#I actually tweaked this since the last post mentioning it. it's uhh.. longer. oops.

[hollowsart]

Got a little interest in this, so here’s my little “skeleton” of this story I guess, I’m not great at this, but I’m fairly pleased with how this is turned out, hope you guys enjoy this silly thing and don't mind how long it is!

======

Summary: Acedia is NY's one and only Cryptid Crawler. Life takes a turn after a spider bite and things start spiraling like a domino effect, when she thinks the worst is over.. it gets worse. She is determined, however, to help however she can. Doing her best as always.

Once Upon A Time:

Acedia was once a regular human with no powers, living relatively alone. She never really did much, never having the ability to do things that she may have wanted. A shy, anxiety ridden adult just trying to get by. day in and day out, all the same, her frustrations with life weighing her down mentally.

And Every Day:

Her days were monotonous routine with occasional small deviations, like visiting the park for some fresh air, going on free tours to save money, hanging out with a friend, and other menial things. It wasn't a bad life, just.. boring.

Day to day, having small simple jobs to work here and there to earn a living and survive. Still, she wished for just a little more, just a little more excitement, it was really all she could do. Wish. Dream. Hope. Never having the guts to put herself out there on purpose. Life was a personal heck.

Until One Day:

It wasn't until she had gotten bit by a spider that hitched a ride on her bag one day after taking a free tour of an animal lab that things started to change. The changes were slow and small, first discovering she can walk on walls and experimenting with these new changes and abilities. Telling her friend and getting the idea to make a name and costume for herself.. the costume was a bit.. silly. She didn't have the best skills in clothes making or sewing, so she opted for something already made in her closet. A little onesie of her favorite animal, a sloth. She wasn’t really one for sp!ders.. they scared her.

She was extremely timid around people and valued self preservation, however.. she did always seem to somehow stumble her way into these situations of taking out very small crime. Petty shoplifters and muggers here and there, just getting a slight hang of things. Learning some things about fighting and her new abilities with first hand experience.

That was, until one night she got hit with a horrible sense of something bad happening across town. She chased the feeling, using her heightened sense, all the way to the infamous Oscorp building. The place had always given her an uneasy feeling even before the bite. She knew she had to act fast and find the source of what was setting off her senses.

She crawled around the outside of the building, locating the room of interest and making her way inside the shattered window. This is where she discovered the unconscious body of Doctor Otto Octavius. He had a horrible accident, not caused by himself, but by his boss who had already fled the scene long before Acedia arrived.

Acedia worked fast after assessing and being relieved that she hadn't stumbled upon a murder scene. Using her gifted strength to lift and carry the poor man out of there and to the nearest hospital she could.

And Because Of That:

That night, and for a good couple of weeks after that, she didn't have the best of sleep. The anxiety and worry ate away at her. She didn't know the man, but she needed to know he was alright and so, she set out to visit him.. not in person, though. Picking out her costume again she went to the hospital and, once again, she crawled around the outside, locating his room.

He appeared fine and well now, but that metal contraption was still wrapped around him it seemed. She was just thankful he was alive. She left a small gift on the sill of his window, tapping the glass before leaving.

And Because Of That:

Otto may have appeared fine on the outside, but just like the scars that will soon enough be on his back, he had scars of the mind as well. The poor man had merely been doing his job, trying to please his body and not wanting to risk losing his job.. only to be thanked with an attempted murder. Something like that made him a bit.. unstable. It wasn't like him, but his anger and frustration at his boss was slowly growing as he recovered his energy from that night.

So, when he was healthy and healed enough physically and given access to his actuators again, he couldn't help himself.. couldn't stop himself. He sought out revenge on his boss for all he'd put him through for the many years he'd worked for him. Escaping the hospital with his actuators reattached.

Unfortunately for him, Acedia would come back once more to try and check in on how he was doing.. only to find he had gone missing and his window shattered with markings along the side of the building.

And Because Of That:

Acedia picked up a sense-- a familiar one.. one that brought back the dread from that night. She tracked him down back to Oscorp. Finding the entrance shattered and many people fleeing and screaming.. She needed to act fast before someone got hurt.

Using the elevator and even scrambling up the side of the building, she made it to the top. The boss's office floor. She looked inside and narrowly avoided an object being thrown at the window, shattering it completely. Shouting and crashing came from inside and she hurried in quickly before things escalated further. Witnessing the sight of Otto in some new clothes, hovering in the air with the help of his actuators. Two of which were around Norman Osborn, his boss.

From what Otto was saying Acedia knew she had to be fast. Shouting herself and gaining the confused attention of Otto and Norman. Part of her felt this was a bad idea, but she knew it was the right thing to do if it meant saving a life (oh, if only she knew). She was quick again to dodge a mechanical arm zipping toward her, bounding back in response with her words to try and coax Otto to leave Norman alone.. bad idea.

He dropped Norman, which was her intention, but he soon and very quickly rushed toward her, she scrambled quickly out the window and down to the nearest open window on the lower levels. He chased after her.

And Because Of That:

The chase was exhausting for both parties involved, but eventually Acedia was able to talk Otto out of whatever mental state he was in. Otto piecing together who she was and realizing who Acedia was-- the one who had saved him that night. He broke down in tears and apologies. He didn't know anymore what he was doing and she did what she could to console him, offering him a hug. He was hesitant but quickly accepted it.. he really needed this. Kind words and a warm embrace.

Otto apologized for everything he'd done, for causing such trouble.. and for ruining Acedia's costume. He offered to make it up to her, telling her of where he lived and to drop by sometime to visit and to discuss what he can do for her, to repay her. Acedia agreed, but asked he write it down so she could remember.

She was nervous, as always, when she had dropped by, but after some time together she relaxed and opened up a bit. She and Otto worked together and came up with a new costume for her to wear as a thank you gift. He insisted she didn't need to do anything more for him to pay him back, saving his life like she had was more than enough.

Until Finally:

A different man in Otto’s life sprung up not too long after, causing trouble and attacking the same man Otto had before. Acedia, still unaware but slowly growing a bad feeling about Norman Osborn, took it upon herself to once more try and help him, save him.

Little did she know, this next fight would be at her disadvantage. How could she fight someone who could fly when she, herself, was incapable and afraid of heights? Using her new vine shooter tool she was at least able to gain his attention-- unfortunately, she felt more like a sitting cloth in an open canopy than she has ever felt before with a flying predator swooping in.

The fight was luckily resolved by Otto finding her and using the actuators on his back to stop the man attacking her.. The man turned out to be Otto’s closest friend and business partner. He’d been distressed ever since he came back from a business trip a week ago unable to contact or find Otto, believing that Norman had done something to him-- and killed him. Adrian, Acedia now learns, is beyond relieved that Otto was alive and well.. Well. Mostly. aside from the arms now fused to his body, but that’s a story for another day. Otto will explain everything to Adrian later.

Despite what Adrian had done to her that night, Acedia willingly drops by to check on the older man, concerned about him, which surprises Adrian. However, he accepts her company and apologizes for how he acted and all. She continues to visit on occasion, bringing Otto along, too.

And Since That Day:

Acedia’s life may have changed, but it’s not so bad. She’s gained two new friends, a “grandpa” and a partner. Her life has definitely gotten more exciting just as she had always wanted, the monotony is no more and she’s doing a lot better mentally and.. despite everything that’s happened, she's happy.

More things have occurred since then, however, and with Otto as her partner in fighting crime and Adrian’s occasional aid, she’s able to handle whatever comes her way a lot better. Fighting crime, saving people, and solving some mysteries in her own little way.. And befriending some bad guys along the way.

[aro-aizawa]

okay so kind of vent post but update post too bc im kind of stressing and dealing with my stress in the only way i know how: ignoring it. so first off if i’ve promised you anything and haven’t spoken about it then i’m super sorry and either im working on it or im being way too perfectionist with it and it’s actively fighting me no matter what i do. so yeah. it’ll happen.....eventually im sorry. 

second thing i want to talk about is bhaf. i’ve kind of? hit a brick wall? in writing it? like i have the entirety of usj planned, mostly all neatly organised with shiny bullet points and little sentences that i want to include. but...its just not working with me? 

(also cut bc wow this went on longer than i expected oops - also to the peeps who don’t follow me because of my writing then uhh dont worry abt this i guess lmao)

its kind of feels like convincing a toddler to settle down in bed to read them a bedtime story except the toddler got hopped up on sugar earlier in the day and literally won’t sit still even for a second. so im running about the room frantically trying to catch them and put them in bed so i can read them their story and i can go to sleep. 

i mean its sorta like that but not at all. what im saying is its being unimaginably difficult. 

its been almost three weeks since i last added to chapter 14 and its killing me with stress. because lowkey i have a fear that if i stop updating for long periods of time that i’m going to lose most all my readers. aaaand that kind of stresses me because i don’t want to mess anything up with bhaf. its the first time i’ve had more than five people following the story so yeah i’ve kind of been working hard at it. 

and when i hit a wall like this it makes me angry. because i’ve hit enough walls with projects to know that this is what makes me stop working on a project for months or rather years in my old habits (though honestly my old update schedule was one 1.5k word chapter every six months so). 

one way that i usually try to get around that road block is that i work on new projects. i take an idea i have and run with it like it’s my main project. i throw myself into it and one day when i’m planning out stuff or writing for that new project, i’ll suddenly get hit with an idea for my main and jump ships again to get back to that project. and that was the plan! i was actually going to start up a new project called ad victoriam! which im super excited about!!

but the one thing that’s kind of stopping me with this plan is the fear that i mentioned before. i don’t want to lose any interest. and i dunno, it feels like the only one that truly cares for this fic is me? even if i do get a lot of comments per chapter (like theres 20 on chapter 13 that i havent replied to yet holy--) i dunno. maybe im just way too self-deprecating to really acknowledge that others care about this fic. 

so im kind of in a bind. im so stressed by not updating bhaf, but ive hit a complete road block creatively. the only way to get past that road block is to do other creative stuff away from the road block. but the stress of keeping reader happy its sorta weighing on me and crushing any inspiration i have for another project.

um. i dont....have anything else to say. im not sure what im going to do now, but i think its safe to say that bhaf might be getting a little hiatus? at least until i can find a way to ease up all this stress. i have one other way in mind, but im still not 100% sold on yet i guess. but if i do that’d still mean the hiatus is there but i’d still be working on bhaf but not in any meaningful way? 

okay i’ll stop being vague but im basically considering rewriting the earlier chapters. nothing big, like adding in scenes or anything, but i dunno just improving the general quality and tweaking a few things i missed, smoothing out inconsistencies of any kind. its sorta meaningless but its an old habit that i used to do when i hit a brick wall with any of my projects sometimes. i’d go back and rewrite the entirety sometimes adding in a few thousand words and generally coming out of it the better since i would be rewriting stuff that was a couple years old at that point. 

but im still being hesitant to actually do that because the old projects im thinking of were all under 20k words, unpublished with maybe nine or ten chapters. all of them rushed and mostly just the barebone scraps of stories barely filled with any emotional depth or character. all of them essentially copy and pastes of each other with mild changes depending on the plot.

whereas if you compare the two? well for starters bhaf is in third person and isn’t following an oc. secondly, bhaf is published whereas my old projects were not. thirdly, i only started writing bhaf just over six months ago so even though my writing style as improved due to writing as much as i have, it hasn’t really improved enough for me to justify rewriting all 58k words of it.

so......yeah. honestly if this post makes any sense to any of you then your head is a lot less jumbled than mine is. im unintelligent and when im stressed i cant explain good. 

tdlr: reached a creative block with bhaf, so its going on hiatus for until i can get past it. not sure if im going to rewrite it or work on another project.

((ALSO FUCKING SIDE NOTE: im also incredibly pissed at myself for it hitting now when the last chapter i posted had a fucking cliffhanger, the one thing that i hate with all my being when its not resolved as soon as possible. im half tempted to post this chapter at 3k words just so that i could get rid of the hiatus at cliffhanger. im so sorry guys.))