Stealing ashtrays, writing fic.

Fannish stuff, mostly Supernatural, recently fallen into heated rivalry, rwrb and malec (sideblog @a-stray-thief). Ship and let ship. There will always be dinosaurs. Fics on AO3 under ashtraythief/a_stray_thief, ongoing ramblings on bluesky. anon asks always open. she/her, queer

[laurakansas]

❝  Endings are hard. But then again.. nothing ever really ends, does it ?  ❞ — In which my favourite TV show and Disney meet to create my perfect Supernatural ending. 

[petite-madame]

Wanted Dead or Alive - (2022)

I asked people on Twitter what they wanted to see from me next and a lot of answers were “Sam & Dean Winchester as cowboys”. Ok! Enjoy then! 😁

[sasquatchandleatherjacket]

[chapelh1ll]

They're so 👬

Was rewatching s2 and NEEDED to draw this scene

[ashtraythief]

Hey..do you concern yourself with the current spn fandom discourse?

Not really. Sometimes I see it of course, but I just steer around it. I know that not all discourse is negative, but a lot of it is, and I just want happy vibes.

[ashtraythief]

Do you ship destiel? Either as canon or fanon?

No. I'm all for ship and let ship, destiel just isn't for me.

[ashtraythief]

underneath verse: if for some reason one of jared's crew was suspecting jensen and they were super convinced of it who would jared believe?

Look, guys, I love all the underneath questions, but you can't keep asking me questions that go into The End territory 😅 Like, I've thought about this, of course I have, but any kind of answer I could give here could potentially go into spoiler territory. So... no comment?

[ashtraythief]

i kinda just feel like i'm pestering you atp but i was curious about this so: in True Lies jensen is super upset after that guy calls him a whore and wants to make sure that jared knows he isn't in it for the money. jared chalks it upto campbell's mom being a sex worker but we know this isn't the case for ackles. so, why is he this disturbed by it? -ann

No worries! Happy to answer asks when I have the time.

I think I answered a similar ask a while back but I can't find it now, so the short answer is that technically Jensen is whoring himself out for the FBI but he also isn't doing anything he doesn't want to do. And it's important to him to make that clear, for himself, and also for Jared in case the truth ever comes out. Jensen tries to tell Jared the truth as much as he can and show him that he really does love his him even if Jared doesn't understand (sort of like the proposal too).

[ashtraythief]

When the fic is done will you tell us what ended you had in mind originally? I’m curious to know! I remember you saying that when you started the fic that you always knew how it was going to end (with the big, important stuff) and that’s not changed. The fact that stuff has changed is interesting 👀

Also, wow, sometime this year would be amazing!!!!! That would be in the next 6 months. I’m holding out hope for it!!!!

Oh yeah I can do that!

And okay so with the changed ending, the thing is that I wrote the first ending before I ever finished the first fic. Like the ending came after writing the first chapter of Underneath it all. But then I finished writing underneath it all and because I was an inexperienced baby writer at that point I had no idea what I was getting myself into and my characters completely got away from me (and so did the word count, I thought I was writing a 50k fic lmao. Like for everything, start to finish. That's why undernesth it all itself has such an open ending lol. 500k later and I realized I slightly miscalculated... ) and so by the time I had finished underneath it all, I knew that my original ending was not going to happen. And I realized there was really only one other way this could end and I've been working on how to get there ever since. If that makes sense 😅

I'm really hoping for like a Christmas miracle to get this done this year 😅 though the more I think about it, let's shoot for 27 to be safe...

[ashtraythief]

underneath verse: same anon who said that they were through with 30 works and i'm done now!! it was so good. god, i can't imagine how you're going to end it. just. this verse is so vast and detailed and i can't even imagine writing an ending to something like that. i hope you continue writing little timestamps and maybe even take up some prompts for the verse after it's over. also i'm so scared of what decision jen's going to make TvT. i don't even know what ending *i* would be satisfied with, let alone the one that would satisfy the creator who's been working on it for years now. i mean, the obvious conclusion would be for jensen to leave the fbi and truly embrace his thrill seeking side but how would that work? jeff's not going to let it go that easy and would he tell jared about the whole thing? would jared ever trust him again? also, i don't know if jensen (ackles, that is) would just let a mob boss go like that, even if the guy is super hot and kinda woke, lol. anyway ignoring the pointless ramble, lovely, lovely fic. is there a tentative timeline for The End? this year or next, maybe? -ann

God okay first thank you so so much for your kind words! Love for this verse always makes me go extra gooey inside, so thank you!

Yeah, The End. I've been struggling working on that for a while now lol. The folder with the fic was created in 2020, but I'm pretty sure I had a document for it before that, so...

I'm pretty satisfied with it, but I know that not everyone will like it. I'm trying to ignore that anxiety though, because then I'll never finish. I will admit that at the very beginning of the fic I had a different ending in mind but once I started writing the timestamps it became clear pretty quickly how this had to end. It just took some time to figure out how to get there. On that note my underneath beta (she's like the main person I brainstorm and plot with for this verse) recently visited me and we worked out most of the remaining issues. Which brings me to the timeline. I'm tentatively hoping for the end of this year. My health has been futzy and my job situation right now is weird, so I can't really predict how much rl is going to fuck with my ability to work on this, so next year is probably more realistic 😭. (I have also fallen head first into Heated Rivalry and been writing for that but honestly I don't think that's writing energy I would've spent on underneath in the meantime because underneath is such a different kind of beast emotionally)

However. The draft is currently at 80k. 40 of those are the first two chapters which are in pretty good shape. The other 40k are in a rough third chapter and an absolutely messy heap of bits and pieces for chapter 4. I predict about 20k - 30k more to write and lots of edits for chapter 3 and massive edits for chapter 4. Actually I have to complete write chapter 4, using like 8k of messy notes. And I honestly cannot tell you how long that'll take.

I will have outtakes to post after it's done bc there's so much I've been cutting and so much that never made it into the verse. Whether I do prompts afterward will probably depend on how everyone, me included, will feel after it's posted lol

I know that this is taking me an atricously long time to finish, and I'm just so grateful for everyone still sticking with it.

Thank you so much for messaging, ann 💙

[ashtraythief]

i'm usually totally incapable of reading super long fics and even if they're really good i still need to take a bunch of breaks. your whole underneath verse is soo good though i've read through the first 30 works in only one day lol. you're super talented and i'm really grateful that you've written these wonderful fics.

Omg thank you so much! Your message is an absolute day brightener!

[ashtraythief]

For the first time in two years, my underneath beta is actually in the same room with me. And we just finished plotting out the rest of the fic. I still need to write it. But. We solved all major problems I think? I don't know? Is this real? It might be???

(no one get their hopes up for a quick turnaround please. But it is still happening, despite the atrociously long pause!)

[redstopgringo]

Are Pinky and the Brain still trying to take over the world? Because at this point, I'm willing to hear the Brain's platform.

[the-other-sandy]

At this point, I'm willing to hear Pinky's platform.

[ashtraythief]

In the Dragged into the Light verse, why did Winston say Willy would gladly drive Jensen to Alaska, and Jared said Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that? Are they implying what to do with Jensen in case he betrays them or am I reading it wrong?

Ah no. In the context of the conversation, Winston is expressing that Willy really likes driving Jensen and would drive him anywhere. Because they've been talking about the fridge magnet map. Jared's I hope it won't come to that means that he hopes Jensen won't want to go so far away or steal something in Alaska in the first place.

Hope that helps!

[ashtraythief]

Hey. I recently started your underneath verse and really really loved it. I finished super fast can't get enough. I was just watching Jensen's on Tracker and it got me thinking would we ever see someone from his past who's not an ex in the verse? I get that might not work with the whole undercover thing but I just loved his dynamic with Justin Hartley on that show:)) anyways looking forward to your next work!

Ah thank you so much anon! I appreciate it so much!

And ahhhhh well. You know the whole be careful what you wish for? Yeah...

I'm currently writing the End so there won't be any more detours, so the answer kinda is no because I don't plan on any more timestamps, but I also want to wrap up most of the loose threads, so also a little yes. Sorry I can't give you more right now.

[ashtraythief]

Hi! I am writing to express my great love for the Underneath Verse. That's so amazing! My native language is not English, but I can almost understand that story without barriers. Your style of writing is so readable. I love you and admire you so much! Thanks for the great story and great English again!

Oh thank you so much!

Hmm I'm not a native English speaker myself, that might help 😅 I'm glad that it's an accessible story anyway! And thank you for messaging me anon 💙

[a-mel0n]

reblog if you’ve had an online friendship that’s lasted more than 2 years