Pushing Myself To Try To Finish The Next Chapter Of As Long As You Follow Today. I Know I Take Forever

Pushing myself to try to finish the next chapter of As Long as You Follow today. I know I take forever to update, but I hope that another 30k chapter helps to make up for that. 💀

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I love your fics so much. I wish we got more of Texas in it is all, the settlement there and their government. It kind of felt like you were setting that up to be bigger but then they just left but I WANT MORE because I love fics about what other places became after the outbreak. Are you going to write more about that? Because I would read it!

Hi! I'm happy you're enjoying my lil' fic.

Moreno was supposed to have a slightly bigger role, as the settlement leader, but he works just as well as a character working in the background, always busy. (Fun fact, I had something of a Diego Luna-ish vibe in mind when picturing him.)

There were things about Galveston that I wanted to fit in the story, and then didn't, but I also think that's just the nature of writing - you can't always get all of your ideas onto the page, unfortunately. I would have loved to flesh out The People's Galveston a little more, but I'm also content with what I managed to fit in around the main story.

Also in the Texas chapters, we were supposed to meet a character named Cameron - who was mentioned briefly in GYOW, the brother of Wesley (Benny's deceased former partner). But I just ended up not having the time or space to bring him into things in a way that would have done him justice, either.

At the moment, I don't have any plans for any Galveston spinoff fics or etc. I have to be honest that ALaYF already takes a lot out of me to write, and as we come to its conclusion it also gets less and less engagement, so I just don't think the effort would be equal to the interest anyone might have in it (which I promise is not me whining about it, I'm just trying to be pragmatic).

Benny bullies Joel into letting her get chickens.

Their names are Stevie Chicks, Atilla the Hen, Chickadee, and Henrietta.

She tells him this very matter-of-factly one morning, and he just looks at her like

That's it, that's the post.

Oh, man - I've researched a lot of things for my fics. I don't know if anything is particularly ~interesting, though,

I got so into researching the details of what happens to the body during strangulation that I kind of bummed myself out about it.

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I did a ton of research on the feasibility of the Fireflies actually being able to successfully extract what they needed from Ellie, and then mass-producing a vaccine, and let me tell you...it wasn't likely. Though I very much enjoyed the doctors and scientists that pointed out they could have just performed a biopsy (or possibly a spinal tap) and had the same result (without killing her), but I suppose it stands to reason that they might not have had the tools or skills for something relatively delicate in that rundown hospital (VS 'fuck it, open her up'). Here's the most useful article I bookmarked and then leaned heavily on for As Long as You Follow: A Slate article quoting several doctors who are experts at microbiology.

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I also spend a lot of time looking up moon phases on specific dates, and the angles of the sun in specific cities, because I am a ridiculous person.

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I play pretty loose with actual landmarks and tend to do whatever works for the fic over what exists in real life - like, I put Cadillac Ranch just a couple of miles outside of Amarillo.

In reality it's about 10 miles from where the attack at the trailer park took place.

And Alexei's apartment building in Galveston is based off of the Emerald by the Sea condos.

The church they spend the night in after Amarillo is a real place (whose name I changed), and as is the bait shop by the lake that they stay in after that.

ty ❤️