Saltburn Groundhog Day Au - Tumblr Posts
So, ~600 word prologue to the Groundhog Day AU, to set up Felix's first night's experience with dying of an overdose: yes or no?
The pros: It could probably be posted tomorrow, after a last quick pass for editing.
The cons: It'd still be a bit longer on proper chapters, so it would be only a prologue for... probably another week at least?
Chapters: 1/5 Fandom: Saltburn (2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Felix Catton/Oliver Quick Characters: Felix Catton, Oliver Quick, Farleigh Start, Venetia Catton, Elspeth Catton, James Catton, Duncan (Saltburn) Additional Tags: Groundhog Day, Felix and Oliver being forced into character growth, through forced proximity, and a lack of long-term consequences, that somehow still translate into more consequences than Felix has ever had to face before, short-term major character death, due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, also likely some graphic violence, that has no long-term effects again due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, Oliver gets to do a lot of murder, as a treat, before he eventually learns to chill, and be grateful that the murder sprees reset each day, with no long-term permanent murder occurring Summary:
A Saltburn Groundhog Day AU, in which Felix and Oliver are forced to relive Oliver's birthday over and over until they can figure out how to get it right...
...together.
"This chapter will probably only take like a week more editing and then be ready to post," I say, before proceeding to write multiple incompatible versions of the same scene instead of editing existing scenes...
Set back my estimates a bit, but on the plus side at least that scene is now edited back down to one scene that is also honestly a better scene overall now??
Chapters: 2/5 Fandom: Saltburn (2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Felix Catton/Oliver Quick Characters: Felix Catton, Oliver Quick, Farleigh Start, Venetia Catton, Elspeth Catton, James Catton, Duncan (Saltburn) Additional Tags: Groundhog Day, Felix and Oliver being forced into character growth, through forced proximity, and a lack of long-term consequences, that somehow still translate into more consequences than Felix has ever had to face before, short-term major character death, due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, also likely some graphic violence, that has no long-term effects again due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, Oliver gets to do a lot of murder, as a treat, before he eventually learns to chill, and be grateful that the murder sprees reset each day, with no long-term permanent murder occurring Summary:
A Saltburn Groundhog Day AU, in which Felix and Oliver are forced to relive Oliver's birthday over and over until they can figure out how to get it right...
...together.
Chapters: 2/5 Fandom: Saltburn (2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Felix Catton/Oliver Quick Characters: Felix Catton, Oliver Quick, Farleigh Start, Venetia Catton, Elspeth Catton, James Catton, Duncan (Saltburn) Additional Tags: Groundhog Day, Felix and Oliver being forced into character growth, through forced proximity, and a lack of long-term consequences, that somehow still translate into more consequences than Felix has ever had to face before, short-term major character death, due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, also likely some graphic violence, that has no long-term effects again due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, Oliver gets to do a lot of murder, as a treat, before he eventually learns to chill, and be grateful that the murder sprees reset each day, with no long-term permanent murder occurring Summary:
A Saltburn Groundhog Day AU, in which Felix and Oliver are forced to relive Oliver’s birthday over and over until they can figure out how to get it right…
…together.
Chapters: 2/5 Fandom: Saltburn (2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Felix Catton/Oliver Quick Characters: Felix Catton, Oliver Quick, Farleigh Start, Venetia Catton, Elspeth Catton, James Catton, Duncan (Saltburn) Additional Tags: Groundhog Day, Felix and Oliver being forced into character growth, through forced proximity, and a lack of long-term consequences, that somehow still translate into more consequences than Felix has ever had to face before, short-term major character death, due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, also likely some graphic violence, that has no long-term effects again due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, Oliver gets to do a lot of murder, as a treat, before he eventually learns to chill, and be grateful that the murder sprees reset each day, with no long-term permanent murder occurring Summary:
A Saltburn Groundhog Day AU, in which Felix and Oliver are forced to relive Oliver’s birthday over and over until they can figure out how to get it right…
…together.
Update on the next chapter of the Groundhog Day AU:
Cut a big ol' chunk of the middle of the chapter, made some decent progress so far rewriting it to be much better, now, and am getting tentatively hopeful that the next update might even happen before the end of the week.
It is probably the chapter that merits the most tag warnings, but hopefully the dark humor lands again for other people.
Either way, though, I at least am having a delightful time with these losers and their quest to make each other miserable and become even worse people right now. Really gotta dig that hole deep before they start clawing their way back up, lol.
Slowly regaining some of that magical concept known as free time for writing, which means...
I'm finally making more progress on Chapter 2 of the Groundhog Day AU!
(Technically Ch. 3 according to ao3 labeling, but the first one was just a prologue and thus doesn't count in my head, haha.)
It's been a longer wait than I'd hoped for, but it's also turning into a long chapter. (The longest one so far, though Ch. 3 might give it a run for it's money based on the current outline.)
5k words into Ch. 2 so far, probably a few more to go, and then I'll finally be able to clean it up, do a last editing pass, and get it up on ao3!
The beginning of this chapter gave me endless trouble, but it also has one of my favorite scenes so far, and I am excited to finally be getting it close to posting-ready.
Hopefully someone has as much fun reading that bit as I had writing it, but it still makes me laugh either way. Given that amusing myself with Felix's inability to escape this Very Bad, Extremely Horrible Worst Day Ever is most of the reason I started writing this AU, this scene will stay one of my favorites regardless just for giving me motivation to keep working even as the beginning took approximately a zillion rewrites till I finally figured out the right way for it to go.
In the meantime, here's the current Ch. 2 summary in my notes for anyone interested:
--
Felix: Fine. Clearly, Oliver is getting his Saltburn party. Doesn't mean I can't ignore him all day, anyway, until this time loop ends! Oliver: Fine. Who cares about stupid Felix. We're in a time loop, Felix hates me forever, and apparently I've had a lot of repressed anger that I was trying to ignore... Guess I don't have to worry about repressing that anymore! Felix: Wait... Is ignoring this problem even harder, like, not going to solve it? Even though I don't want to deal with it?? What do you mean, I might have to talk to someone when I don't wanna??? Oliver: Oh. Oh. So, if I kill enough people, Felix eventually stops ignoring me and pays attention to me again. ...neat! Felix: Um, obviously I'm still going to ditch you forever and never speak to you again as soon as you stop killing people and we get out of this loop - no, wait, what are you doing, please put down the knife for the love of-
So. Close.
This chapter is so close to finally finished.
Just two last scenes to finish up, and then I'm closing my eyes and posting it before I spend another few months nitpicking the details like an anxious perfectionist instead of moving on with the rest of the story.
Chapters: 3/5 Fandom: Saltburn (2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Felix Catton/Oliver Quick Characters: Felix Catton, Oliver Quick, Farleigh Start, Venetia Catton, Elspeth Catton, James Catton, Duncan (Saltburn) Additional Tags: Groundhog Day, Felix and Oliver being forced into character growth, through forced proximity, and a lack of long-term consequences, that somehow still translate into more consequences than Felix has ever had to face before, short-term major character death, due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, also likely some graphic violence, that has no long-term effects again due to Groundhog Day shenanigans, Oliver gets to do a lot of murder, as a treat, before he eventually learns to chill, and be grateful that the murder sprees reset each day, with no long-term permanent murder occurring Summary:
A Saltburn Groundhog Day AU, in which Felix and Oliver are forced to relive Oliver's birthday over and over until they can figure out how to get it right...
...together.
Writing slow burn "getting to know you again" dialogue between a compulsive liar with deep insecurity issues and a wealthy Brit who was raised with a core value for strict avoidance of any subjects that make him the slightest bit uncomfortable...
This Groundhog Day loop might need lower standards.
Maybe the loop should actually end when they manage to get through one whole Meaningful Conversation without any lies or hedging or one of them bursting into flames from stress.
6.5k into next chapter of the Groundhog Day AU, and I feel like I am at the same editing stage as the 5k word point of Ch. 2. Y'know, the chapter that doubled in word count from that stage of editing and became a 10k word chapter by the time it was posted...
I have already cut this chapter in half and added a whole new chapter to the chapter count, it had better not become a 12k word chapter anyway.