have Rukia be a fan of horror manga because there isn't anything scary in the afterlife. My first reaction was "That's not true!" But when I tried to think of examples, my mind came up blank.
The idea stuck though. I kept trying to find ways to make Bleach scary - which is hard. After all, the shinigami aren't scary and the Arrancar are a bunch of thugs. Nothing spooky about those. Ichigo also doesn't seem fazed by spirits. Hollows aren't scary when you have a zanpakutou. Also, the Grand Fisher is dead.
Then, somewhere in 2006/7, I had a dream. My first Bleach dream - which made me squee a little - but more importantly, it had a scene that I thought I could work with. In my dream, Ichigo stumbled upon Rukia's mutilated body, but Rukia is actually hovering in shinigami form somewhere around the ceiling.
With that scene in mind, I plotted Bleach horror around it. The Karakura kids investigate a mystery! Probably a murder! Several murders! Rukia would have been one of the victims if she wasn't a shinigami! This creates a lot of doubt in Ichigo, the narrator! And to make things more fun, I decided to model the fic after Asian horror movies - where the scarier ghosts are in your head, not outside.
I was so inspired by my plotting that I decided to write it during the Chinese Hungry Ghost festival (Lunar Seventh Month). It would be appropriately atmospheric, I decided. And if I didn't manage to finish it within a month, I could always post it on Halloween (which is usually another month later).
This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. I thought I started writing it in 2007, since I wanted to avoid the double Lunar Seventh Month in 2006, but my word docs on my computer and in Zoho Writer were only created in 2009. (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenebris also thinks I started writing it in 2007.) Whether it was 2007 or 2008, the bit I remember clearly was that writing the fic gave me nightmares.
You heard that right, nightmares. About ghosts. It takes a lot for me to declare a dream a nightmare (see: dead Rukia dream is still a dream!). Besides, usually when I have nightmares I wake myself up so I can move on to another dream. But these were persistent - my dreams would pick up right where I left off from waking. It was so bad I actually slept in the hall a couple of times just to get OUT of my room. Finally, I stopped writing and the dreams stopped.
The next year, I picked up the story with trepidation. After the Hungry Ghost festival this time. Luckily, there were no nightmares. Depending on whether it was 2008 or 2009 when I resumed writing, getting the fic done was marginally successful - I finished the fic on 31 Oct 2009.
I hated the fic.
As was the fashion in those days, I set the fic after the Winter War. The trouble with setting the fic after the Winter War is that it's after the Winter War - there was no telling where KT was going to take the characters. I went with a Ichigo who had won the War and really wanted a break, not to investigate murders.
I just didn't know why he was so angry. He had won, hadn't he? So why was he snapping at his friends and being sulky? Ichigo tried to feed me some bull about how people shouldn't die since the War was over, but I wasn't buying it. The Hollow of the story also didn't want to behave - at first she was a mother for parallels to Masaki, but it was very hard to make her a viable villain.
It bothered me enough that I put the fic aside. Which made me sad - I liked that I had written something with all the Karakura characters, and I loved the ending scene and the Rukia "death" scene. But if the pov character and the villains aren't behaving, you're pretty much screwed.
I still had hopes though - I put it down as a writing project in October of this year. But when I looked at it again - nope, Ichigo still wasn't talking to me. I took it off the list.
Then Chapter 423 happened in the first week of Oct.
tenebris can probably tell you how excitedly I pinged her. Finally, here was an explanation for why Ichigo was so sulky! And I could make the Hollows be more about desires than a specific mother figure!
It wasn't so easy though - Ichigo had drastically changed from the way he was in my fic, which meant that things like fighting Hollows and sensing people couldn't happen. I also had to add a lot of new scenes to capture the new way that Ichigo tried to relate to his friends. And I lost the Rukia-Ichigo reunion scene =( But I had the ending scene I loved, and I had character interaction with all the Karakura crew.
That was reason enough for me to rewrite the entire fic. I even used a notebook I had hoarded from my teens for the occasion. (A entirely blue notebook with the Chinese character "blue" in outlined in black on the cover, for fans of notebooks.) I averaged about 1.5 pages a day, but slowly the fic was taking form. There were no nightmares, Ichigo and the villain were cooperating - it looked like I was home-free!
Then Chapter 424 happened.
I almost considered not writing anymore, due to the fic getting jossed, but a lot of chiding from the ladies made me carry on. Only 3 more scenes! they reminded me. But Chapter 424 was just a sign that the fic's karma was starting to kick in - it wanted to be done on Halloween, not a minute earlier. Silly little things would happen: I would write something that didn't mesh with what I wrote in the scenes before. Or I found that the old scene was a lot better that the new snippet I wrote. I left my pen at home. I left my notebook at home.
Between the little setbacks. I managed to wrestle it into something that could be betaed on a Friday.tenebris was an angel and actually sent it back on Sunday. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hallowd was struck down by the fic's bad karma and had to settle for sending good vibes from her sickbed.
That's why at 11:30pm on Halloween, I was still pecking away at the fic, fighting Ichigo and paragraphs. Luckily, no ghosts waylaid me and I actually managed to finish the fic and post to the various comms with minutes, literally, to spare. I didn't even have the strength to celebrate - I dragged myself into bed and conked out.
And that's why you are getting your Author's Notes one day later. Compared to how old this fic is, I think that's almost nothing at all. I'm so happy to finally write a fic I really wanted - with all my favourite characters and with a storyline that has haunted me for years. About time it was done.
Many thanks to all the ladiestenebris, hallowd and himawari who listened to me complain about this fic in one form or another. You guys rock.
fic || author's notes
One Need Not Be A House, aka Bleach Horror, is finally done.
It only took about... 3 years? Maybe more? Which is why I decided to wait another day to write the Author's Notes. I was too tired last night to do a proper job.
Bleach horror started back when I was a young Bleach fan and heard that KT decided to have Rukia be a fan of horror manga because there isn't anything scary in the afterlife. My first reaction was "That's not true!" But when I tried to think of examples, my mind came up blank.
The idea stuck though. I kept trying to find ways to make Bleach scary - which is hard. After all, the shinigami aren't scary and the Arrancar are a bunch of thugs. Nothing spooky about those. Ichigo also doesn't seem fazed by spirits. Hollows aren't scary when you have a zanpakutou. Also, the Grand Fisher is dead.
Then, somewhere in 2006/7, I had a dream. My first Bleach dream - which made me squee a little - but more importantly, it had a scene that I thought I could work with. In my dream, Ichigo stumbled upon Rukia's mutilated body, but Rukia is actually hovering in shinigami form somewhere around the ceiling.
With that scene in mind, I plotted Bleach horror around it. The Karakura kids investigate a mystery! Probably a murder! Several murders! Rukia would have been one of the victims if she wasn't a shinigami! This creates a lot of doubt in Ichigo, the narrator! And to make things more fun, I decided to model the fic after Asian horror movies - where the scarier ghosts are in your head, not outside.
I was so inspired by my plotting that I decided to write it during the Chinese Hungry Ghost festival (Lunar Seventh Month). It would be appropriately atmospheric, I decided. And if I didn't manage to finish it within a month, I could always post it on Halloween (which is usually another month later).
This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. I thought I started writing it in 2007, since I wanted to avoid the double Lunar Seventh Month in 2006, but my word docs on my computer and in Zoho Writer were only created in 2009. (
tenebris also thinks I started writing it in 2007.) Whether it was 2007 or 2008, the bit I remember clearly was that writing the fic gave me nightmares.You heard that right, nightmares. About ghosts. It takes a lot for me to declare a dream a nightmare (see: dead Rukia dream is still a dream!). Besides, usually when I have nightmares I wake myself up so I can move on to another dream. But these were persistent - my dreams would pick up right where I left off from waking. It was so bad I actually slept in the hall a couple of times just to get OUT of my room. Finally, I stopped writing and the dreams stopped.
The next year, I picked up the story with trepidation. After the Hungry Ghost festival this time. Luckily, there were no nightmares. Depending on whether it was 2008 or 2009 when I resumed writing, getting the fic done was marginally successful - I finished the fic on 31 Oct 2009.
I hated the fic.
As was the fashion in those days, I set the fic after the Winter War. The trouble with setting the fic after the Winter War is that it's after the Winter War - there was no telling where KT was going to take the characters. I went with a Ichigo who had won the War and really wanted a break, not to investigate murders.
I just didn't know why he was so angry. He had won, hadn't he? So why was he snapping at his friends and being sulky? Ichigo tried to feed me some bull about how people shouldn't die since the War was over, but I wasn't buying it. The Hollow of the story also didn't want to behave - at first she was a mother for parallels to Masaki, but it was very hard to make her a viable villain.
It bothered me enough that I put the fic aside. Which made me sad - I liked that I had written something with all the Karakura characters, and I loved the ending scene and the Rukia "death" scene. But if the pov character and the villains aren't behaving, you're pretty much screwed.
I still had hopes though - I put it down as a writing project in October of this year. But when I looked at it again - nope, Ichigo still wasn't talking to me. I took it off the list.
Then Chapter 423 happened in the first week of Oct.
tenebris can probably tell you how excitedly I pinged her. Finally, here was an explanation for why Ichigo was so sulky! And I could make the Hollows be more about desires than a specific mother figure!It wasn't so easy though - Ichigo had drastically changed from the way he was in my fic, which meant that things like fighting Hollows and sensing people couldn't happen. I also had to add a lot of new scenes to capture the new way that Ichigo tried to relate to his friends. And I lost the Rukia-Ichigo reunion scene =( But I had the ending scene I loved, and I had character interaction with all the Karakura crew.
That was reason enough for me to rewrite the entire fic. I even used a notebook I had hoarded from my teens for the occasion. (A entirely blue notebook with the Chinese character "blue" in outlined in black on the cover, for fans of notebooks.) I averaged about 1.5 pages a day, but slowly the fic was taking form. There were no nightmares, Ichigo and the villain were cooperating - it looked like I was home-free!
Then Chapter 424 happened.
I almost considered not writing anymore, due to the fic getting jossed, but a lot of chiding from the ladies made me carry on. Only 3 more scenes! they reminded me. But Chapter 424 was just a sign that the fic's karma was starting to kick in - it wanted to be done on Halloween, not a minute earlier. Silly little things would happen: I would write something that didn't mesh with what I wrote in the scenes before. Or I found that the old scene was a lot better that the new snippet I wrote. I left my pen at home. I left my notebook at home.
Between the little setbacks. I managed to wrestle it into something that could be betaed on a Friday.
tenebris was an angel and actually sent it back on Sunday. hallowd was struck down by the fic's bad karma and had to settle for sending good vibes from her sickbed.That's why at 11:30pm on Halloween, I was still pecking away at the fic, fighting Ichigo and paragraphs. Luckily, no ghosts waylaid me and I actually managed to finish the fic and post to the various comms with minutes, literally, to spare. I didn't even have the strength to celebrate - I dragged myself into bed and conked out.
And that's why you are getting your Author's Notes one day later. Compared to how old this fic is, I think that's almost nothing at all. I'm so happy to finally write a fic I really wanted - with all my favourite characters and with a storyline that has haunted me for years. About time it was done.
Many thanks to all the ladies
tenebris, hallowd and himawari who listened to me complain about this fic in one form or another. You guys rock.fic || author's notes
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