#i had to reread what i wrote and do some minor editing

[aastarions]

havent provided a writing update in a hot minute but we are at 5k words on the astarion fic ladies and gentlemen!!!!

[oathena11-writes]

I just wanted to let anyone who follows me know that I'm taking a break from posting on AO3 until April, maybe later depending on how things look once we get to April.

I am hiding away the further explanation of why because it's more of a vent and whine session than anything and I don't want to subject anyone to that if they don't want to see it. And it got way out of hand.

(note: this whole thing is unedited)

Back in December I decided that I was going to take a break from posting, but because I was already done with several FoxQuin week fics, I decided to wait until after I was finished posting those fics to take a break from posting, even though that was inviting the possibility of things getting worse.

I used to be fine not getting comments, I had made my peace with it. I'm not sure why things started shifting for me last year, but it did.

By late September, early October, I was at the point that posting was just torturing myself. Any time I posted, I had to swallow down the disappointment of no comments, sometimes the first comments would appear days after posting, and sometimes they never appeared at all. 

I had some good fics I posted and even getting three comments on a chapter blew me away and made me excited- that's how little attention I'm used to my fics getting.

By December, I knew I was just torturing myself to keep attempting to post fics when the lack of comments got to me every time.

I know I'm not entitled to comments, heck I know why people don't comment. I hardly comment, it's hypocritical to demand comments when I struggle to even remember to comment before hitting kudos and subscribe and closing out the tab. I am working on commenting more consistently but it's a work in progress.

It still hurts. I know why it hurts, and I wish I could just make it stop. Because I love writing and I love sharing what I write with people even if I don't get comments. I love knowing that maybe there's a silent person out there who was impactd by the story.

I have always admired those who get many comments, who have an interactive audience who are all excited and vibing and sharing theories and excitement... I have always hoped for that myself but I don't really get that kind of interactions on my fics, just the generic comments of loving my fics. Sometimes, no one tells me what they love about my fics, what I'm doing right. No one comments on the parts I thought were particularly clever, on the big reveals, or anything. 

And it's fine if my fics aren't to anyone's taste, if I'm not as good of a writer as I think. I have an idea of my flaws, but I don't really intend on changing because every time I reread old fics, I adore them. I wrote them in a way that makes my brain happy, that is easy for me to read and I might spot some minor things, and things that I might change now, over a year later, but for the most part? What I know others might see as flaws are parts of fics that I adore.

It still hurts.

Maybe some of the trouble is just that when I write for events, particularly fandom specific events, my mind sees it as a gift to the community. 

But sometimes, I get even less interaction on my event fics. It hurts to write a gift to the community and to be so rejected as to not get a single comment. It hurts that the event fics that I pour my heart and soul into, trying to strike a balance in writing what I adore (though it's usually not the norm) and what the community loves, and I edit and post, thinking 'yeah! I nailed a lot of things this community. I put in x, y happened, and I even put in this popular fanon'. But then there's... nothing. No one cares that I put in all my effort to craft something that the community would love, often stepping out of my comfort zone to do so.

I know some of it is that I write strange headcanons that most people don't have, that I write rare pair ships, that my interpretation of things has no one group it belongs to because I often get a little from everyone.

Or maybe people don't comment because they don't like the responses I give, or because I haven't been responding to comments as much sense September.

Sometimes, not knowing is the worst. I have theories, but I don't know. If I do know it's because I'm an awful writer, great, I can put that to rest and I won't stop posting, but at least then I know what it is about me that people just don't like.

I know this is just a really self indulgent whine and who wants to read this, really? I'm not tagging it because I don't want people to come to my post. Because I am begging for attention, for someone to show me to care but I also know people hate that so I'm just posting this to have the vent out there, so I can pretend people saw and care. 

I know I'm not a big author, and I know now I won't ever be. I wish I was, I want people to love my work as much as I do. I want to nerd out with people.

I have been accepting that that's never going to happen. I can live with that.

But hardly getting comments... to the point that 5 of 7 FoxQuin week fics getting one or two comments, and 1 getting 5 is still making me get teary at all the positive things people had to say, all the nice comments.

I wasn't expecting that. I went in fully bracing myself for no comments on most fics and maybe 1 or 2 on two fics, if I was lucky. But that's not what happened. I got more comments than I'm used to and I kind of don't know what to do with them because I am so used to getting no comments at all that I am getting teary just thinking about it. 

Most of the time, all it takes is one or two comments to make my day. One if it's not a generic comment will have me going back to reread it several times a day until I finally respond. 

But no comments at all sends me to despair some days, especially on the fics I'm excited to post. Those getting no comments is devastating. Those days, where there's no comments within the first two days of posting just make me want to cry, and I don't know why it keeps hitting me so hard, or why it got worse last year. 

But that's why I decided to take a break from posting so that I can take some space, and hopefully by the time April comes around, posting without responses won't be so earth shattering. Hopefully I won't feel so rejected, so alone, so unimportant. 

I don't want to stop posting forever. At the very least I need to finish the ongoing stories I've already started posting.

But I needed to stop torturing myself. I needed to breathe and remind myself that it's not the end of the world and get some space from the tears that have been shed over lack of comments.

So... yeah. My mental state is not the best right now when it comes to posting, and I could have said worse things; I left out some of the really stupid irrational lines of thoughts that come up because I do spiral. I know how to handle it; I am safe at home. 

But I am losing spoons over it and I just can't keep doing this. 

I hope I can resolve this by April so that I can keep posting and don't grow too much of a backlog.

Thanks for reading my stupid, whiny, attention-seeking rant.

[magicalyaku]

Why is it April already? Where did my time go??? (Answer: My friend and I had a big convention (artist alley) in March and even after 10 years of doing this we still haven't learned to start early with our preparations, so it was crunch time! (And if you want to know, the con was okayish. We didn't sell as many prints as we had hoped but a bunch of books, and that felt pretty good.). Don't ask me something like in which order I read these book, because I have no idea, but I do remember reading them, so here we go.

Into the Glittering Dark (Kelley York): So what if I was lured in by the cover??! The illustration is done by Magdalena Pagowska who's also responsible for Dark Rise and some Captive Prince editions. But just like with Dark Rise it was eventually the summary that convinced me. It's an adventure with magic and two young man tangled up in it (and also with each other). Count me in! Now, this is probably the kind of book where you can find all sorts of weak points if you're looking for them, I will not. I was entertained. It did a lot of things that I like. It's written in third person, for instance, and uses that to its benefit by showing how the different people fare at different locations and times. That just doesn't happen often anymore in the sort of books I currently read, so it feels like good old times. Yes, sometimes it's enfuriating when it switches locations between the chapters when you just want to find out what's going on with the characters from that one. But that's the kind of sweet suffering I grew up with. It's not a top tier book, but nonetheless I enjoyed the writing, the characters and the world. There's lots of death and killing, yes, it calls itself a dark fantasy after all. But it's not as cruel as that one other book that I recently read and don't want to talk about again. :'D The amount of romance was also just right for my taste. (And I like what the author has to say about that in the afterword). Also, there's a bird.

The Prince of Nowhere (Rochelle Hassan): While waiting for the author's latest book The Summer Queen to arrive, I decided to read her first one. It's a middle grade fantasy and it's really good! The world starts out really interesting with that village surrounded by fog, the heroine getting mysterious predictions about the future, and an arrogant bird boy. It's kind of slow in the beginning but once it gets going …oh boy. I don't think I can say anything about it without spoiling all the fun. It's a mind-bending topic done well and I loved how it played out, the implications, the ending! I'm always saying how I wish middle grade books would be smarter and more challenging and this is definitely one of the smarter ones. I'm so looking forward to The Summer Queen now and the author's next middle grade series that starts in September.

Little Black Bird (Anna Kirchner): How many books with birds do i have on my TBR? Hehehe. Actually, I wanted to finally read the second volume of this series, but one look inside told me, I better reread volume 1. :'D It was a favourite of mine in 2022 and it's still good, I think. I don't feel like looking up, what I wrote about it back then, if any, but my thoughts haven't change much I dare say. The story is set in a Polish town and it feels so European. So much like home, I love it. There are really nice descriptions of the houses and neighbourhoods, the kids go by tram and walk along the river. And I don't know, it just feels like a place I know and that's nice. The protagonists are also pretty good, the heroine, Wiktoria, does not annoy me, her bond-mate Artur is a really sweet boy, both of them are aspec questioning. And there's a giant adventure going on around involving old slavic magic. It's really interesting. My only gripe would be the timeline. Everything happens in just a few days which left me confused sometimes. Minor details. I should mention, though, that there's at least two editions of the book and I read the old one with the other cover and I don't know if anything between these editions changed.

Tall White Tenement (Little Black Bird 2) (Anna Kirchner): While I loved the first volume easily, this is more difficult. A lot of things happened, but I can hardly tell you any of them. Everything was small steps, and always 3 steps forward and 2 backwards. And while there was logic behind all actions, many turned out futile in the end, which was a bit frustrating. Some of them, like the devil summoning, also might have benefitted from a little more impact. Overall, I still do like the story. Shit's getting really rough towards the end, so the third volume will probably be fun again. There's more demons and a new important character, who's pretty cool. There's also parenting of a baby dragon which I didn't like very much … Personally, I just hate it when people call me "cat mum" or my cats my kids. My mom is their mom and my cats are my siblings, thank you very much. So now, there's a book with a not-annoying aspec girl heroine and suddenly she's a pet mum and I'm just here suffering quietly. xD Anyway, there are developments on the aspec front for some of the questioning characters which was nice and highly anticipated. The shape of Wiktoria's and Artur's relationship is a major point after all. It just felt a little heavy on the author's voice. Oh well. The series does have a good foundation, the execution of this volume just stumbles a bit and doesn't reach as high where it wants to go in my opinion. It's still engaging and I'm looking forward to the next volume. Also, the author had a give away back when the book came out and I received some postcards, stickers and bookmarks with really nice illustrations. Thank you for those. <3

Tadek and the Princess (The Mahisti Dynasty novella) (Alexandra Rowland): Aw. Just aww. When I found out that the author has a new book coming out in summer I got strangely excited, because while I really liked A Taste of Gold and Iron, it never crossed my mind to go back to her older books (there are a few), so why is the new one different? xD (The pirates maybe. The promise of Adventure.) Anyway, alongside the news for that one, I also found the one about Tadek, and well, he was my favourite character of A Taste of Gold and Iron (surprisingly), so I had to read it, right? And damn, it's sweet. It alternates between the present (after the end of the main book) and the past of Tadek as a child and his path to his current position. Again, it's so sweet. So full of love. I think the word for that specific kind of love is Agape? The love for something higher that oneself. (Do correct me if I'm wrong.) It made me feel like "Ah, there's good people in this world after all".

Tales of the High Court Short Story Collection (Megan Derr): What the title says. If you like the Tales of the High Court series, you'll probably like this collection (if you don't already know the individual stories as all of them were previously published online.) There's a lot of Sarrica, some Allen, some Lesto. Basically, lot's of the characters I like and less of those I don't care much for. :'D I really like the world of these stories, so it was nice to return to it. As for the presentation … you can't tell me, all of these stories were published previously and then have so many errors right in the early ones. >_< (There's half a sentence missing at one point …) I hope, that get's fixed soon. Other than that, I enjoyed reading this collection!

That's it! The wrap up for March is going to be short. When the theme this time was birds and sequels, the next one will be ... ghosts and ballet. 8D

[eatyoursparkout]

5, 7, 10, and 13

5) What rating do most of your fics fall under?

That's not a question, that's a callout sdfgh

They're mostly E. I'm branching out more lately, but even so I'd guess about 75% of my prompts are explicit. You know those posts going around that are like 'umm the smut IS the character study?' yeah, that's me.

7) What’s a trope you love to write?

I love!! Pining!! Mutual or not, and every variation therein. I also really love writing enemies to enemies who [redacted]. It's fun when the relationships I'm writing have a little conflict... a little spice...

10) What are your top five fics by kudos or by reads

June Bug (Sunstreaker/Big!Bob)- Not surprising anyone haha. This isn't my favourite or my best fic, but I've learned a lot while writing it and I'm fond of it <3 I'm going to do my best to finally wrap it up this year.

Where There's Smoke (There's Fire) (Heisenberg/Ethan)- I'm also not surprised by this one because I managed to post it in the first few months after Re8 came out, during that wave of Wintersberg enthusiasm. It's a good fic! I still really like it. Also it gets a shoutout for being my first attempt at not-robot smut.

Bad Predacon (Shockwave/Predaking/Darksteel/Skylynx)- Oh man. People really like this one, and honestly I'm afraid to reread it because I just *know* it needs a big edit. The concept is inspired, but I've had a lot of practice writing since I put this out and I could probably improve vastly upon the execution lol

Hazard Light (Brainstorm/Perceptor)- Ahh, I love this one. I wrote it for the 2019 Big Bang and I really enjoyed trying to adapt hanahaki to robots in a way that made sense.

Coming Into Focus (Brainstorm/Perceptor)- This one is an even earlier fic, so it's had time to slowly accumulate kudos. It was my first Simpatico fic and I don't think it's anything to write home about, but I suspect that I wouldn't cringe if I gave it a readthrough. It also deserves a minor edit at some point.

13) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Hah, not directly. Someone I followed wayyy back vagued about Along Came A Spider (Tarantulas/Springer) and it came up on my dash. Since I was only like, three months into writing as a hobby it kind of sucked, but also I immediately wrote a new chapter in a surge of spite and inspiration so 😂

[macbethz]

I visited your blog to find that great edit you made of Alex Wilder again, because I think it's just great and one of the best edits i've seen of Alex. I was wondering though, what did you think of Rowell's time on the comic series. I really do admire how much she cares about the characters, I really do, but I had a massive problem with the progression of the stories. I just feel like it would have been better if it was in a show rather than a one comic that comes out once a month

OMG you came to the right person because i have many thoughts on Rowell's run...also thank you for the kind words abt my Alex edit its one of my favs and i always forget it exists

In terms of Rowell's run. It started off as one of my favorite runs and as time went on I grew to really dislike it.

I think there's some stuff she does I REALLY love - I think she gets Alex on a level a lot of writers really don't and does some genuinely interesting things with him which is very important to me personally since he's one of my favs. I sometimes like to look at the stuff she wrote for him in a vacuum and pretend the rest of that run doesn't exist LMAO. The stuff with Molly and her reluctance to abandon her parents because she was so young when she lost them I find very compelling as well, as well as stuff that begins to be explored with Chase in terms of How To Cope With Your Dead Girlfriend Coming Back to Life And Still Being 16, but unfortunately it isn't really resolved. Gib also is a fun addition to the cast and I like the parallels between him and the rest of the Runaways. Anka's art is ofc beautiful as always (kinda a minor issue tho but I wish he had gone less nugoth for Nico and stuck to her more classic romantic/trad goth looks - it makes her look so artificial to me)

It's been a hot second so I really need a reread but iirc i didn't have as much of an issue with pacing as I did with some weird characterization and plot choices so I don't really know if another format would have improved it, but maybe if a show or something stretched out the runtime of each arcs. I saw someone say once that Rowell is a fix-it writer and i think that really describes the problems with this run, which is that she's far more interested in resolving ""plot holes"" and bringing back old characters than telling new interesting stories. I put plot holes in quotation marks because frankly a lot of these things are not plot holes. The fact that we don't know how the staff of one works is NOT a plot hole, its part of it being a weird fucked magic artifact. Making it a person kind of undermines everything Nico has gone thru in the rest of her arc and adds some weird ass implications to every other writer's work. Even with things that actually are issues, comic history is full of holes not everything exists to be repaired especially if it comes at the cost of cool stories.

THE ROMANCE ARCS feel engineered just to kinda create cute moments rather than good stories. I didn't find Nico and Karolina's relationship issues believable or interesting at all especially considering their respective histories. I find them and a lot of the cast to be vastly OOC but that's pretty typical for comics I guess. Victor and Gert's romance is one of my main issues as well because it just seems kind of out of nowhere to me and just kind of an effort to pair off the cast. I don't feel like they have any chemistry, Vic (and the rest of the cast but mostly him) feels really dumbed down and his complex struggles with bodily autonomy are simplified down to him wanting to hold his new girlfriend. Just overall his characterization in this comic completely revolves around Gert and it sucks. Gert in general is a huge issue for me because while I find her an interesting character in her original form, in this run she kind of monopolizes the entire comic with her arcs always taking precedence. AND THEY DONT EVEN DO ANYTHING INTERESTING WITH HER. SHE LITERALLY DIED AND CAME BACK AND LOST YEARS OF TIME WITH HER FREINDS WHO HAVE GROWN CLOSER IN HER ABSENCE and instead they write this very like cartoonishly evil fatphobia plot which doesn't seem interested in saying anything besides "fatphobia bad :(" I normally hate to like try to read author intention but its difficult to me not to think Rowell did a bit of a self insert/authors pet situation here.

TLDR - OVERALL I think the comic could REALLY have benefited from less characters with longer arcs rather than trying to fit everything and the kitchen sink from the last 20 years of runaways history. But I also think it is unfortunately one of the best and only runaways comics we've gotten recently so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ def need a reread to fully collect my thoughts as well

[shinakazami1]

hhhh long ask anon here! thinking of calling myself 307 anon…(not me seeing a person looking at details I didn't care much about and make a whole identity out of it)

SO UHMMM HELLO?? YOUR RESPONSE IS SO LOVELY??? IM SO GLAD MY ASK HAD SUCH A POSITIVE IMPACT (holding my phone tightly giggling kicking my legs) (looking at you compliment chain)

You. you talked about me to your close friends and the server. I was presented in front of the councils. please have mercy on me. aaaaaaaaa *shaking violently*. (how were their reactions. i like reading others’ thoughts)

ok I read the soulmate bodyswap series and. what . that's too much sugar for a normal human to handle. such sweetness, my dentists aren’t going to like this/j

no reviews this ask, sorry! hhhhh I just want to pick the details I liked and then ramble about them (which is…a lot aikdhsadhjd, considering the last ask already took 1 hour and a half to write and edit-) But I've been rereading Dear Stanley and the soulmate bodyswap series for the second time though! getting all those details in…ugh dearest most wonderful blorbos and their writers,,, >:))

i guess i'll make up for it by a marine animal fact? although being called puppers of the sea, seals are actually closer to bears than to dogs!…maybe many people already knew it but-

have a nice weekend!

Anon I hecking stimmed when I saw getting a message from you (tell me if you ever want to become more than parasocial relation and show yourself / silly )

I will start calling you 307 anon too hehe, we adore staring at minor details and making them not as minor anymore

(The Soulmate AU fic is right here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/3264705

Lemme respond under the cut:

Of course they have a huge impact, really, today has been a good day overall for me but I showed my roommate that I got another ask from you since I was v happy (read your message 3 times and then reading it rn again to just respond well to each point foahhifaso)

I did! They said that was v nice of you to write and well people from Stanarr and some mutuals decided to send asks and I am just thankful to every single one of you ;w;;w;w;w; I kept saying how nice it is for you to choose to spend time to write these and esp now hearing that you wrote that last ask for 1 hour DUDE my gosh you just are so considerate to share your appreciation with creators and I really am thankful to you!! EDIT: I shared with a few close buds and one of them was like "get them on our discord server, they have been accepted" OIHFSASOA

I AM GLAD, Surf and I wanted it to be a nice funny and fluffy thing and it was a blast writing these idiots (esp Stanley was my fav cus I just kept on throwing the most batshit crazy things to say at this man)

It's alr!! You already just writing the first paragraph made me so happy oiahioaosi and YOU HECKING REREAD THOSE MY GOODNESS 307 ANON YOU ARE SO KIND ;;;; and also hehe glad you think I'm wonderful *twirls my hair like a high school girl and then misses a step falling over-*

I didn't know that actually! I am right now reading this and hearing seals evolved from land creatures, huh, we learn everyday, thank you for the fun trivia anon!!

I hope you yourself will have a lovely rest of the day and weekend and you are doing alr there!! We might be strangers but you doing this for the third time just means a lot, to know you spend so much time and effort on these and want to read my stuff, just thank you :>

[motleyfam]

I posted 2,267 times in 2022

36 posts created (2%)

2,231 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@desperatecheesecubes

@mooitstimdrake

@batshit-birds

@sohotthateveryonedied

@sun-moon-stars-jedi

I tagged 454 of my posts in 2022

#the batman - 25 posts

#fave - 18 posts

#batfam - 9 posts

#atla - 9 posts

#bruce wayne - 8 posts

#dick grayson - 7 posts

#damian wayne - 6 posts

#this sparks joy - 6 posts

#amen - 6 posts

#tim drake - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#thinking of that ‘superman wrecking a whole ass train to save a child on the tracks who he could have just swooped away from danger’ post

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

hey! so its 4am and ive just finished my, um... fifth(?) reread of world's saddest breakfast club and like! aaahhhh!!!

do u got abything to tell us abt this story? like sbt the writing proccess or things u thought that did not make it in or hc or anything really. i dont have a question exactly, just wanted to hear you talk about it. im a bit. well. obssesed.

Oooh cool question! I definitely do!

World's Saddest Breakfast Club: Fun Facts

The opening line is a result of me angsting to @batmoniker about how I couldn't figure out how to start my fic, and her jokingly being like "I got you, bro. Ready? 'It was a dark and stormy night'" and then me just being stubborn and committing to the bit.

The story started with a vague idea of "everyone in the kitchen at 3am for different reasons and Jason channeling his inner short order cook." All I knew going in was the order I wanted people to appear, what was wrong with them (sick, hurt, insomnia, etc) and what food Jason would be making for them. Everything else I made up as I went.

If I could go back and change one thing about this fic, I'd reduce how long Jason was kidnapped to like, 6-8 days, max. 16 days seemed funny when I wrote it, but in hindsight, I feel like he'd be a little more fucked up in the story if he were really escaping from that many days of captivity lmao

I headcanon Dick as the kind of person who straight-up forgets to eat when he's preoccupied, and Jason as the kind of person who cannot FATHOM this concept. Jason absolutely will miss a meal if the situation calls for it, don't get me wrong, but he's aware the entire time he's doing it and it makes him super antsy. (This once turned into A Thing™ when Jason was like, 13 years old and staying with Dick for the weekend for some brotherly bonding and Dick forgot about lunch and by 5pm, Jason maybe sorta kinda had a minor panic attack about it. Dick was a lot more mindful of that moving forward)

Bruce's favorite food being lobster thermidor is a reference to the Lego Batman movie

I wrote this whole fic with Julia Child's recipe pulled up in one tab and my google doc in the other

At some point I realized that since I started with fresh lobsters, I was going to have to write Jason killing them, and it derailed me so hard that the fic nearly became about meatloaf instead. (Never mind the fact that Jason canonically kills human beings — that's totally fine. I just draw the line at him killing lobsters 😰)

(in the end I just kinda glossed over it and made sure they were already cooked before Damian appeared so I wouldn't have to address it 😬)

Dick's reoccurring shoulder injury is a reference to the DCAU where I swear that man has dislocated his shoulder/injured his arm at least 4x

The line about Tim being allergic/throwing up when he eats eggs was inspired by a line in chap 11 of @goldkirk's fic Hymn, which I've reread about 37x

Jason is correct— grits are fucking delicious and definitely not baby food.

My favorite line is "Okay there’s self-sacrificial bullshit, and then there’s whatever the fresh hell that is."

The idea for Cass being a big meat-eater comes from a comic panel where Steph offers her a plate of rice and beans and Cass says needs meat and starts mischievously eying Steph's hamster. Can't find the panel to save my life, but I promise it's out there.

EDIT: finally found it!

Steph's nickname of "Zombie Boy" for Jason is borrowed from @audreycritter's Cor Et Cerebrum series (which is a fucking masterpiece, btw)

This fic was gonna be called "Creatures of the Night" until batmoniker said Steph's line made for a better title

Several people have asked me whether Jason was really cooking Bruce's lobster to spite him, or if he was actually intending to make it for him all along. The answer is... both? Like Jason's kind of an unreliable narrator in that he's trying to convince himself that he's just doing what he's doing to be a little shithead when deep down it's all stemming from his need to take care of his family, you know? Like he'll never admit it, but that's where his heart is at.

To everyone who's asked for a part 2 where the family finds out Jason was kidnapped, I'm gonna be honest: the main reason I don't think I'm ever going to write that scene is because I can't come up with a good enough joke for him to make to accidentally out himself ☠️

90 notes - Posted September 18, 2022

#4

Imagine Bruce starting therapy and learning about all these cool new tricks and gadgets that can help with emotional regulation and getting super invested (because I mean, c’mon, the dude’s like the king of gadget hoarding, he’s got a utility belt for goodness sake)

Then imagine the learning curve of him realizing that just because something works great for one of his kids, doesn’t mean it works for all of them, as illustrated by this memorable incident:

Jason gets really upset and starts having a minor panic attack about something

Bruce, proud owner of 14 new weighted blankets (in various styles, weights, and sizes), tries to wrap his adult son up in one to ground him

After all, Bruce himself finds them super comforting because it’s basically a socially acceptable alternative to wearing a massive Kevlar cape 24/7 like he’d do if he could

(Tim loves them too, so like, kid tested, parent approved™️)

Ends up totally backfiring when the added weight & restricted movement sends Jason into a full-blown flashback of digging out of his own grave, taking this panic attack from like a 4 to a 10

Whoops

130 notes - Posted December 6, 2022

#3

Sometimes I get really hung up on trying to make all the logistics and time frame work out in my fanfics

Then I see how the professionals handle this dilemma:

211 notes - Posted March 12, 2022

#2

I have a headcanon that Dick doesn’t actually like cereal nearly as much as he pretends to.

He just knew that Bruce felt bad about his own cooking ineptitude in the early days after taking his new ward in, so whenever Alfred had the night off, the 9-year-old insisted cereal was his ‘favorite food on the planet’ because it was something that Bruce could actually handle preparing for him without setting off the smoke alarms and it made him happy to do it

372 notes - Posted April 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Tim hardly ever wears seatbelts.

It’s not a conscious choice at this point really, he just never got into the habit. When he outgrew his last car seat at age five, his parents didn’t bother getting him a booster and just let him sit in the normal seat, so the belt always felt like it was cutting into his neck and he hated it. He put up a big fuss about it once on the way to some important event, and his parents just huffed, “Fine, don’t wear it then. Fly out the window for all I care” and that was that. They never forced him again.

He just so rarely has to wear one that it slips his mind. Buses don’t have seatbelts. Motorcycles don’t have seatbelts. The Batmobile has them, but they’re rarely used due to the necessity for split-second drop ins and getaways.

It’s not until he’s 17 and driving with Jason somewhere that he finally gets called out on it. Not only called out, but told in a no nonsense sort of way “This car ain’t moving till I hear a fucking click. What, did they stop showing ‘Red Asphalt’ in drivers ed while I was dead??”

(They do still show it. Tim just slept through that class)

557 notes - Posted November 7, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[pearl-neo]

writing log 1.

‹ last updated: 22nd of December, 2022 ›

» title: paranoia

» category: one-shot

» genre: contemporary / psychological thriller / suspense / mystery / angst

» cast: johnny⬩jaehyun⬩mark⬩reader's sister

» pairings: johnny + reader ⬩ jaehyun + reader's sister

⚘ pitch/synopsis: After a year spent living as a shut-in, you finally agree to go on a drive with your sister. When a storm steers your plan off course, you find yourselves brought closer to two charming strangers—but an unsettling tension lingers in your mind.

» warnings so far: anxiety; agoraphobia; implications of depression; ongoing feelings of helplessness and general discomfort and self-doubt; mental breakdown; minor violence; character death

» current stage: brainstorm ✓ | draft 1 ✓ | draft 2 ✓ | draft 3 ✓ | draft 4 ✓ | final edit ✓ | proofread ✓ | posted ✓

» word count update: 13,644

» cover photo? complete ✓

⚘ Read on Tumblr | ⚘ on AO3 | ⚘ on Wattpad

⚘ thoughts & ramblings + updates:

‹ NOV 8 ›This is my first time attempting to write a fanfic, my first time working on a short story, and my first time attempting to post anything on Tumblr. I really hope I don't mess up somehow, or break any unspoken rules. ⋟﹏⋞)

‹ NOV 10 › (≈ 6k) Draft 1 complete! I'm stuck so close to the ending. Might have to brainstorm a way out of this dead end...

‹ NOV 18 › (≈ 9k) Draft 2 complete! Just changed something major that'll require me to overhaul a large portion of what I wrote. Had to kill a lot of my darlings. ಥ﹏ಥ)

‹ NOV 22 › (≈ 8k) Draft 3 complete! Okay, I know the word count is going backwards, but the changes went well, I think. It's getting fun! •̀⩊•́)

‹ DEC 1 › Draft 4 started . . .

‹ DEC 2 › At this point, I feel like I'm spending more time adding to and tweaking this blog than I am writing... ಠ‿ಠ) I even made my own png/gif headers for each of my main posts. Now that I'm done setting up everything, hopefully this will be the end of my distraction lol

I didn't put any tags on any of my posts yet, though. I'm kind of scared to, lmao... I think I'll start doing that after the story is actually ready to post, so I'm not just pointing at a blog that has nothing to offer yet. ( ˙▿˙ )

‹ DEC 8 › Today marks a full month of working on this fic! The last thing I wrote today felt like a long tangent (which I honestly have no idea whether it fits the genre or not.) But at the same time I feel like it’s relevant to the plot and character dynamics… Since I have yet to finish and proofread Draft 4 as a whole, I won’t give up hope yet that it’s salvageable. ( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ

‹ DEC 19 › (≈ 13k) Draft 4 complete!! I'm nervous. I genuinely don't know whether it's worth posting or not. I think I might gauge that based on the reaction of my proofreaders... Who are very much biased towards me. ʕ◉ᴥ◉ʔ

For now, I'll proofread it one last time, making some final minor edits!

‹ DEC 22 › Having someone else proofread it gave me a lot of confidence! And I didn't think of it as a mystery until two people pointed it out, so it was really helpful seeing it through a new light.

I don't know how many times I've read and reread this story, at this point lol. I think right now it's as good as I'm able to get it. I got so attached to it, and to who the characters turned out to be. I can even still imagine more scenarios of what happens after the ending.

I'm so excited for people to read it! I wonder if anyone will; The thought makes me nervous... ( 〃▽〃)

I will be posting it tomorrow! ♡

⚘ pictures / gifs I associate with the story:

copyright 2022 - 2025 © pearl-neo all rights reserved. please do not plagiarize

[team-ion]

Ok last message for tonight because it's 5 am but I really do think it's funny that my brain latched onto this fic so hard. I grew up with PMD and have loved it since I was 8, but it's Warped Skies in particular that really occupies my mind. I think Warped Skies feels like what PMD taken much further could be, complexity-wise, since even being such a well-written game it has to appeal to 8 year olds before it does near-18 year olds. Autism makes your brain have funny priorities I guess lmao but I'm glad for it.

I do have to wonder, did you ever think you would go so far with this fic? I'm like 80% sure you made an AN at some point around the Scout reveal about your direction with Scout changing because you saw a comment mentioning Meowth is partner-exclusive in Sky, but I might also be insane or dumb because I checked the first 80 chapters, saw nothing, and also spoiled myself about chimecho being Actually evil since I never made it to chapter 80 :(

I think it is absolute madman behavior that you've written over a million words in this fic and you're actively retrospectively rewriting and refining it. I'm happy for it though. I remember there being some plot threads that felt a bit disjointed that feel a lot more cohesive in this version and I'm really enjoying the new but familiar experience of reading it.

I've gotta stop writing essays in your comments section and your askbox goddamn

-codacheetah

Ah no, you got that spoiler? Oof. That’s probably one of the hardest twists of the story, haha. That was fun to see people’s reactions.

Naaah. I could NEVER have imagined how big the story got or how far I’d go with it. I initially imagined just two arcs and some interesting commentary of how knowing the future doesn’t necessarily mean you can benefit from that, especially when you’re knowledge begins to change things.

You are right, though. I did mention that in an authors note SOMEWHERE. First chapter, he was ‘the human’ and went to the Dark Future and all. That review made me think and I had the crazy idea of ‘What if he wasn’t and the human was still there?’ which quickly moved into ‘Okay, he’s still from the Dark Future. Aha! I can use my headcannon that Dusknoir was part of the Planetary Investigation Team here, hahahaha!’ Ideas just slammed into me like boulders.

I wrote a million words! That means I can do it again with ease~ haha, or maybe not ease but I’ve actually had a surprising amount of fun with the rewrite! I hate editing but it hasn’t felt so much like editing and I actually enjoy reading my own writing in some parts, I used to reread Chapter 51 a lot, heh.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll ramble again. The story by and large will be the same as the original, but I know there are parts that could be done better and I would think at points as I’d reread or just think about the story how I might do something different. It gives me the chance to do that. Some changes are minor, some are a bit bigger like with the new Chapter 20 but still mostly ultimated the same.

We’ll see if I can keep to the road and not go off track, hah! Always fun to hear from you, you rest well!

[spiteless-xo]

do you map out your chapters before you even start writing or do you make up the most of it as you go along? really interested in your process <3

thank you for asking!! 😊 someone asked me this before, but i couldn’t really share much without spoilers, so i’m happy to have this question again.

plz see below for a big wall of text

before writing i just had a general plot line in mind of a love triangle with eren and jean where the boys are former best friends and everyone works together.

for arc 1 (ch 1-11), i pretty much just made it up as i went along. 💀 i knew i wanted to establish three major things: eren/reader relationship, jean/reader relationship, her issues w work and then minor things about jean and eren. i just wrote random chapters w those things in mind, leading up to the Reeves job.

for arc 2 (ch 12-26), i planned it around the 2 weeks in Trost and mapped out what i wanted to happen each day. my notes are super vague because i just use it as a starting point.

i’ve got a screenshot here w what my outline looked like for the chapters we’ve seen so far!! but i had to block out some parts because they were kinda spoilery.

as you can see, these are REALLY vague notes and they’re even missing some major plot points (like Eren almost dropping the L-bomb during sex), but keeping it vague like this helps give me more wiggle room to write stuff as my creativity hits and write scenes that i think feel natural.

i usually aim for at least 5,000 words for each chapter as my first draft. then when i go in and do edits a few days later, i’ll add more scenes or clean things up and that number goes up or down.

after writing each arc i also go back and reread the whole thing and try to stick in foreshadowing where i can! and as much as possible i try to foreshadow across several arcs and several chapters so the “reveal” doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere.

i hope that helped give you a lil insight into what goes on in my head 😊

[that-tall-queer-bassist]

It is the next day, and while yesterday I managed to get a little done (about 50 more words I think i'll keep, and maybe 50 i had to delete that im not counting) today i am going to do some group writing sprints!

After, of course, rereading what i already wrote. It helps get me in the headspace, and usually doesn't take too long, and if it does i scroll up about a thousand words or so and only reread the last bit, to keep the writing consistent-ish.

15 minutes, +263 words - thoughts during this: Oh god why did i write this like that, this needs more words, this needs less words, fuck i already posted that sneak peak so now we're just living like this i guess. Oh I could- yes yes good. I like this concept, execution could use some work some other time, what time is it? oh only a few minutes left. might as well update the post.

20 minutes, +409 words - thoughts during this: Ahhhhh 20 this time okay should be fine, let me update tumblr first though (hi) and then back to disaster time. This might be longer than i thought if i keep going like this. Plot wherefore art thou. I LOVE WRITING STUPID THINGS. I'm gonna regret writing the stupid things and boiling characters down to their funniest characteristics, but it might be worth it. For the giggles. "Bro" "Dude" "Bro" I hate that i love it. Okay the plot has gotten away from me but it will be fine. Probably. damn, 5 minutes left somehow. okay pretty good, now we're back on track, hell yeah

Water break time, also going to reread while i do that, try and see if this is anything or if ive been filling space.

Good news! It's good I think! And I feel better after stretching and water, which is good. I did some minor edits (wording and grammar) so that future/editing L has less work, and my rereads aren't as painful in the future. now, back to sprints!

20 minutes, +335 words - thoughts during this: ough i don't wanna write anymore. but i gotta cuz transition scenes are evil to end on. Okay i've got this. Oh i could- yeah. Oh I've got this! hell yeah this is great. UGH how have only 10 minutes passed, jesus christ. How many times can i say glared without people cussing me out for it. How many times can i use canon nicknames without people cussing me out for it. How many times can i write this sentence without people cussing me out for it- ugh 5 whole minutes left how is 20 minutes this long. Okay since it's been so long, where is this going. *outlines the rest of the fic vaguely in [brackets]* Okay cool.

god i need some caffeine and to stretch again. Taking a break for that. Also moving out of the closet (where i've been writing, because I desperately needed an environment change) to my bed. or maybe the couch? not sure yet.

Okay, back from getting coffee, I need a break from writing. It's been about two hours since i started and i think thats good progress, but also im just tired.

will pick back up (make another reblog) when I work on it again o7

write a oneshot with me!

Welcome to the "WIP With Me" post where i tell you in excruciating detail how i write a oneshot fanfiction. We're going step by step here, starting with setting up my document.

I'm using Ellipsus here, because google docs made a (minor) change i am (unfortunately) very upset about (my outline used to look good :< )

I usually have sections i can click to for my outline/braindump area, and "ao3 stuffs" (tags, summary, authors notes, etc.)

As you can see, im not entirely sure what i want to write yet! Right now i want to write a Percy Jackson and the Olympians (or Heroes of Olympus) fanfic, but it very well may end up being more... minecraft youtube -esque. Or witcher.

Now, I'm thinking i want to write a Nico Di Angelo/Will Solace fic, specifically "three days in the infirmary", because i love it and you can never do it too many times, but! I am also thinking doing a Percy/Jason bromance fic might be fun? I started a ficlet yesterday about them, and i think it's an interesting concept, though it would be messy to tag.

I write down my notes and ideas with bullet points or a checklist, sometimes in a physical notebook, but this time i did it in a "draft" (connected doc that i could merge with ellipsus, but won't)

as you can see, i fleshed the concepts out some, very very messily. Yes, the messiness is crucial to the process. this is very likely not going to reflect the final product. you've been warned.

(also, i am just updating this as i go, i am actually at this step in the process as i type it)

OKAY AFTER A BREAK I AM BACK and i think that the "3 days in the infirmary but Percy POV" will be the most fun for me, because obliviousness <3

So now it's time to brainstorm more, or get a couple of outlines about how i want to structure this fic. Maybe a 5+1 fic, like "five times Percy didn't know what was going on, and one time he realized" or something like that

okay so obviously theres a theme happening here, i just think it would be funny for percy to just... be aware for once? it seems like people write him as an airhead, which he is, but surely thats not all there is to him.

i'm So Tired though, so i will pick this back up later tonight or tomorrow to document the Detailed Outline and (hopefully) Writing process! And then after that is editing :)

[chippedaxe]

hello!! could i ask for a request where dream used to be a top but his ego has gotten up too high and the reader is tired of him being a bitch and decides to turn into the bitch? so it’s like sub!dream x dom!dream. i don’t really have ideas of what could happen, maybe dream won lost a manhunt and is pretty mad and yeahhh :) thank you already!

☆○o。　　。o○☆

Title: Poor Baby

Warnings: NSFW !Minor's steer clear, coarse language, praising, teasing, degrading, bit of humiliation, nipple play, fingering, anal play, begging, idk if there should be more.

Pairing: Sub! Dream X Dom! Reader

Pronouns: They/Them, non specified genitalia,

Synopsis: Dream tries to dominate you but you've had enough so you toy with Dream.

Word count: 1.5k

Note: tbh i was rlly confused so i hope this is somewhat what u wanted <3

- if it doesn't make sense like halfway thru the story then I'm rlly sorry, I wrote half of it one time and half of it another time (and I don't rlly reread or edit my work)

☆○o。　　。o○☆

Dream storms into the room looking angry, his hands have been balled into fists and you can tell that he's not thinking rationally "Dear- what's wrong? What happened, baby?" you tried to calm him down but he completely dismissed you "Take off your clothes." he ordered "excuse me?" you were taken back "come on- please just take off your clothes,, manhunt made angry.." Dream grumbled.

"Baby, just calm down.. Rest" you pulled him down onto the bed gently "Sweetheart, don't you want my cock?" Dream grabs your chin and looks into your eyes "of course I do-" he stops you right there "Then why're you being difficult?" he caresses your cheek, "Well I just feel like you're acting like a serious bitch right now" you confessed bluntly.

"Me? A bitch?" Dream groaned at your words, his hands reaching out to touch you but you stand up from the bed "Yeah. A really big bitch. So why don't you just calm down and rest, okay?" you put your hands on your hips and looked down at him "You don't give the orders okay? I give them! I'm the dominant one here!" Dream exclaimed "Then maybe I should be." you shut him down.

"What? You? Dom me? I don't think so" Dream chuckled to himself, "You think it's so funny now but wait I'm making you dizzy and seeing stars from how good I can make you feel.." you warned him "How do you expect to get me to be submissive for you?" Dream growled "Watch me." you responded as you then approached him.

You straddled his knee and crawled onto his lap, your hands moving to his chest "This is all you've got?" Dream rolled his eyes "Of course not, this isn't even close to the beginning" you leaned down to kiss his neck. You turned your head to the side and began suckling roughly on his skin, biting gently every few seconds "Ah- Yeah, keep doing that, doll." Dream tried to make it seem like he was in control but his words only affirmed your new dominant position.

"Yeah? You like it when I suck on your neck? I bet you'll like it a lot when I suck your cock too.." you tease him, your hands feeling up his chest and groping the man. "Don't tease me, or I'll punish you" Dream tried to sound scary "Punish me? But I'm being so kind, dominating you when you're clearly not fit to be on top.." you decided to bully him a little bit with some degrading words.

"Huh? What? What're you saying.." Dream started to get real riled up, his face starting to glow a bright red "What? Is my Dream angry with me?" you acted coy, kissing his jaw and pouting "Sorry Dream, I know how sensitive you are.." you teased him further "Don't make me flip you over and ram you- I will do it!" he threatened "Oh I bet you will.." your voice was condescending.

Your hands slid Dream's shirt off his body, revealing his tense muscles "Oh wow.. You look so pretty, all of this for me darling?" you cooed "Don't talk like that, I'm not you're little sub!" Dream shouted "Of course not, you're just someone who's below me and is acting quite submissive..." you pointed out. Your hands were cold, finger tips colder, pinching Dream's nipples to get a reaction out of him.

"H-uhgh..." Dream let out a small noise, his erection growing in his pants until it became a raging boner. "Aw you like when I play with your nipples? That's adorable.." you tease him as you continue to toy and play with his soft buds "n-no!" he was surely embarrassed, probably feeling humiliated. "Stop it- You're humiliating me!" Dream complained "Oh am I? You want me to stop? Then beg me, slut."

Dream went quiet and he froze up a little bit, clearly not expecting you to talk to him like that "Speak Darling, or are you too dumb?" you teased him. Dream gulped nervously and glanced up to meet your gaze "Please stop teasing me- please!" he gasped. "Okay, what do you want me to do?" you leaned over him.

Dream shuddered slightly "I want you to touch me properly!" he spoke up "What's the magic word?" you placed your hands on your hips, clearly enjoying the sudden change in superiority. "P-Please.. Please touch me, Please.." Dream groaned softly, you almost felt bad from the way he was begging you. Almost.

You looked down at him, his cock twitched in his pants, growing harder against the tight fabric "It hurt's so bad.. Please help me.." Dream hugged you and hung his head on your shoulder. "Okay baby, I'll help you.." you unzipped his pants just a bit so you could slip your hand in to palm him gently.

"Ah- I need more.. Please.." Dream bucked his hips up against your hand, desperately trying to grind against you but to no avail. "Be patient darling" you hushed him up and pulled his penis out, stroking his length gently. You admired the way it throbbed in your hand, twitching slightly as Dream rolled his head back and groaned "You're not usually this vocal, something change?" you smirked at him.

"That feels so good, so good.." Dream rolled his hips against you, legs closing together to give him a little more friction "Uh uh- open up." you slapped his thigh which made him open them back up reluctantly. You wanted to give in and let Dream fuck your insides but you fought the urges, today you were going to fuck him instead.

You took off his pants finally, letting the blonde boy relax more. "I'm gonna try something new with you, alright?" you didn't give Dream much time to answer as your hand dipped down between his legs, one of your fingers thrusting into his tight hole. "Ah! I- I've never touched there before!" Dream was feeling a little bit shy clearly.

"Your walls are sucking my fingers in so well, oh my god.. I should definitely buy a dildo or something for you.." you thought out loud to yourself. Dream quivered underneath you, his hole clenching around your finger at the thought of you fucking him with a toy. "M- More.." he was definitely feeling ashamed, his head turned away to face the wall.

You gave him what he wanted and stuck a second finger inside, curling them gently to press against his prostate. Dream squealed and covered his mouth to hide his lewd noises "Hands off." you instructed "But-" he protested "But nothing, hands off yourself or I'll stop touching you" you argued. Dream swallowed his pride and removed his hands, letting out a loud sound when your fingers thrusted deeper inside of him.

"Do you like this?" you asked "Of course- It feels so sO good!" Dream cried out "You like it more than when I play with your penis?" you questioned, Dream nodded and bit on his lip to keep quiet "So.. You'd let me do this again sometime?" you were starting to feel really excited "W-Whenever you want!!" Dream was now completely your bitch.

"I-I think I'm gonna cum, it feels sO weird!" Dream babbled on and on "Nuh uh- not unless you say you're my bitch." you wanted desperately to hear him say those little words "What??" you slowed down your pace and started to gently remove your fingers "No- No! I-I'm your bitch! I said it! I'm your bitch! Now please let me cum!" he bawled.

"Good boy.." You sped it up, not giving any mercy to his ass as you finger fucked him. "AH! I'm cumming! FUCK!" he arched his back, walls convulsing around your fingers as his hot white liquid spat out of his cock and ran down his legs. "Dirty slut, go clean yourself up" you snickered down at him before pulling your fingers out of his ass and leaving the bedroom.

You're not a monster so you obviously won't just be leaving him there, although it's not like you're gonna help him much. You grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and came back to hand it to him, he weakly reached out to grab the bottle but dropped it "Don't tell me.. Does my little slut need help drinking from a bottle? Pathetic.." you spat at him before drinking some of the water.

You grabbed his chin and opened it gently, spitting your water into his mouth for him to swallow. Dream gulped it down and flushed a deep red, "Thank you.." he thanked you and was flustered. "No problem, I love you baby." you kissed his cheek "I love you too, thank you for taking care of me today.. I think I liked it better when you were in charge.." Dream admitted "I was thinking the same thing, sweetheart" you smiled at him.

[rubynationwins]

When Words Fail

Bucky Barnes x Reader One Shot

Summary: Who said running away from your problems couldn’t solve them? Well, Bucky sure didn’t seem to appreciate it.

Warnings: Fluff, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Light Smut, 18+ Minors go away plz

Word Count: 5,585

My Masterlist

A/N-This is actually a repost of a fic I wrote in...2018? yeah, that’s insane. Anyway, I’m trying to get back into writing so I wanted to put together a masterlist but I couldn’t find this fic anywhere! No clue why lol. Luckily, I had it saved somewhere else. I reread it but didn’t do much editing which means this is still 2018-Nation’s writing so take it or leave it ig 😉

Thanks for reading!

-Ruby

Landing the job as Steve Rogers’-Captain America himself-assistant was the best thing to ever happen to you. Sure, you couldn’t tell anyone the details of your job...actually you couldn’t tell anyone anything about your job, not even where you work. Even your parents think you’re a secretary at a law firm. While it is technically true helping “justice” thrive is the main component of what you do, the person you work for just happens to literally be the picture that shows up next to said word in the dictionary-which Tony and Clint had a hay day trolling Cap about. Tony was already designing prototypes of merch to market globally before Pepper got wind of his scheme and put a stop to the nonsense. You still have one of the earlier designed shirts though, which you will treasure forever and never tell Steve you have it.

Other than the secrecy (and occasional explosion in the lab) this job has been a life saver. You had met Natasha at a local animal shelter you were volunteering and you both hit it off right away. She became a close friend and when Tony decided that Steve needed someone who understood technology and could shoulder some of Cap’s less harrowing responsibilities, Nat recommended you. Whether or not you met all of the qualifications at the time is up for debate but something tells you that Natasha might have been...persuasive. In no time you were part of the team, well, not the actual Avengers team-you had the agility and balance of a newborn foal. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean they treated you any differently, they were basically family at this point. 

Most of your job was scheduling Steve’s meetings and making sure his week went smoothly in terms of the day-to-day itinerary. Another, separate, part of your job was following the super soldier around and making sure he had everything he needed; especially helping him deal with the ever-increasing Stark tech throughout the tower. Tony didn’t seem to understand that if he kept modifying and changing the coffee machine and every other damn appliance in the building Steve was never going to be able to make himself a cup of coffee without destroying the whole kitchen. Thus, you had to be on electronics duty if Steve ever needed assistance. 

Because of all the hands-on work you did, and the constant necessity for smooth communication, you were almost always hovering near the Captain, which neither of you minded. It was part of being an assistant, and most of the time you worked on your tablet, and when there was a null in work you enjoyed conversing with any nearby members of the team. All in all, a pretty sweet gig for someone who always needed to be doing something, like you.

The only problem with your around-the-clock surveillance of the blonde-haired hero was that where Steve was, inevitably his newly found, brainwashed until a few months ago, best pal, James Buchanan Barnes; “Bucky”. It has been some time since Steve brought his wartime partner to join the team in the compound. Since then Bucky’s involvement with the team and the modern world, in general, has progressed astronomically. He used to be standoffish and only interacted with Steve on the rare occasion Bucky would leave his room. It had taken two months of the team supporting Cap and trying to include his war-torn friend by helping them both adjust until he so much as sat at the dinner table with the group for weekly “family night” as Tony put it. It had taken even longer for Bucky to start having actual conversations with everyone, though.

Since you and Steve were constantly in proximity with each other you found yourself hanging around Bucky as much as he did. Whenever Cap persuaded Bucky to join him in the gym or watch a simple movie you were there too. Of course, you and Steve had a close work relationship. After Nat, he was one of your closest friends. He was easy to talk to and you felt like no one listened to you vent, as well as dole out sound advice to your problems without diminishing them as good ol’ Captain America did. Steve never made you feel unimportant or like just another laky when you worked for him, he treated you with respect and even though you kept up professional appearances around him during work hours your relationship was never awkward. If Steve and Bucky were watching a show together Steve always offered you to join them and wanted to hear your opinions. Sam sometimes teased him about mixing work and personal life but the big lug was a casual guy when he wasn’t on a mission; he didn’t want some unknown person hovering over him all the time. You would normally join if you didn’t have other work to finish.

This exact teen is what caused you to oftentimes be the third wheel whenever Steve and Bucky hung out. He had actually warmed up to you a bit faster than the rest of the crew, due to you constantly surrounding Steve. You didn’t mind, at the time Bucky seemed like a kicked puppy and you just wanted to help Steve get his best friend back. At first, Bucky had been wary of your constant presence, but eventually, he adapted and actually started making small talk with you. The relief that filled Steve’s face every time Bucky came out of his room with no outside prompt or asked you a simple question was enough for you to start focusing some attention on Barnes. After all, it was your job to keep Steve’s life well maintained and happy, and Bucky being happy and social was a large part of relieving Steve’s stress. You knew Steve felt guilty for the torture Bucky went through, so you decided when you had off time that you would assist in Bucky’s transition into society. 

You started off slow; beginning easy conversations about mundane topics or showing Bucky a cute cat video anytime you spotted the super soldier had crept out of his room; anything to get him to trust you more. Once that trust was finally established you started actually going to his room with the intention of getting him out of it. You’ll never forget the first time you knocked on his door and saw the shocked expression on his face when he opened it and didn’t see the dorito-like, masculine form he was expecting. There were ups and downs, times when he would immediately slam the door in your face or have a run-in with a particular jarring piece of information and wouldn’t leave his room for days. It took time, but with the combination of Steve pushing him from the past and you pulling him into the future, Bucky started sulking less and smiling and joining you more and more. Your main goal had been to help both Steve get his friend back and help Bucky get his life back. What you hadn’t expected were the feelings you developed for your dorky friend.

Around the time it finally seemed like Bucky was ninety percent comfortable with being a part of society is when you began noticing things about the shaggy-haired man. Like how he ran his hands through his hair when he was desperately trying to understand how the internet worked. Or how he would only give a smile that shows teeth when he thoroughly enjoyed something or felt completely at ease with his friends. Or how he could stare mesmerized by the simplest of things and not get bored. Or how his face would light up in pride when he got you or Steve to laugh at a movie he had picked out himself. Or, especially, how his gym shorts hugged his muscular thighs and thick ass, and the sinful faces he made when concentrating on lifting a strenuous amount of weight. All these things you were noticing were not normal friends things-you didn’t give two shits about how you looked when periodically helping Tony and Bruce in the lab or when spotting Sam and Nat in the gym. But as soon as Bucky walks in the room you have a panic attack trying to remember whether or not you applied mascara that day. 

This was a problem on numerous levels. One; Bucky was constantly around Steve, which in turn meant he was always around you, being a huge distraction. Two; even when Bucky wasn’t directly next to you he was taking up space in your head, being a huge distraction. Three; it was impossible to concentrate on assigning jets to hangers and all your other pressing tasks because BUCKY WAS A HUGE FUCKING DISTRACTION. The culprit in question did nothing to help the situation. His athletic choice of attire; tanks and T-shirts made of elastic fabric and gym shorts and joggers that made it obvious if it was laundry day… Not just his clothing, but whereas Bucky used to maintain a safe distance from you and the others it was soon revealed that Bucky likes to touch. It made you somewhat sad knowing the only kind of physical contact he got for years was pure torture and you knew he had come a long way since then. It was pretty obvious Bucky was touch deprived-as soon as he was comfortable being close again he was close. There was no simply standing or sitting next to Bucky. Either his legs were slung across your lap or his hand thoughtlessly played with the strands of your hair or he pulled you close so he could just feel your presence next to him.

Normally, you had no objection to platonic touches and friendly hugs from your friends but your heart leaped out of your chest when he so much as side hugged you. You knew there was nothing behind Bucky’s touches, he was honestly like that with everyone he considered a friend. Bucky had no secret intentions whatsoever, especially not for you. You were an assistant, not some hot superhero spy-like Nat or Wanda; it wasn’t difficult to see the difference between you and all your Avengers teammates-including Bucky. Knowing that still didn’t make it any easier for you when he cuddled up next to you on the couch for a Parks and Rec marathon. It was getting to the point where you were almost scared to talk to him for fear he would catch on to your feelings. The last thing you wanted was to make him feel pressured or awkward when shooting you down, so you eliminated that possibility. For your sake and his, you decided to cease any alone time with Bucky, it’s not like he’d notice anyway. 

Instead of your designated spot on his right during “family movie night,” you squeezed between Natasha and Vision. Bucky had sent you a questioning glance but he didn’t make a move to protest; you didn’t let yourself dwell on that, this was what you wanted, after all-separation. Next, you started making use of your designated office space instead of always trailing Steve. You gave him a bullshit excuse about a bad knee and told him if he needed you, to either video chat or direct message you. Initially, you expected that would do it, that Bucky wouldn’t check on your absence or even notice your negligence much; but you were so wrong.

For some reason, ever since you stopped hovering around Steve, Bucky had been running into you non-stop. At first, you thought it was just a cruel coincidence that around every corner was a massive roadblock in the form of Bucky Barnes. Fate seems to have a sick sense of humor, that or she just really appreciates irony. Bucky’s face would light up and he would wrap you in a warm hug, telling you about his newest 21st century discovery(which was currently frozen yogurt). Not wanting to backtrack on your ‘quitting Bucky cold turkey’ method, you would stumble over an excuse and scurry away from his confused expression. But you knew it was for the best that the two of you drift apart. How was he supposed to integrate himself into society fully if he was stuck with you as some sort of pity crutch?

Your odd behavior only seemed to spur on Bucky’s mindset of getting you to make time for him. He was constantly asking you for help with things, knowing that you were too kind-hearted to deny helping him. However, if he couldn’t corner you, he couldn’t insist you help him color code his closet(which was an oxymoron because he only ever wore black) or whatever else he needed assistance with, so you kept your eyes peeled for his brown hair and shiny arm at all times. Whenever you spotted him or heard his heavy steps echo down the corridor, you quickly veered away from his line of sight and scuttled off to do something else. 

It was a slight inconvenience, especially when almost every time you wanted to eat he was just chilling in the kitchen or connected common areas, so it was like you were on some kind of forced diet too. The biggest problem, still, with your Monty Python-inspired “run away!” strategy was that Bucky gave chase most of the time. He would catch sight of you or your retreating silhouette, and shout out for you, dropping whatever he was doing to follow you. As childish as you felt, you refused to stop walking and face him like a mature adult. Those times you felt Bucky encroaching on your hideaway, you shouted some bullshit excuse his way and ducked into an elevator or room to basically hide from his searching gaze. Even though it has only been one week since you officially started this little game of cat and mouse, you were honestly dead tired and all you wanted was for Bucky to give up and move on. 

At the moment you were rummaging through the refrigerator in the shared kitchen at 3 in the morning because your empty stomach was keeping you awake. Risking being caught by any of your team members who were hopefully all sound asleep, you crept to the kitchen. You had managed to scrounge up some leftover pizza, choosing to ignore the very obvious sticky note on the box with Sam’s name on it. Feeling somewhat guilty you mentally promised to buy Sam a replacement the next time you went out… maybe he wouldn’t even notice a couple of pieces missing. 

Just as you pulled out the container a deep voice that hadn’t been clearly directed at you in more than a week cut through the silence of the night.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sam made it pretty clear if anyone touched his Domino's he would strap them to Redwing and set them on a course for Asgard,” While the words had his trademark Bucky cheekiness, his tense stance and hooded eyes were anything but joking. You stammered for an answer; normally you would bite back a sarcastic remark but you felt like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

“B-Bucky! You’re awake!?” You shoved the forgotten box of pizza back into the fridge, slamming it shut. The kitchen island in front of you put a good six feet between the two of you, but that did nothing to slow your beating heart or diminish the sudden tension in the air. In a desperate attempt to act nonchalant you took a slow sip from the plastic water bottle you were tightly holding, but you knew Bucky saw straight through you. 

————

Bucky, on the other hand, was trying to calculate his next actions. He couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop mauling over how you had been acting this past week. It wasn’t hard to tell you had been avoiding him. The moment Steve walked into the training center without you at his heels, tablet in hand and ready for a day’s work, Bucky knew something was off. His first thought was that you were sick, but when he questioned his friend, Steve revealed that you’d requested to work from your office from now on. Bucky had obviously been surprised at that. On more than one occasion you had been very vocal about how you preferred to be on your feet and work hands-on.

He had brushed it off, assuming that your knee was actually bothering you. Of course, he was worried about you, after all, you were important to him. Next to Steve, you were his closest friend. There were times when he felt guilty burdening Steve with more of his problems, so he confided in you. You didn’t make Bucky feel like he owes you anything; for some unfathomable reason, you seemed to like him with no strings attached. The first time you had looked him directly in the eyes and tried to start a conversation Bucky had been flabbergasted. Why would someone so perfect ever associate themself with someone as fucked up like him? As much as Bucky attempted to drive you away, you refused to let him stew in his own confusion and grief. You helped bring him out of his sulky and constant darkness with your toothy grins, obnoxious laughter, smart-ass quips, and incessant affirmation that you didn’t care who he was in the past, you just knew that you liked him now and that was all there was to it. Bucky knew not to argue with you, so he just accepted his fate.

You were the one who first helped him believe that even though he may not believe he deserves a future, there were people who loved him just because they saw the potential for good in him, not just what they remember him being in the past. That sentiment has always stuck with him, and he credits you for all the new activities, shows, and hobbies he has come to love. Bucky had never told you that, but that didn’t stop him from showing his affection in different ways; including finding your office and cheering you up over your injured knee. Bucky tried doing just that, but for some reason every time he saw you it seemed like you were busy. 

It didn’t take too long for him to catch on to the fact that you were avoiding him on purpose for some unknown reason. In the past when Steve or his other buddies had acted grumpy at/around Bucky for whatever reason, he would kick it out of their asses. Something told Bucky doing that to you would be a bad idea, even though you in particular ignoring him struck a nerve. That nerve kept being struck every time you would spot him, he would move to confront you, and you scuttled away from him; which happened too many times for him to count. He had racked his brain for what he could have possibly done to scare you off so completely, and even asked Steve if you had mentioned anything to him. Bucky’s star-spangled friend had been just as lost as he was, sharing that you had been somewhat distant lately. His troubled thoughts about what he did to anger you kept him awake at night. He knew it had to be something, and he needed to talk to you about it. So when he went to the kitchen for some water he was at the same time relieved and upset to see you scrummaging through the refrigerator. Neither of you was leaving the space until you spilled why you had been avoiding him.

The look plastered on your face wasn’t one of fear or apprehension like Bucky was expecting; it was guilt. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but that look confirmed you had been ignoring him on purpose. There were a thousand thoughts and emotions running through his head; confusion, hurt, sadness, jealousy(which was unexpected), but he focused on the one emotion he most understood-anger. 

-————

“B-Bucky! You’re awake!?” 

“Couldn’t sleep, you know how it is, doll,” he tried to mask his inner turmoil, sauntering over to the cabinet to pull out a glass. 

“Y-yeah, me too,” you attempted to redeem yourself and not draw any more attention to your heightened pulse. “Well, I got what I came for. I should head back to my room, have a bunch of scheduling to do tomorrow…” As you rambled you moved to maneuver around Bucky, but his bulky body blocked your exit.

“But you didn’t eat anything. I haven’t seen you around for meals much lately, must be a lot busier in your office,” Pure malice dripped from his tone, and he reached beside you and pulled open the fridge door. “I’m sure you’re starving; me too. Let me find us something to eat.”

By the look Bucky was giving you his seemingly innocent words were not just a suggestion. Your best bet would be to quickly and silently eat something, then escape back to your room. You still attempted to silently tiptoe around the super soldier, who was rummaging through the empty containers of leftovers and gross, gooey experiments of Tony’s. Just as you were at the edge of the kitchen island Bucky’s metal arm shot out and tugged on the end of your sleep shirt. Freezing in fear and(mainly) guilt, you meekly peeked at his glowering face. Before you could even open your mouth to stumble through an excuse, you were jerked to the counter next to the fridge by your shirt.

Bucky’s domineering form loomed over you, his metal hand bunched in the soft material of your sleep shirt, his other arm resting on the countertop, caging any escape routes. He leaned over you, pressing his forehead to your shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut in thought. You were paralyzed; his sudden actions had surprised you, not to mention this intimate proximity was causing your heart to leap out of your chest. At first, you had been slightly terrified, not of Bucky, you knew he would never do anything to hurt you, no you were terrified he was going to reveal that he knew about your feelings all along and shoot you down. But now, you were confused as to why he was touching you like he was, his back heaving slowly up and down with each of his strangled breaths. 

“B-Bucky?” You murmured, starting to worry for him. At the sound of your voice he slowly pulled away, not so much that his chest wasn’t pressed still against you, but enough so that you could see the tears threatening to pour over the brim of his bloodshot eyes.

“Y/N...Y/N I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Whatever I did to make you mad...or, or scared, I’m sorry. Please forgive me,” He had never looked so much like a kicked puppy instead of an infamous and feared assassin. It was at that moment you realized what your actions this past week had done to your friend. You can’t believe how selfish you had been; to be so cruel and dismissive of Bucky, someone who has already lost so much. All because you were too afraid to confess some stupid ass crush you had on him. If you truly loved him you wouldn’t have put him through so much pain. That sudden realization, how you had made Bucky suffer to the point of apologizing for no reason, prompted a stream of tears to cascade from your own watering eyes. 

The onslaught of tears caused Bucky to panic and assume he had done something wrong. He pulled away from you, stuttering a rapid apology. You quickly reached out to his retreating hands and simply pulled him back into your embrace, this time tightly hugging the large man.

“No, no you did nothing wrong, Bucky. I was the stupid and selfish one; I can’t believe I hurt you so much. I’m so fucking sorry Buck,” You gasped out an apology, squeezing him in your arms, “There’s no excuse for how I’ve treated you this week, but I was just so scared you would leave me if I told you how I felt. Being the fucking idiot I am, I didn’t comprehend that I was actually abandoning you. God, Buck, you have been such an amazing friend who deserves nothing but love and kindness…Not an asshole like me, I didn’t deserve you then, and I sure as hell don’t deserve you now.” 

You unclasped your arms, shying away from his figure. Wiping away dried tears, you turned away from him, trying to hide your red face. Bucky was unmoving, still pressed against you. He reached down and tilted your head up to his inquisitive face, “What do you mean, ‘how you felt’?” You grimaced, glancing away, but Bucky gently cupped your face, languidly stroking your cheek with his calloused thumb. The comforting touch calmed your inner turmoil and you looked back up at Bucky to find his own blue orbs searching yours. 

Nuzzling into the warmth of his palm you let out a content sigh, “Ok, you deserve the truth, but please, don’t take what I’m about to say as a reason for our friendship to change. This week apart has proved that neither of us benefits from avoidance.” You gulped, your throat had suddenly gone dry, “Bucky, I will always love you, but lately when I’m around you my heart won’t stop beating and I feel light headed-Heh, the way I’m describing it sounds like you make me sick,” You tried teasing, delaying the inevitable, “What I’m trying to say is that I don’t just love you as a friend, I like you as a crush.” 

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath and you could see the gears turning in his head, “Shit, doll...You already know I love you too, and yeah, avoiding each other is not an option anymore. But I think we’re gonna have to change now.” Your posture sagged at his discouraging words, you had really been hopeful the two of you could go back to how it was before, being wonderful friends. 

“Oh, oh okay. Um, yeah. Yeah, I understand, it would be too awkward I guess. It’s okay, I can talk to Steve about continuing work in my office-” Your shaking words were cut off by Bucky leaning down and sealing your lips with his. Large hands, one cool and smooth, the other warm and rough, pressed against the sides of your face; pulling you deeper into the kiss. Taking pity on your lack of air Bucky released your lips, resting his forehead against yours, out of breath himself. You could just barely make out the outline of his smug grin in the dim kitchen lighting.

A soft snort/chuckle broke through Bucky’s pants, “Y/N, doll; you are a fucking idiot. I was about to finish my sentence before you so rudely interrupted me,” He brushed a hand through your hair, affectionately tucking a stray hair behind your ear, “What I was going to explain is that obviously, we can’t keep things the way they were before-now that I know you feel the same way I have since I met you.” He pressed a gentle closed-mouth kiss to your lips; his tight-lipped smirk causing your own mouth to creep up into a smile. 

Pulling your tightly clenched fists from your sides you slid them up to his shoulders, your hands pulling him even closer to you. His words washed through you, removing your previous hesitancy and allowing you to finally act how you’ve craved to for the past couple of months. You ran a hand through Bucky’s newly trimmed locks, playfully tugging at the fluffy, brown mop of hair. A rueful look was plastered on his chiseled features when he pulled away from your chaste kisses. 

“Ooooo-doll you know how I feel about you touching my hair,” his serious tone was juxtaposed by the goofy ear-to-ear grin he was sporting. Bucky reached to take the hand you had in his hair away; intertwining it with his own.

“I remember you had always enjoyed me running my hands through it, but after that time Sam pointed out you had popped a boner, you kept all of my appendages away from your scalp,” you teased, reminiscing about that embarrassing but spank bank worthy interaction. Bucky had been so flustered and embarrassed that the only excuse he had been able to come up with was a resounding, “N-No, it’s from...from the tv show... Sorry, Y/N. I’m leaving now.” Sam had already been dying with laughter and when you glanced at the tv to confirm you were still watching Antiques Road Show, you joined in his giggle fit. Bucky never let you touch his scruffy head of hair ever again, and it took quite a few days after the incident for him to look you in the eyes again. 

Knowing Bucky’s previous unexpected and involuntary reaction to your massage, you were still shocked by his next statement, “Yes, Y/N, I do remember, and it still applies. It makes me want to turn you around and fuck you against this kitchen counter.” You gawked at his blatant words, both aroused and surprised that the normally mellow and white bread Bucky had a fucking hair-pulling kink. The lord must have been smiling down on you.

The only reply you could think of fast enough was, “Woah there big guy, you haven’t even said you love me and now you're jumping the gun to fucking? Seems short-sighted.” Fuck. You weren’t trying to come off as desperate or send mixed signals but all these emotions running through you were too much to comprehend. Bucky looked slightly taken aback at your brazen tone; he floundered for a comeback, his face adorably scrunching in concentration. 

He rocked back on his heels, glancing up to the ceiling as if the answer he was looking for was written up there, “Dammit...Sorry, sweetheart; honestly it was an involuntary response. After all this time avoiding me, your touch is driving me wild. Especially since I’ve been dreaming about you touching me like this; dragging your fingers through my hair, kissing me and all that, for so long. Now that you’re actually doing it, it’s almost unthinkable. But you’re right, I want to do this right. I want us to go steady and I am going to spoil the shit out of you as well as drive you crazy because that’s what couples do. I am going to do everything to show you how much I fucking love you, because I’m an ass when it comes to speaking about my feelings, obviously. Still, even when words fail, never doubt that I love you, Y/N.” Bucky shyly looked back down at you, a new sparkle of hopefulness in his eyes. It took all your willpower not to burst out into tears.

Your voice quivered with emotion, “Oh my god Buck; you are so full of shit!” Bucky’s face contorted in puzzlement at your sudden outburst. You playfully punched his shoulder, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, “James Buchanan Barnes, how dare you lie to me and go on some long ass rant about being a terrible speaker! That was the most profound, beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. I can’t believe you overshadowed my confession, you dick! Now no matter how often I tell you I love you, it won’t even compare to that Shakespeare level of wooing.” 

Bucky was now also laughing and smiling at your boisterous exclamation, his shoulders shaking with his fit of giggles, “Shut up, I’m serious you bastard! And by the way, we’ve been friends for however long, we’ve basically gotten the dating part handled; tell me more about what you would like to do to me on this counter…” You slyly tacked on your true desire, hoping Bucky would catch on to your not-so-subtle hint.

Immediately understanding your innuendo Bucky ceased his laughing, eyes darkening as he looked you up and down. He slid a warm hand across your hip, his close body radiated heat. As he planted languorous kisses along your jaw and neck, you remembered his reaction to the last time you touched his hair. Instead of gently brushing your hands through his dark brown locks like last time, you took tufts of his soft hair in your clutches and tugged, slightly yanking his head back so he could see your shit-eating grin. 

Bucky’s eyes almost turned black as his pupils dilated. A growl rumbled in his chest and he swiftly picked you up by your waist and set you on the counter, clicking his tongue in warning, “Doll, you are gonna fucking get it. I’ve been waiting for this for too long-you ready?” You gasped out a yes, starting to pull your hands out of his hair; Bucky nipped at your earlobe he had been murmuring into. You jumped at the stinging sensation, “Don’t move those hands, sweetheart, you started this; you’re gonna finish it.” He sucked at the spot he had bitten before, continuing his assault on your upper body. Oh god, you weren’t sure if you had prepared yourself for what you were about to go through, but you sure as hell didn’t regret it.

[bobtheacorn]

12 and 22 for the writing thing?

this 'O'

12. Do you want your writing to be famous?

Well, I guess I wouldn’t really care either way. I enjoy writing largely for the sake of it, because it's cathartic and recreational for me in tons of ways, and I genuinely from the bottom of my heart enjoy just SHARING it with other people, I enjoy having a way to express myself and for my voice be Heard - and it adds abt ten years to my life when people take a moment to tell me that they liked my writing! - but I do prefer the anonymity of the internet and being able to yeet my writing out into the ether and then go about my day lmao. 

I would like to be able to (eventually) supplement my income a lil bit with a Patreon or something for my short stories and novels, but I couldn’t imagine being “famous” for it. I don’t want like a million dollars, I want an extra 200 bucks so I can sometimes buy nice things lmao. I think I’d like to do what I’ve seen some fanfic authors do, which is use Patreon as a “pay to get to read it early” thing and then still make it available for free by posting on AO3 under a pseudonym, because money is nice but I dunno. I want my writing to be accessible? We’re all out here struggling just to exist in the world rn and we all need some small joys.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?

I do reread my old fics! I wrote them for me, after all! I love going back and rereading them, especially bc once I clear an idea out of my head and finally get it written down, I don’t usually think abt it EVER AGAIN lmao. I laughs at the funny bits bc I thought they were funny and I cry over the emotional parts bc I cried while I was writing them! I even enjoy rereading the several-years-older fics that I kind of cringe about a little bit - the thing is, I expressed the idea that I wanted to with what ability and language I had at the time, and maybe I could “do it better” now, but it wouldn’t be coming from the same place!

Apart from going back in and making some very minor edits, I tend to enjoy my older fics just as they are. <3 Thanks for asking!

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole Reflections Part 1

About a year and a few months ago I finished my first novel, Down the Rabbit Hole, a 220k word monster of a book that I managed somehow to crank out in a little over 8 months, and now today I’ve finished content editing on the first part. 

My writing and editing process is fairly simple. Before I start writing, I always produce a detailed outline of the plot, usually between 2000 and 3000 words long, and when I write I follow that pretty closely. I find that this really helps cut down on the amount of editing I have to do, because most of the time I no longer need to edit for plot but instead just content and copy. There are always times when I move away from the outline, but I’m usually pretty good about going back and revising the outline whenever that happens. Having a plan is really important. I usually find creating the outline to be the most difficult part of writing a story, as it requires the most creativity. All of the micro work, of actually writing the story, that is, flows pretty easily.

As far as editing goes, if there’s anything I’m certain I want to change I do it right after I finish the story. A lot of people will say you need to wait for a while so you can let it be fresh, but I find that as I write I usually end up reflecting on things I’ve written earlier and sometimes I come to conclusions about things that could have been done differently and I find that it’s best to strike while the anvil is hot. After that, I do a really quick once-over for copy editing and proofreading, and then I let it sit for a year.

After the year’s up, I come back to the story and go through it again for content editing, which is what I’m in the process of now. The first part went pretty smoothly; there weren’t a ton of major changes, although there are a few here and there, but mainly it was minor things, words and sentences here and there, rewriting things, fixing things, etc. Perhaps the biggest change I made was the removal of the sex scene during the flashback. Ever since I published that chapter people had kind of been rolling their eyes at it, so to save myself some grief I reworked it into something more sexy but less erotic. I don’t think I necessarily needed to change it, but of all the parts in the book that are sort of call-outs to the kind of thriller novel I wanted to write, that one was a little too on the nose. It would have flown if I kept it I think but it works better without. Plus I think without it all of the sex in part two might feel a little different, or less cheap etc.

I do know that parts 2 and 3 will receive more major reworks, I already have a couple sections in mind that’ll require big rewrites, but those are still a ways off.

One thing that I do think about frequently is that just due to the nature of publishing this stuff a chapter at a time online, when you do have to go back and edit things there are dozens of people who are basically forever out of the loop about it unless they go back and reread or you are exceptionally loud about notifying everyone of the changes you’re making. At the same time, it’s unrealistic to expect that everything comes out perfect with no edits. I could maybe do that if I wrote a year in advance, but getting onto a schedule like that would require a year’s worth of hiatus and I don’t really want to put up with that. I’m already adding an extra couple of months of downtime onto this year, for example, so I can start my next novel in January of 23 rather than August of this year like I normally do, and already that feels like too much downtime.

Down the Rabbit Hole was a really interesting experience for me. I think that, ironically, it’s one of the more literary things I’ve written in a long time, at least in the sense of it being character-driven vs plot-driven. Ironic because I was trying to write a thriller novel, but I was too attached to the whole character study concept I had started out with. I added a preface chapter onto the book on AO3 explaining some of my thoughts behind that; I have no idea what other people think of it, or if they even care. I have seen a lot of concepts kind of missing the notion that it’s supposed to be a thriller novel, though, and I think that’s mainly due to how Roan is constructed and portrayed. In hindsight, I think her character needed to evolve as my conception of the novel as a whole evolved, and it didn’t. It’s not egregious, but it’s enough of a disjoint that people are getting confused about it. 

But at the same time I get plenty of comments talking about how they love the story, so I don’t know. I like to think that what I was trying to accomplish with it is clear enough but it’s so hard to tell. 

Working with a creator like Trevor Roberts on this novel (even if it was in a rather limited capacity) was a really cool experience. Even today I’m really impressed at the incredibly strong vision he had for the whole Mystery Flesh Pit concept and all the new stuff he’s put out about it is really fascinating. He told me one time about another concept he had that I found really fascinating, and I hope he returns to it sometime. A whole story / idea about a hotel, but with a big twist. Don’t want to say more than that. I do kind of feel like I didn’t make a great impression on him, unfortunately, but I was very deeply involved in the story and going through personal stuff at the same time so I was kind of emotionally erratic while I was writing it, which I think helped creatively but probably didn’t endear me to him too much lmao. 

I did always kind of wish that the story got a little more solid or long-lasting official recognition, although I think that’s mostly selfishness talking. I believe on the main page there’s a link to it in the subtext to one of the images? There used to be a pinned post on the reddit board for the project but I think that got removed or deleted for some reason, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s still floating somewhere in the discord server? Not sure. It does have a pretty decent influx of new readers every week but I’m not entirely certain how they’re actually finding it.

I did always have an idea for an official post that could have been made to tie everything together - you could frame Roan as an in-universe novelist and have the actual artifact be a letter from Slippin’ Jim to her being very crochety and over the top about all the errors she made in the novel, lmao. I know that’s being very greedy but I did always kind of wish that it got tied in somehow like that and immortalized that way. But why should I get that kind of treatment? There was a time maybe when I could have asked for that, but I’m no longer the only writer working with the property, so why would I get special treatment?

Writing Down the Rabbit Hole was a really great experience. For one thing, I think it really helped me crystalize a lot of the concepts I’d been toying with about people and characters by doing the whole deep dive into Roan’s character that I ended up going with, and having all those thoughts be more solidified now is really useful to me as a writer. It’s really gratifying to have so many people looking at it and gushing about it. I do have ideas for a sequel, but that’s going to be in 2024, I have a sci fi story I want to write next year. 2024 is definite, though, it’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

[keeptheotherone]

Sherlolly Self-Interview

I am, as usual, late to the party and unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m relying on the suggested framework and doing my best not to be too perfectionistic. I’ll be discussing my most popular fic, The One Where Sherlock Sleeps With Molly.

What inspired this fic? Did you do an outline or any kind of brain storming OR did you just start writing? 

Like most of my best ideas, this one started with a simple “what if”/missing moment: what if, on his last night in England, Sherlock does have "dinner" with Molly? What if he indulged because he thought it would be his last meal? … What if it isn't? I wrote this seven years ago, so I don’t remember if I created any kind of outline for it, but I’m thinking not; I think this was one of my fics where I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to happen and just sat down and wrote it. 

Did you use a beta and if so, how did that go? Do you wish you had used a beta if you didn’t?

I am privileged to have two real-life friends who are talented betas with different skill sets and worked with both of them on this fic. I don’t remember any particular discussions, but I’m sure we had a lot of fun with this one!

Where did you write – what kind of setting? Anything specific to your writing process that you ALWAYS have to do? Listen to music? Make a playlist?

I write on my Macbook laptop in Scrivener (LOVE that program!!); this fic was probably done in my office between triage calls while working from home in the late evening and early am hours. I never listen to music when I write; it distracts me. I’m not much of a ritual writer either, with the exception of rereading the previous session’s work. I usually make minor edits/corrections, then pick up where I left off. Usually ;) 

Wait, I remembered! I started this fic while I was on one of my personal writing retreats/Mecations. At the time I had a three-day weekend every two weeks, and I’d taken an extra day off to make it four. I drove to a state park in the Appalachian Mountains and wrote at a picnic table beside a river. It was beautiful and peaceful and I loved it. There was no internet or cell service at the bottom of the gorge, so there were none of the usual distractions.

Did you post each chapter as you finished it or did you wait until you had several chapters/the entire story done?

At this point in my life I think I was still holding fics until I’d finished writing them. I can’t remember now for which fic I broke that rule; one of my HP epics, maybe?

What is your favorite part of the story?

My favorite part of this fic is the end of chapter three and the beginning of chapter four, when Molly dissects a heart. I got to show off some of my A&P (I’m a cardiac nurse at heart (pun intended), although I wasn’t then) as well as Molly’s skills--it’s more than her agreeable personality that drew Sherlock to working with her; she’s a skilled and talented pathologist. It’s delicious symbolism for heartbreak--“she was literally cutting heartstrings,” it gives the opportunity to emphasize Molly’s professional capability by having John (a trauma surgeon) admire her work, it allows for Sherlock’s obliviousness, and it’s funny. I’m a sucker for anything funny--nearly all of my fic, even the serious/sad/angsty stuff, has humor in it, even if it’s only dark humor.

Easiest to write? Hardest to write? Favorite to write?

Surprisingly, the easiest and my favorite character to write in this fic was Mycroft. I enjoyed describing his pretentiousness and the energy of the push/pull of his and Sherlock’s relationship.

Did you feel satisfied with the creation when you were done?

I was mostly satisfied; I still think the ending could be better, but I knew they were going to get together not in this fic, but the next one. I always intended for this to have a sequel, which leads me to ask … 

How interested are y’all in The One Where Mary Gets Involved? Like, a general “more Sherlolly, yay” feeling or “ohhh, I’ve been hoping she would update this” or *gasp* *drops everything* “Ktoo updated her WIP Sherlolly fic!!!”?? I’ve never left a fic unfinished before, and I’m trying to weigh my negative feelings about abandoning a fic against my negative feelings about pushing forward with a fic I’m stuck on and don’t have much motivation for.