To DTA Fans

To DTA Agitators - I got the box! And I apologize; it took an extra week to get it from the office and a day to get to opening it completely. I meant to write this about a dozen times, but I wanted to do more than 'Thanks', and if I did a quick 'thanks' I'd never get to the long version (I do know myself).

Note: I am not sure if you want your names used or what usernames you'd like, so please tell me in comments if it's okay and what names to use.

This was literally the most thoughtful gift I've ever received in my life. The sheer amount of work and coordination kind of left me speechless.

First - I'm going to be honest, the best part was the thought involved in the accompanying quotes on each item. I mean the items were amazing, but adding fic quotes to each one for context was goddamn amazing. I keep trying to decide how to put it together somewhere, like with a scrapbook and pics??? I have never scrapbooked but by God I will learn.

Second - the letters were equally fantastic. I loved knowing about the origins, like the above.

Three - I have already been complimented on the jewelry. I literally bought a new shirt to go with the longer necklace because I thought the intricate work would show up better against a grey background and be noticed. Trust me, it was noticed; mostly 'how did they do that?" me: '....magic'.

Four - I am never in my life going to have cold feet again. I love the socks.

Five - the sheepapodes made me laugh out loud and traumatized Child.

Six - that box was amazing. I read the letter that came with it and am in awe because seriously you made that???????

Seven - the individual item boxes were amazing. See one above with the quotes.

I'll put up pics when my phone is charged. My phone is in late-stage slow-death of battery and I didn't realize how much until I started this entry and it was like at 2% and trying to die. There's a reason I bought a supplementary tablet.

I really don't say enough how much I appreciate all of you; many of you have become trusted friends and I love how many people have taken Down to Agincourt and made it their own.

I wrote it with literally no expectation of posting it; it was written to fit my tastes and expectations, things I thought were tailored for me and not many people would really be into or like. When I began to post, I never expected to get very many readers. I figured it would only appeal to those who matched me pretty closely on stories meant to be read more than once, ones with information that you can only find on re-read because you need later context; I find that fun personally, but I don't expect anyone else to. It's slow as fuck and I dropped the pace to a crawl for Book IV. Those were deliberate decisions, and not ones that I thought many would really want to try.

(It probably also didn't appeal to many when the first half of Book I was depressing as fuck.)

At no time did it ever occur to me so many people would not only read it and love it, but take it apart and rebuild it in their own image; how could I imagine that? I love comments and kudos and recs, don't get me wrong, but the highest compliment possible is when people read it, thought about it, and said "I can make something new out of this." It's the purest essence of transformative fandom; to write your own image into a story, to read the images of others. Every time someone posts something, they make the work better than it would have otherwise; you showed me something new I didn't see. And I thank you so much for that.

Comments

[treefrogie84]

I'm super glad you got it and that you enjoy it (i had nothing to do with it other than marveling as it came together in combined spaces).

But that doesn't change that we love you and we love your fic and [waves hands vaguely]

Treasure box

[nesnej321]

I'm so pleased to hear you received your treasure box, and that it made you smile. That was my greatest goal, and believe my fellow Agitators would agree. Feel free to use my usernames and name. I certainly don't mind. Adriane irl, Nesnej321 on DW and tumblr, and @jensenadriane on Twitter. Thank you again for this wonderful world you have brought us, and most importantly, thank you for bringing us all together. I know we all look forward to seeing what's next. Much love!

DtoA Box

[luna_leaf]

I'm so glad it all arrived OK. Adriane did a great job getting it all together and it would be neat to see a pic of everything.

You can feel free to refer to me by my Twitter handle @ cin_nic or Luna Leaf as I seem to be going by these days.

Best of Winter Holiday wishes (a bit belatedly)!

[anonprecious]

I'm so glad you like the whole package! Please refer to me as anonprecious.
I hope the socks fit, I had to make an educated guess from around 5200 miles away. May you have warm feet always.

[the_ladylark]

Ah, I'm so glad it arrived safely! I was astounded watching it come together at the creativity involved.

(Feel free to mention me if you like, my username is more or less the same everywhere, but my only tangible contribution was the bit of doggerel about socks).

[mezzo_cammin]

So, I've only ever watched one episode of Supernatural. I know who is who, kind of, sort of, and whenI clicked on Down to Agincort and saw the WORD COUNT OF OVER ONE MILLION WORDS OMG, I gulped. But then I went ahead and bookmarked and downloaded, because when you're writing in one fandom, it is a lot of fun to read in another, right? I hear that's true. So off I go...I just hope this isn't the fic that sucks me into Supernatural, because I've resisted for a long time (no, I don't know why - just, maybe, the horror aspect of it isn't up my alley so much?). So, this will be like original fic. Like Harry Potter! or something.


Wow. It looks so good...

[cathyw]

I feel like I should warn you: this essentially takes *one episode of Supernatural* and runs with it, but also has as background a few episodes that happened before and a few episodes that happened after.

Before you start, if you watch nothing else, watch 5.04 "The End" - the fic picks up both moments and 2.5 years after that episode ends. (Really.) Or I think someone put together a full Recommended Viewing For Background list if you want that.

(And it is. So good.)

[the_ladylark]

I think at one point, because we were evangelizing in various places so much, we put together a 'Introduction to Supernatural for Agincourt Readers' intro document of a couple of pages... I can look it up and post the link if it might be useful?

[cathyw]

that was exactly the list I was thinking of. :)

[the_ladylark]

Ah, I thought you meant a list of episodes recommended to watch.

This is not that: this is a written summary of the bits of Supernatural, story and character backgrounds, that set the scene for the fic:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wAo9QO8O48pxFDDgZm1kpeMjeoY0noPcjkAKmVlVEAs/edit?usp=sharing

[mezzo_cammin]

That is so very thoughtful of you! Thank you so much!

[mezzo_cammin]

I can do that. ::makes note to do that::

I love fic that does that - takes one episode and runs with it. This is quite the marathon, though, isn't it? I'll bet it was wonderful, waiting on updates and sharing that experience. I used to love that on LJ - it'd be, ohhhhh, a new chapter of Captive Prince just posted! and then radio silence as everyone read it. What fun!

[seperis]

Oh thank you and wow.

Okay, first: don't think of it as a million words but like, three novels. Each is fairly encapsulated. Trust me, as the writer, I don't think of how many words the total is if i can help it. It's just--yeah, a lot.

Two--if you hate it, seriously, that's fine. When I say I didn't expect many readers, I meant I expected maybe three, ten if I was lucky. It's long, it's slow, and because when i started I never expected to post it, I wrote it literally for myself; it was experimental in playing with unreliable narrators, pacing, misdirection, going in depth in very short time frames, and uh, fun with logistics of how to run a militia camp sometimes in too much detail. So it may not be your thing.

That said: I really, really hope you enjoy it! This is so exciting!

(Note: As cathyw said, "The End" would be useful, yes. The entire story basically uses that episode as the basis and then kind of...goes places.)

[mezzo_cammin]

It sounds like exactly my thing!

I have the episode up on Netflix right this very minute. The fic is on my Kindle. I'm all set. :)

And I did the same thing with the fic I just wrote - it's much, much shorter, but I wanted to read something like it, and there wasn't anything, so I just talked about it with everyone (and I mean everyone) and then plunged in. \0/

[treefrogie84]

one of us, one of us

[mezzo_cammin]

That made me laugh so hard! Am still giggling. Thank you! :)

[treefrogie84]

No Problem! (I just started another reread last night, so if you have questions, feel free to hit me up)

[anonprecious]

And if you ever need somebody to talk about what you read, or want a reading buddy for a reread just hit one of us up. We congregate around a virtual fireplace regularly and share our thoughts and feeeeelings. And theories, so many.

[mezzo_cammin]

Thank you! Is there a link to this virtual fireplace? Also, what a wonderful idea! I'm wondering - are there still two more chapters to come? Only it says 23/25 on the last one, so...?

[anonprecious]

So, mhhh, yeah there are still two chapters to come of book 4 and ah, more books too. So it is not finished.
I'll contact you via message.