#i only ever read the first couple chapters because i couldn’t get over how mischaracterized they were

[foolishlyzephyrus]

oh remus lupin you are chronically misunderstood character

[ladyofpurple]

GIRL ITS BEEN MONTHS SINCE YOU UPDATED TPOY!! please tell me you haven’t given up on it )-:

I KNOW IM REALLY SORRY OMG

This took a bit longer to answer than it should have because I was trying to figure out how to reply, I guess?? The short answer is basically that writing bits of fic during my exams when I didn’t actually have the time to was super productive, mainly because I Didn’t Want To Do The Thing but my entire future hinged on Doing The Thing and anxiety-driven avoidance is excellent creative fuel, apparently. The problem is, of course, that once I finished and started getting my results back and actually had time to breathe again my brain kinda fizzled out and I never wanted to look at a Word document ever again in my life. Writing is really hard right now, for some reason. And not just TPoy — everything I try to write either gives me a headache, makes every idea I’ve ever had go flying out the window like magic, or looks like absolute garbage to me. (I’ve been trying, though, I promise!!!) There is more TPoY, though!! I swear to God!! It’s just coming along a little slower than anticipated.

The long answer is... a little more complicated and probably more than you’re interested in, and the main reason is the short one anyway. But I’ll put a long answer under a cut just in case (aka the entire history of TPoY lol), since I’ve lowkey wanted to post about it for a while now but didn’t quite know how to? May get a little very personal, I suppose.

Basically, TPoY is and always has been a garbage fic. I don’t say that to disparage my own writing or attempt to elicit praise from anyone: I have always considered it a glorious dumpster fire of experimentation, a ridiculous Frankenstein’s monster of all my favorite ML tropes as a practice run, since it had been so long since attempting to write anything at all. I’m thrilled that people like it, of course! Whenever people send me asks about it my answers always involve a lot of exclamation points and variations on “I AM CURRENTLY SOBBING ON THE FLOOR IN GRATITUDE” because I honestly have no idea how to express how genuinely teary-eyed I get when someone tells me how much they like it, or post a comment. That being said, it was always intended for my own amusement and/or therapy, and that it’s gotten so many bookmarks and kudos and comments is incredibly surreal, even after a whole year.

When I started writing it, I was working through a lot of stuff. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, and as we lived together in his hometown I was stuck there on my own for another year before I could move back home. 2016 was filled with a lot of horrifying shit that kept happening one after the other and I eventually almost had to drop out of school because I couldn’t handle it all. The relationship was pretty toxic but all I knew at the time was that I was scared and alone and heartbroken. 

When I started writing, it was after 8 months of the worst bout of depression I’ve ever experienced, and I still wasn’t well, but I functioned passably enough to start hyperfocusing on things. I had an idea about a fic I suddenly wanted to write, and it would have a happy ending and all, but I could work through my feelings in a way I hadn’t tried to since before my ex and I got together. I pulled a lot of the start of the fic (the rejection, the miscommunication, the avoidance) from my recent breakup, yes, but also from my first rejection, aka the only other boy I’d liked enough to confess my feelings to. We were 17, and he admitted that he knew, and then suddenly we weren’t friends anymore. A year and a half later, I got together with my ex, and suddenly after three years of dedicating my life to “us” on his whims he was ghosting me without explanation.

I see a lot of myself in Marinette at that age. The awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the incredibly obvious lovesick obsession with a cute boy who’s nice to you. I wondered if maybe she would react the same, if put into similar circumstances as I had been. Focus on the self-doubt that would follow, based on insecurities she’s already shown in the show — coupled with your standard teenage hormone-fest —and you’d have a fabulous starter for angstfic and a free therapy session all in one.

The problem with that is nobody knows this backstory but me. People focusing on Marinette’s insecurities is nothing new. Other people are annoyed it’s such a popular trope. And the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on certain aspects of the main characters’ identities for the purposes of a story I started on a whim has been making me insecure for a long time because people in the fandom are tired of those characterizations. I’ve never gotten hate comments —I don’t even remember ever getting constructive criticism on TPoY. But I’m well aware that the plot is far from original and definitely lacking in certain places, and as the comments roll in and the hits go up my anxiety mounts because oh my God I’m that guy in the fandom.

I always intended on focusing on different aspects of their characterizations in different fics to suit the plot, y’know? Not ignoring parts of their personalities, but just... emphasizing other parts. But TPoY is the one most people have read. I have a couple one-shots where I tried to do something like that, with different aspects of their characters, but short one-shots can’t really compare to a 100,000+ word WIP, even if they even slightly compared in popularity (they don’t). So my only notable contribution to the fandom is TPoY. And that makes me anxious.

Then there’s the Frankenstein-like obsession with adding every trope I’ve ever wanted to write in a fic like this. I’ve mentioned before that the original plan for this was, like, 10-15 chapters at most. But every chapter I write I’m like, “But what if I did this???” Like I said, I never intended it to be even remotely popular. The only other fandoms I’ve written for are microscopic in comparison. I had no frame of reference for a pairing this big — all my previous experience was from Fanfiction.net, for Christ’s sake. I assumed I wouldn’t finish it, and even getting to chapter 6 was a surprise. But that hyperfocus somehow held on for dear life and I was banging out chapters like nobody’s business. And people were responding to it. And I think that kind of went to my head a little? Not like in an “I deserve all this attention” kind of way, but more like a “People like?? This thing I’m doing??? I cannot squander this opportunity, I must give them m o r e” kind of way. It was the best I’d felt since the breakup and I didn’t really think I deserved it, so I kind of wanted to... prove I did, I guess, by writing everything I’d ever wanted in a lovesquare fic in hopes that people would keep liking it and me and I’d keep feeling nice. (I mean, I’d planned to add in a ridiculous amount of tropes anyway, I just ended up adding a lot more than I’d planned.)

On the one hand, people go nuts for that shit. On the other, it’s getting harder and harder to justify cramming all this shit into the same fic. This compulsion keeps fucking me over by giving me spur-of-the-moment ideas for sub-plots I never wanted and certainly didn’t properly think through before posting the foreshadowing or setup for — yet at the same time they’re usually thought of and integrated several chapters in advance so I can’t just... leave them out? And part of me kind of doesn’t want to?? And I’m trying with every fiber in my being not to rewrite just the first 3 chapters, let alone the entire fic. A side-effect of my FF.net history at 13 was Never Edit Anything. Yeah, I’ll do some spell-check. Maybe some rewording here and there. Sometimes I’ll post a chapter and come back sporadically over the next few days to change out some punctuation or whatever. But if I don’t like a section after writing for a while? Throw the Whole Ass Chapter out. After it’s posted? This Is Your Life Now.

let’s not talk about how everything after chapter 27 was supposed to go very differently

Never mind that, after writing a hundred thousand goddamn words in a year, one’s writing skill tends to evolve and increase over time. Not just in regards to vocabulary, but with consistency and pacing and structure. This means, of course, that I can’t ever reread my own writing without the Evil Writing Goblin in my brain telling me to start the whole thing over from scratch. It’s fine.

I suppose I could get a beta, but I’m very bad at taking critique and as I’m even worse at talking to people than I am at posting on time I don’t think that would work out very well.

The point of this goddamn novel is that TPoY means a lot to me, probably a lot more than people realize. It’s kinda dumb and very cheesy and absurdly long, but it was the first real thing I did for myself after my whole life fell apart. I will finish it!!

But it’s hard to write it right now. I’m trying— I’m writing four chapters at the same time right now (a bit less than 10,000 words combined at current count). I don’t want to try to rewrite the whole fic or keep “mischaracterizing” the characters or lose the suspense I’ve tried to build (or, God forbid, try to keep interest so hard it hurts the rest of the fic) and risk alienating readers. I can’t stress enough how much these supportive comments mean to me, even on something as silly as a fanfic. But I also don’t want to force myself to write it or write something just because other people might or might not like it and risk alienating me. So I’m stuck at a kind of anxiety-induced impasse with myself that’s just made worse by the fact that I’m having trouble writing anything at all at the moment.

Jesus Christ this was longer than I meant it to be. Please don’t take this as a pity-party or anything. I don’t want sympathy or, I don’t know, reassurance or anything, I just wanted everything to be Out There because it really is the most in-depth response I could give and y’all deserve an honest answer. Some of you guys have been reading since the beginning and I can’t express how much that means to me. I feel really bad when I haven’t updated in a long time, because I know my fic makes some people really happy!

And PLEASE don’t take this as a “STOP ASKING ME ABOUT TPOY GODDAMMIT” because this is the opposite of that. I FUCKING LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME ABOUT TPOY. I L I V E FOR IT. But it sucks when the only answer I have is “I don’t know when it’ll be up, sorry :( ”

I mean, that’ll probably still be the answer I give, unless I by some miraculous (heh) stroke of luck) start hyperfocusing on writing again.

But at least y’all kinda know why now.

[dailyaudiobible]

02/10/2017 DAB Transcript

Exodus 30:11-31:18 ~ Matthew 26:47-68 ~ Psalm 32:1-11 ~ Proverbs 8:27-32

Today is the 10th day of February.  Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible.  I am Brian and I am thrilled that we can come together here at the end of a week. This is not exactly the end of the week. That is tomorrow but it's the end of the work week and I'm glad that we can get together for the rhythm that we’ve established in our lives to take a step forward each day and feast on the word of God.  So we’ll go back out with Moses and the people of Israel as God continues to give instructions for what this new people is supposed to look and act like.  We’re reading from The Voice Translation this week. Exodus chapter 30, verse 11 through 31, verse 18.  

Commentary

It's only been a couple of months since I was last in the land of the Bible and walking the path that we’re reading of today with Jesus.  And these places still exist—the Garden of Gethsemane, the place where Jesus cried out to the Father in anguish and the place where he was arrested in our reading today.  There is a valley between the Garden of Gethsemane and where the high priest's quarters would have been because Gethsemane is on the Mount of Olives. The Kidron Valley runs between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount and that entire area of the City of David. So Jesus would have been bound and walked the path back across the Kidron Valley into Caiaphas’ quarters where all this is going down.  You can imagine the disciples all running off into the trees, all hiding, all staying on the periphery.  They’re not exactly sure what is happening.  Jesus has told them what is going to happen, but they have this worldview that Jesus is the Messiah and somehow the way that this ends is that he takes over. So they are on the periphery of all this.  Peter is in the courtyard outside as this trial of sorts is taking place.  

If you don’t just read the story and say yeah, I’ve heard this a thousand times, if you put yourself in the story, become one of the disciples, put yourself in these places, not only can you enter into the story, but you find yourself in the story.  Where would you be?  Because we read these stories and we can think easily ‘I would have come in with a sword and shield and rescued Jesus and died if I must,’ but they all said that. They all said that and they had been walking with Jesus all the years of his ministry.  

Peter is in the courtyard of Caiaphas’ quarters.  Not a big place.  I mean, you can imagine these things in your mind and picture this courtyard at a distance, but it's not.  They are close.  Peter was not too far away from Jesus, maybe within ear shot because Jesus ended up in storage rooms and cisterns that were pits for holding the supplies and storing the people that they needed to bring in for questioning and such.  They are not far away from each other, but they are very far away from each other.  Jesus is now a captive.  His freedom has been taken.  There is not really any going back from here.  So you can only imagine the things that were going through his mind after being accused of blasphemy, sentenced to death under Mosaic Law, thrown into a pit to be stored until the proper arrangements could be made, because the Jewish people couldn’t just go stone Jesus or kill him some other way.  I mean, they could by riot, but that would bring more trouble upon them.  The Romans would be brutal in stamping it down.  So they had to get the Romans to cooperate if it was going to be a public, humiliating execution, one that would send a signal to anyone else thinking of believing in this man, Jesus, or having plans of their own similar. Galileans were known to be insurrectionists.  

Then there is Jesus just down in a pit, thinking about what is coming. Sometimes when we think about Jesus’ suffering, we think about the crucifixion, that he had to endure that, and it is grisly and really impossible to imagine, but he endured a lot more than that.  He is already suffering, carrying the weight of all of the lies and misrepresentations and mischaracterizations, all of the upheaval of the world around him, one that he came to rescue, one that was rejecting him outright.  Can you imagine?  Can you imagine that the creation that he had set in motion he was about to submit himself to and allow this creation to kill him dead by torture?  

This is what sacrificial, unconditional love looks like and we can just go through our days just oblivious to it.  We’ve never not known it.  It is done, it's ours, so we can treat it with less gravity than it deserves, but we gather here today because of the moments that we’re reading about in the scriptures now.  This is how we got here and it is costly and compelling, especially if you love Jesus. If you’ve given your heart, if you’ve fallen in love with the Savior, then you can’t read back into the story with indifference.  You have to go there and understand that he loved you first.  He died for you in advance.  Our denials and betrayals, things we see playing out in the disciples’ lives, they play out in our own lives and you have to wonder, is it worth it? Really?  What are we running from?  What are we hiding from?  What more do we want than the true love of the Savior?  What is more valuable than that?  We can say nothing.  Of course, absolutely nothing, but the Bible being the mirror that it is, forces us to look at that question.  What are the distracting things in my life that make me just forget this even happened and take it for granted?  We can start digging up idols in our lives pretty quick that way, so may we invite the Holy Spirit into this moment, the first time we come across the passion narrative, the last moments of Jesus’ life, and give it the gravity and the weight that it deserves.  This is how you have attained eternal life.  It is certainly worth paying attention to.  But what is stealing that eternal life and that intimate relationship with the Savior?  Those things become the idols of our lives that we give our hearts in worship to.  

Prayer

Holy Spirit, we come into your presence inviting you into that.  As we move through this story, Jesus, we are unspeakably grateful because it has been brought to mind, but we just live with this freedom that you have given us.  We’ve never not known it.  All of our lives, from the day that we were born it was in the world.  It was available.  So yes, we know the alternative.  We’ve run our own race.  We’ve crashed our own car.  We’ve destroyed our own lives in different ways.  We walk with the limp and the bruises and the scars of the choices that we’ve made, but we still very easily make them.  We still go after whatever promise is the fastest path to whatever pleasure it is we’re looking for without paying attention to the fact that this cost something.  You came and, in advance of our even being here, loved us and died for us.  So we invite you, Holy Spirit, to begin to reveal in our hearts and actions and thoughts and motives and our will the things that we have prioritized in front of this sobering reality that our salvation came at a cost and our mission in this world is to bring your kingdom and to restore things to how they were supposed to be for us.  Help us, God, because it is everywhere.  Our cultures are built upon these distractions where products become pleasure and pleasure becomes purchasable life and it is all an illusion.  Help us, Lord, because we run from void to void trying to fill it and there is only one way and it is intimacy with you.  So Jesus, we love you.  Your sacrifice, although we know the details, is really beyond what we can comprehend, but we can be grateful because the difference that you have made is irreversible in this world and in our lives unless we consciously choose to betray and turn our backs on you, to be another Judas.  That is not who we want to be.  So come Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.  

Announcements

Www.DailyAudioBible.com is the website.  It's home base.  It’s where you find out what’s going on around here so check it out.  Resources, events, the More Gathering for Women is coming up.  It's almost Valentine's Day.  I can’t believe that, but it is almost Valentine's Day.  Guys, this would be the ultimate Valentine's Day gift for your spouse or the one that you love.  Send her away for a couple of days in a couple of months and give her space to just be with this Jesus that we’re talking about, this one who loved us before we were ever here and loved us enough to die.  We never get the space.  We never make the space to just be in that story and be in that kind of intimate love.  We never get the time to say the things that need to be said.  We never take the time to hear the things that need to be heard. But the More Gathering is like that. It is a beautiful time to unplug and be with God and it’s remarkable, the things that Jesus says to each individual woman in her own story, in her own station in life.  It's not that God is not willing to speak.  It is that we’re not willing to slow down and listen and this is just a prepared time to slow down and listen and orient life correctly and move properly in a good healthy direction.  So, yeah, it's a great Valentine's Day gift and if you don’t have anybody to give it to you, give it to yourself.  Jesus can give it to you.  So you can check it out.  All the details, all of the particulars, all of the questions that you might have like how do I get there, how does it work, all of that stuff is at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  Just look for the More Gathering.  You’ll find it and you’ll find also everything you want to know.  So check that out.  

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at www.DailyAudioBible.com.  There is a link.  It is on the home page.  And if you find Daily Audio Bible to be life-giving, then thank you for being life-giving so that we can continue our journey together.  If you're using the Daily Audio Bible App, you can press the More button in the lower right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996, Spring Hill, TN 37174.

And, as always, If you have a prayer request or comment, (877) 942-4253 is the number to dial.

And that’s it for today.  I'm Brian. I love you.  I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.  

Community Prayer Requests and Praise Reports

Hi Daily Audio Bible community.  This is Janice from the UK, in midland.  I’ve rung before.  I’ve been listening for a couple years.  This is my second full year now and I'm loving it.  It blesses me.  As I was listening to the prayer requests the other night and praying along with each one of those, it struck me that this Prayer Wall is like a Mexican wave going around the world.  When you think about it, there are people all across the world listening to the Daily Audio Bible whatever time of day it might be for them.  They are all praying at this time.  It's like this huge wave that goes around the earth and as Brian records the next day, that one comes __________ over and there is a next wave coming across.  That really blessed me and I hope that really blesses the people who are ringing with actual prayer requests as well.  Keep going people.  We do pray for you, even if you don’t hear from us.  We’re praying for you.  Thank you.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family.  This is your brother Regid, formally calling from Iraq, now in Nairobi, Kenya.  I really need your prayers.  First, for Brian, so sorry for the loss of your mom.  I'm happy that I heard what you said how it went through a process. It is really helpful.  But I need your prayers.  I’ve been jobless now for 10 months and it is getting very difficult, unbearable with the family and I pray that you guys would join with me and pray that God would open a door for me to get __________ or a job for me to provide for my family.  Thank you so much for your support.  I pray with you always.  I listen. I cry with you.  And please join me.  Let's ask God to open a door because it has taken too long and it is quite difficult.  Life is getting harder.  I can’t pay the school fees for the children.  I can’t provide.  It's hard. May God bless you.  I love you.  Bye-bye. God bless.  

Hi, my name is Kristin and I'm calling for Amanda who has been separated from her husband for seven months.  I encourage you to read Isaiah 40:20-31.  I have that on my computer at work and I read that every day multiple times. My husband and I were separated for 14 months.  I don’t know your situation, but it was a very unhealthy relationship for me.  He was very verbally abusive to me.  But anyway, I wanted to go ahead and give you encouragement to continue to pray even if you don’t see anything.  God is always working.  It took 14 months for me and my husband to get back together and it has been amazing.  He has been so much more open to everything.  He went to church with me.  He has prayed with me.  Just keep praying and pressing into God and seeing what God wants you to do, even if you don’t want to, even if you have a lot of resentment towards him.  It doesn’t matter.  Pray for him because even though we don’t see it, God is always working.  I would also encourage you to write down everything that he said to you, any emotion or resentment that you have against him.  Write it all down and pray over it every day.  It works.  I don’t have any resentment towards my husband anymore and I had a lot.  I filled up a front and back page and probably could have filled up another couple pages with stuff, but God has helped me and he will help you and he will help your situation.  

Hello and good afternoon Daily Audio Bible family.  It's a two for one Jay from New Jersey special.  Okay, so I'm reaching out to my Daily Audio Bible family to get you guys to pray for my family members.  I have a lot of brothers and sisters and some of them are believers. Some of them are not believers, but the long story short of it is many of them are carnal Christians, meaning they believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior but they are living in unconfessed, unrepentant sin.  As a result, they are living in situations that are just deplorable.  My one brother is being exploited by his biological mother. We were all adopted together, and she is exploiting him for all of his money.  He has a learning disability so he can be easily exploited.  But long story short, he was going to kill himself today if it were not for him posting that on Facebook and another member calling me to contact him, so let's pray for him and the rest of my family. Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we lift up my brothers and sisters and the brothers and sisters of all the Daily Audio Bible family members.  Father, we ask that you will manifest yourself to them in a way that only you know how.  Father, give them the opportunity that you gave us to see the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.  Father, we ask that any situation that they are in it will be an opportunity for you to be glorified.  In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen.  Thanks Daily Audio Bible family.  I love you. Have a great evening.  

Good night, Daily Audio Bible listeners.  This is Katie.  I'm calling from Minnesota and it is February 7th.  Well, it would seem that I can’t get, I believe his name Kevin who was recently diagnosed with bipolar and starting life all over, off my mind. I just want you to know, Kevin, that I have been praying for you nonstop, constantly and first I want to say it is so good that you have been diagnosed so that you are able to get treatment.  And I want to say to you also that I know starting over is difficult.  I’ve done that twice in my life in two different countries and I’ve never liked either of them, but what I’ve learned in it all is that if God has brought you to it, he will bring you through it, and so I want you to just trust and believe that.  God has it all laid out for you.  You just need to step out in faith.  Trust and believe that he has you covered because he does.  He will not leave you anywhere that he will not take you through and I am absolutely certain about that.  Also to the young lady, I think I’ve heard you call a second time.  You’re from somewhere in Michigan and you are driving a bus, a school bus, and you’re not certain about where your life is taking you and are seeking direction because you are not happy with your job at the moment.  You are seeking a job that has a better salary, something to that effect. And I just wanted to say to you remember to pray for yourself as well.  Continue to pray to God.  He will provide you with directives.  I’ve been at that place in my life before and trust me when I tell you that God turned up and he directed me and showed me where I need to go and I know for a fact that he will show you where you need to go.  I have been praying for you since the first time you called the program to ask for prayers and I continue to pray for you.  I just want to say guys, just remember to pray for me on February 16 as I take my board exam and just thanks to everyone and know that I pray constantly for every single person that calls in because I do this every day.  

Good morning Daily Audio Bible.  This is Loralee in Boynton Beach.  After much wrestling with the Lord and trying to leave a place of employment that the Lord clearly said ‘this is where I want you, submit to me, I will take care of your needs,’ I have repented and I work for an Orthodox Jewish assisted living community and I have some Jewish widows in their 90s that are coming to me and want to reason in the temple about Jesus and the Old Testament and I have to say what an honor it is and I need these names lifted up as a start:  Rosalie, Elaine, Naomi and Janet.  Please, Lord, I pray that you would open their eyes.  Have the Holy Spirit move as we open your word.  Your word has the power because it is Jesus from beginning to end.  You see the end from the beginning, Genesis to Revelation.  Help me.  Like Paul and Moses, I feel the burden of closed eyes, but only you can open the eyes of the blind, Lord, so this is the scripture.  For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I may win more of them.  To the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win Jews.  To those under the law, I became as under the law though not being myself under the law that I might win those under the law.  To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak that I might win the weak.  I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I…