The more I learn about going pro, the more I find my expectations and reality differ. I already don’t like talking to co workers in real life much less going onto tours and signing books, instead of writing, relaxing, or reading. I get it’s (unfortunately) part of the job that sucks that every job has, but seems companies get to shaft you at every job. It’s funny how much I differ from past me on this subject. If I ever get lucky and skilled enough to publish I would 80% be going under a pen name, and probably just make a persona on it. Make it a game instead of a boring slog.

Cool seeing someone else in a similar situation here, but yeah that sounds like a tough balance with the canon and wanting an actual story. I’ve been making sure that future me has to do a lot of work to “justify” the changes in the character. Choosing the more sticking to canon options in my story has definitely made me fire up the darlingkiller5000. I had ideas of her having more cycles than is currently on the outline and her joining the protagonists but I can’t really justify that to myself when I try to get it onto the outline. There was a whole OC (like tough, surrogate parent figure that actually cares about her that she finds in a random time cycle) that I thought of but now I’m like 70% sure I’m not gonna use her. It’s sad seeing the things that made me originally think of the story getting axed but I do think it’s a lot more unique and logical than if I crammed those things in.

When I first started this fanfic, I rewatched the whole series because it had been a while since I’ve seen the show. But after that and I’m sure I got the general idea of everything, I sort of just start planning and only really rewatch the very important parts in my story. I feel that rewatching parts is a commitment that’s not fully necessary because it’s like the difference of a 90% and a 93%, like they’re both still passing but I feel like if I’m planning out this story it being a 93% instead of a 90% is good on the soul.

I do agree with it all being practice and up to interpretations, it’s infact one of the pro’s of it. There’s interpretation of characters that I wouldn’t have ever thought of but that make sense and there’s fun stories with parts of their canon personalities but not all of it (idk if I explained it that well). It’s an aspect of fanfic that I haven’t thought about but it’s cool now that I have.