Here's a hub for all of my current and future writing endeavors moving forward for Lucien and Cassio. I am bit of a slow writer, so updates are sporatic. The notes section is my own stream of consciousness about my works.
All of my works are listed on AO3 for ease of access, but are restricted to only account owners. I'm sorry in advance if this is troublesome, but I don't want my work to be public to anyone who can search my username. Any potential triggers are listed before each 'chapter', but an overall content warning is imagery of smoking, alcohol use, past references to childhood abuse, and instances of violence. In the future there will probably be examples of toxic codependency and insecurities, but for now the above list is the major things to be cautious of.
NOTE: Even though their ages in their character bios say 27 and 25, their story starts with them being slightly younger, with Lucien being around 24/25 and Cassio being 22. Canonically based on their birthdays they're just under three years apart. Think of these stories as "flashbacks", unless I state in the chapter notes differently.
Breathing Underwater
RATING: Mature.
WORD COUNT: 10k+.
STATUS: Complete.
CONTENT WARNING: Depictions of anxiety, drowning metaphors, non-explicit emetophobia, unwanted sexual advances, background drug and alcohol use, minor threats of violence.
It's nothing new: Amara invites me out to yet another weekend party, I'll sit with her vapid friends and pretend to have fun while drinking water (always the designated driver), and we'll go back to my place so I can hold her hair back over the toilet.
Except, of course, when she decides to change it up tonight — leaving me to fend for myself for once.
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Breathing Underwater Notes
- Oh man, I loved writing this one. I had written so many different ways for Cassio and Lucien to meet, but this is the one that stuck with me. Another scenario I had was back when I had Lucien being a mechanic, not a line cook, and her car breaking down and going to Nate's garage (he owns a repair shop). I ended up scrapping that when A) I decided Lucien fits better in a kitchen and B) I wanted something that delves more into the idea of being out of your comfort zone.
- Cassio has been living with her grandma for a couple years now, maybe 2? The seizure didn't happen immediately when she was in college. She had been enrolled for three or four semesters before it happened — an amalgamation of all the previous grievances plus the weird social hierarchies of being at an Ivy League is what pushed her over the edge.
- I'm always doubting myself when writing character voices for my OCs, but I think (and hope) I did a good job in displaying the type of person Cassio is. A lot of people who've read her bio tend to tell me that she reads as autistic-coded, and that was actually a bit of a coincidence when I made her! I never try and make a character one way or another, because I'm always afraid that it leads to unrealistic stereotyping or something forced. Regardless, I'm happy to know that I managed to make an autistic-coded character who feels more genuine.
- I'll delve more on this in the notes for TMAYP, but I really love first person perspectives. There is something more enjoyable about narration directly from the source, rather than formatting it to be limited third person and potentially being too omniscient or objective. What Cassio sees in Lucien — cool, mysterious, an enigma — is so different from who he really is when I write him in the first person, and vice versa. And I love that, even if I worry that sometimes it sounds OOC. But these two characters are written to be secretive and reserved, to be guarded in who they let into their lives, and I like to think that I do a good job of making them difficult to understand depending on the POV.
Take Me As You Please
RATING: Mature.
WORD COUNT: 12k+.
STATUS: Complete.
CONTENT WARNING: Mentioning of past child abuse (not explicit), brief physical violence (not explicit).
Yes, I'm an asshole. Yes, I'm a coward. No, I was not expecting a date with Cassio to make me feel this nervous.
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Take Me As You Please Notes
- I struggled a lot writing this one. I don't know why it was so difficult for me to finish but it just...was. I changed so many parts of this in the process of making it; I actually have about 3k words I completely deleted because I just didn't like how it was turning out.
- Originally, I had Lucien meeting Cassio at the music store she worked at. It was really, really cute actually: he sees her first, helping a young boy string his violin bow, and he had all of this flustered little internal dialogue about it. She notices him, they have an awkward little talk, she watches him fiddling with a piano next to him and it's this whole thing of her offering to teach him. I cut it out because I felt it was a bit too cheesy, I guess. Even if it was entirely self indulgent for me.
- I also made sure to amp up the "asshole" factor for Lucien, in the beginning at least—at first I had him follow up with Cassio after a few days, but I had to remind myself that Lucien is cagey. I actually had a lot of rediscovery when it came to writing Lucien, because I've written him in so many different ways that I pretty much forgot who he was originally. I'm still not entirely happy with how this turned out because it took me so, so, so long to finish that I have reread this over and over again, to the point that I second guess myself and feel he's out of character.
- When it comes down to it though, I intentionally wanted Lucien to be flustered, and a little enamoured. There's a couple things to remember:
- Lucien is normally very level headed. He's a little dead on the inside, if I'm being honest, and as I've sprinkled throughout this work he has a reputation for violence and angst. Lucien does have a handful of people he speaks to, but he's not popular at all.
- Lucien is a bit...well. He sleeps around a lot. Smoking is second nature, drinking is a coping mechanism, and casual sex is the only way to release whatever pent up resentment he has for himself. He doesn't even enjoy it, none of it, because Lucien doesn't enjoy anything. So, naturally, it would be nervewracking to try and impress someone who doesn't know you for these things, doesn't look at you like you're a wild animal, and is willing to give you a chance even after you stand them up. Lucien is just deeply misunderstood, and desperate for connection, hence why he hesitates on pulling the same stunts on Cassio — he respects her enough to not try and fuck on the first date.
- I wanted to practice my dialogue a lot more in this one too, and I had a lot of fun exploring their dynamic through that as well. Cassio is not a manic pixie dream girl, and I don't want their dynamic to be a "sunshine x grumpy" type thing. There's a lot of nuance in Cassio's body language here, and because we aren't in her anxious mind I wanted to have that reflected in how little Lucien understands what she's thinking or feeling. I hope I conveyed that well.
