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Nearest & Dearest

(This is really just a journal entry, for real. Stuff I needed to get off my chest.)

I’ve been dipping in and out of the document for chapter eighteen since the summer, overthinking endlessly, fine-tuning, rethinking, and then overthinking a little more (and of course I’m still insecure about it)

Full disclosure: I got some comments back around January that wrecked my creative productivity. They weren’t even mean or bad — if anything, they made me feel insecure about how much weight they put on their expectations of me as a writer. They were quite articulate about it.

I don’t know how to describe it other than: it felt like they were Anton Ego sauntering into my back-alley kitchen dumpster fire mind after I’d inadvertently managed to gaslight them into thinking I was worthy of some Michelin Star inspection.

Brother I'm just a smut writer

I had an interesting back-and-forth with this person, who was clearly passionate about the story — only for me to wind up deleting all of it, retreating into myself, worried other people might see that exchange and also have higher expectations than I felt capable of fulfilling. I was already feeling depressed.

(I have no idea if that person even still reads the fic.)

It’s ridiculous, considering my ultimate goal is to become a published author— but being spoken to as though I was practically already there sent me running for the hills. Thankfully, I’ve had the better part of a year to unpack why that exchange affected me so deeply, and I’m feeling much, much better.

(Overcoming the overthinking has been INTENSE. But some incredible readers have given me a wild blast of motivation over the last couple of weeks, and I’m going to ride this as long as I can)

Something else I’ll just throw out there… Some people in the T/R-shipping realm started treating me differently over my T/M stuff this year, which has been a whole other thing, to say the least. Even lost a ““friend”” (and likely a few readers) over it. All while I was actively writing fic of, creating art of, and pitching fan campaign ideas about our mutual OTP.

Apparently, all you have to do is make one little suggestion that Ten might have fallen for Martha if Rose hypothetically never existed (within a well-thought-out and highly fucking nuanced meta that couldn’t have been more shippy over Tentoo and Rose) and you learn just how brutal fandom can be. I wound up creating a separate Tumblr and Ao3 just to try and avoid that sort of thing as much as I can in the future.

 That hurt me tremendously, but yeah — that’s the other thing that blew a massive hole in my motivation. I even still have friends who are different towards me now/can't even read anything I write anymore. I wouldn't say I'm over that, but it no longer affects my motivation, which is the most important thing.

My primary goal for 2025 is to learn to go easier on myself and to stop overthinking everything so I can begin finishing my fics again. How am I ever going to write and publish a book if I can't finish my fics or handle a bit of fandom-based nonsense?

I'm also ready to finish writing this fucking story, because I've been big hyped over the ending all year.

I cannot believe the fic has 300+ kudos. With THOSE ships? TOGETHER? Brooooooooo I am honored

No idea if anyone read this, but if you did, I hope you've had a great holiday season. And I prrrrray you love where the story goes!

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Hello! I've been reading this fic over the last few days, I love it! I'm actually hooked. Just wanted to send some love. I cannot wait for the next chapter ❤️

So sorry for the late reply, I haven’t checked this account in a couple of weeks — but thank you so much for this 💖💖💖 You have no idea how much help it was to see this. I’ll definitely be working on that chapter today!

It’s actually almost complete — I’ve just been jumping between this fic and three other fics (when I should be focused on finishing one at a time).

Thank you for reading and enjoying my story 😭

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Shoutout to theartperson127 for this wonderfully apt comment 🔥

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Lament

TL;DR: I'm so sorry for the ridiculously long delay in updating, but thank you so much to everyone who's reached out in support of this fic this year - from Ao3 to Discord to Tumblr. You're beautiful, life-giving angels!

Also, this fic will likely be 7-8 chapters longer than I thought. But more on that later.

Continue reading below, if you like - but if you're wondering why the hell this blog exists in the first place, please refer to my pinned post!

Just wanna get this off my chest: This fic is the best/worst creative decision I've ever made. I began writing it to challenge myself and step outside my comfort zone, but over time, it's become my favorite.

(It's 2 am and I'm so tired, so I'm sorry if the remainder of this post is a hot mess)

It's been a bit of a journey to get here mentally, both in and out of 'fandom' realms (have I mentioned how much it sucks loving two pairings whose shippers NOTORIOUSLY HATE EACH OTHER?) but it's been so, so rewarding, and that's because of such incredible readers.

When people have left comments about initially opening the fic begrudgingly [only to fall in love with it], or just sent me a song they've been listening to while thinking of the fic (see playlist below) - good god, I think about that stuff every single day. It's so special to me, knowing this ridiculous smangst fic could affect anyone like that.

From the beginning, I've followed the outline to a T (save for a couple of tiny amendments, such as Rose showing up a little earlier than I'd intended initially) - so just know that the only reason it took me forever to update is because of insecurity - not because the muse has left me!

While it might not have ten thousand kudos, and while a lot of people have said some incredibly hateful things (I will once again refer to the absurdity of anti-tenrose VS anti-tenmartha discourse), the pros smash the cons. So thank you.

I had (have) a lot more to say, but I already don't know if anyone is going to read this to begin with, so I'm going to cut myself off. But thank you SO much for reading! I hope you like(d) the update!

Thank you so much to badxwolfxrising for being my guiding light with this fic+helping me pull my head out of my ass+being my first friend in the TenRose realm to publish TenMartha smut. Also, thank you to Kate/@blueteensy for being such a massive cheerleader of this series always (and a wonderful friend)!

Playlist of songs wonderful readers have applied to this series (this link will allow you to add music as a collaborator. If you have any Repose songs, I would love to hear them!)

Playlist of songs I've applied to this series

Brilliant recreations of the red room by my dear friend @blueteensy: p1, p2

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This blog is just a home for what will essentially be “overflow author’s notes” for future chapters of The Purpose of Repose

I tend to get a bit wordy in my a/n’s, and due to vocal readers+the work that goes into writing this fic+life putting gaps between updates, it felt appropriate that I make a separate space to share my thoughts [instead of dumping walls of text on Ao3 — I’m aware not everyone wants to read all of that]. I’ll simply include a link on each new update!

This is just me not wanting to annoy people on Ao3 (or on my main blog, @thirdeyeblue)

Hopefully, you’ve only found this blog because you wanted to 💖