#I need to stop trying to re-edit this response and just go do Wishbone though

[chocodile]

Hi ! I’ve been a massive fan through the years, seeing you develop Hyden and his world and how full of life and wonder and details is so awe inspiring and cool! I really love your work and your style is so vibrant and electric! It always makes me happy when I see your posts pass by

I wanted to ask if you had any advice about wanting to share your stories with the world. I get so anxious that no one will care and I’ll just be posting to no one. I don’t want fame , just mutual interaction or have people genuinely curious , hear about others stories and be able to tell my own

How did you start? I don’t want to assume , but you do have so much confidence and are very well spoken in the way you explain your lore, what helped you get over any fears or worries?

Gosh, thank you so much for the compliments! That's so sweet of you to say… it means a lot to me that people enjoy my stuff.

My thoughts on your other questions about sharing stories are long, rambling, and disjointed… apologies in advance for the length, I swear I tried to edit this down:

Regarding sharing stories, I'd say the most useful thing you can possibly have is to have at least one friend you share story stuff with who is totally on board with it and having fun too. I've been coming up with stories and characters my entire life, and only twice have I really had an audience for it. Every other time it was just me and my sister, or me and a couple friends, or me and my wife doing creative stuff semi-privately just for the joy of the craft.

(Of course, I know that's easier said than done… but if you do have creative friends, organizing some plans to share stories with each other, ask questions, create AUs where your OCs from different stories interact with each other, etc can be very psychologically nutritious.)

Regarding feeling anxious, I suppose I never felt much anxiety about it myself, so I'm not sure how to advise there… I was a teenager on Neopets where putting massive amounts of work into character stories that nobody might ever read was the norm… unless you were astronomically popular, it was expected that you would probably never hear from your audience and would never know how many people read your stories. Everything was primarily for your own entertainment, and I carried that approach forward into other creative works. Of course, it's hard not to feel a little self-conscious these days, when you can easily see what people are saying and see who is getting "engagement" and who is not... but I do think that aiming to entertain yourself (and perhaps one or two friends) first and foremost is the healthiest approach. Plus, if you are really invested in something and constantly producing lots of art and info about it, people tend to pick up on that positive energy.

Apologies if this isn't super useful... I know "just don't care and also happen to have a bunch of friends with very specific interests!" is not very helpful advice in itself.

I have many other thoughts on "launching" a story, how to meet other OC creators, and trying to build an audience who interacts with your characters... it's something I've thought about a lot. I can share my insights for others in this boat, if anyone's interested? I'm unsure if I should include them here since it might feel lecture-y to Anon (and also this post is long enough, PHEW). Let me know if you're interested in hearing them though!

[badmoonrising-spn-fanfictio-blog]

Chapter 5 Bad Moon Rising

After breakfast we packed up our stuff and checked out of the motel, I unwillingly gave up the key to the pool while the boys waited in the car. We were heading out to Bobby’s to help with a case he’s been working on as the Winchesters drove out to the town to get a hands on look at the bodies. If we worked on a case with the Winchesters I preferred being out in the field with them because then I could be with Sam but they claimed that every time I was there helping Bobby with the research, things always got figured out faster. I suppose that it was true but I knew that the real reason was because no one wanted me to get hurt, being a girl and the youngest, I guess. On the bright side, I was the one who got to call Sam or Dean when we figured things out and I loved the praise I received for saving their butts. Don’t get me wrong, Sam and Dean where a hundred percent capable of finding the information that Bobby and me did but in reality it took us less than half the time it would have taken the Winchesters.

 As Ian drove I lied down in the backseat reading and re-reading the notes I had taken as Bobby spoke to me about the case over the phone. Hoping something would pop out at me or jog my memory of anything that might be related. So far I had nothing. I hoped Bobby would have more to go off of by the time we got there and that the Winchesters had gotten a look at the bodies. Giving up for the moment, I pulled out my iPod and put my headphones on, starting an instrumental playlist that always helped me think. With my eyes closed and relaxed, it was the closest I could get to sleep while in the car. I was in the middle of an Ólafur Arnalds song when I heard another song over my headphones. Hotel California by the Eagles was playing on the radio, West was singing and Ian was hitting the steering wheel to the beat. I yanked off my headphones and popped my head in between the boys, harmonizing with West.

 I didn’t notice when Ian stopped hitting the steering wheel, but I did notice something was wrong as we started swerving into oncoming traffic. West grabbed the steering wheel swerving back into our lane with no time to spare while I looked at Ian. His face was slack, his eyes had rolled up into his head and I shook him as hard as I could from the back seat, no response.

“Ian! Ian! WAKE UP!” I yelled, but to no avail, Ian didn’t wake.

 It took less than twenty seconds to pull the car over, pull Ian into the back seat and for West to take his place, driving to the nearest hospital. I sat in the back with Ian, holding his head in my lap, constantly checking his pulse and trying to wake him. We arrived at the hospital, West hastily spoke to the doctor and held his arm around my shoulders keeping me close. But I couldn’t hear them, I could barely feel West’s warm body heat, all I could do was clutch my charm bracelet to my chest and watch as they quickly rolled Ian away on a stretcher into a room and shut the curtains.

 ———————————————————————————————————

 The charm bracelet had been in an old antique shop that we’d visited for a case around my sixteenth birthday. Ian had asked me over and over again what I wanted as my gift, and every time I’d respond with a different type of weapon that could help fight the supernatural. Ian, still being stubborn about not wanting me to hunt would deny every answer I gave him, until I finally got tired of getting rejected and said that all I wanted was a chocolate cake and a bag of hard candies. In truth, it’s all I really did want, new weapons where fun, but they were for work, sitting down with family as they sang happy birthday and laughed while eating cake was such a normal thing, and since we weren’t normal, it was something I loved to do. Getting away from the real world of our crazy lives, momentarily forgetting about the people we lost and just being happy. So we did this, West bought a chocolate cake with my name written in icing and they sang to me. Ian and West by my side, the Winchesters and Bobby over speakerphone, Sam even called from Stanford and for a little while, we were a normal family.

 Two days after my birthday, however, we were in the midst of figuring out a case, and the need to identify some old symbols brought us to an antique store owned by an old woman who happened to be an expert on ancient Arabic symbols. I’d been speaking to the woman as she explained the symbols to me as I took notes. She rustled papers around trying to find a picture to show me and as she did this more and more of the stuff in the glass case became visible. When she picked up the last paper, the sunlight that shone through the shop window beamed on the antique jewelry inside. A light was reflected back at me, glimmering, as if taunting me to look. Forcing myself to stay focused, I didn’t look down and examined the picture the woman was translating to me.

 A customer opened the store door and as it closed again the light shook and glimmered again, I couldn’t help but look this time. The piece of jewelry that had been teasing me with light was a silver charm bracelet, adorned with a couple of charms, a tree, a cross, an angel’s wing, a wishbone and a pentagram. Thinking it was pretty; I went back to listening to the woman. Trying to stay focused was almost impossible; it was almost like I could hear the bracelet whispering to me to try it on, to admire it and to take it with me.

 We finished up with the woman, my notebook with multiple pages full of information. With one last, longing, look at the bracelet I knew I could never afford, my brothers and I left the store. I re-read my notes sitting shotgun while Ian drove.

“Find anything you liked in there?” Ian asked me.

“Ah…” I hesitated a little bit, thinking of the bracelet. “No, not really” I finished, there was no point in talking about something I couldn’t have, it was best to forget about it.

“Really? You love old things, and that was an antique store. We used to drop you off at one and you’d spend hours looking at everything while we worked on a case.” Ian reasoned.

“Ok well I didn’t really get to look since we were working, so I didn’t get the chance to like anything.” I explained. Ian took it and didn’t speak about it again until later.

 We’d closed the case a few hours later, killing an Arabic witch, who hexed people so differently than normal witches that I could write myself a whole book on the things they did differently. West and I were in the hotel room watching an old Nightmare on Elm Street movie when Ian got up and simply said that he had something to do. We didn’t think anything of it, it was something that Ian needed sometimes, some time to himself, and we all did at some point.

 A few hours later he came back into the room trying to make as little noise as possible, as West and I had already gone to bed. Of course, in trying to be quiet he made so much noise that I woke up to the bathroom light shining in my face. Not wanting to wake up fully, I just rolled over, turning away from the light.

 The next day, we were back on the road, Ian was driving and I sat in the front editing my new notes to add to my own journal on the supernatural, and West annoyed us by being the music DJ, constantly changing the song halfway though due to indecisiveness. Ian’s phone rang, and I had to pat all his pockets in search of the phone while he continued to drive. As I patted one pocket, Ian gasped and muttered ‘oh yeah’ under his breath, knowing full well that I couldn’t feel the phone in that pocket I moved on. Finding the phone, I put it to my ear in time to hear Bobby calling someone an idjit.

“Who’s an idjit?” I asked, not bothering with hello.

“Tori?” asked Bobby.

“Who’s an idjit?” I asked again, obviously it was me.

“Guess.” Bobby told me.

“Is Dean complaining about someone eating his pie again?” I asked rolling my eyes, knowing I was right. “So what’s up? Need something?”

“Sometimes I wonder if you can tell the future, Tori.” Bobby said laughing slightly, confirming my suspicion about Dean. “Just had a question about vampires, are there other types of vamps that go by different names?”

“Well sure, lots of different languages have a different word for vampire and the type varies slightly as different regions believed they had different abilities.” I fired off easily, barely having to think about it, “But, in Greek mythology there is a creature that goes by the name Mormo, m, o, r, m, o, and they were said to bite children, and thus often being linked with vampires. I’ve got a lot more about it if you want me to send you my vampire file.” I offered.

“Sure, that would be great, thanks Athena.” Said Bobby, I smiled at him calling me Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, it always made me feel so good every time he did that.

“Anytime, Bobby” I said before hanging up.

 Tossing the phone onto the dash in front of me I turned to face Ian.

“What’s ‘oh yeah’?” I asked curiously. Ian smiled and all of a sudden West sat up in the backseat popping his head in between us with a bright smile on his face too.

“Give it to her!” West said excitedly.

“Give me what?” I asked nervously.

“This.” Answered Ian, dropping something on my lap. I picked up a small box wrapped in newspaper and turned it over and over in my hands. I looked at my brothers, completely unsure of what to expect was in the box, maybe it was a joke, we never did this kind of stuff.

“Just open it already!” my brothers said simultaneously, so I did as they said, I tore off the newspaper and opened the little box. The box contained a silver charm bracelet, the same bracelet that I couldn’t keep my eyes off of in the antique store. Pulling it out I examined it closer, hanging from it was the same five charms as before, but three new charms had been added. I instantly recognized one of them as the anti-possession symbol, a pentagram with flame-like lines around the circle, another was a bow with an arrow and the last was an Athenian owl. I continued to daintily touch all the charms while my eyes filled with tears until the bracelet in my hand was just a blurry silver blob. Soon enough the tears pooled over my eye lids and slid down my face.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like it?” asked West, his tone worried, “We saw you basically unable to take your eyes off of it at the store.”  He added. I laughed at what West said and wiped my face. They had reason to be concerned, I hadn’t cried about anything since I was in the hospital after getting drained by a vampire when I convinced Ian to let me keep hunting.

“No,” I laughed again, “guys, I love it, its beautiful, I’m crying because I’m happy, this bracelet just seemed to call to me at the store.” West squeezed my shoulders gently.

“Well it screamed Tori, it’s basically you in a bracelet.” Said Ian. This made more happy tears fall from my eyes, because it was true. Smiling, I held out my wrist to West for him to put the bracelet on, it fit perfectly, not too loose and not too tight. Still blurry eyed, I leaned over the back of the seat and wrapped West in a long, tight hug. Then I turned to Ian, he wiped the last tears from my face, and I slid down the seat right next to him, wrapping my arm around his midsection and he slung his arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head.

“Thank you.” I said simply, because there where no words to describe how much I loved it. We sat like that for the while, my arm around Ian and his arm over me as he drove down the highway with one hand.